Elis de Guerre

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.

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.”

I walked away from two long-term relationships (and two picked-out-but-not-purchased engagement rings) because of my resolve that I would only marry once. Then I met my future husband John* in the course of my internship at his publishing company...

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.

Last week, my mother came home from work, found the shower faucet leaking hot water, and told me to "get my head out of my cunt, and start thinking about other things."

The first step isn’t to admit I have a problem. I don’t.

I never wanted children. When other little girls were playing with dolls, I played with stuffed animals. Even when I played house, my home was filled with plush puppies.

[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?

I have not been single during this time of year since 2005, my senior year of high school, and now, as a 27-year-old woman, I look into the next month or so of global celebration and see...nothing.

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.