Forgive us...we know what we do...but we can't stop.

Not the fun kind of "we can't stop" (though Miley Cyrus might be a hell of a lot more insightful than she knows with that party anthem).

There are few things in my world more frustrating than being unable to control the skating, scathing, incessant rumble of thoughts like a coal fired locomotive moving down the mountain of my consciousness. It is fueled by stress, both good and bad, and driven to a catastrophic speed in times when I do not have sufficient distraction or sheer force of will to deprive it of fire.

Once upon a time, when I was a younger woman, I seized the reins of this train and rode it through long periods of manic productivity all the way to a Bachelor’s degree. I thought it was normal – a testament to my own genius – that I could go days without sleep. When I was in college, my relative success fell to this “personality quirk” which I know now to be a form of mental illness.

A week went like this: Sunday night, I got off work and drove 45 miles to home. I got home about 6 p.m., poured myself a drink or 4 and typically procrastinated my homework and studies by bleaching floorboards, rearranging cupboards, or some other meaningless task. My roommate and I were in possession of the cleanest college apartment in Arkansas.  I’d play on Napster (ha!) and AOL chat rooms (double Ha!) until 2 or 3 in the morning and then I would study, rightly and properly drunk, until 7, when I would shower and leave for the day. (My roommate worked nights and eventually so did my boyfriend and then, after I burned every bridge I could – I lived alone. Very alone.) I’d be on campus from 8-3 with long, smoky, meandering time at RZ’s Coffee shop on the University of Arkansas campus, maybe a study break here or there. Then work from 4-11, bartending at a local restaurant. I’d get smashed after work while sitting in the dark talking with co-workers who thought college was lame. After that, home to study/clean/drink some more. This repeated Monday through Friday night when I would drive to the bar 45 miles away, bartend, crash at my grandparents’ house for 10 luxurious hours of sleep, work a double on Saturday, party, then Sunday and I’d repeat it.

You can see, then, why my undergraduate GPA was so lackluster. Nonetheless, I learned a lot about myself and about the world and I spent crazy amounts of time in my own head writing, painting, drinking, and reading. I cared about my grades, I did, I just didn’t have the tools to work through the amazing left turn my life had taken. Freedom is intoxicating.

So my mania kept me afloat where so many others would have sunk. But here at 32, things are a little different. Biology is such an asshole and the body doesn’t hold up to sustained stress any more. Add to that a few energetic kids, three dead-end jobs, and a disagreeable climate far from a family you love and you have a recipe for manias ugly twin sister – depression. Disclaimer: This is wallow-y and I don’t need another lecture on how I should “buck up!” or “turn that smile upside down!” or any other well-intentioned bit of advice you want to give me.

 

Here’s the thing, people, being bi-polar means I AM SICK. You go tell my grandmother, who is ill with cancer, to “positive thought” away her cancer. Then you can come back and tell me to positive think myself better. You aren’t helpful. I love you. But you aren’t helpful. Don’t minimize people that way. It only makes it worse. Because then, on top of everything else, we (the bi-polar…as if it were some faction in a dystopian young adult novel) then spend hours agonizing about how everyone else can shake their bad moods and why can’t we and how pathetic is that? And OMG I’m such a freak.

In point of fact, the mantra/motto I have on my mirror, the self-affirmation I read EVERY DAY is meant to remind me that even if it sucks, I shouldn't wallow:

 

So what can you do, people who love people who are bi-polar? You can listen. And hold our hand (well…not mine, ‘cause, you know…no touch-y!). And you can keep trying to get us to remember the things we love. And you can keep forgiving us for being such total assholes. Because we know we are assholes. We do. But we just can’t shake it every day.

I cry at the drop of a hat these days. My 19 year-old self would have laughed and teased my 32 year-old self mercilessly. This wallowing, emotional, unreliable period of my life is growing more and more tiresome by the day and I feel entirely incapable of changing it. I am nearing the place where the medication that (very effectually) manages my moods but comes with terrible side effects may have to be taken once more. Luckily, I stock-pile in the good times and I’m quite adept at titrating my own on and off periods.

I see people around me struggling just like I am. The days when I feel the best are the days when I am able to help someone else. Service has always been the best drug for me – it is almost certainly the best and most likable characteristic I retained from my years on the farm.

I sometimes believe it is my only truly good quality.

And I so want to help others – not just because I know they need it, but also because I am someone I don’t want to be these days. I am merciless with myself. I am unrelentingly judgmental and brutal with my own emotions and heart. So much so that the husband is sometimes alarmed at the vitriol that spews out of my mouth about myself. And it isn't directed at anyone else just yet, but given my history, it's only a matter of time. And while my 19 year-old self didn't know how to stop it, at 32, I'm able to retain control most of the time. Because while this isn't something I can wish away, it is also not a hall pass into Dick Town either. Especially not with my husband.

Because I realized yesterday that no matter what I do, who I become, how overwhelmed I am, he still sees the woman he married; the fresh-faced 24 year old with bright prospects for the future and a buoyant sense of humor and self-deprecation and hope for the world. She had not yet morphed into the self-loathing mess that I am today.

But he sent me a text this morning, with this cute little meme – 

And I remembered that most of the weight dragging me down right now is made of things I can’t control. So I have to keep carrying them and wading forward. They are leeches that will fall off me when they are full and have done their damage. Pulling on them only makes it worse.

It is no matter that each step I take is mired in thick and viscous mud trying to remove my boots. It is no matter that some days just leaving the bed leaves me wanting applause. It is no matter that I haven’t genuinely smiled in weeks.

Because smiles are coming. And my boots are laced tight. And the water gets clearer and clearer the further I go.

This is being bi-polar. This is being bi-polar. But it will not always be so because nothing is permanent.