I was diagnosed with Bipolar 1. 
Some people think it’s just fluctuating mood. 
 
What does it actually look like? 
Realizing that I’m manic. That my racing thoughts and shaking and jamming out to music, never sleeping. Going on binges. Being irresponsible. It’s mental illness. 

What does mania do to me? 
It leaves me thinking and behaving in ways that hardly seem like me. 
Increased aggression. Being agitated. Picking fights and battles when I shouldn’t. 

The worst of it? Not sleeping for days. Gaming way too much to cope with it. To ride that high that is temporary happiness. Or at least an imitation of it. 

Hallucinations and paranoia. Paranoia so bad it leaves me curled up somewhere sobbing. Afraid that I’m not alone. That someone is going to hurt me. Hearing people yell my name and not believing that it’s actually happening. Refusing to believe that it’s happening. 

That’s my mental illness. 

That laying in bed crying, losing interest in things I loved for weeks at a time. That’s bipolar too. 

And looking back on it. How many years have passed since these symptoms started it makes sense. The times that I was going through it. And also being blamed and accused of being lazy. But that depression makes it impossible to get up. Even when you sit and think and hate yourself for it. You just. Can’t. Do. It. 

Losing yourself to symptoms for years so that when you finally get put on antipsychotics and the world goes quiet. You think for maybe a second you’ve been cured. So you stop taking them for a bit. Mistake. Now you’re back in an episode and your doctors yet again tell you to take them regularly. It’s hard. But you’re trying your best. Everyone is. 

You feel broken. Hardly human. The episodes keep getting worse and for the first time you hurt someone. You snap and can’t control yourself and afterwards you lay on the living room floor screaming at yourself for it. You want to kill yourself for it. 

That’s my mental illness. 

You spend days pretending to be fine. But the night comes and you have another freak out. Trying to ride the episode out. But the days blur by. It’s been two months. Two months without a break from this episode. You can’t hold a job for the sleeplessness. 

You end up in another hospital. This time the doctors aren’t listening. They think you’re suicidal. You’re not. You’re afraid of hurting someone. But at least being afraid of it means you’re still somewhere human, right? Your partner lays on the floor next to you. And you spend hours waiting. In a room. In those scrubs. Arms sore from the blood they’ve taken. Trying to forget that you’re uninsured. Trying to forget that this will end in a bill. 

And you get help. You spend a week in the hospital. Your meds get increased. But the hallucinations haven’t stopped. One night you lay in bed. Immobilized by your meds. Forced to listen. Is it memories I’m hearing? I know that these aren’t thoughts. But I’m safe ? Right? Why does my name, my birth name. Scare me so much? 

You go home eventually. Not completely better. But good enough to be safe. And this time people are trying to help. You are getting help. 

You are getting help. 
You are deserving of help. 
This isn’t your fault. 
This isn’t forever. 
The days might blur together, yeah, but they won’t forever. Not forever. 

And here I am. A month later. Thinking back on it. Is my episode over? How many more episodes must I go through to be normal again? 

Someday I will know.