bipolar

One of the added joys of having schizo-affective disorder is along with the schizophrenic symptoms, you have mania and depression. It's funny, a fellow peer support specialist and I were talking about mania and how its like "pinky and the brain." If you've ever seen the cartoon, you know that "the brain" is always plotting to take over the world, but always thwarted somehow, but still believes in his intrinsic genius. My colleagues call this "grandiose thinking." It's serious when it's happening, scary in hindsight. But, after you get a little wellness under your belt, it's funny. And, if you've ever watched the cartoon, you know what I mean. But, this condition is a bit too scary to put into a poem, at least for me.

I communicate my feelings and thoughts in poetry a lot. (this you know by now). This is how i communicate the feeling of depression:

depression (maximum strength)

the lights are out
i
am sitting
in the middle of the room
crouched
on the floor
numb/uncomfortably/naturally
i am not moving
i
do not want to move
it is a task to breathe
i cannot produce tears
the silence is deafening
i cannot leave
i will stay here
for the rest of my life
i
think
-jaa


You don't control when one starts and ends. Neither end of the spectrum is your personality, although you think so when the emotions are occupying your brain. So, this is what I wrote about this brain disorder as a whole:

bipolar

ever do a see-saw
on the other end of a person
so big and powerful
you were up and down
at their whim?

try walkin through
life
at the mercy of
whimsical emotion
turnin your face on a divide
called fear

a sing-song mary
turns into
a majestic princess
turns to a
fairytale hatred queen
and leaves a skeleton
-jaa

This disorder can wreak havoc in someone's life obviously. And when you pair it with voices, well, you can imagine. I have been fortunate, or perhaps unfortunate, in that I never articulated what I was thinking when I was ill. The voices told me to speak in allegories. I still made some really dumb choices, but they were harmless, just embarassing in retrospect.

I have been working on a fiction novel for quite some time. I had to put it down for a year. I couldn't handle it at that time. I gave the heroine of the book my delusions and psychoses that I never articulated and when I stared at it on a page, it scared the hell out of me, literally. I saw how far "out there" I had gotten during those years. It is a miracle, a modern day one, that I ever got back. I thank God for bringing me back daily.
What else can I say?

in earnest,
jacquese