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This story just goes on and on
Your son's illness is enough
to remind me of all this.
I've told you some of it before
but there is more and more.
Am I a success at being a bipolar person
or at being a person at all?
Bipolar but still a person
with the same feelings and morals
as someone with cancer, arthritis,
MS, ALS, Parkinson's,
schizophrenia and all the other victims
of everything life, DNA and
our own folly can throw
in our faces.
Victims, you might say.
God, how I hate that - "victims".
Okay, so I have felt like
a victim on occasions.
I feel it every morning
but I throw off the
blanket of victimhood
and, when I get out of bed,
I'm not a victim.
It ends there and day begins,
open for mistakes and blunders, yes,
open to feeling foolish,
to screwing up and losing it.
Oh, yes, I may lose it with someone.
Sometimes it may be justified,
done to protect myself.
We all need to do that.
Sometimes, I might feel badly
that someone got hurt by my words.
Did I over react?
Were my words too powerful?
Words are something I do well at times.
But, do you know something?
I don't have time to feel sad or selfish.
Believe me, my own feelings are quite enough
to carry, without taking on the burden
of others. They will get over it.
For most of my day, I am considerate.
Hell, I can even be kind. I give directions
when people ask and
"Excuse me" flows from my mouth,
an automatic coinage.
I smile and say "hello"
to the people I know
and there are many.
That says something.
I keep telling myself that I'm not selfish,
just slightly skewed and fearing to offend,
making social amendments, wanting to fit in,
anxious to know how best to do that.
A friend trying to do that herself,
and immersed in a 12-step program,
once accused me of denial,
said I would not admit I was sick.
Hell, I knew that I was slightly off
but I didn't have the experience I have now.
I'm not denying anything. I know
and I make mistakes and take the consequences,
just as they do, even when they're sane.
I have this opportunity to think about it.
I think this condition has given me that.
For some strange reason, I have this chance to learn.
It would be a lot more selfish to let myself fall
into chaos and complete unhappiness --
to be a victim.
It's not denial not to be a victim;
it's not denial to find ways
to live my life.
I'm sorry if that's hard on my family.
They want to help and maybe it's hard
for them not to. I can't really know.
It might be hard for them anyway
but I am the one who has to live
through this life and do the best I can.
I'm sorry if I seem arrogant and selfish.
I am trying to live my life,
just as anyone would;
anyone: silly or sensible, sick or well.
I lost my mind a few times
but I retrieved it.
I am determined to keep it.
That's not denial.
That's me, doing my best
and I'm so sorry if I hurt you.
Please don't forget one thing;
it hurts me too.
Author notes
I realized as I continued typing this poem today (Sept. 17) that maybe I am guilty of closet omniscience. That is what a very good psychiatrist I used to talk to called it when someone is constantly worrying that they may have had a bad affect on others. What makes me think I am that important?
"Closet omniscience." The thought of it gives me another worry. Do I have the right meaning? Google may provide the answer.
Google may be guilty of closet omniscience here; I may look again.
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Another thought occurs to me. This story has made for such an interesting life at times.
Am I really disabled? But then that leads to all those questions. What is disability? Etc.
Definitions, anyone?
- People with Disabilities group list • next in list
Let me know what you think of this.
Comments
1 - 18 of 18
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bi-polar is simply a dis- ease
that many were born with...that's it.
History reveals many Presidents, Artists, Musicians,
and wise biblical men and women
were bi-polar and still lived wonderful lives
learning to live
and understanding those moments
of dis ease.
ears/Seattle
meds really help-when you find the
right combination that is acceptable
to your peace of mind.
thank gawd for meds and the many
millions were simply born
with something called....bipolar.
LOVED YOUR POEM!
WELL DONE!
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This is interesting, I have been diagnosed by some as bi polar, but I never have been sure if I really fit there. Some others seem to think it is all PTSD, there could be underlying neurological conditions, etc. etc. Some parts of this I can identify with, I currently am in a total state of lost choas and wondering if anything can be retireved at all... and wonder constantly if I am selfish for wanting to find a way to be happy, or if I am awful for being so consumed with my own problems.
As for closet omniscience, my personal interpretation for that word would be one who is hiding in the dark, unaware that they DO know exactly why they are going through, feeling, suffering, knowing why they do what they do... but just can't force themself to see it. I think to a degree we are all guilty of that. Hell if I know what the technical meaning would be, but that is what it made me think of...
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Great comment! I don't believe for one moment that you are selfish though I've had those thoughts about myself and still do. Surely, it's not selfish to try to have the best life you can and try to make the best of things. There is certainly some chaos that comes and I hope you get through it. It's a struggle, inevitably.
