I Kiss the Ring You Gave Me and I Swing With All My Might

One year ago, we put a name to my problems. My entire life--though the process had already started--completely changed.

Completely changed because of a name. A diagnosis. A reason. Not an excuse, but a reason. Something real, something that could be fixed.

One year ago, things started over. I got my next chance, another chance to live a successful life as a bipolar person. A chance to live without some unknown odds stacked against me. A chance to figure out who I was with respect to my illness. A chance to start digging, the ultimate archaeological dig into my consciousness and my history. A chance to do it without fucking up.

It is not easy to live with a mental illness. It is not impossible to live with a mental illness. It is not possible, for me, to live without a mental illness. Somewhere between all of those parameters, there you find my life. My existence, suspended from impossibilities, submerged--sometimes calmly floating, sometimes thrashing, sometimes almost sinking--in the possibilities for my life.

Possibility: nothing ever goes wrong again. I perform well in medical school. I get married, have a family life.

Possibility: things go wrong again. I lose friends and loved ones.

Possibility: anything between those two extremes.

I'm one year in. One year older, wiser, much better at what I do with my mind. Aware of my triggers, doing what I can to keep from even slipping. I keep tight restraints on certain things, because I know if I don't, then it's easier for me to spiral down. So, I quiet my sometimes raging mind. So, I go to lengthy measures to be able to sleep. So, I try to be honest with myself and my friends, my support. So, I do what I can.

A lot of times, being mentally ill and in treatment feels a lot like being in Alcoholics Anonymous. I count the months I've been in treatment. I have my meetings [once every other week]. I have my sponsors [my friends and family]. I have my serenity prayers [the uncontrollable laughter, the quiet walks with friends, the afternoons of mind-saving sex, falling asleep in a bed with the one who calms me most].

I feel like I should get a one year chip--one year of not completely losing it. One year of not going off the deep end. One year of being bat shit crazy in all the right ways and in none of the wrong ones. One year of dealing with hard situations--losing friends, moving cities, the most stressful academics possible--and not cracking. One year--both as long and as short as a year can possibly seem.

Sometimes, it seems like my mind isn't any of those things one would want it to be--not spotless or beautiful, but interrupted and cracked. But it's mine--and my responsibility, then, to buff out the spots, to bridge the interruptions, to fill the cracks.

One year done. One year that I managed to not fuck up my another chance to get it right. One year of saying the word "bipolar" and starting to understand it. One year of deciding how to wear it, hoping that it's never to heavy and that I am always strong enough to bear it.

One year.