Numb

They call it bipolar,

but all I see is penguins. 

And when I finally see the polar bears, 

I'm still painfully aware that I'm floating...

On an iceberg. 

I wrote this poem for my poetry class last semester, and I thought it was a break through. I was so excited because I finally found a way to express exactly how I felt. After years of not understanding, I could finally put it down on paper in a quick stanza. And I was so excited to tell the people who knew...but they aren't poetically inclined, so it sounded like a poem about penguins. So I thought-- I'll have it anonymously presented in my poetry class and see how they like it. 

They didn't get it. 

And that's kind of how it feels being bipolar. Even when some part of it finally makes sense to you, nothing can help other people understand, because they don't speak the language. And that's the most disheartening part. 

I haven't been super down for the past year. I mean, not like I was during the diagnosis phase. But I haven't been super up, either. Well, I was for a time. 

See, if you don't understand this poem, let me break it down for you. 

They call it bipolar. Meaning you're supposed to experience both the high and the low, right? You're supposed to see both "poles;" be both on top of the world, just as you are underneath it. But I feel like I'm mostly at the bottom (which, given, is bipolar II). And therefore, I'm seeing penguins (because they only live at the south pole). But when times get good, like when I'm up and seeing the polar bears, I know that I'm unsteady. At any point, I could go straight down to the bottom again. And I'm floating. I am always isolated, in a way. And the cold is like the medication--even if I'm feeling good, it's because of a chemical in a pill. I'm still dissociated, in a small way, from my real self. And I can never get back to her. 

I feel a lot better now. But I don't know if I'll ever NOT feel numb like this. Because every time I feel like I'm normal again, I remember....I'm not. 

To those who have heard my complaining...

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for caring.

Thank you for voicing you support and your optimism.

Thank you for sharing in my struggle.

I will never be able to thank you enough. For laughing with me when it's dark. For standing with me when I most need comfort. For being there, available to me. Thank you. For everything.

But I want you to know, more than anything, that I know it's not all bad.

I want you not to worry, because I'm a fighter. And even on my darkest days, I know that who I am is a fighter. That however many times I say that I am giving up, what I really mean is that I am just going to lie on the ground and let the darkest parts of the storm pass and then get back up and keep fighting. I like to say that I give up. But I know myself well enough to know that I will never be a quitter when it comes to the things that matter most.

I want you to know that I know God loves me. I know this trial isn't because of him, and I don't blame him for it. Yes, I have struggled to stay close to the things of the spirit, but I still believe them with all my heart even though it's more increasingly difficult to live them.

I want you to know that I see tender mercies every day. That I believe in miracles. That I know that I really have a good life, and when I say that life sucks, what I mean is that living is hard.

I have an amazing family, however broken it may be. I have amazing friends, however far away they may be. I have incredible opportunities and unlimited prayers coming for me. And I know that I am blessed.

So I do complain. A lot. There is so much to say and so little time to say it...or to even remember what I was talking about in the first place. Please don't take my distractions as a sign that I don't care. I do care. And I'm so thankful. More than you know.

I just need you to know that I love you. And I need your love, even though I wish that I didn't. It's keeping me alive.

I'm hard to love. But thanks for loving me. Cuz you're doin it perfectly.

The danger of a diagnosis.

I swear, if I hear one more person tell me that they have anxiety...

I understand that I don't understand what other people go through. Let's get that out of the way. 

So maybe people announcing it at every possible opportunity is a side effect of their anxiety, I don't know. 

But the problem is that everybody these days claims something. And maybe it's because for some reason, this generation just has a lot of mental problems. I don't know. 

But the problem with a diagnosis is that it's used so much as an excuse. People stop working at work because their having panic attacks. Students tell their teachers they can't do this or that because of a condition. And it has essentially lost all meaning. Because if everyone has problems, then nobody really does, right? We're all just people living with problems and feelings, just like we've always been. 

Don't get me wrong, I have been that person at work. I got fired for my episodes. I don't take it lightly. I missed taking my midterm for a class because it was during the week where I was so far down and ready to get suicidal, and my teacher still wouldn't take it after I told her. I wasn't trying to make excuses, I just presented an argument, and I lost. 

But a diagnosis is not meant to be an excuse. It's not to say "please excuse my behavior because I'm mentally unstable." (and if you have a self-diagnosis, please just have some dignity and get an actual diagnosis, you're ridiculous.sorry, but seriously.) It's not an excuse to do whatever you want and have it all be okay because you have some sort of chemical imbalance. 

I believe there are blessings of a diagnosis too. But I think that comes when you stop proclaiming to the world that you have issues and only tell those who need to know. When you start using your diagnosis to explain rather than excuse. You then take a step from being affected by your circumstance to take back control (even though it's but a small bit) of how you're viewed and how you present yourself. 

I'll admit, I have been changed by my problems. I have been changed a great deal. I'm more easily irritable. I sleep a lot more. I cry a LOT. I lock myself in my room a lot. 

But the difference is, I don't tell the world. I keep it between me and the people who need to know. Because though I can't help it if it sometimes controls me, I can make sure that it doesn't define me. 

The danger of a diagnosis comes when you give it power to govern your life.  

