Sans Meds

I've been told that this bipolar thing didn't happen suddenly. I've spent years living with the symptoms that are like....well....like my personality. According to the experts, hyperness is a symptom. They say I'll feel better, but never be better. That I have to take medication for the rest of my life. Can you imagine?

There's no blood test, no x-ray or CT scan, no MRI....nope. They ask me questions. I answer to the best of my recollection and there you go....I am the fine new owner of a mental illness.

Have I had pyschotic episodes? Yep....or I just have an in with, you know.....the "other" world that you don't get to see. You have to be special to see it. You know...like me.

I digress.

Wanting to learn everything is a symptom. So is wanting to write everything, restlessness,racing thoughts, insomnia, pacing, standing outside in storms....all symptoms of my manic states. So what's left that is me?

I've tried to find out with the medication. And then I'm in limbo, in the land of the mundane getting fatter and lazier as these drugs wreck my body to save my mind. I feel like I need a t-shirt that says, "failure to thrive". The drugs keep me from thinking what my brain wants to think. I wonder how soon a bipolar brain sans meds begins to make up its own rules. I wonder if I'll notice.