Bipolar Depression

When I was 15 my life took a turn for the worst. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was slowly digging my own grave. Growing up life was hard but I didn’t know as a child just how hard struggling with mental health would truly make it. As I recall it all started around my sophomore year of high school. You know when there is something seriously wrong, but there is nothing you can do to help? Of course, you do.

Now imagine being completely happy, then slowly deteriorating from the inside out. There is a pain that lingers but never leaves. A constant pain so deep that nothing can make you smile. A pain so deep that you wish you were hanging from the belt that secures your blue jeans. Letting each breath of air be an agonizing reminder that you are still alive and that YOU survived another day on this happy earth. A pain that brings relief to your heart when you think of yourself six feet underground. When all the things that once made you smile, now make you cry. On your sixteenth birthday, while everyone celebrates your life, you sneak into hiding to cry because you’ve made it another dreadful year. Feeling like you are on an island, totally alone when you are in a room full of people that love you.

Now imagine being completely sad, then slowly feeling alive. Your heart begins to beat a little faster and you speak without being spoken to for the first time in a whole week. It’s like someone flipped a switch, and suddenly you are a totally different person. But don’t be fooled... this person is just as toxic as the last because while you are happy, you have no conscious control of your actions. Like putting your car on cruise control then jumping out and watching it crash and burn. Then suddenly someone flips the switch and it all starts all over again.

To be Continued….