It�s so hard to explain to people with normal brains, with normal reactions to events. I can be doing pretty well emotionally, chemically. And it only takes one small thing to knock it all away. You know how someone with a suppressed immune system, like someone with AIDS or going through chemo, they are especially susceptible to infection. They have to protect themselves. That�s what it�s like for those of us with bi-polar. We have suppressed emotional systems. They aren�t as strong, we have to be careful.
It�s such a hard balance. I try not to put myself out there too much because I�m too easily hurt. I�m too sensitive and telling me to �buck up� won�t do shit for me. There are too many chemicals involved. I spend my days fighting the chemical reactions taking place throughout my body so that when something really does happen, some real event, then my energy is all gone and I can�t fight it. Things that seem so trivial to other people are like �shock and awe� bombing for me, devastating the tiny mud huts of sanity I have built with such hard work.
So I can�t imagine trying to let anyone else in my heart right now. In fact, even the people who are already in, I want them out. I want an empty space in there so I can throw my marbles around and here them echo in the quiet granite shell of my heart. I�ll curl up in my little cave in the ground, like a rabbit�s warren and listen to the echo inside. Maybe the sound will be soothing and I can sleep. Eventually, these emotions may even shut down and I can be numb.
I�m not ready to talk about what happened, partly because it might seem so stupid or insignificant to people. I already had a few friends say it�s not that bad. And truthfully, it�s not, if I were someone who had a regular emotional life. If I wasn�t spending so much of my emotional energy just to get out of bed and face the day and pretend to be human. If I wasn�t spending every moment of my waking being fighting not to curl up in a ball on the sidewalk, then I might have the energy to fight these things.
But things come in, they cast a glimmer of hope in my life, and then somehow, the flame dies so suddenly, and it always waits until I�ve grasped the glimmer, held it in my hand and felt it shining in my heart. Then it burns away and I am left with an empty hand, a dark heart and a scorch mark. I really can�t keep doing this. I can�t keep believing in anything. I know more joy, more glimmers will come in the future. But they will burn out too and each one just hurts more and more. I don�t WANT to do this anymore.
This has felt like such a crappy year for me. I just needed some reason to make it through, some small bit of joy/hope, something to get excited about, to make the other crap bearable. But I don�t get to have that. Fine. Whatever. I�ll eventually get through it. I just am tired of having to get through things.
