
It’s Bipolar Disorder, Not “The Crazies.”
I’m currently stretched out on my left side, one leg over my sleeping fiancé, the other freezing under the fury of my AC vent. My hands would have been hugging my fiancé and cradling my head to sleep, however I can’t.
As the title hints, I have Bipolar Disorder.
There are moments where I’m caught up in my mind, lips sewn shut, and nose tingling. My eyes would flood, and my lungs would collapse in on themselves, suffocating me while I gasped for air, bruising me from the inside out. I’d try to scream at the top of my lungs for someone to slap me HARD, and get me out of my mind… but all they see is a small girl with tears in her eyes and her hands in her face.
Other days I’m the most efficient little chipmunk; I clean the kitchen, bathrooms, living room, office, and even make dinner with time to play a computer game. I can talk my finance’s ear off, charm him into intense, delicious, passionate, intimate lovemaking with a simple bite of my lip- I’m powerful. On these days I believe that I’m recovered, that the past is behind me and I’m free, happy, and uncursed. But I’m wrong. The peak of my mania is when I suddenly can’t hear what you’re telling me, even though I’m looking at you in the eye. You repeat yourself eight times, and I’m embarrassed to ask for a ninth repetition, and promise I’ll get what you’re saying before it reaches ten. The slightest things begin to irritate me, to the point I begin yelling explosively, commanding the air around me to not dare me a degree less than what I’m comfortable in. It gets hotter, and more humid around my body when I feel this way- not even a cold shower could level me off. Once it snowballs long enough in a repetitious cycle, I get angry over the control I’ve lost, and how far behind of my mind I really was. Plans that I’ve made eventually fall apart, and friends no longer reply because I’m not talkative and “like they remember me.”
I look in the mirror, horrified, and don’t recognize myself. I’ve learned to not look in the mirror for too long in this state.
And maybe, in that same type of day, I suddenly get a downpour of rain right above me because of the black cloud of my depression- it hit like Miami showers; unpredictable and at the worst times. Getting out of bed takes longer… maybe I snooze for 5 minutes one morning, then 15 the next, and finally I’m getting up after 12 pm, terrified that I need to shower… but feeling too heavy to leave the tempurpedic mold around my body. While debating if I should leave the bed, my stomach slams me against my headboard in unforgiving pain and lust for food, but I’m a soldier representing Lack of Motivation.. ultimately I wait the pain out by falling asleep for another two hours. When I finally get out of bed at 2:30, after snoozing for 30 minutes, I ignore the shower- it’s too much to see myself in front of a mirror, wet. I ignore the kitchen because of the same reason I ignored the shower, knowing fully well it does more harm than good. I’m awake for 30 minutes, trying to find meaning behind what I’m doing around my home and I begin wishing for a nap, to pass the time until it becomes something worth putting effort into.
I still consider tonight to be Monday, even though the time would post this on an early Tuesday Morning.
My Monday consisted of enclosing myself in my master bedroom while a man came to fix my AC unit; a man who wouldn’t speak to me or look me in the eye, or tell me when he walked out of or into my apartment. He made me uncomfortable, and when I confronted this issue, he was spiteful and upset that I asked him to do this, as though he was doing me the favor of fixing my AC Unit. I felt violated and trespassed in my own home. I became paranoid that he’d leave for the day, not tell me, and I leave my door unlocked for people to come and steal from me.
I couldn’t eat until ~3 pm because the man blocked my way to the kitchen, and I preferred to starve instead of interact with this man.
I planned for my wedding for a while, I dusted, and somehow managed to shower before my fiancé got home from work.
Today was the kind of day that’s the same as the last one I described, and this is how it ended;
Today I was strong enough to get myself to shower, dust, and plan for my wedding.
