peaces of me

Two weeks ago, I started tracking my mood. It’s part of the diagnosis process (since cyclothymia requires certain symptoms for two or more years, and this therapist doesn’t know me well. because my best one died. alas.) as well as a way for me to better feel my feelings. To process them as they happen, or at least sooner than the next implosion.

It’s f*cked me up.

Do you understand how challenging it is to see your feelings in front of you? To name them, to write them on a blank sheet that can’t take them away no matter how many times you ask?

To see “tired” almost always, “anxious” or “sad” or “depressed” consistently, and “happy” marked in only 19 of 244 boxes? Only 19.

I feel broken. But I understand. I know my story.

...

Mary Lambert released a new album on November 15th. I spent that Friday at work crying in my cubicle, hoping nobody popped in or heard me. I cried because I felt heard as I listened. I felt seen and I watched. I felt.

Mary Lambert's website

I’ve listened to her music since 2011. I’ve gone through breakups with her cry-songs in the background (is my life a movie?). I’ve danced to her happiness. And I identified with Secrets, the song that opens with “I've got bipolar disorder.” I screamed it. Nobody heard me.

It’s still my anthem. But a new release follows the rhythm of my heart — I swear.

*rather than type the lyrics, listen to Not Ready to Die Yet*

Did you feel it? That was my heartbeat. I feel it too, and I want that to continue. 

But sometimes it’s hard. Many of you likely don’t know what I mean. I love that for you. I appreciate that some humans weren’t born with chemical imbalances & a dark curtain in the brain that can’t be pulled back everyday. I admire that your boxes are checked “happy” more often. 

I’m learning to respect that story isn’t mine.

My story is forgiving myself for saying cruel things when I feel the need to be louder than my thoughts. My story is forgiving myself for having negative, hopeless, lack-of-worth thoughts. My story is balancing the glimmers of light just right, to shine them between the waves of darkness. To create the sunrise I crave each day. I want to find peace, within the shattered pieces of me.