I heard it described once as a black-and-white movie monster, pursuing you through the streets.
I would describe it otherwise.
It is a heavy haze that settles into your bones, whispering to you about the very worst things it can find within. Dormant fears, insecurities, flaws, hurts, traumas. It ushers them out of long-assembled piles where they were mercifully resting and leaving you be.
They rise up, like unbidden guests, and line up at your door.
And by the time you have invited each to tea, and heard their grievances against you you are tired.
Bone tired.
So tired that all that seems rational is to lie down and let it wash over you. The bitter cleanse of your innards. It permeates and marinates your insides.
A part of you yearns to surrender to their sweet melancholic voices.
Yet something inside you knows they are not real. They will fade away as the moods invariably change and shift. You have seen it happen countless times.
So you go on with your day.
You find relief in the nooks of routine and well-worn friendships and loves.
But when you stop and go to sit on your own, there they are. The voices telling you that you will never be able to move out from under this cloud, this weight, this sadness.
A small part of you relishes them, even, these feelings, content in the melancholic rhythms of the illness. This lyrical part finds art in the your struggle; a cross to bear. A more sadistic part wants it to be worse, so at least you can receive some pity. If only from yourself. Perhaps this dash of bittersweet romance helps you through. Do not laugh at it. Its all an ingredient in this churning soup of brain chemistry.
You know also that taking more of your medication, the one you want to wean off, will ease it. But that same baryonic hero within you says "no", I can bear even this. The pills have saved you so far, so perhaps this is unwise. You do not know. You cannot tell. Even as you write you need to fend off the daemons who tell you everywhere you went wrong, and what will go wrong still.
We paint images of them, these deamons, to embody what we feel in our body and mind. And yet all it is, is an evolving brain experimenting. Experimenting with a different way to regulate the mind and seeing if the genes will endure. I have read that Bipolar is actually an over-integration of the brain. The different sections talking to each other too much, too fast. Much like you do sometimes.
Slow your rhythm. Breathe. Let these unseemly guests stream through your door. Do not engage them in conversation, for they carry a dangerous negative bias. Do not play chess with them, for their pieces are never-ending. There is no outwitting them. Just keep going. It will pass.
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