"My" bipolar. I say it as if I own it but mostly it feels like bipolar owns me. Relentlessly exhausting, confusing, and incredibly impacting. Especially these past few years. Only yesterday I learned that major life events and traumas trigger people with bipolar and other mental illnesses? Wow.
I'm on three different medications for "my" bipolar. Sometimes four - occasionally five. Being crazy is fucking expensive. And annoying. Debilitating, embarrassing, etc. I'm considering donating a kidney to pay for my meds but my kidney is probably bipolar too. Anyone want a bipolar kidney? It never knows how it's going to feel from one day to the next.
I don't want to have bipolar. There's no cure - displeasing. I don't want to feel depressed, disillusioned, anxious, suicidal, manic. And I have all these other labels too. Ugh. Mental illness, get it orrrfffff. A magistrate told me I should get a case adjourned because bipolar and I calmly said, "Well I didn't do this because of bipolar. I did this because I was incredibly hurt. And angry." Which therein lies a certain conundrum. Which parts of me are mental illness and which parts of me are just being a plain old fucking arsehole?
Looking back throughout my whole life I've been intensely high and intensely low. To deal with my highs and lows I often got high, which exacerbated my highs and turned them into lows until I got to the point of Siri what even?
Stigma is bullshit. Stigma continues to flourish and thrive. People don't want to "out" themselves as having particular kinds of mental health issues. My brother wrote in his suicide note that he didn't want the stigma of getting help. So he didn't get help. So he died. These days when my mental health is getting relentlessly brought up and yes, used against me in a court of law so help me god .. it makes me furious. And sad. And really, really fucking mortifyingly embarrassed. It's fun to be around the crazy chick but it's not so fun being the crazy chick.
I've been parenting my children all this time unaware of this stuff in my head and heart. I've made extraordinary mistakes that I'm so ashamed of. Angry, irrational, and irritable. Taken out my feelings on other people. The rates of family breakdowns that result of a person having mental illness is huge. Ugh. All of this I'm only starting to learn now ... I didn't know before. I just want to say sorry to everybody. Fuck.
My love couldn't and didn't save my brother. A million owies. I don't even know exactly what was "wrong" with him .. none of us will ever really know because he's not here anymore. He had horrific, debilitating depression. Severe sleep issues .. and I'm guessing intense anxiety. A few times he told me he wanted to study philosophy, not sure if he did. Stubborn guy always thought he knew everything anyway. A lot of the time Cam did - possibly too smart for his own good. I did some reading last night about grief "disorders" because I'm feeling worse about my brothers death and it's impacting me so badly some days it's just not right. I know there's no normal. But there is a basic line where shit gets drawn and we kind of need to see how far removed we are from the norm. In the past seven years I've had about five of the hugest traumatic experiences of my life. No wonder my brain short-circuited and my heart broke and my Soul exploded into flames. No fucking wonder.
I know, I know. There's way too many picture quotes in this particular piece of writing I'm doing right now. But some days I have no words to express how I feel. Like millions of other people on the planet, I find life so excruciating sometimes I can hardly bear it. Some of us can't bear it, and they leave. It scares me how understanding and accepting I am of that so I keep fighting and the thing about fighting like a warrior is you gotta know your limits. Some days we need to not fight. Just let the sky and the feelings and the light and the dark simply wash over us and wait for it to pass.
This is how I feel at the end of most days:
A complete shambles, limping into bed, often shaking uncontrollably from weeping, this dreadful pain inside me to my core that I can't bear so I don't bear it. I go to sleep instead and hope for a better day which inevitably comes.
Life is bullshit hard, ridiculous, absurd, surreal, brutal, confusing. It's why I eat entire cakes and be a loudmouth and sing in public and talk to strangers and don't just say my prayer to a Higher Power, I DANCE my prayer. Ever danced a prayer to God? It's fucking exhilarating.
In conclusion, this post is terribly self-centred and selfish. Because I didn't write it for you - I wrote it for me. To see who resonates. Et, tu? All of us out here silently going about our troubles and struggles. I want you to know that you're not alone. But actually, right now this very minute, I want me to know that I'm not alone.
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Write to be understood, speak to be heard. - Lawrence Powell