“Lean into the sharp points and fully experience them. The essence of bravery is being without self-deception. Wisdom is inherent in (understanding) emotions.”

Prior to beginning to recover from bipolar, I had this image of people who weren’t off their rockers. I had this idea that you were all sweetness and light, that your days were centered and peaceful, quiet, without the upheaval of moods and fair weather brains.

How wrong I was.

You all have bad days too, don’t you? Cranky days, mad days, sad days. You have these, but without the depths that accompany mine when I’m off meds. Last night, I was upset about something, but stopped to note that while I was upset, I wasn’t depressed. I was just, well, upset, like many of you can be sometimes.

Being upset, and not feeling it to my core, is a new thing. I’m used to emotion being accompanied with self loathing, flaring rage, suicidal thoughts. I’m used to being able to wrap myself in my cloak of “oh well, if it gets REALLY bad, I’ll just kill myself.” Now-I gots nothin. I’m alone and barren, stripped of my armour. Sometimes I miss it, despite it being so heavy I could barely move.

It’s such a novel thing, to feel how everyone else feels, to be happy just because I’m happy, without question my motives or beating myself up for daring to be happy. I’ve felt like this for so long, even back to childhood, that this is refreshing, this newness, this clean air that surrounds me.

Taking Lithium, one of the things I was so scared of, is turning out to be one of the best decisions I ever made. (Discounting the sudden bloated stomach of course). But this newness is scary. It’s a large beast that I’m frightened to go near some days, because the simplicity of the emotion, the crystalline clarity of the sadness, the overwhelmingness of irritation with other people-it’s a lot after the complexity I was conditioned to accept.