Honestly, a few years ago I never would have thought I could be so stable again. back then, as far as I was concerned, everything was over. It was the beginning of the second hardest downward spiral of my life, first hospitalizations happened 3 years earlier, around this time, maybe a bit more down the road, but I never thought I'd be able to live normally. Well, what I now understand to be normal; baseline is probably the more accurate term. I went from being a robot, completely numb and god knows how many hues of broken to a dysfunctional mess held by threads. I remember what this vacation was to me back then.
It was stress, hell, I still wasn't diagnosed with anything other than bi-polar disorder, I was banned from my psychiatrist, my family looked like it was on track for divorce, I was under way too much pressure from every angle: teachers, peers, family, I was closed off and had no support. I remember thinking ahead, about my future that people tried to encourage me with. I'd feign enthusiam on my best days, never without ambivalence. I always felt that there was something major I had to accomplish before I graduated and if I didn't I had wasted my potential to help the world and that a negative grade was more than a reflection of a performance. I guess that's why I stopped looked at my grades in the first place... Still, arguments, the cops, drug abuse, alcoholism, isolation, self-injury, total social denial, reckless behavior... suicide attempts, they were all there. All of the signs... And my parents blaming me for my inconsistency taking my meds, encouraging my suicide, arguing about the affairs my father continued to have bringing up PTSD memories from my sophomore year... Alli had moved away too. Something changed in me that year. It was the year I guess I stopped really caring.
I barely made it to the end of the summer... got confront by counselors, teachers, just... and yet so many people depended on me even though I couldn't even depend on myself and not a soul saw me. No one did. Maybe one day... one day when I was sad and my teacher made me laugh by making a face. I'm not sure if it was my ability conceal it, the ability of others' to ignore it, some mixture thereof or what, but I can say the effect potentated it. So many days I wanted to just scream inside of my head, but I was lifeless, like a puppet floating down a river, approaching a waterfall with strings to the marionette tied.
Things did not get better from there.
The sick thing about experiencing a down of the bi-polar caliber is that you're never sure when to take yourself seriously. You could be in the middle of a major depressive episode, even fully aware you are depressed, trying to quantify the extent of your depression to justify it it your mind or otherwise feel and increasing amount of stress until you breakdown and release it... on yourself. It's just like a nuclear meltdown internally, even if nothing shows; there's no more broken than I have ever been in those moments. Nothing even matters anymore, and whatever might have you just ran from without a word and in whatever manner was best to avoid arousing suspicions. Almost always successfully. Which confirms in your already warped mind that nobody cared in the first place.
I'm nowhere fully over my depression: I still get like this. Even nastier than this, my mind is such an ugly place to exist or visit, but today I can say when I looked at traffic, I didn't repeatedly consider throwing myself into it. Today I can say that when I saw somebody do something that took strength of character, "Wow, how have they not killed them self already? I would have by then."
Nope. Today was just a normal day. I should be in school, couldn't be because I'm still sick (normal kids have that sometimes), I was functioning fine mentally (no fog, obsessive thoughts running through my head, compulsions, suicidal ideation), I ate, showered, played video games, attended therapy, spoke with some friends, and petted my cat.
Sometimes normal is better than good, because when you can reflect on negative in a light mood, but if you turn around too long, you run the risk of realizing how terrifying your own contentment is, how each moment passes, you can never grab it, it's always just beyond your reach, around the corner, down the plain, across the edge.
And happiness can be downright terrifying.
It was stress, hell, I still wasn't diagnosed with anything other than bi-polar disorder, I was banned from my psychiatrist, my family looked like it was on track for divorce, I was under way too much pressure from every angle: teachers, peers, family, I was closed off and had no support. I remember thinking ahead, about my future that people tried to encourage me with. I'd feign enthusiam on my best days, never without ambivalence. I always felt that there was something major I had to accomplish before I graduated and if I didn't I had wasted my potential to help the world and that a negative grade was more than a reflection of a performance. I guess that's why I stopped looked at my grades in the first place... Still, arguments, the cops, drug abuse, alcoholism, isolation, self-injury, total social denial, reckless behavior... suicide attempts, they were all there. All of the signs... And my parents blaming me for my inconsistency taking my meds, encouraging my suicide, arguing about the affairs my father continued to have bringing up PTSD memories from my sophomore year... Alli had moved away too. Something changed in me that year. It was the year I guess I stopped really caring.
I barely made it to the end of the summer... got confront by counselors, teachers, just... and yet so many people depended on me even though I couldn't even depend on myself and not a soul saw me. No one did. Maybe one day... one day when I was sad and my teacher made me laugh by making a face. I'm not sure if it was my ability conceal it, the ability of others' to ignore it, some mixture thereof or what, but I can say the effect potentated it. So many days I wanted to just scream inside of my head, but I was lifeless, like a puppet floating down a river, approaching a waterfall with strings to the marionette tied.
Things did not get better from there.
The sick thing about experiencing a down of the bi-polar caliber is that you're never sure when to take yourself seriously. You could be in the middle of a major depressive episode, even fully aware you are depressed, trying to quantify the extent of your depression to justify it it your mind or otherwise feel and increasing amount of stress until you breakdown and release it... on yourself. It's just like a nuclear meltdown internally, even if nothing shows; there's no more broken than I have ever been in those moments. Nothing even matters anymore, and whatever might have you just ran from without a word and in whatever manner was best to avoid arousing suspicions. Almost always successfully. Which confirms in your already warped mind that nobody cared in the first place.
I'm nowhere fully over my depression: I still get like this. Even nastier than this, my mind is such an ugly place to exist or visit, but today I can say when I looked at traffic, I didn't repeatedly consider throwing myself into it. Today I can say that when I saw somebody do something that took strength of character, "Wow, how have they not killed them self already? I would have by then."
Nope. Today was just a normal day. I should be in school, couldn't be because I'm still sick (normal kids have that sometimes), I was functioning fine mentally (no fog, obsessive thoughts running through my head, compulsions, suicidal ideation), I ate, showered, played video games, attended therapy, spoke with some friends, and petted my cat.
Sometimes normal is better than good, because when you can reflect on negative in a light mood, but if you turn around too long, you run the risk of realizing how terrifying your own contentment is, how each moment passes, you can never grab it, it's always just beyond your reach, around the corner, down the plain, across the edge.
And happiness can be downright terrifying.
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