Losin' My Sight, Losin' My Mind....

ChaosKitty started a blog today. She took some old posts from another blog she was writing a couple of years ago and migrated them over to her new one, then wrote a brand-new post. I'm glad she's doing it because I know how much it helps you get better. It's no substitute for meds, mind you, but it helps, having a place that you can say what you need to say without fear of repercussions.

Anyway, she put up this post about being bipolar today, called Brain Dragons. It's certainly more insightful and poetic than anything *I* could've come up with, and I encourage you to follow her if you've come here looking for insight on being crazy, or if you're just curious about this person called ChaosKitty whom I talk about so much. You know...the one who leaves notes that make me smile on my bathroom mirror for me to find every morning (afternoon) when I get up for no other reason than because she wants to. (Today's was "Top Five Reasons Why Everyone Loves You.")

Anyway, I encourage you to read her Brain Dragons post, for sure, before you start reading this drivel I'm about to spew forth.


After reading her post about bipolar, I decided I'd stop whining about how much my life sucks for a minute to try to describe the way I experience it. Admittedly, it's very similar to ChaosKitty's description, but there are some differences. So, anyway, here goes.


A lot of people say that being crazy is just a part of you, but I don't think that's true. In fact, I think anybody who's been genuinely mentally ill, rather than just self-pitying and attention-seeking, will tell you that.

I told ChaosKitty once that I understood why they used to think that crazy people were possessed by the devil, back before they understood what mental illness was. I know that, technically, we crazies just have something in our brains that's defective, but it hardly feels that way.

To me, bipolar is a separate entity. In my head, there is Bunny, and then there's bipolar. It's not even Bunny's bipolar because that in some way insinuates that I allow it to be there, that I invited it there and don't mind the fact that it takes up residence like somebody's nosy old relative. There is Bunny, and there's the bipolar. They are separate entities, and they are always at odds with one another.

It's like I have a demon inside me. This demon is stealthy. He's crafty. He avoids capture. He does his best to keep others from knowing he's there at all. He takes control of my body and my mind and makes them do things; then in the aftermath, he runs into the shadows to hide and lets Bunny take the fall for whatever it is he did.

He rarely shows himself for what he is. He is adept at making it seem like Bunny is just an asshole or Bunny is self-destructive or Bunny is cruel and selfish and lazy. He knows how to hide and set Bunny up to be the fall girl for him.

And, worst of all, he fights all Bunny's attempts to control him. He fights to sustain himself, like a dying fire gasps for oxygen from all corners and roars back to life at the first gust of wind. He tells Bunny things like, "You'll always feel this way," or "There's no point in taking your medicine because it won't help you," or "They're all out to get you, so don't trust any of them."

And he is perfectly willing to destroy Bunny in order to live himself.

Don't think for a moment he's dead. He's not. He's locked pretty safely away, but he could get crafty and burst free at any time. So if I sometimes act as if I'm living on borrowed time, it's because I am. But one way or another, I won't lose. I may not win, mind you...but he won't, either.