Breaking the Silence

A week and a half ago, I sat in my psychiatrist’s office. Thankful that I had made it two more months since my last appointment with no sudden downturns, no sleepless nights.

But I told him I was feeling apathetic in the mornings, like it was hard to get up in time to read my Bible—it was easier to snooze my alarm until I had to get up for work. I said I would try to take my medicine earlier the night before, he nodded his head and said what I am on are the least sedative drugs in their families. He commented on the smile and sparkle in my eye I had, even though it was still morning.

Then I asked the question I had been planning to ask for weeks. “What’s the plan for long-term?” ‘Well we may tweak your medication down the line if something new comes out,’ he said, ‘but you’ll always need to be on something.’ He then confirmed the potential diagnosis of bipolar that I had been given back in October.

I wasn’t shocked by it. Naturally I hoped he might say ‘I think you just had a season of depression, we can try to wean you off things and see how it goes.’ But the more I view certain seasons of my life through the lenses of a bipolar diagnosis, the more some things make sense.

I’m definitely still learning how to live with my medicated self. There are still moments I feel like the “real me” is a bit lost in a haze. There are things about the pre-2018 me that I still miss. Primarily, it feels like my passion for God had a big bucket of water dumped on it….I haven’t really prayer journaled or had an amazing quiet time for weeks/months. And I miss it. I miss feeling Him the way I used to sometimes.

The doubt tries to creep in. Those moments when I felt the Spirit whispering truth into my heart, was that just hypomania? Was I deceiving myself? Will I ever be able to experience that again while stabilized on medication?

A friend shares a blog by an author with bipolar. It is her story which drives me to write today again, because in her story I see my own.

“I clung to my enlarged capacity and imagined how different my life would be if it remained. This hypomanic thrust of energy makes me believe I am the woman I was created to be. I see God. I am unafraid. This is the hardest part of bipolar. Knowing it can’t and won’t last. That the meds will bring me back to some kind of salvific ordinary and if I refuse them, I know the descent into madness too.”

Alia Joy, http://aliajoy.com/the-fluency-of-hope/

After a full year of not fully knowing or trusting myself, after more roller coaster ups and downs than I can count, I am thankful for the new combination of medications I’m on that have helped me to function “normally” these past four months. And yet it’s a new normal, not quite like the old normal. I’m still trying to find my way…still trying to find what’s next after 2018 stripped me away from the place where I had made my adult home.

My normal now seems so very ordinary—so very rhythmic. Get up & go to work—change diapers and feed cereal and enjoy nap time and love Baby V; workout & go home to dinner or maybe to an evening activity. I live for the weekends and payday as they both give a break to my routine. I’m working on meeting more people. I’m working on community. But it’s not always easy, not for an introvert like me.

“These days I go back and pull from my writing, my memories, and try to remember the world as I once experienced it. It’s more muted now. Calmer. There is less meaning in everything. The regularity of life has replaced the roller coaster. It feels more like a slow ferry ride, chugging steadily through thick and murky waters. There is a mundane element that I am learning to embrace, the ordinariness of chopping vegetables for stew. Walking the dog. Adding paper towels to the grocery list. The feel of my pillow beneath my head with no rambling thoughts to pull me from sleep and taunt me.
But there are sacrifices to surviving. I know this now. This disease costs you something whether you stay sick or you get well. Because who am I if I am not bipolar? What parts of my disease were a broken brain and what parts are me, the me I’ve always known?”

Alia Joy, http://mudroomblog.com/when-i-am-bipolar/

Baby V’s cry breaks the silence of the house, and it’s time to go back to nanny-mode. With no answers found, no breaking of the clouds, no voice from heaven. But in voicing these things, even here, I’m letting my mind voice itself to God. I know and believe that He hears & sees & knows & answers—in His time & will, and for His glory.