itmightnotbeok

I never used to be able to sleep alone.
Lying awake all night feeling cold and afraid.
Now I talk in my sleep.
I speak my dreams out loud for the world to hear.
I cry in my sleep, reliving every moment that haunts my memory.
It’s gotten worse. My voice has gotten louder. I wake up saying all the things I wish I had been brave enough to say in the moment.
“Don’t touch me, don’t yell at me, you don’t deserve me…please don’t leave me”.
Now I sleep on the couch.
Too afraid that my subconscious mind will utter the one name I want to keep hidden.

That I wont be able to hide that deep down, I know that every night, the face that I see the most,
is yours.

I’m 31 and I still feel like I’m 9 years old, walking home from the bus stop with my mom, listening to her tell me about a surprise she had for me. She said it was a big surprise this time and I would have to share. I’m 31 and I still feel like I’m 9 years old, walking up the stairs to my parents bedroom and seeing the cat food bowls on the floor. I’m 31 and I still feel like the 9 year old girl, holding the cat she wanted so badly in her arms and crying tears of joy. 

I’m 31 and I still feel like I’m 10 years old, watching my father look at me like I was worthless. I can see his eyes staring at me, the malice on his face, more than I can remember the words that he spoke. 

I’m 31 and I still feel like I’m 12 years old being raped by a senior in high school in the middle of the night. I can remember him telling me it was just a back rub. I’m 31 years old and I can still feel his hands on my skin, and I can still remember the pain the next day. I’m 31 and I still feel like I’m 12 years old, too terrified to speak, whenever a man touches my shoulders. 

I’m 31 and I still feel like I’m 16, finding out I was pregnant with a stolen test in the Walmart bathroom. I can see the car that hit us the day before my planned abortion. I’m 31 years old and I still feel like the lost teenager telling my mom in the hospital after the accident that I was going to keep the baby. 

I’m 31 years old and I still feel like I’m 21 on my wedding day, overcome with gratitude and excitement that someone had accepted me. I’m 31 years old and I still feel the pain of having my husband refuse to even look at me during our first dance. I remember the moment that I felt that no matter how beautiful I looked, I would never be good enough for anyone. I’m 31 years old and I still feel 21, thinking I had found my forever to only have it end in ashes and disappointment. 

I’m 31 years old and I still feel like I’m 27, standing in the court house adopting a teenager and feeling like there was no one that had ever lived that was more meant to be mine. I can feel the joy of being surrounded by my friends and family. I’m 31 and I still feel like I’m 27, hugging my child and knowing that there was nothing I wouldn’t do for them. 

I’m 31 years old and I still feel 29, watching that same child seize over and over in a hospital bed after they overdosed, wondering if they would make it through the night. I can still feel the fear when they woke up and couldn’t remember anything and wondering if they would ever be the same again. 

I’m 31 and I still feel like I’m 29, coming out of my first major manic episode. I remember standing in the kitchen with my best friend and feeling a switch in my brain. I’m 31 and I still feel like I’m 29, turning to my best friend and telling her if she didn’t take me to a hospital I was going to kill myself.

I’m 31 and I still feel like I’m 30, full of pride, watching that same teenager who I almost lost, walk across the stage to receive their high school diploma. 

I’m 31 and I still feel like the little girl who just wanted to make her father proud. I still feel like the scared child who learned that her worth was based in what she could offer a man. I still feel like the young woman who thought religion was the only way she would be accepted after her past. I still feel like the woman who had her faith slip away through her fingers and wonder what was left. I still feel the pride and fear and guilt of leaving a marriage that no longer served me. I still feel the weight of addiction that surrounded my life for so long. I still feel like the woman who felt true love for the first time.

I’m 31 and I still feel like the world is cruel. I’m 31 and I still feel like I have time to see something beautiful. 

Do we ever really grow up? 

It’s been roughly a month since I came out of the worst manic episode I have ever experienced. A month since I woke up to a version of my life that I had created without even realizing what was happening.

