I have, and have always had, a terrible tendency of doing everything with an exhausting, overwhelming, almost addictive-like fervor. I conceptualize something, fantasize about it, and become immersed with a compulsive need to Do it! Do it now! Get it done! Do more! And it becomes the new focus of my blurry life. Until it’s not. Until something else comes into focus, becoming my new addiction. Or until my dreaming, planning, obsessing, and doing becomes dulled by a new type of exhaustion, an exhaustion in which my mind becomes fuzzy and filled with a molasses cloud and my body is numb. It is numb and weighted with lead. This type of exhaustion, this stage of my roller coaster, tires at the sheer thought of getting out of bed, never mind the lofty plans I had obsessed about before.
 It is as if I was the energizer bunny: going, going, going—and then I hit a wall, an animated cartoon character that collided into a flat, two-dimensional version of myself. A paralyzed, muted alter-ego drawn in pastel colors, out of focus and desperately wading through my mind to simply connect one thought to another. And for a few hours, or days, sometimes longer, I lay in bed or on the floor and forget how to function as a normal human being. Eventually, I would return to my enthusiastic self with flourishing new plans and boundless energy. Sometimes, it would happen natural, much like the way a perennial blooms after a bitter winter, but sometimes, it was chemically induced. A couple Adderall, or a few glasses of wine, or [fill in the blank with anything I could get my hands on, anything that I could swallow or chug in hopes that it would clear the fog] and I would spring to life again.
 I would furiously write lists of things I needed to do! I absolutely had to! And compulsively brainstorm ideas for school or work or careers, and research quotes I liked, or authors that I wanted to read—which would, of course, inspire me to immediately drive to a bookstore, buy the book (or all seven she’s written) from what inevitably become my new favorite author, become glued to its pages, as I flew through the prose, lapping the words up like a starving kitten with a saucer of milk, and become inspired! How insightful! Amazing! I would connect with their words! Identify with their experiences! I can completely relate! And as I tore through the book, a million things would run through my mind, which I would scribble in a notebook or onto a napkin, or across a sea of post-it notes—whatever writing surface was the most immediately accessible, so as not to part with reading for too long. I wouldn’t even think to sleep or eat until my eyes darted past the final page, when I would mourn the loss of my new friend, or anxiously begin the sequel, or find a new sources of tunnel-visioned elation.
 This was the general trajectory of many things in my life, not just books. When I was younger, I would study the dictionary, earn girl scout badges, clean my room, and work on projects (often not due for weeks, sometimes months) in the same manner. As I got older, I would journal or write poems, research career paths, watch entire television series, start fitness regimens, and make detailed calendars or agendas for every assignment, exam, birthday, movie premiere, cause awareness day, school field trip (again, for an unnecessarily extended period of time into the foreseeable future) until I either finished it and continued onto something else or suddenly became disinterested—no, no, not disinterested. I became infatuated with another idea! I had another plan! and this one simply wouldn’t do! And behind me, I left in my wake a trail of partially executed endeavors and incomplete to-do lists. After I graduated and went off to college (1,400 miles away—another grandiose, half-cocked plan for how I was going to become an adult! Learn to surf! Take on fourteen majors! Get a job! I needed a change! I absolutely had to go! Life is an adventure!), I would repeat this cycle with some productively-geared projects, like classwork or internships or academic plans, or extracurricular involvement, as well as some less-productive undertakings, like photo collages to cover every inch of wall space surrounding my dorm room, or three-day Netflix binges, or planning parties, parties that I would inevitably never actually throw. What once had been a harmless habit, which often fueled productivity, even overachievement, had now become a barrier that stood between me and my obligations. And when I hit the wall, the crippling hibernation into my head (and usually, into my bed) paralyzed me in the face of my new academic obligations. I could not be a curious, passionate obsessive child that got lost for days in momentary endeavors when I had classes to go to, exams to study for, or group projects I needed to contribute to.
 I’ve always been extreme—I either loved this with my whole heart or despised them with a fiery passion, ate until I was ready to burst or didn’t eat at all, chattered a mile a minute or said nothing, slept for days or went days without even so much as laying down, loved life intensely or desperately wanted to die. If anything had a spectrum of intensity, I bounced fiercely between its extremes. I blare music until my eardrums bleed, drink until I can’t remember my name, laugh until I piss my pants, scream until I’m hoarse—I’ve never known gray. The concepts of moderation, pastel, “inside voices,” and lukewarm are entirely foreign to me.