Thank you for commenting.
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Powerful
A very detailed and honest write. So very well written. Thank you for sharing
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Hi Judith, I have missed your input.
Well, this is very good and I know you have much more to say on the subject.
"Excuse me" flows from my mouth,
an automatic coinage."
These are my very favorite lines in this poem. I, too, am almost pathologically( ?)polite but it's because that was the way I was raised and because I believe in my heart that courtesy is the oil that lubricates the social machine. And,food for thought, we are in very good company. Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, and many other people who have strugggled with both depression and manic depression (a term I still use for bi-polar disorder because I'm a writer and therefore like words to be descriptive of what they are talking about). I have a particular dislike at the moment for words like denial and disease. I am working on an essay at the moment called "Sitting in Circles" which concerns what I call," the Judicial/ Pharmacuetical/Rehab Complex.In closing I would say that the most creative ideas in any field are produced by those of us who are blessed not only the ability to "think outside of the box" but also the urge to climb out of the damn thing alltogether.
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"Closure" is my all time most detested word of the kind you mention, followed closely by "denial"
I'm glad you liked my piece. Keep your eyes open for irregular addtions.
Thank you for commenting. Oh, I especially liked what you said about "climbing out of the box." I just can't seem to help doing that!
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An interesting feeling of poetic expression. Makes me wonder if a man with one eye can only see half as much as you and I.
Happy trails.
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Yes, I know what being bipolar is like. I also suffer from acute ADHD. It is easy to 'lose it' on many occasions. I'd like to say that I've mellowed with age...but I can't.
Great poem.
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Thank you. It can certainly be a struggle. There do seem to be a lot of us out there these days.
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Oh, Judith!
Who is to judge? This struck me as h.eart-rending. You always seem to pass the main yard-stick for a successful human -- laughing at my jokes, and just occasionally, gently putting me right.
One cannot know what a thing like that is, without experiencing it -- but I would have thought the same rules apply to other disabilities -- not being sorrowful about what one cannot, or feels unable, to do, and doing what one can; and remembering that the whole world wonders about the same question.
e
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You are right but I think the world does put judgements on people who are different in some way. Hard sometimes not to avoid feeling sorrowful but of course you are right (again!!), that everyone probably DOES have shortcomings they feel, well, inadequate about.
There will be a long section coming up later, not sure when.
Thanks for comments and kind words. -
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Thank you, Judith
But on reflection, I see that if feeling sorrowful, so to speak, is part and parcel of the condition, it is meaningless to say anything more than 'Try your best!' which I don't suppose is much help.
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At times I do feel sad and...yes, I do feel angry, though I may be one of the fortunate ones. High functioning, it's called. I may be one of those people who would never be satisfied anyway, and it is actually hard to imagine NOT being the way I am.
"Try your best" is actually quite good advice and that is what I am doing, to manage the condition (and I don't do too badly) and do other things as well. Lately, I am thinking I'd like to make more money so I can get my apartment fixed up. We are in an old building which is being restored. How old? 1910, which you won't think is old at all!
Life is interesting, no matter what, I think. -
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Oh yes!
I know what it is to have a house gradually falling down...but I am too mean to have it put right. I think mine is 1888, so not much different.
You know I forget what brilliant insights i have shared with different people on AP (also IRL), so forgive me when I repeat myself.
It is just that I have an idea that man-kind may once have had a need for people with what we now see as disabilities. Thus, one can imagine that people on the autistic range were especially valuable. They might sit around in cave-man days, sorting things out. Different woods, different stones, different plants even. Only when things had been so categorised, could some other bright spark come along and notice that the flints and irons could, literally, make a spark, or discover some other property, impossible to do until categorisation. Even, one might guess, the wild defence of what they were doing, enabled them to carry on doing it, without interference.
What about bi-polar? Well, I recall reading in the Sagas about men who were known as Berserkers. Not very polite! But is it possible that society needed people whose anger was easily roused either to protect the settlement or indeed to police it, yet who were apt at other times to do ordinary things, or perhaps to think outside the box?
Just idle thoughts
edward -
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I have a similar theory about ESP, mental telepathy in particular, and I think bi polar people are useful NOW.
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Judith
Yes, badly put by me. I had intended, with a few elegant phrases, to arrive at the present and suggest that, even if one could not say bi-polar is especially useful to society in this or that way, nevertheless, we do not know what society's needs are in full' or will be. Unfortunately, I went on so long, I lost the point
e and bed!
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oh i so relate to this one you nailed it all right here dna and all the heiredotory stuff thats passed down very cool and deep work
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Thank you, Glenn. Like the picture!
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