Unfinished

At age five, I told my mother I wanted to die. When I was taken to a psychiatrist I was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder and an anxiety disorder along with ASD. For me, emotion is a tempest, the kind that thrashes at the inside of my mind like a creature that wants to escape. In truly terrible moments, it fizzes under my skin like an itch I can’t scratch away. Sometimes all I want to do is scream. Loudly. Until I can’t scream anymore.

When I am at baseline, I live in a glass house. I can see the wind whipping the sea into a frenzy, I see the trees twist and snap, I see the sky blur into a writhing black mass shot through with lightning and fire but I do not let it touch me. I am in the glass house, watching the world burn. And I live.

Sometimes, though, the glass shatters, the wind whizzes in and everything is torn to pieces. But no matter what, I have to stand in the middle of my emotional ruin and start again. That’s all any of us can do. Even when I’m tired, even when I burn and ache and plead for the intensity of whatever’s inside me to ebb, I do not stop building. One way or another, I end up sitting in the house, warm and cozy with a blanket tucked around me. I am safe again.

Sometimes a gnat makes its way into the house. It stings. Sometimes it’s two, pricking, pinching, prodding. They buzz in circles, peppering me with problems that in that moment I can find no response to. Then it’s a swarm and I am bitten and swollen and all I can do is scratch scratch scratch scratch.

Sometimes emotion is something I have to contain. It runs through my veins like blood. It is a monster writhing within my body, it pushes and pulls and thrashes. It has to escape because if it doesn’t I will never surface. Everything is unbearable and sometimes I do not know what comes out of my mouth. As long as letting out my rage makes it stop, at that moment I don’t care about what damage I could cause. It is agonizing.

Sometimes the ground vanishes beneath my feet and I fall so deep and so low that no matter how I reach out, all I see is the abyss. Nothing can touch me, no matter how desperately I search for a ledge. And then, just before I reach the blackest black, a place so dark light or reason cannot bring me back, my fingers meet solid ground. And I climb. And I slip. But I do not let myself sink into the gentle caress of darkness because sooner or later I will trip into the pit again. I need to be at the top, so I never reach the point of no return.

Sometimes I am yanked out of the pit so quickly the wind burns my cheeks. I fly higher than the birds, I think faster than a calculator and I am smarter than anyone, more beautiful than anyone, more talented than anyone. . . Better than anyone and it feels so, so, good. Though, just like all chemically orchestrated highs, mania is a rollercoaster that lands me in the dark again and even though I claw at the edge of that ragged cliff, pulling myself up and up I cannot reach that euphoria again until the winds lift me.

This is my reality and it is this that I manage. Because it can be bearable. The light isn’t out of reach. Even if your tools are broken, even if your back aches, even if you bleed, the house will be built again and you will drown in warm sun.

I am extremely lucky that I had parents who caught my symptoms early on, otherwise I would not be here today to write this. Curiously, I view my disorders as both my greatest foe and closest ally. I do not know who or what I would be without them. I, after all, have suffered these difficulties for a long time. When I was two, I would scream till I passed out, just because I wanted someone to hear me and understand. Eventually, I was heard and here I am today, alive and functional. Mostly stable. I have my parents to thank for that.

There is no way I can feasibly finish this piece of writing because there is yet no conclusion to my tale. All I can leave you with is a message of hope and a leap towards endurance.