 As I’ve gotten older and more self-aware, I’ve learned this is common among individuals with bipolar disorder—which I was diagnosed with at fourteen, a diagnosis that doctors would define me by for most of my teenage years and I desperately ran from as an “adult.” (Hint: Turning 18 and going away to school didn’t make me an “adult.”) They told me to go to therapy, prescribed the endless medications, gave me lists of “coping mechanisms,” self-help workbooks, and books about my disorder—but no one told me that it wasn’t a cure. There is no cure for manic depression, only treatment that might help to mitigate your symptoms or help you cope with them. But you can do everything they tell you to, only to find out that they might be useless. Or they might leave you worse that they found you.Â
 And after two suicide attempts, four hospitalizations, seven therapists, and eleven unsuccessful medications, followed by an infinite array of side effects—I lost faith for these “treatments.” I did everything I was supposed to, I wanted to get better, I wanted to be sane, I wanted to be able to sleep again. But really sleep, like normal people: at night, and wake up in the morning, and start a new day; not collapsing after four days of being unstoppable and then incapable of getting out of bed for the following four, as I struggled to string words together when my mother comes and says, “Sugar, what’s wrong? Are you okay? Are you sick?” I realize now, that yes, I would be very sick if I kept up like this. But I say No, mommy. I just couldn’t sleep last night and I’m exhausted and can I just stay in bed today? I did not react well to the first, second, fifth, or eleventh medication they gave me. At first, they were prescribing antidepressants—which, as anyone worth the paper their psychology degree is printed on, will tell you: is a disaster. It would send me into mania, flying higher than I ever had, everything was amazing and I was getting better and life was beautiful again and I’m going to go for a run and read a book and write a book and—then I would crash. The Prozac, the Lexapro, the Zoloft, the Wellbutrin, the Cymbalta, it didn’t matter what they were called: the higher I soared, the farther I fell. Eventually, they figured out it was not depression and tried an entirely new set of prescriptions… Lithium, Lithobid, Lamictal, Topamax, Trileptal, Abilify. In the course of a few years, they destroyed my body in a desperate attempt to save my mind. One of them gave me these horribly high fevers, one of them would make me sick until I eventually was throwing up blood, one of them made me forgetful—I don’t mean, I locked my keys in my car or forgot to grab a water bottle on the way to soccer practice; I mean, mid-conversation, I was incapable of remembering what we were talking about. Each of them took their turn to fuck my body up, in its own way, but they all had one thing in common: I felt worse on them than I did without them.
 I know that it’s unconventional to leave serious mental illnesses untreated. Well, that is actually more common than I would’ve expected, but rather—it’s unconventional to be diagnosed, have medication available, still go to therapy, but rationally choose not to medicate the madness… and still lead a high-functioning life. But it seemed as though the treatment had interfered with my life more than the disorder itself, so I didn’t see it as a problem.
 I can’t say that I’ve lived in the same way that I would’ve if I had stuck with the treatment. But I can say that I don’t regret making the decision not to. What’s that saying? Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t? My mood disorder is familiar, I understand it, I have learned its tricks and adapted to its cycles.  I’ve become accustomed to avoiding my triggers, mitigating the manic highs and pulling myself out before the depression sucks me under. It’s not an exact science, but at least I know what I’m up against. I can’t say that for the drugs or their side effects or how long they’ll work, if they work, or how much weight they’ll make me gain this time or how they’ll affect me in ten years. But I do know that I would rather have a less conventional life in which I can see the intensity of colors and feel the spectrum of my emotions, both good and bad, than lead a numbing zombie life of pastel colors, muted sounds and numb to anything. I can cope with anguish and depression and anxiety and pain—but I cannot deal with feeling nothing at all.
 I am an intense human being. For many, it’s too much. I have learned how to calm myself down, pull myself up, and find my way back to reality. That’s not to say that I don’t have bad days, or even bad weeks. My life is far from perfect.  I have bipolar disorder; I have to accept that I have it now and I’ll have it tomorrow, and chances are, I’ll have it for the rest of my life. There are days that I have not gotten out of bed, plenty of to-do lists that I have no crossed everything (or anything!) off of, exams that I haven’t done well on (even failed!) and nights that my racing thoughts present an energetic barricade to falling asleep—I won’t deny any of that. But I must also face the fact that treatment made me physically sick, made me lost in my own mind, and left me weighing twice as much as I did before the medication merry-go-round.  Some of them made me urgently suicidal, or worse, a thoroughly numb shell of myself. And I refuse to settle for a life of dull grayscale as an emotionless zombie. If there ever comes a day when my disorder becomes unmanageable or more promising treatment options become available, I will undoubtedly reconsider. But not today.
 It’s never easy to make choices like this. Mental illness aside, we are all faced with unfavorable circumstances. We are put into situations outside of our control, and whatever amount of control we are left with is never as much as we want—we are forced to decide between the lesser of evils and accept all of the consequences that come with it. We’re all just trying to play the hand we’re dealt.  I may change my mind once more cards are on the table, but for now, I’ve selected a strategy I can live with. And that’s enough.
 Mental illness is a strange thing. There is not a blood test that can confirm the diagnosis, there is no “one-size-fits-all” treatment for it, and there is never a guarantee that anything they try will work. If you have a fever, you take put a thermometer in your mouth, read the exact temperature of your body, and take a specific amount of a certain medication that will lower it. If you have diabetes, you will be able to both confirm it and monitor it by testing your blood sugar, which will tell you exactly how much insulin to correct it. People understand diseases like this—that they can quantify, treat and resolve. When they prevent you from being present or capable in other areas of your life, it is an acceptable explanation. People send you flowers or get-well-soon cards. They offer support, prayers, and gentle understanding when your battle is taking place inside of your body. But when you have a mental illness, the battleground is not your body, but within your mind. “Mental” is not within the general purview of “medical” and there is no doctor’s note that says, “Please excuse me for being absent. I lost my mind yesterday and couldn’t remember how to get out of bed.” Or an appropriate way to ask your boss, “Can I leave work early today? My racing thoughts are suffocating me and I need to find a way to quiet them without slitting my wrists with the letter opener in my desk.” Or an appropriate way to call into work saying, “I will unable to come into work today. In fact, I will be unable to be there until further notice, because I am being hospitalized in the psych ward, but they don’t know how long I’ll be locked in the loony bin this time.” There is a suffocating stigma surrounding mental illness (or mood disorders or psychiatric conditions of psychological issues… whatever you want to call it: there is a stigma attached.) And regardless of how hard we try to get better, how perfectly we follow the doctor’s orders or how sincerely we want to be sane again—it often interferes with our lives. It is an undeniable fact that you need your mind in order to function. Some mornings you wake up and it’s there. It’s there and operational, as if it never left.
 But other mornings, it is simply an accomplishment to have survived yesterday.
yousharknotpass
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