ALL THE KING'S HORSES - (BIPOLAR) CONCLUSION

I continued to ponder my thoughts about Christen's creativity, and the possible roll being bipolar played.  I mulled over the events that had taken place while I visited her, reflected on her demeanor during severe depression, and her beginning stages of mania.  How could this be one person, how could she also have periods with no depression or mania, as well?  What this must do to her, how hard it must be to be her.  I was her friend, and had had no idea. 

Christen will never tell you there are times when all sensory perception is so heightened and sound magnified, that she’d like to tear her head off to gain five minutes of quiet.  You'll never notice it takes all her strength to force the pendulum
of her life somewhere close to the manageable boundaries
of middle ground.  How she lives constantly aware that at any moment she could teeter off the edge in either direction, or how exhausting her fight is.

She'll never mention the crying spells she can’t explain because even she doesn’t understand what causes them.  She’ll never tell you she battles depression to an incapacitating degree.  You’ll never suspect it, because Christen is actually one of the most positive, optimistic, most encouraging people you’ll ever meet.  That’s why bipolar depression is particularly torturous for her, it violates the very core of her personality.

Christen will never tell you that when she's working on a project for you, it's nearly killing her, or that she’s become manic in the process of getting it done.  You'll never know she'll have gone days with little to no sleep and all her creati-vity was focused like a laser beam to the point that everything else in her life disappeared.  When she's finished, you’ll never know accomplishing your project will put her to bed for days.  She would never want you to know it.

You'll never hear Christen say she feels like a disappointment and humiliation to her kids.  She'll never tell you most days it’s all she can do to just get up and do what she absolutely has to do.  Or that she can’t keep up with the things she should, and how that overwhelms her and of course, makes her feel like even more of a disappointment, to herself, if to no one else.  She’ll never complain about how sick she is of feeling like no-body understands what she’s going through, especially her family.  She isn’t looking for sympathy, just someone to get her, and not look at her with contempt and frustration all the time, to stop telling her she’s too emotional.  She’ll never tell you how being bipolar has made her feel as if she’s lost herself, like she doesn’t know who she is anymore; how she doesn’t trust herself . 

Christen will never tell you how ashamed she is that she went from being financially secure with a great job, to being unem-ployable.  From being someone who always managed money and budgets, to destroying her credit and being forced into bankruptcy because months spent in a severe manic cycle manifested itself in illogical and excessive spending sprees (a common symptom of bipolar disorder).  She’ll never tell you how alone she feels. How she's too afraid to let anyone close enough to find out she’s bipolar for fear of being rejected.

Christen will never tell you she would have rather the doctor had told her she had cancer than bipolar disorder.  She just wants her life back.  She'll work hard to conceal her alter ego.  She’ll fix her hair, put on her makeup and magic stilettos, and head out the door seemingly a confident, successful woman.  You’ll never know it's her costume, her mask. 

Christen will never tell you…

…but I will.

I hope you’re listening.