I recently found out that I am bipolar. A little while ago, my therapist prompted the idea that I could be bipolar and from there my doctor confirmed it and now I am working towards a more specific diagnosis. Either way, I am bipolar.
This new explanation for why I think and act the way I do has knocked me off my feet more than anything else. Not just because it is something I will spend the rest of my life coping with, OCD has warmed me up to that idea already, but because it feels so much more intense. That’s definitely not the right explanation of it, and it might just be my own stigma that I need to confront, but bipolar makes me feel insane.
At least anxiety and panic and depression have mini “normal” counterparts. They aren’t the same. but there is a bit of them that is grounded in normal behavior and thinking. They’re just inflated versions of something that is already there, to an extent, and I think I’ve been holding on to that idea to avoid what I fear is now true. That I am crazy. I am broken beyond the romanticized version of my mind that is splayed out in the world. I think I’ve been using the false connotations of what I am as a crutch to avoid facing the fact that I am not normal, but now I have a new thing that’s wrong with me and I can’t distract myself from what is reality.
I think that with OCD I felt it a little bit, but I shoved it down in my subconscious to avoid it and bipolar has just released it from its cage. Having these more specific and less “normal” illnesses makes the gap between me and a normal life feel bigger and bigger, to the point where it is no longer attainable. I knew that OCD would be a forever thing but now I have more forever things and every day forever feels longer and longer.
I know I’m not alone in feeling this way, hopeless in the face of the truth, and yet I feel so detached and alone on this journey I am on forever. Support groups aren’t as easy to come across as I hoped they would be, no one really has an AA for the mentally ill, at least one that doesn’t come with a hospital stay or a heavy fee. No one really talks about the life of an 18-year-old who has to take 20 pills a day just to feel a fraction of what a normal person feels. My mental illnesses are who I am, they don’t define me, but they are me. I am them, and I just wish I could talk to one other person who understands what that really means.
So yeah, I am bipolar, and clearly am struggling to accept that and what it really means for me. I hope that if anyone else who feels as I do finds this and knows that there is someone else who understands. Healing and getting better isn’t easy and I know and understand that, I just wish that I didn’t have to.