The New Normal

The lake isn’t always friendly. It is too easy to slide into the cold and simply forget. Also, the rocks could hurt. Especially when banging my head against them. So I don’t. And  I don’t take the pair of scissors out of my bag. Just my journal. A small victory.

After the first “I hate you” my pen refuses to write any further. Frustrated I chuck my journal into the water. Wonderful move. Now I have to go in anyway. And yes it is cold. It’s growing dark after a rainy day. The cold clears the fog in my mind a bit. Soaking wet I walk to Shakti. In the hot bath I cry some more. And a thought comes to mind: Maybe I should try a higher dosage.

Telling people I am diagnosed bipolar 2 and taking lithium, has gained responses such as:

• But you are wonderful!
• Surely you’re not sick, everyone has moodswings.
• When do you want to go off your medication?

Of course I would like to go off my medication: I might be able to focus again like I used to. I wouldn’t have to worry about getting into a coma when my diet changes. I wouldn’t have to worry about my thyroid, my kidneys, shaky hands, dry throat, my weight.

Still, these reactions just feed my dark side: If I am not really sick, I am cleary pathetic. If I am that wonderful, why am I thinking of hurting myself? If I depend on medication, obviously I am not trying hard enough. I have no backbone, no self-control, I am worthless.

So here I am, living in the middle of nowhere, doing everything that the textbooks recommend: Healthy diet, structure, exercise, support, plenty of sleep, nature… The things I foolishly thought would allow me to go off my meds. To be sane. Yet today I receive my special delivery: Drugs that ironically could result in mood-swings, depression and suicidal tendencies. Drugs to mellow me out. Drugs to knock me out whenever the lake is calling me.

I don’t want to take these drugs, I don’t want to up my lithium. I just want to be normal. But this is what normal looks like for me, and for many others like me. For that is another response I get when telling people I am bipolar: My father, my grandmother, my neighbor, my sister, …,  is bipolar too.Or simply: Me too.

Playing music on my favorite bench I discover the tiny autoharp-screw I lost a long time ago. Somehow it fills me with hope. If I can find this tiny screw against all odds, I might accept my own reality.

Crazy is the new normal. And using drugs beats being dead.