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Life story so far.

Born. Limbs, heart, brain - all intact. Two parents, two older siblings. You walk and talk earlier than most.

 

You're aged four, undergoing all kinds of testing. Hear the word 'gifted' thrown around liberally. Fill in mazes and match patterns, have your first taste of the system. Don't be oblivious.

 

Spend your childhood sleeping through the daytime and feeding the park birds in the evenings. Read. Care. Care, but be happy unconditionally. You're already stuck in a vicious cycle " obsession/compulsion/obsession/compulsion. You know it, and you hate it. You don't realise it's a disorder, you wouldn't.

 

Watch your father die in front of you. Get evicted from the house in his sister's name. Hear your mother cry. Learn a new feeling: helplessness.

 

Grow up constantly hurt. Grow up unknowing of validation; grow up never without questioning whether or not the victimisation was self-inflicted. Press the blade of a cheap craft knife into the skin of your inner wrist, over and over and over. See the scars form, wait for them to fade. See them fade, wait for them to disappear. That day doesn't come. You are twelve.

 

Lose yourself, amongst piles of schoolwork, amongst repetition, amongst the hum of your parent's office refrigerator. Keep fighting an uphill battle. Feel yourself slipping away. Talk to that girl you see around in the mornings. Retreat to your mind. Draw. Draw, and paint, and spend every waking moment excessively over-analysing.

 

Worry. Worry a lot. Succumb to the voices that have been manifesting in your head like a cliche from a sinister B-grade horror movie. Stop rising from your bed in the mornings, stop eating. Lose the ability to hold back tears. Play with pills like death is a game; cheat it six times in a year. Accept that there is a huge fault; submit yourself to a lengthy process of altering. Sit in therapy sessions and recovery rooms and wonder why your mind is wired so differently. Go steady. Take your medications. Break. Pull yourself together. Break. Force your condition to improve. Break, again. Steal solace from remission. Break. Get institutionalised. Alienate your friends. Inhale. Blink. Exhale. Vow you'll do better.

 

Move houses for the fifth time. Change. Struggle. Take part in old routine. Do a lot of waiting.

 

Find yourself, amongst midnight drives along the harbour and painful nostalgia, amongst the open indigo sky and small speckled stars, amongst sea and sand. Touch the air. Watch the lights dance in reflections on the ocean. Leave therapy sessions and walk out of recovery rooms, and wonder how you can be 'wrong' if your issues help define you.

 

Attend a court hearing. Read Aristotle. Volunteer. Befriend homeless youths, befriend local artists, befriend activists and inpatients and every 'type' of person. Be that girl at the gigs in the flatform shoes and mod makeup, lighting too many cigarettes. Protest, take others to rallies. Stop arguing with teachers, stray further from politics and deeper into philosophy and ethics. Work. Inevitably come to the question of which you value more - money, or time. Keep writing. Elaborate on concepts that have lingered in your thoughts from age four or five. Close the chapter on an existential crisis. Close the chapter on a lot of things. Allow yourself to look forward to opening new ones. Allow yourself to feel.

 

Enroll in your high school's Literature class. Regret losing those first few classes to hypomania. Spend the mornings and the afternoons with the people you care for most. Try to make something of yourself. Falter. Fail. Try again. Make mistakes. Learn from them. Fear mediocrity, let this fear drive you. Fall down, and pick yourself up, and keep going.

Lose yourself. This time, in the eyes of a nineteen year old musician. Watch him turn twenty. Find comfort when he smiles at the paint on your fingernails. Write. Realise you don't know what love means. Accept that you'll never know. Realise you're a maladaptive daydreamer. Figure out that there's nothing wrong with this. Put those words on paper at any chance you get. Likewise, put sentiments into minds at any chance you get.

Fall asleep with pens in your hands and open windows by your side, wake up to the glimmer of sunlight and its shadows dancing on the blinds. Trust in people. Learn to trust in yourself. Tell yourself you don't need balance if you keep moving. Make this become true.

Author's Note

profoundly and utterly personal

Reviews

[Vidya Bacchus]

This is a most revealing piece.Telling of a life full of heartbreak and bravery.Our decisions and our past defines us sometimes but sometimes you rise above all the pain of the past and realize that you are fine and you survived.A very emotional piece great job and living does get better:)