Putting into Words the Unspeakable Things about Bipolar Disorder

I don’t know that I can begin to find the words to adequately describe to you what BPD is like for me.  And for me to not be able to find the words for something, that’s saying a lot.

Everyone knows that bipolar disorder is best described as extremes.  Extreme highs, extreme lows.  We take the good and make if fucking fabulous, and we take the bad and we make it apocalyptically  horrible.  It’s a talent.

Everyone experiences BPD differently.  I can’t speak for everyone else out there, but I can try to put into words what life is like for me recently.

Right now, I am spiraling. And fuck, it’s ugly. I know it, I’m taking steps to control it, but those steps take time.  I know what triggers it, I have coping methods.  I am intelligently able to head this off.  I am not, however emotionally or mentally strong enough to fight it.  My brain knows what to do, my heart and emotions and core just can’t.

I know to ‘normal’ well adjusted healthy mentally stable people none of that makes any sense.

I go about my day as if I am a small tiny insignificant soul hiding in an intelligent functioning adult body.  I feel as if there is a physical mask/costume I am wearing.

That weighs a fuckton.

There are days I feel as if I am forced to function submerged physically and mentally in jello.  Where you can see all around you but it’s cloudy and difficult to maneuver.

Even these simple sentences are not doing it justice.

I live in fear, that the ugly little troll person who is actually controlling the Awesome Me puppet everyone sees, will break free, and people will see how ugly I am on the inside. They will hear the voices in my head constantly berating me with hateful things that are all too easy to believe.

I’ve been through enough therapy to know the language.  I can parrot it back to them, verbatim, right along with them.  I know I am intelligent, I know I can write, I know I am a good photographer, I know I am a great mom.  I know that I have worth, and I am know I am more than the vagina between my legs.

And yet? I don’t know any of that at all, for sure.

Or maybe I do know all that but I have allowed people around me to not know it.  And now, convincing them otherwise is proving impossible.

*ahem* bipolar disorder.

I am a rapid cycling bipolar.  Which means my moods swings can happen at lightening speed with little to zero warning. “From Zero to Bitch in 0.03 seconds?”  That’s me.  I can send you a text that says “I love you” and if you don’t respond in the predetermined by me, but not shared with you amount of time I text “Fuck you then”.  I’m sexy like that.  Is it any wonder I’m fucking single?

I hate my disorder.  I hate my life when it’s controlled by my disorder.  I hate me when I’m in a spiral.  And that hate, feed the spiral and the spiral intensifies the hate and do you see what kind of fun this shit is?

I fight a very difficult very valiant war inside my head every single day.  I pray my disorder does not harm or destroy my daughters.  I pray that the fight I fight is strong and worthy enough to allow me to overcome the demons inside so that I can be a good mom to my girls.  I also live with the fear that if anyone truly knew how horrible it is inside my head I wouldn’t have my girls another day.  What the girls don’t know, and can never know, is that they are the single solitary reason I get up every day and fight this fight as hard as I do.

I worry now, that putting this out there will somehow make people view me differently.  That those who know me in real life will shudder and shy away.  That now, instead of Becky, they will just see Crazy.  Or worse, they will think I’m too much drama.  They have the luxury of walking away.  I can’t walk away from my life.

I am swimming against a tide determined to drown me.  Afraid to reach out because what if they turn away? Or worse, lend a hand and save me only to walk away once they know I am no longer in danger.  I have so little faith in so many people, and really, it’s because I have so little belief in myself.

I am swimming.  Harder than I ever have.  I will get to safe ground. I’ve traveled these waters before.  Please just promise you’ll all be standing on the shore waiting when I get there??

Also, have margaritas. Lots of margaritas.