Alone with my Thoughts on a Monday Morning.

A poem in the point of view of someone with bipolar disorder.

At Home Alone with My Mind on a Monday Morning.

By, Paige Swearingen

 

Have you ever lied in bed unable to move?

Have you ever felt your knees buckle and your soul ache at the very thought of moving one inch of your entire body?

You’re a human being, you are skin, and bones and a soul wrapped into one, but it feels like you’re dying and you can’t figure out why.

Fear paralyzes you. Thinking about your day makes you want to vomit and you don’t want to think about it because if you vomit you must move from the corner of your bed and tilt your head a little to the left and it feels like that little effort may break you.

So, you try to shut the thoughts down, because the thoughts make you crazy, and no you’re not crazy you’re normal.

You’re just a troubles teenage girl going through a tough time and you can’t control that.

So you work up the effort to grab your phone from your nightstand and you feel like you might die because now the feelings are rushing back.

And you want to push them away, and oh you so badly just want to be normal.

You want to be 12 years old again playing a Twilight board game with your soon to be step dad, drinking Dr. K without a care in the world. Because you haven’t quite yet learned what s**t the world is, and your mind hasn’t quite yet turned against you.

You dig deep and find the energy to send a text

    “I can’t get out of my bed I think I might die” send.

           “I know it’s hard, just get out of bed and take a shower and go to school you’ll feel better.”

Tears swelling in your eyes, lump in your throat you manage to get out bed.

It shouldn’t be this hard, it shouldn’t be this hard to move.

The shower is hot, surrounding your cold naked body with warmth and comfort.

Standing is too much now, so you fall to your knees and cry, and wonder how you ever got this way.

I used to make fun of people that couldn’t get out of bed. I’d look down on them for “being lazy” “it’s life everyone has to do it.”

But now you have to do it, and nobody is going to help you, it’s you, you have to help yourself.

You dry off, and head into your room to get dressed. You can do it.

But instead of doing it you lie naked on your bedroom floor crying, holding back vomit, wondering how the f**k someone like you got this messed up.

You used to say you could do anything, and you believed it.

And now getting out of bed is a battle, and saying words is a war, and everyone wants an answer. Everyone needs an answer.

Your mom wants an answer, your counselor wants and answer, and by god your best friend needs an answer she deserves one.

But you have no answers. You have pain and anxiety and you always joked about “crippling depression” but now you’re crippled by your own mind and suddenly the jokes aren’t so funny anymore.

Being trapped inside of your own mind is a certain kind of hell. Wishing the bad thoughts away isn’t always successful and “hoping for the best” isn’t always the best.

And you’re not your best, you’re at your worst. And there’s nothing you can do about except feel through the pain.

No amount of alcohol, or drugs or boys are going to numb you from this no matter how many times you’ve tried.

You tried to shut it down, you tried the drown the feelings in things that made you a worse human and now you’ve broken trusts and relationships not only with others but with yourself and you have to learn how to rebuild them with nothing but your bare hands, and yes your hands are trembling and your body is shaking and you are terrified, f*****g terrified of your own mind.

But you have to do it, for yourself and for everything in life you ever gave a damn about. So please, try to find it. That hope, that answer you’ve been looking for, that shred of light that keeps you battling against yourself to find a better place, a better tomorrow, a better you.

Get out of bed.