my life as a woman coping with bipolar disorder, from the outside, would look like morse code.
a tiny dot of mania, long dashes of debilitating depression.
and I am at the mercy of the chemicals in my brain. like being tied up and alternatingly being tied to a furnace, and when the switch flips on I can ride a unicorn across a rainbow or whatever image more accurately expresses elation. I have no choice. I cannot "just suck it up". I can't just get over it. For years this is what the world told me to do. To just "get over" myself and stop crying. So for years I felt like I was a failure. Like I was a liar. Like I was worthless and broken.
now I understand that my mind has a disease. and i'm learning the painful truth of what that really means.
today was another one of those days where I don't want to be anywhere. I don't want to do anything. I just want to be dead. I want so badly not to be here anymore. and the scary truth of it is that if I didn't have my children, and if I didn't have this medication to help even me out, that I probably would just end it. those short dashes of happiness are just so short, so far away. hardly worth the pain of the months between them.
I did something bad. except that I don't feel bad about it.
I cut my psych meds in half. I appreciated being more even, for my highs and lows to not be chasms and mountains, but I think that feeling blank and empty and numb in it's own way may be worse.
since I cut back I cry a lot more. but at least I can fucking cry.
I want to see if this will affect my manic periods. if maybe i'll feel that fantastic freedom again that I used to feel before I knew what was happening to me and got medicated. my memories of those times are sparkling. full of that feeling you get when you're driving or riding so fast and you lean your face into the wind and the air rushes around you and lifts your hair and you feel like you are invincible, like you're flying.
give me a few weeks, a few months, then the light will come back on and these posts will be funny again. but until then, I've made the decision that I won't hold back and I won't be ashamed of my feelings and who I am. so these posts yes are dark but they are a part of me and I won't apologize for that.