Elis de Guerre

Raise your hand if you feel like you want to make new friends as an adult, but have no idea how anymore. Oh, good. It’s not just me.

Many people are aware of bipolar disorder. Most know it’s a mental illness that swings the brain between depression and mania. Most understand depression to be debilitating, a condition that combines sadness, despair, exhaustion, and lack of motivation. But most people don’t understand mania (which is experienced primarily by people with bipolar I) or hypomania (which those with bipolar II tend to encounter more than full-blown mania) — at least not fully.

I am 27 years old, 10 months into my marriage, and have been separated from my husband for two weeks. Consider this a letter from the trenches of impending divorce.

Why is it when we meet women that we find inspirational, capable, talented, and intelligent, we often find them intimidating instead of wanting to court and friend-date them?

[CN: PTSD, self-harm] I’m choosing this moment to remember that mental health awareness is about celebrating my victories as well as seeking medications for my biochemical imbalances.

Learning is the best thing for us, and the best place to look? The sequestered nooks, and all the sweet serenity of books.

While my estranged husband called me a “strong female lead,” and I occasionally joke about being “an independent woman who doesn't need a man,” I wish I could honestly say either of those statements felt true.

If you see me with my partner, you’ll more than likely think that I’m a straight girl in a heterosexual relationship — and there’s nothing I hate more. Being with a man seems to negate my sexuality, rendering it secret or private when I’m anything but.

t interests me that I can immediately think of the gifts of anxiety, panic, and even my spurts of agoraphobia. Being tense in body and mind, living with fear that feels real even though I know intellectually it isn’t, experiencing the migraines, chest pains and choking sensations — these aren’t things that lend themselves to my happiness.
Yet the compulsion to stay at home, brought on by edginess and unease outside, keeps me productive. Anxiety makes me communicative, even if just through electronic means. The worry about judgment pushes me to write better, to edit more thoroughly, to answer the voice in my head saying “You’re not good enough” with a defiant “Then watch me improve.”

[CN: suicidal thoughts, self-harm] Why is it OK to minimize the symptoms of a serious, debilitating, chronic condition with no cure just because it’s mental, not physical?