Why I Need to Call it Mental Illness

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My mind and body balance all aspects of me so well at times, then not. I’ll be thinking I really have it together, creatively drawing and painting, enjoying cooking and tidying and going out for walks, even liking some light socializing out in the big world. My goal is to move forward, carrying stability achieved as I accomplish and develop more skill and expression in art, as I find home activities and exercise and being in real life more natural and less infused with anxiety and need to force myself.

So, there I’ll be, pulling elements of good life for me together, and then a small piece breaks off. Maybe I’m extra tired, or maybe I get a twinge of how useless it all is, or maybe the buzz of doing gets so exciting it spins all colors into a whiteout and I can’t tell what I’m moving through. So, I stop, a little bit, joined by more bits, until I’m walled in by what I feel I can’t do, until I’m paralyzed inside, just gazing out a small window and wondering, so bitterly, why everyone else is bothering.

After a while, days or weeks, cynicism and despair once more melt away. I gather all the broken off bits and assemble them back into that good life I so want to pursue.

I don’t choose to fall away, even if it appears that way, even if it’s what I tell myself. I don’t have that kind of control over bipolar. And if I constantly accept misguided shame that it’s all my doing because I’m not doing enough, I really won’t want to be alive any longer.

That’s why I need to call what I deal with mental illness. It’s unnecessary to keep repeating that social factors or trauma or family relationships or how much money I have, or any other components also affect me. I know about those, but they aren’t the mental illness. They accompany it.

I don’t know if many people understand how painful it is to build up a life and then suddenly lose the feeling for it, the importance of it. It’s a rapid disconnect. The world may or may not exist and I’m moving in plasma full of realistic-looking things but at the edges, distracting noises and shapes pop up then disappear. I feel so flat, the world is flat, but the intensity of its coldness and distance and harsh light strikes at me like punishment.

Medication certainly lessens the prevalence and severity of these cycles. Even just knowing my psychiatrist is on my side and aware and able to offer adjustments to treatments can be enough incentive for me to push through.

When I’ve reached a clearing, that sweet space of balance, then I can once again address issues. Then I can tighten up nutrition and moving about and putting my brushes to the canvas. I’m not looking for excuses to dump all that I value so I can sit in deep sadness and fear. I have a mental illness. It interferes despite what I do and then I need mental health professionals to intervene so we can decide together how to get me back on track.

I don’t want to keep splitting off from myself and fading away and losing my place because I’m waiting to identify and overcome unknowns from my past, or for some specified diet to kick in, or for hikes in the woods to work magic. None of that happens without first getting a handle on bipolar symptoms. None of it. It doesn’t work to try and pretend that mental illness isn’t real and sitting right here in the room with me.

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