A Startling Evolution

Caress me golden senseless
Forging ahead, a wild fire
At least, that's how it began


I shouldn't be up this late. My body still hasn't reached a level of normalcy where being awake at 5am is okay. I should be resting. I should be. Instead, I'm writing. I'm unclear as to why I've chosen writing over sleeping, but it seems almost like an imperative. I find that if writers don't write about something, anything, their sanity begins to plummet. The same goes for any artist. If a musician does not play, if a painter does not paint, and so on and so fourth, they lose it. Well, how could they not? All art is a form of expression, a way for people to get their emotions across. If you can't do that, it eats away at you. If I couldn't write, being home would be messy. I say that because if I have nothing to occupy my time when I'm home, I have too much time to think. And that is a danger in and of itself.

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder junior year of high school. My dramatic mood fluctuations needed a name, so they were given one by the best medical authorities. Now mood swings for me submerge because of the way I perceive things. What my mind likes to do is twist and tangle "situations" until I can only see the negatives. Thus, my mood plummets. I put 'situations' in quotes because most of the time, I'm not reacting to anything major. Typically, they're minor occurrences that carry no significance. I never used to label them as minor, however. No, everything had a hidden meaning, a secret truth. They were never pretty ones either. I would analyze and scrutinize and mope and sulk. That's how life used to be.

Today, I can say with a certainty that I've improved heaps. I'm not who I once was. I'm off medication, doing well in school, and am content with where I've ended up. There are times, however, when the monster in the pool still manages to surface. I've gotten to the point where this can be tolerated without having some sort of breakdown. I can say with a certainty that that is the case.

I wonder what I'm hoping to find this time though, what truth I'm looking to expose.