From The Vault: The Hues and Overtones of Manic Depression

[Note -- This is from this current blog and it was cross-posted to Real Mental. However, I wanted to re-post it because I think it is my favorite thing I've ever written. I have to admit that I am not always as clear-headed as I am in this post, which was written at the end of a time when I had been less effectively medicated. It's about my decision to stay medicated, and I like to go back and read it when I'm struggling. The urge to feel super-human still comes, sometimes. I'm glad I wrote this post when I did, as both a note of understanding to my past and a note of hope to my future.]

Being an Art Star is about struggling to remember.
[Rev Jen]

So, the experiment is over. But I still haven't finishing processing the experience. I've been mulling over it in my head for a few days, now, turning it over and over. Last night, as I drove home, I had a series of small revelations.

Bipolar disorder gives me colors, hues that "normal" people can't understand. My mania is the color behind your eyelids when you look at the sun with your eyes closed. It burns brightly and strongly, and it is hard [so hard] to turn away. You can't move--it's just there.

My depression is the black-blue in the center of bruises, the color that sits dully, the one that makes you cringe when you press it. It reminds you of pain. It is tender to the slightest touch.

I told Joe that I wanted to stop feeling the feelings the other day, and most of that is true. But a small part of me, the smallest part per billionth aches for the feelings. It's the part that relished their return, the part that wanted to get out of bed and drive around the city, the part that wanted to drape itself down a staircase and cry. It's the part that feels most alive when it feels sick, the part that wants to smile at the cars that drive by. The part that wants to break itself into pieces, the part that wants to fuck and fight and talk shit and sleep and cut. It is self-destructive and can be [was once] all-consuming.

So we talk about why I want to take more medicine. Yesterday, I had some depressed moments. I thought of driving to the lab, stealing one of the razor blades. The fantasies expanded, more than they ever have [I've never cut]. I thought of which one I would chose, the one least likely to have chemicals on it. I would boil a pot of water and drop the razor in. I would wait, slowly, patiently. When it was done, I would lift it up. When it cooled down, enough to use but still warm with the memory of water, I would press it in. Where? Somewhere less noticeable. Not the flashy, needy, begging wrists, no matter how much that vein shines and pulsates out. No. The ankle, perhaps. The upper shoulder.

The upper shoulder--when I first started treatment, I would write on my left shoulder in brown thin line Sharpie. I would remind myself that there were four things that were important, that I wanted, that I needed: prayer, honesty, fidelity, love. The things you turn to when razors cut across your mind, the things you turn to when you are stuck.

So I remember that the only thing that can fight a broken mind is that same mind, wanting to be fixed. That same mind, that same ache for things to be ok. It's the aching yearning mind that reaches out for help. That mind compels you to talk when you don't want to. That mind helps you remember that the palette you have in your mind is beautiful but poisonous. Bright things usually are.

So, with one part relishing the darkness, wanting desperately to succumb to the heaviness of depressed eyelids, the other parts push back, open the mouth, and say--to whoever is listening, but mostly to that one rogue part--"I want to stop feeling that being human is an irrevocable injustice."

This is why you keep living. This is why you keep shaking the pills into your hand. This is why you torture yourself with therapy, why you eventually give up all of the bad thoughts you've been hoarding. For true happiness and true sadness, for human emotion that your human peers can relate to and comfort. For this, you give up being a superhuman. For this, you finally become what you're meant to be. Yourself.