Being electrocuted must feel something like this.
My skin crawls to the point that I feel that I must come out of it. My chest tightens like a pulled bow string. My heart races like Derby Day.
I.
Must.
Move.
There is an impulse to action that I cannot fully explain. It is a compulsion, no, a need. I cannot sit still. I bounce my leg. Wring my fingers. Pop my joints. Roll my shoulders. Swivel my head.
The mantra goes through my mind. “Breathe. In. And out. Again.” And yet that breath comes quicker with each exhale. The inhale is sharp – the note of my breath a shortened staccato.
I thought depression was difficult. Days on end where there seemed to be no point to the “day in” and “day out” grind. No point to the simple “making it through” another day. No point to getting out of bed and joining the living. Simply no point to, well, anything. Why allow the outer shell of my existence to keep moving when the inside of me is wrapped tightly in a cocoon of despair?
As time passed in my elongated depressive state, I grew comfortable. The familiarity of my internal surroundings became my solace. I eventually enveloped myself in this depression like a warm blanket. I hid under the covers of my illness and didn’t want to come out, finding comfort in the consistency. But, you see, Bipolar Disorder is not consistent.
Mania.
I had experienced manic episodes in the past, though I didn’t know that’s what it was. I was not diagnosed with my disorder when my first manic episode hit, and so I thought I was still experiencing life on a “normal” plane. I assumed every hard working seminary student was working multiple jobs and attending school full time. I assumed everyone in my position only slept a few hours each night. I assumed, if one was driven enough, that it was natural to have the energy to juggle a thousand responsibilities and to do them with excellence.
I was successful. Anything I set my hand to doing, I had the energy and willpower to see it done. My purpose in life was being fulfilled through my activity. I was doing everything and I was doing it well. I had no trouble at all feeling like I had a purpose.
But that state wasn’t sustainable. Eventually, I crashed. Depression struck hard and fast, and then lingered for what felt like an eternity. I thought the “success” of my previous state was a thing of the past now that I could barely keep one job and had dropped out of school. When I finally sought out help for my depression, and trial and error was proving costly in the way of antidepressant drugs, it was then first suggested to me that I may be experiencing the symptoms of Bipolar II.
In reaching back into my memory of my “successful season” I was able to pinpoint key manic symptoms, namely my sleep habits and energy levels. When that first manic episode had happened, I had plenty of activities to keep all that energy occupied. What would happen if I didn’t have my thousand-and-one responsibilities to juggle? Where would all that energy go?
Too soon I learned the answer to those questions. My warm blanket of depression was ripped from my shoulders. I experienced my first manic episode since my diagnosis in such a different way now that I was not engaged in school, multiple jobs, and my handful of other obligations. I spent my days trying and failing to talk myself down from panic attacks. All the energy in me bubbled up and spilled over into frightened tears as I clutched my arms around my ribs and rocked back and forth and back and forth again and again until the fear of my own energy subsided.
Mania.
I took me a while to call what I was experiencing “mania.” I talked all the way around calling it by this simple, albeit loaded, word. In my mind, mania was something to be embarrassed of. It meant that I was “wild” … “damaged” … “crazy”.
Those first few bouts of mania were filled with shame and fear of self. I feared my energy, and I feared those long and sleepless nights. I felt I was wicked or sinful for experiencing such extremes. Like I was doing something wrong by my mere existence.
Purpose was the farthest thing from my mind. How can someone so flawed have purpose? How could I ever fulfill a grander purpose in life when I can barely contain within my being all the “stuff” that seemed to seep its way out of my very pores.
My cycles with mania and depression are more stable these days, and because we’ve finally found the right mixture of medicines, I experience more time at a “baseline” than I do in peaks and troughs. It’s been at this baseline that I’ve started truly asking myself questions about purpose again. Namely, does my purpose change depending on what phase I’m in? Does my purpose change if I change? Am I a different person depending on my mood? How do I define myself? By my “successful” though unsustainable phase? By my warm blanket of depression? Or by my skin-crawling, leg-bouncing, panic-stricken phase? What do I see when I look at myself?
Something wild? Yes. Wild with creative energy sparking from fingertips and lips as I carefully craft words into thoughts and ideas. Wild with introspection and passion to pass on what I have learned and what I am learning.
Something damaged? Yes. It’s so easy to see the damage. The damage that has been done to me and the damage I have done… not only to others but to myself. I see my damaged, broken life, but I have grown to also see a life redeemed.
Something crazy? Yes. Even this I see. A woman crazy enough to believe she can change the world because of the Spirit which resides within her. Crazy with the desire to see hearts drawn to the wondrous Love found nailed to the cross. Crazy with hope that the Love who died also rose again from the grave, and crazy with hope that my heart will be resurrected just the same.
Wild. Damaged. Crazy. Manic. All words I have come to adopt as descriptors of self. And yet I am okay with them. These words are a part of me. Just like the symptoms that I experience are a part of my daily life. But somehow, I see a grander purpose to self despite those symptoms. Because I am not my illness. It colors how I experience life, but it does not define who I am.