Reality of Bipolar

Who I am and what I have are two very different things.

Who I am is a survivor. I battle this “something” and strongly, I battle something that lives in me and pretends to be me in moments of vulnerability. It can creep up on me at any time, I can be having dinner with the family, laughing and joking and suddenly this dark cloud comes over me, I can be enjoying a film and all of a sudden I can’t watch it anymore. I can be in a restaurant having dinner and have the sudden urge that I need to get out of there and go back home.

But the truth that I realized which keeps me going is that it DOES NOT make me who I am.

Sure, it tries to claim itself to be me every now and again, trying to pull me further down into the depths of despair. But over time, that only did one thing – it began to reveal itself for what it was.
I see it now. A shapeless dark shadow ‘thing’ that dwells in a place I hold sacred trying to take over, MY  HAPPINESS.

I asked myself once, who am I if I cannot trust my own mind…?
Who is the person asking this question, in this moment, if not something separate from that vile thing?

Who is the person that wants to and does fight it every day, to find any amount of happiness and purpose in living? And the answer to those questions is … Me! Not bipolar.
And that is truth behind it all. Keep fighting it, and the more you fight the more you separate yourself from it. You are not bipolar, you have bipolar.

Yes, there will be days you lose the fight and fall hard. But every day you try to fight it inside, you claim back a little piece of your identity from the clutches of the nasty illness.
A place within where we feel real, a place within that we can call home… no matter how small it is, and no matter what the threats are.

This crazy ride that bipolar disorder takes me on, is like picking a side which by then you’re long lost. It breaks your life into a million pieces. Struck by a knife, thrown at me like darts, most of the time I feel like am actually drowning. How do I survive this roller coaster ride when most of the time I don’t feel in control of the drive… Make peace with the night and hold on tight to the ride, away from the ride breaks a new dawn and a new day to fight again.

It is not about winning the fight every day. The point is to keep fighting it. You are not the illness, the illness is a part of you. It’s okay to not be okay.

Love Ms Bipolar
X
P.S – Feel free to email me on the email below or visit my Facebook page  @Mswillowbipolar where I publish all of the articles and some relatable quotes.