a bipolar life
i look into your face
there is no trace
of recognition
in your eyes
and i don’t know
what gets me worse,
that you don’t know me
or how cliche
that first stanza sounds
getting right down to
the meat of the matter
we are living our lives
full of parting shots
and one-offs
no conversations had,
words left dangling,
left wondering,
as if a complete exchange
would signify,
i don’t know…
something
glb /// “…something”
Thinking on it, my brain says, “you got out of that pretty easily”. Then I get standoffish (to my own mind) “what the hell are you talking about?” Surely, he couldn’t be talking about cancer. We* chose invasive surgery over chemo and even with the enormous physical cost to me, all the margins were clean and I did not need to have chemo or radiation treatments. I just needed to heal. It was only a short while before I could get back to work, and another before I resumed somewhat normal daily activities.
I know that my experience has been different than many, many others. I consider myself extremely fortunate. But, my opinion is completely different than that . I got through it, yes. I’m still alive today, yes. I still have pain in the area of the surgery. I think what I “suffer form” now is remorse that I beat that thing, and in a smaller amount of time.
After that period of recovery I started treatment for depression. It was 19 years later that I was diagnosed with Bipolar II Disorder (BPD). So, I am frequently pushing it around my head. Did the cancer cause BPD? There is, of course, not any way to know. There have been some experiences in my life that make me think that BPD has likely been with me for a long time. I know that the diagnosis was later in life for me. There are, however, some things that happened in the years leading up to the diagnosis that might be seen as evidence of BPD. So here’s the question I’ve been asking for a while.
Can a trauma cause BPD, or any other disorder or mental issue?
*We is actually my father. He’s the one who, while I was under, communicated with the surgeon and decided to go the aggressive route. Keep going until the margins are clean. Virtually ensuring that chemo and radiation would not be necessary.
I am raked across the pit, but I’m not burning. This fire has gone out, no one has tended to it for a long while. I am left to grapple with the hardened logs where my fire used to exist. They only scrape and char with every hand hold I try to get. Barking out the dust with every breath, stretching and straining against the dark. I can see where I need to go, it’s getting there that provides the pain.
I seem to find myself here, or someplace close to here when it happens. I seem to find a way out every time. It’s different every time. But I don’t expect to win, every time, any hope I have is dashed against something ominous. I can’t tell myself that it will pass, that only serves to make it worse, longer or darker or both.
So, I wait. I weather and wait. Learning more every time. Not quite getting it, until I do. And that is where everything comes together or comes apart.
Now I am just rambling and wavering and I should stop.
It’s just not as easy as “pulling yourself up and soldiering on”
It’s not about excuses. No doubt, I struggle, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. There are things I can point to, of course. But given all the experience I’ve had, I find myself worried at times. I don’t always recognize what’s going on, especially where Bipolar depression is involved. I’m not trying to define what it is. I’m just hoping to understand what it is in me. I can say that I feel as if I am surviving but I can also say that I wish surviving was better than it is.
who has the space to carry other people’s choices
i have them violently spinning around my head
in opposition to my own private gyroscope
i perceive them as more important
i let them push their way in and as mine go crashing out
i am diminished, even as i am trying to convince myself
that i am somehow more because i am allowing myself
to be lessened
glb /// “lessened”
i don’t want to be lucky
i don’t want the big prizes
the silly balloons falling
or even the gigantic check
instead i want anonymity
to be overlooked
a number five on the chart
medium in the world of extar-large
i would rather go about my day
move along, “nothing to see here”
feel happy, but just happy enough
i can
pay my bills on time
have a little left over “for me”
once a week take a cab instead of the bus
so don’t expect much
you get what you see
i’m ordinary wrapped
in a plain brown bag
i’ll just sit here on the couch
watching re-runs of csi
waiting for my 11 o’clock
bed time
there’s nothing remarkable about
the things that i do
the music i like
the books that i read
me
glb /// “bipolar dream”
i wanted that life,
two of us being and doing
two of us things
that roller-coaster
has only two seats, side by side
there’s a reason it’s called
a love-seat
snuggled together watching
a terrible movie
but as it worked itself out
that life ended before it
ever got the chance to begin…
i still do two of us things
hoping to catch the smallest glimpse
of how it might have been
trying to prove to myself
there is two of us room
in my solitary world
glb /// “two of us”
light in my closed eyes feels red
brings words pushing through my lips
yelling at the light to stop shining
i can’t get you off of my taste buds
you enchant the word with your every move
abracadabra i wanna reach out and
spin you around until stardust flies
out of your eyes and onto my table
where i can write your name then
puff it away to fly out to the universe
where the sun will never stop shining
and your radiance will never stop
making my closed eyes feel red
glb /// “closed eyes”
i bleed my feelings up and
down this street, they don’t
splash or stain or run down
the gutter, they are all internal,
weighing heavy on my heart,
where your hands and tears
make it nearly impossible
to take a breath, you have to
come back, it’s your job to
rein me in, to clean me up
and turn me back into the
one you love
glb /// “i bleed feelings”
i was mad at you
for not being her,
that was unfair
i couldn’t split myself
in two, to be with
both of you
when my shaking hand
turns out the light
i long for a dream
to bring me
the right answer
but there is nothing
right
and nothing
wrong
because she is gone
from this world
and you are
gone from me
glb /// “gone from me”
going sideways 