Those Quiet Moments

I'm curled up in the corner of the sofa, a blanket spread across my lap and a mug of hot tea beside me. It's 10:00am on a Thursday and the kids are in school, my husband at work. Aside from the sound of the laundry tumbling in the dryer, it's silent in the house. I pick up my book, read a couple of paragraphs and then set it down because I can't focus on it. I open up my computer and pull up the writing I began months ago, hoping that I can lose myself in the words and yet, nothing happens; my fingers...

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Finding My Voice

Every morning I look in the mirror. What I see is no surprise. I see a woman – a mom, a wife, a person. I don’t see a disease, a label or the stigma associated with my illness. I’m just an ordinary girl. To those who know me, my illness is no surprise. I don’t usually go announcing it to every person that I come into contact with, but if it comes up in conversation – there is no secret. I will talk about the fact that I have bipolar disorder. I will share events that have happened in my life with...

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Getting Back to Normal - Routine

I was High Functioning. Every day I woke up and went about business as usual. Usually that meant waking up the kids and getting them out the door and on their way to school, going to work myself, coming home and making dinner, running the kids to various sports/clubs and coming home again to spend some time with my husband. It was chaotic and there was no stability. There was no routine and yet I stormed through it, functioning as best as I could at the time. It wasn’t all roses though. My moods,...

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Getting Back to Normal - Self Care

For the past two-three weeks, if you asked either myself or my husband how I'm doing we would probably tell you that I'm doing okay. And that is the simple, least complex way to describe it. Okay. The more complex version is a little more like this: I'm feel like I'm in a tough spot right now... perhaps even a little bit tougher than when I'm not doing well at all. To begin with, my mood has come up quite a bit. I'm not manic, nor am I in the darkest pits of depression that I was in... most days...

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Unmasked

Right now, in the present moment I feel naked and I feel vulnerable. All through out the various stages of my life and specifically during my time with mental illness I have had a safety net of sorts - walls that I built up to keep people out, a mask that I wore so that nobody ever saw the real me.  It was my comfort.  It helped me function.  As long as I was wearing my mask I was a normal, happy, healthy woman. I was a mom of four, a devoted spouse, a hard worker, a creative...

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The Fight.

I’m in a dark, mirrored room. It reminds me of something you would see on television, an interrogation room of sorts. There are only two things in the room. The first is me. I’m anxious and I can feel my heart throbbing in my chest painfully as I glance towards one mirrored wall. I don’t know why I’m in this room, what’s going on. But that’s not what’s bothering me. The second thing in the room is a long table with several objects strewn across the top. I immediately recognise every item there...

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