July 12, 2017
So I laid down, I slept, but now I’m up. I’m up. This is good. As long as I don’t stay up all night.
You know that verse, “Walk out your salvation with fear and trembling”? Well that’s how I feel. “Walk out your bipolar with fear and trembling.” I’m afraid and I’m trembling. But I’m walking.
When I sleep and I wake, I lay there, with Chloe crawling all over me purring and wanting to be loved. This memoir unfolds in my mind. Sentence by sentence rolls out before me like the unfurling of a red carpet, until I must leave my bed and come to the laptop and let it write itself out here.
My mom tried to FaceTime me. I let it go. I texted her I’m OK, will talk later. I don’t know why. I can’t do it. I have to do it though. She’s my mom. I don’t want people to not try to call me. I want people to just not try to call me. Now figure that one out. If you try to call me and I don’t answer, I’m sorry. If I didn’t answer because I couldn’t talk because of being sick, I’ll text you and tell you that. But I won’t tell you I’ll call you back. Because when you’re dealing with demons, you never feel like calling back. Just try to call me back again. At your convenience. I always say that in work emails. At your convenience.
These feelings of terror are welling up inside of me and now I give them credence. Before I realized I was sick, I would just see them as a sign of weakness. Or I would think I was being overly dramatic with my own self. But this is some real ass shit. It is so fucked.
I get why it’s me. Maybe. Or maybe thinking I get why it’s me is a delusion. But I think it’s me because I can write about it. Because my writing can make a difference. Save a life? Delusions of grandeur? Or legitimate possibility?
The terror ebbs and flows. I sob in gasps. Then I write a sentence or two and I’m calm. I’m calm. I’m drinking orange juice and club soda and chai tea. I always drink two or three things at a time now. I don’t think that’s part of my illness. I think I just like to drink two or three things at a time now. That was supposed to be funny right there. Those last sentences there.
I need to make a list of things I have to do. I remember I’m supposed to make an appointment with the neuropsychiatrist. Must do that. Must.
“You don’t have to be miserable to write. You do it because you have to. Because it gnaws away at your insides if you try to ignore it. Because if you don’t write, then you might as well be dead.” -Not Another Happy Ending
