Elis de Guerre

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

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

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.

I went to my first therapist when I was a teenager. My family was dysfunctional to the point of being non-functional. If a decision needed to be made about custody arrangements, my parents were incapable of making it without me. Instead, I was the mediator (and had been since I was a young child), speaking first to my father on the phone and then relaying the message to my mother.

It took me a long time to understand consent. I knew that forcing sex on someone was rape. I knew that one in five women would be raped in their lifetime. I knew that the majority of rape victims knew their attacker. But beyond that, my understanding got cloudy.

The Kinsey Scale test labeled me a 2, or, "predominately heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual," one notch above "equally heterosexual and homosexual."

What I objected to was the genderization of feminism, the idea that women's rights have to be specifically prioritized. If the overall end goal is equality, why bring gender into the equation?

Undoing a marriage costs five times as much as it does to tie one up with a bow, and the paperwork is even longer. I've cried so hard I've thrown up my dinner in a municipal lot, exhausted myself with memories to the point where 7 p.m. seems like reasonable bedtime, and contemplated spending my wedding anniversary alternating between taking a pair of scissors or a lighter to my wedding dress.

[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.

I live with bipolar II disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, ADHD, and complex PTSD. I take Effexor, Klonopin, Depakote, and Adderall. I knew I needed to talk to my psychiatrist about what changes I’d need to make before we could try to have a baby. The chances that none of these medications would affect a growing fetus was impossible in my mind. But I never expected what Dr. G told me.