Imagine you’re sitting in a dark room. Sunlight creeps through the shutters reminding you of what you’re missing outside. All the while, someone you cannot see is screaming into your left ear, and another person you cannot see is whispering into your right.
The key is in the door. The windows are unlocked. This is not a trap. All you have to do is pick yourself up, walk to the door, and leave. You are not being held in this dark room. Nobody is forcing you to stay in this dark room.
The trouble is, you cannot grip your mind long enough – cannot grasp your thoughts between your fingers fast enough – to turn the door handle and exit this dark room. The more you tell yourself to do it, the more obsessed you become with your inability to do it.
Don’t worry – you are not crazy. You are not idle.
In this moment, in this dark room, you are the universe at full speed, in ecstatic motion – all the colours at full brightness. You are the entire Earth and all its stars bubbling over in a single human being.
At any given time, you are two opposite ends of any exploding spectrum. You are bipolar, as some may call it.
I was diagnosed with a milder form of the disorder at the ripe age of 18 – I was tried and tested and labelled as cyclothymic. Regular intense bipolar episodes can last for days or weeks – an episode of mine can last a few months, even years. Less intense, but much longer.
Mania – like standing on the edge of a cliff – is the high before a light breeze gently urges you over the edge, into the pit of depression. You get so manic that you’ll forget what sadness is, and so depressed you become numb to being alive. Too many times I’ve heard Bipolar Disorder described as “mood-swings” – as if a description of PMS can account for the delusions, the ADHD, or the touch of borderline personality disorder.
What they fail to tell you, though, is that people with Bipolar have sharper senses, and increased productivity. We are the best listeners, the most empathetic people you will come across, and extremely creative and imaginative. Studies have proven this.
Bipolar sufferers are the fighters – the down and out and the high and mighty, all wrapped in one.
I am in no way there for romanticizing illness – but you are not your weakness, and the biggest pro of having bipolar disorder is my ability to help other people with it, and educate my peers on it.
If you think you may have Bipolar Disorder, or do not receive support for your condition, find help here.