I want so bad to be good

I went to training a few weeks ago. It was a training for the program I'm going with to teach English internationally.

Everything they talked about made me so excited. And I am just so excited to go, and I want to be able to teach them so well and I want to be just amazing. I just want so badly to be good.

I feel like this is a theme in my life. In classes, I feel like no matter how thorough I am, or how much I try to do everything right, there is always something critical I miss and it's my tragic flaw.

I remember on my mission, I wanted so, so badly to just be the best. I wanted to be the missionary that people back home thought that I'd be. But I can't help but look back and think how much I blew that.

I always go into things thinking and believing that I'll be awesome, but then I get there and forget. Or I get scared. And I shrink. I don't live up to who I know I am. I fall short.

Or maybe I do live up to who I am, but I am using the wrong meter stick to measure me. Because I tend to give too much thought to what other think of me.

So I realized when I was getting excited that maybe...maybe this time wont be any different. And I'm still not sure of my footing in these situations and what I'm able to control.

but I hope that I don't shrink this time. because man, I want so bad to be good.

The Happiest Place on Earth

is not always Disneyland.

My friend, a kid who has the absolute biggest heart of anyone I know, told me a few months ago that he wanted to take me to Disneyland. He said he thought it was something I needed because of my condition. He was really excited about it.

I warned him of my excessive sleepiness, my increased irritability, my lack of desire to get up in the morning and do anything, ever. He also knows that I don't share his intense love of Disney (I know, who am I). But he told me he could handle it.

Well, guess what. He couldn't. And I would never have expected him to, which is why I tried to discourage the trip in the first place.

I'm thankful for his consideration and his effort and his love. Don't get me wrong. And I enjoyed many aspects of that trip. But it wasn't the best thing for me.

What people who want to help need to realize, is that: if you take a depressed person and put them in what is said to be the happiest place on earth, it will not make them happy. Their depression isn't contingent upon their surroundings.

In fact, the heat, the over-stimulation, the stress of having to figure out meals and transportation in a city I've never been to, actually made my condition worse. I had gone a while without having a severe breakdown--but that is where the episodes came back. Outside that sketchy Anaheim motel.

This is what I was talking about in my post "Deserving of Love." People want to fix it. They want their love to mend and heal all the broken little pieces inside of you. But not even the magic of Disneyland can do that. And then it makes you feel like a super ungrateful person because you can't just be happy for what they're doing for you.

It's like if you were really stressed out in life and you were always at work and didn't have any time in your schedule and were also short on money and then someone, lovingly, says "hey I'll get you a puppy and that will help you be happier." You tell them not to get you a puppy, but they insist, and then you have this whole new stressor in your life. Not only do you not have time to take care of it, but you don't have money to feed it and get it the things it needs. Then when you're still not happy, that friend says "You know how much money I spent on that puppy for you? You're so ungrateful." When you literally told them not to give it to you in the first place.

It really is the thought that counts. And people show their love in so many different ways. It's just important that they know which ways will help and which ways will hurt. All love is good, but sometimes you just need to learn and then speak the love language of the person receiving.

It was a rough few days, but the fireworks--they were amazing. And I could see, briefly, why one might call it the happiest place on earth.

You think that things have gotten better

truth is, I've just gotten better at lying.

The fifth medication

I believe in jinxes. 

I know it sounds ridiculous, but whenever I say something is a certain way, it changes. 

Maybe that's my negativity talking. But it happened. The beginning of last week TANKED. 

I had another doctor appointment. I told him about the past month, the hell weeks and the higher weeks. He put me on a fifth medication. Another anti-psychotic. Woo, psycho meds. It's like the one that put me out for 14 hours a day, but on a super low dose. So, hopefully, I don't have the crazy increased appetite and sleep problem that I did last time....

Anyway, like I said--after my good weeks, I tanked. At first, I wiped the tears away real fast and told myself I was okay--like I usually do. But it's never that simple. 

I don't know why it comes and why it goes when it does. I thought that maybe it's because I have terrible coping skills. I thought, maybe when problems disappear, I'm fine, but then, when my teachers and grades and bank account and friends and whatever else flares up, I crumble. I'm not consistent or perceptive enough to realize if that's even a pattern, but maybe my coping skills are the problem? But if it is, what weakened them? Why so suddenly?

And I keep looking for reasons, for fixes, for possible causes, but it is what it is. I've come to find that my reality is unpredictable. Even when I know what's coming, even when I brace myself, even when I make a plan--I get slammed. It's like, even if you know the punch is coming, it still hurts when it hits you in the gut. And in life, there is no shortage of suck. Of punches and slamming doors. But you gotta love that opposition principle, right?

Well, I did what I do best in times of intense trouble and I took a road trip. While it wasn't perfect, it was pretty dang good. I cram packed my days full of stuff to do so that I didn't have to face my life. I mean, it didn't work all the time, but I had some pretty decent moments. 

Unfortunately, I get way too exhausted doing that all the time. But it was nice to be up high for a weekend. Usually the comedown is hard, but I've gone the last 30 hours without one. So we'll see how it goes (I said nothing definitive about my good mood, so it can't be jinxed :P)