Bipolar Thoughts

[mybipolarity]

A Song That Saved My Life

Like many, 2020 was one of the worst years of my life this far. I got diagnosed with a myriad of mental health problems in the second half of 2019, only to find that due to strict protocols, I couldn't continue my treatment and therapy.

I couldn't see my friends, who were my rock, always, when times get hard.

Instead, I had to move back home. I was jobless. Even though I didn't have to worry about money, the pandemic took away everything else that I had been living for: time with my friends, time by myself, time to run away to a new place.

By the end of 2020, I was suicidal. I got everything planned and everything: how to do it, where to do it. I even had a timeline detailing what ends I have to tie: the things I wanted to give away, withdrawing my insurance policies and investments, I had letters waiting to be written: apologizing for promises I had to break, dreams I didn't make come true, and lives I didn't change.

Then, two months before I said I will end it all, one of my friends sent me the song. The original one I heard a million times, because it was one of my favorites.

But this cover hit me differently. Artists I've heard of but didn't really listen to. They got to me.

And I'm still breathing.

"...and I will try to fix you."

[mybipolarity]

I think I forgot so many things.

I don’t think I’m going to make it to 40.

A few years ago, I decided I didn’t want to grow old. I want to die by 40 because I haven’t made my dreams come true by then, I just won’t have the time to enjoy them, and if I have made my dreams come true by then, what more do I do with my life?

Lately though, it’s as if my dreams no longer matter to me. I am just tired. Who cares if I ever get to publish a book, or live for a few months in Paris, or build a library for children in our area who have little access to books? It’s like my world was torn apart, and I can’t stand on what’s left.

I used to have such big dreams. I was going to save the forests and the tigers and the elephants. I was supposed to travel the world and immerse myself in different cultures. I was supposed to have a wonderful, fairy tale life with the love of my life. I was supposed to be happy.

I don’t know if it is the pandemic, or my depression, or whatever else there is, but things are not turning out the way they are supposed to and I am not sure I could make it to 40 because I am not even 30 and I am so, so, so tired of everything. I am not supposed to be here.

I don’t know when I stopped dreaming big dreams, but this is not what my life is supposed to look like.

[mybipolarity]

Someday, someday.

It’s another meal, and it’s the same old story.

“You’re eating too much.”

“Don’t eat that.”

“Careful, you’re gaining more weight.”

I do not say anything. Instead, I grab a knife from the kitchen counter and make a cut on my wrist. Vertical. Deep. I look at my parents as the blood drips from my wrist and I sit back down. “Can I freaking eat now?”

What I meant was, “Fuck you.”

I wish I could do it, truly.

Instead, I sit there and continue to eat, telling my parents to go screw themselves in my head,

I reach for some fish, my wrist clean.

I will cut myself in front of them for real one of these days. If only to make a statement.