Someone Like Me

I sort of know this person who is also BP 1. She is actually a person from my past. I haven't seen her since she was a little girl, but we are connected through family so I hear about her frequently. She is going through a lot right now, and she is constantly in my thoughts and prayers.

I am not entirely certain of the circumstances surrounding her current suffering, but I know her road is very painful and exhausting right now. I long to be able to help her somehow, to be able to make a difference for her. From what I have been able to gather, she sounds very tormented, very alone. There are many people who love her and are trying their best to help, but I don't know if she is at the point where she knows how to receive that help. I understand how that is. I don't know what I could possibly do or say for this woman, but her pain is put upon my heart as sure as my own has been at times.

Wandering through the darkness of this disorder is terrifying. You don't understand what's going on around you, what's going on inside your own head. You can't trust yourself, so you certainly can't trust anyone else. There's no way to reach out because you can't articulate what it is that you need. You pick fights with people you love without knowing why, yet you are unable to help yourself. Everything is so intensely personal and once that fire is lit, every word fans that flame and the next thing you know you are a wildfire burning out of control. You want to pull back, you don't want to hurt anyone, but you are so far gone... To be honest, it actually feels good to set everything and everyone around you on fire, even if the real you inside is horrified at what you are doing. The illness just becomes bigger than you are--it takes over and you quickly shrink back and become a tiny observer to the destruction it causes.

That's the hardest part to understand. We are swallowed up by Bipolar. When we have flares, we are consumed by the illness and our real selves become dormant. We become tiny witnesses to our own lives, while the illness controls us. We are not in charge. We're in there, but helpless to do anything to immediately regain that control. If I could try to make a non-Bipolar understand even a modicum of what we experience, it would be to imagine what it's like to be a hostage. The only flare where we feel a sense of self-possession is during a mania (unless it's a delusional or hallucinatory episode). We feel engaged, vibrant, alive! This is, of course, an illusion. We are just as out of control, if not more so.

My friend, for lack of a better term, may or may not be accepting of her diagnosis. She may or may not be compliant with her treatment plan. These are things on which I am not entirely clear or informed. Something is preventing her stability, and for some reason it affects me deeply. I am sure it is because I identify with that--and I remember her as the little girl she once was. I want to hold her hand and play with her hair like I used to do. I want to go back to a time when life was so much easier for the both of us; when neither of us had to feel this shared pain and agony that has been thrust upon us. Having been her babysitter when we were young, I think I want to take care of her again in a way. To lead her and let her know that things can and will be ok. That it's alright to lay down when she needs to rest, that when she can't keep slogging along, it's ok to sit down for as long as she needs. That when she's ready to try to stand up, she doesn't have to pick up all her burdens at once, but just a little at a time. To slowly build a structure that works for her and to let her know there is enough time in the world to do that. There's no hurry, it's not a race. Yes, it's a fight and some days it will take it all out of her, but the only way to win the fight is to be very well rested and prepared.

I doubt that I will ever have the chance to help, but I will continue to pray for her. She will never be far from my thoughts.