My Beautiful Life With Bipolar Disorder

I am feeling the weight of everything that is life. Whether it is politics, deadlines, fear of the unknown, the actual known, dark water, the dentist, winter blues, spring anticipation, bills, job stress, migraines, asshole drivers, my broken patio door, furbaby destroying not so cheap stuff while I’m gone, taxes, getting older….breathe ….and even my own reactions to things that leave my heart and mind so heavy with guilt and shame because I so easily get distracted or depressed or feel helpless.

…Breathe again….I had a manic episode – the full-on ugly cry, the fear in the pit of my stomach that continuously heaves like when you’ve missed a step on the stairs, the panic, sweaty palms, the barely breathing tight chest, and the extreme sadness that follows every significant episode.

You know – the depression and loneliness that is bipolar disorder that manifests and draws out a two-hour episode into a two day or more introverted sloth sesh.

My eyes are puffy and nose snotty, I curl up in a ball on my couch and lay in silence – for hours sometimes. I wonder around my apartment, I may drink some coffee or water, I may or may not eat, I only go outdoors so the dog can pee, I turn the television on and drown out my reality with Netflix and new releases.

I was having a wonderful day – I got a ride in (cycling) and got a run in with the pup, and I had my week planned out with things that bring me joy – and just like that, in an instant, my entire internal perspective shifted, like slamming into a brick wall – I was consumed, I could not control it, and this is what I go through usually on a weekly basis.

Thankfully, I know my triggers well, and when I am prepared, I can recover fully by the next day. One of my triggers is talking/thinking about finances – a stress so many of us must deal with. My precise thorns are my student loans, which are what set me off the panic cliff last week – realizing yet again that my financial destiny refuses to cooperate with what I envisioned for myself.

This weight, like all of my triggers, is unbearable at times, and they hit me really hard when there is so much extra negative chaos and noise going on in the world.

This is reality for people like me. This is how we live in our skin and in our minds. Medicine, therapies, there is no cure – there are only treatments – this life of mine is amazing, but these parts physically and emotionally exhaust me.

So I let the cry out, the panic out, the anger I feel eventually goes away, and the episode eventually dies – along with a part of myself that takes so much energy to get back – my power.