(Hypo) Mania and Mental Health

It’s five a.m. and I’m sitting on the couch, lamenting the fact that I can’t sleep – although I typically love to sleep in as late as possible… today I’m not tired. Later on in the day I listen to myself as I talk to a friend, telling a story and laughing and joking around. I notice the stutter in my speech – the way that my brain is moving faster than my lips can keep up. My words are skipping out of my mouth, fast as they tumble forward almost at a speed too quick for my friend to catch. When...

Read more »

Beautifully Broken

I used to believe that I was defective, incapable of obtaining and keeping the same things that supposedly normal people liked to flaunt as though that was the definition of success. By all measurements to western society… I was a failure… broken marriage, broken mind, struggling finances, lack of motivation at times, and a death wish. Broken. It’s such a powerful word with a strong sense of permanence. If something is broken, it might get fixed, but it will never be good, whole, or worthy...

Read more »

A Glimpse of the Aftermath

"Goodnight girl," I laugh as I tuck her into bed, kissing the top of her head and trying to avoid the inevitable grab that she gives me, holding my arm, my leg, or any part of my body close to her. Joking around and laughing about how I can't leave her and how I have to stay, to sleep in her bed with her. Prying her arms from around my neck, I drop them to her bed and back away, laughing some more and talking about the outfit that she has laid out on the floor for the next day, hoping that it distracts...

Read more »

Chaos, Emotion, and A Glimpse

Emotions are a tricky thing. A little over three years ago I felt okay. I was still struggling with a bipolar diagnosis and finding my own unique degree of “normal”… but I felt like overall, I was starting to get things together. Life was busy and I was keeping up – full time job, four busy kids, the entire family moving every direction with activities, and a marriage that needed work but that was dedicated. It wasn’t perfect, but I did feel like I was starting to get a handle on things – that...

Read more »

Recovery in the Quiet Times

Today I’m taking a quiet afternoon to myself. During the process of self-discovery and recovery, where I have spent hours upon hours trying to understand my own thoughts, emotions, actions, and reactions – I have discovered that I need space. I need time. I need to breathe. When my husband and I met, we were in high school. Soon after we began dating, our first son came along – followed by three more children, college, and careers. Life spiraled faster than we could see coming and we embraced...

Read more »

Two Roads to One Destination

Whispered truths. Admissions among friends with the clause that nobody can know... or requests that they don't say anything to a certain person or a certain group of people. Fear of judgement.  Fear of the unknown.  Fear of failure.  I want to say that I am stable on my road to recovery. I want to write about how I embrace myself and all the quirks that come with who I am and the way that I think, act, or feel. I want to say something profound - some truth that will...

Read more »

Labels, Labels, Everywhere

Woman. Mother. Wife. Bipolar. Borderline. Psychotic. Unstable. Balanced. Stable. Healthy. Unhinged. Wired. Manic. Crazy. Happy. Sad. Up. Down. Chaotic. Overwhelmed. Exhausted. Scarred. Incapable. Me.  As I am. It's amazing how many different words float around in my head on a daily basis - contradicting thoughts, emotions, and definitions. It isn't that I try to label myself. It isn't that I want to label myself. It just is what it is. The fear wells up in my head on a daily basis...

Read more »

To Those Who Have Stuck Around

I had always been the odd one out. Periods of isolation, enthusiasm, obsession, and short-lived friendships were normal for me. I thought it was just girl-drama – that nobody was really as close as those best friends that they portray on television. I didn’t realize or understand that my clique-jumping and inability to really get close to someone (without becoming obsessive, envious, or eventually angry) was really the early stages of my Borderline Personality Disorder rearing its head. I also...

Read more »

Precision of Language

Precision of Language. I was watching the movie “The Giver” this morning and this phrase that is repeated throughout the movie started to click with me. I have never believed that my vocabulary was inadequate, knowing that I can read, write, describe, and discuss things with clarity and precision. But as the film, which is (very loosely) based on the book “The Giver” by Lois Lowry, continued on, I began to understand that I do not in fact, always have the correct words to describe my mental...

Read more »

Simply Good

Good. It’s not usually the first thing that pops into my head when someone asks me how I’m doing. I might say it… but I don’t always mean it. Sometimes telling people that you’re not okay is even more stressful than lying – than telling them that I’m okay when I’m not. But today… today I realised that when I was asked how I was feeling – ‘Good’ was my answer and it wasn’t even a lie. I was happy, I was energetic within reason, I was feeling light - I was good. I think it’s important to take...

Read more »

The Invisible Prison

Locked inside. Like a prison – without bars. It’s almost impossible to explain. I looked in the mirror this morning – I looked for a long time. I couldn’t see anything. I mean, I could see myself. I could see that I looked… well… normal. Aside from some darker circles under my eyes from not sleeping, I appeared the same way that I always do. As the day went on I listened to myself and noted that my voice was the same… still light… still happy… still social. And it made me incredibly...

Read more »

Meds, Moods, and (Hypo)Mania

For the past several weeks, it’s been there. Lurking below the surface, hiding behind the pills and the effort and the struggle to find a new routine – one that would work for me. Every day I have faced the same fight – the same urge to let it go and take over filling me as I try to remind myself of the reasons why I can’t do that. The reasons why I have to stay in control and be obedient and keep putting in the effort. Insomnia. I’m not tired. Emotionally I’m completely drained...

Read more »

Amid the Quiet and the Darkness

I should be asleep right now. Eyes closed, mouth open, snoring softly and dreaming deeply. I should wake up in the morning rested and energized, ready to face another day, fight another battle, and smile another smile. I should be able to close my eyes without my mind racing a million miles a minute – ideas and sparks of restless energy plaguing me as a tiredness sweeps into my brain, just out of my grasp. As is typical, I laid down to rest tonight – electronics shut off, calming thoughts,...

Read more »

Let's Keep Talking

January 25th, 2017 was the annual Bell Let’s Talk day sponsored by Bell Canada to promote mental health awareness and raise money for mental health initiatives across Canada. It is a great cause and an easy way to spread the word and share stories about mental health, different statistics, and social issues relating to the world of mental illness. The only problem was that after a bombardment of posts and messages and snippets across various sources of social media – today my feed was  almost...

Read more »