Warning: Rated MA (LV, for crude language and violence)
Bipolar...
One son of a bitch of an illness. Or more like a smart ass illness. It
always makes certain to keep me reeled in by reminding me over and over
about the mania highs, the wealth of empathy and compassion it provides
me, the unique perspectives I have because of it... Do I have Stockholm
Syndrome? Yeah, it feels like my bipolar has held me hostage for all
this time, and to survive, I fell in love with it. Stockholm Syndrome.
It holds a gun to my head and I beg it not to leave.
Right as
that perfect moment comes up where things are feeling like they're all
good, it pops up. Depression. Often, it creeps up slowly, building
itself up more and more, but sometimes it's stealthy and it hits before
you have time to react. By the time you realise what's happening, it's
already too late. Over and over, the word, "Fuck!" rings in my head, as
though a resonating voice in a very long, echoing tunnel. I'm a very
reactive person. Every time something happens, I react, and the better or
worse the thing is, the more strongly I react. I suppose it's normal
when phrased so simply, but the nature of the reaction is more complex
than that.
Mixed states. Often considered the worst of the worst
moods for bipolar, they can wreak all kinds of havoc and are typically
even more unstable in nature than mania. Most bipolar suicides occur
during such states, as they both have the mania for the energy (mostly
negative energy, though), and the depression to push the suicidality.
Most often, when people are suicidal but don't actually attempt to
commit suicide, it's because they don't have the energy to do it, not
because they consciously decided to resist. People are given euthanasia
in some countries for less than this sort of thing, and the suicidal
simply take the burden of giving euthanasia to themselves, rather than
having someone else do it. I have had suicidal ideation, we're old pals,
but I've never truly been suicidal. Suicidal ideation simply means
dwelling on the subject, not necessarily wishing to do it. I've always
been able to find at least one good reason to stay alive, and that's
more than some people. Many other people are so hopeless that they can't
even come up with one. Keep them alive and let them suffer, or let them
die and be buried in peace... An ages old dilemma.
When I get
into a dysphoric mania like this, I have this... built up energy like
shaking up a champagne bottle corked and full of champagne. Sometimes,
the cork just can't hold, and it pops. I also get racing thoughts that
are constantly morphing and changing like the winds around a fighter jet
going at Mach 3. It's turbulent and the smallest deviation from its
heading can cause significant changes in the aerodynamics. One tiny
mistake can send that fighter jet rocketing into the ground and
exploding into a million pieces; at least it'd be a grand display. I
feel creative and yet blocked, inspired yet depressed, restless yet
lethargic... Sometimes, I just feel like ripping my own arms off and
beating myself with them, not that I even know how I could possibly do
that; how would one beat themselves with their own arms when they have
no arms to hold the arms? Sometimes, I feel like twisting my neck so far
that it just snaps and bye-bye world. Sometimes, I feel like peeling
the entirety of my skin off, exposing all the muscle and bone beneath
it. Sometimes, I feel like running as fast as I can into a cinder block
wall, ramming my head as hard as I can into it, and then just living
with the result.
When I put names to my problems, I become way
too fricken aware - hyper-vigilant - of all the little things that make
up that issue. It consumes me, and it can sometimes feel like my only
purpose in life is to monitor my illnesses and creating stats. "I have
no other purpose; I just tally the problems!" Good things feel toxic to
me. Sometimes, it seems like I'm deathly allergic to good things, so I
avoid them whenever I can. Bad things, however, seem to be the antidote
and vaccine, but I have to get it regularly to keep the good at bay.
Wouldn't want that pesky goodness to kill me, after all. Chaos is me and
I am chaos. I want to get high by getting off the drugs. I want to let
my mind run wild and crank out all that it can until it overheats and
explodes through my ears and eye sockets, a moment later annihilating my
skull into a powder cloud of bone fragments, nothing but a poor, ripped
up torso and legs to commemorate me. I want to walk into that Starry
Night and to walk on moonbeams. I want the world to become a painting
and become a beautiful stroke of red across the canvas in blue.
"Do
you want to be an exceptional mind and be dead?" said the psychiatrist
on Black Box. She's saying that someone on a self-destructive warpath to
annihilate themselves may be exceptional and unique, but they also end
up very dead very early. I find the answer to that question a little
difficult to find. Sometimes, I think I'd rather drown in the sea of my
disease than let it become a barren desert. I've often thought, for
years and years, that drowning would be my ideal death... It would be
peaceful and quiet at the end with a wonderful view (I would want to
drown facing belly up somewhere that isn't so dark nothing can be seen,
perhaps like the open ocean on a starry night.) Yes, there would be an
instinctive struggle in the beginning, but then the calm approaches and
you're slowly lulled to sleep.
Things have gotten good in my life. Can you tell?
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