Your Brain on Bipolar
You get asked to write a piece about your condition, and you get really excited at first, already planning and plotting what you’re going to write. It will be heartfelt, raw, honest and sincere and it will change people’s lives, you are so sure of it.
And then you finally sit down and write it and you realize nothing you write is good enough so you curl up in a ball on the floor, sobbing, knowing that you will never really write anything that can ever change anyone’s life.
This is your brain on Bipolar.
You set out to write your follow up novel because the people who bought your first novel loved it so much they wanted more, and so you come up with this brilliant idea for a novel about suicide that is ironically life-affirming and uplifting without being phoney. This idea consumes you for a few days.
And then life happens. Work gets in the way, responsibilities get in the way, and then you realize you need to take a few days off, go to a cabin in the woods or something, and just write. But it proves to be difficult and almost impossible because you can’t drive and the places you can rent are all out of town and you can’t find any place decent where you can also bring your dog along… which leaves you feeling really frustrated and emotional. You think this novel is never coming along, might as well just give up. So you stay in bed all day, getting swallowed up by your emotions.
This is your brain on Bipolar.
You’ve been socializing a lot lately and you’ve concluded you’re finally at a place where you maybe are finally ready to date again so you decide to join a dating site in the hopes of meeting that quirky, witty guy who will be the Ben Wyatt to your Leslie Knope, and you are hopeful. You’re already envisioning the kind of conversations you can have with the men you meet there.
And then you realize that no one is actually interesting enough, that interesting men aren’t online looking for women because they have no problem getting one offline, that the best you can hope for is a guy who loves to parade his six pack around with a bio that says: I love sports and the beach. So you get really mad and resentful, questioning your life choices that leave you single at 40 even though you think you’re quite a catch, and the resentment keeps building up until it becomes a full blown anxiety attack that stems from this irrational, unproven fear that the friends you have now will eventually move on from you and you will be left all alone in the world.
This is your brain on Bipolar.
But somehow you keep going. Not because the highs make you brilliant and feel like you can do anything, but because of the days in between. The days when nothing happens. The ordinary days where you get to watch TV, work, write, hang out with your friends, walk your dog, laugh unreservedly with your loved ones, shop online for cute stuff, listen to really good music, take a nap, complain about climate change, and eat tasty (probably unhealthy) food.
Because even if the lows make you feel like you want to die, eventually you’ll get back to that middle. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes a whole village consisting of your family, friends, psychiatrist, coach, even strangers on the internet, to hold your hand and guide you to the other side where the darkness is lifted and you can enjoy the happy in-between for however long it lasts. And it’s the hope of the happy in-between that gives you faith that even when darkness eventually descends, you know that it won’t last long.
That is your brain on hope.