I have been aware that I have bipolar disorder for a long time, but I have vivid memories of my symptoms back to elementary school. My father was bipolar, and I remember feeling like I was just like him. When I was younger I only remember feeling the mania. Periods of high energy, productivity and a superhero like complex. Throughout middle school was when I started to experience the depressive aspects. But even with the sadness, I still struggled with impulse control, decision making, hyper sexuality and self destructive behaviors.

As an adult, I don’t experience the same mania I felt as a child. My episodes don’t manifest as me painting two coats of paint on my bedroom walls overnight without sleeping, or hyper focusing on something until I am completely burnt out. They have become dangerous. My lack of awareness of what’s going on has evolved into periods of time that I have limited memory of. In these long periods that last anywhere from a few months to several years, I lose the ability to make decisions based on my own judgement. I create a false reality in my head, and am unable to tell that my thoughts aren’t my own. When I come out of it (I tend to refer to it as “waking up”), my head immediately returns to where it was before the episode. Only, I am left with the after effects of everything I did and said while I was in that manic state. Sometimes it takes time for the memories of things that happened to come back to me, and when they do it feels less like a real memory, and more like I am watching myself from a third person view. It’s frightening, and the memories and effects of my actions can be devastating.

This last episode lasted about 3 months. In that short time frame, I broke my ex boyfriends trust, kicked him out, started dating a man 30 years older than me that I met online and completely changed my life. I started living extravagantly. I thought I was in a Cinderella story and had been finally saved from a life of worrying if I could afford to get an extra box of cereal that week. I thought I was happy. But the third month in I started to feel a shift. Things weren’t making as much sense anymore. I started to feel detached from the relationships I had created, and started picking up on things I was telling people and tolerating that didn’t match my actual moral code. So I called someone I trusted to meet with me. I “woke up” that night. After talking to my family and friends, the perceptions of what I was doing vary from them thinking I was just delusional, to knowing very well I was manic, but fearful to step in and potentially lose me all together.

It’s been difficult trying to wrap my head around how I could have justified my actions at that time to anyone, let alone myself. The after effects have left me jobless, financially unstable and incredibly guilty for all the pain and confusion I caused to the people I love most. I have only begun to pick up the pieces of the mess I created without having any idea I was doing it. I have damaged a lot of things, some which can be repaired, and some that cannot. I have spent a while living in a state of shame and grief for what I have lost, for the things I cannot change. I have been hopeless, afraid to live life in a cycle of constant chaos. Afraid to hurt anyone else. Afraid to lose myself, or lose my life like my father did to suicide. Afraid that everything won’t end up ok.

But that’s the reality we don’t see. We don’t hear the phrase “It might not be ok” very often. Our lives are surrounded by masks and shields to cover up the pain that we all suffer. Our earliest memories are filled with reading and watching happy endings in books and films. But sometimes, life isn’t fair. Sometimes there isn’t a happy ending. Sometimes when we break things, they stay broken. It’s a cruel thing to be born with a condition that causes me to have to constantly do damage control to situations that I wasn’t even present mentally for. I have often said that “It feels like I am being punished”.

But, I am tired of feeling hopeless. I am tired of feeling like I will always live a life with no awareness of if what I feel is real or not, no consistency and inevitably, no happiness. So I am taking as much control back as I can.

October is for healing. At least it will be for me. I have apologized and fought for forgiveness to the people I hurt. I am creating a game plan to get back to work and fix my finances. I have made my family and friends aware of the warning signs of a manic episode and how to help me if they see it start again. And in three days I will start a new medication for bipolar disorder to help manage my symptoms. I may not have control all the time, but I do right now, and I am still responsible for the choices I make.

It might not be ok can sound like a pessimistic phrase, but for me it gives me hope. It reminds me that there are things that happen that don’t work out, that aren’t fixable, that cant change. Accepting that frees me from the chains of wishing for a different life and a different outcome. It might not always be ok, but I will be, and that’s all any of us can really hope for.