I’ll always love you
HOW BIPOLAR DISORDER AFFECTS MY RELATIONSHIP WITH MYSELF
By Kendra Monmouth
(Михаил Секацкий / Unsplash)
At some point in our lives we all have rocky relationships with ourselves. It usually happens in the high school stage of our life, as far as I know, but it can really come at any point, right? For example, my first real rough patch with myself was at about 15 years old. There are still days when I’m not my favorite person to be around. I’ve been in therapy for about 5 years for my bipolar diagnosis and a lot of times it feels like couples therapy. A lot of really listening to what I’m feeling and what I’m saying in my head. I’m still learning how to acknowledge the fact that I’m human and we historically don’t always get it right.
One of my biggest issues is validating my feelings and my flaws. I have always tried to hide the fact that something is wrong. “It’s not their issue to worry about. It’s mine,” was my justification. The lie I told myself to keep me contained. Looking back, the amount of pressure I put on myself to be more than a human is meant to scares me. I didn’t allow myself to feel, to breathe, to live and enjoy life at an age when that’s what you’re supposed to do, when what you’re doing is trying to find yourself. I was ashamed of myself because I thought I was broken. I thought I could hide it forever and keep playing the part of happy girl in happy world. It’s hard to play a part that you don’t truly understand. I didn’t know happiness and I didn’t think the world was a happy place.
We, myself and I, have good days and bad days. The bad days are when I call myself stupid for 20 minutes for not knowing how to spell convenience. The good days are when I’m down for the count, the universe is kicking, and I stand in my corner and say, “You made it 10 years more than at your worst you planned on, so why stop now?” I let myself breathe. I go, “Yeah this isn’t fun and I’m not particularly happy right now, but maybe one day I will be.” May not seem like the best pep talk, I know, but this way I have something reasonable to look forward to and can’t be let down. There are going to be days that suck and given my past I’ll find some way to take it out on me, but I’m working on it. There will also be days that are amazing and that if I did give up before I experience them I’d regret it.
I’m not a perfect person. No one is. We all, however, have an amazing person stuck to us for a lifetime. That’s ourselves. Some days I’ll get on my nerves because I’m awkward and I overthink the way I say hello and smile at someone when I walk past. Then there are days when I think that’s actually a little adorable. I can hate the way my thought processes work, but I love the result when it’s on paper. I get lost in the chaos of my own mind sometimes, I get stuck on where I’ve been and not where I am or trying to get to a lot of the times. Then, I allow myself to stop, drop the act and truly feel. I give myself permission to just be. That girl, the one that I let be authentically human, is the reason I keep going and I absolutely love her.
This piece was written and shared during the IDONTMIND Writing Workshop. Learn more about our free, nine-week course and be the first to know about the next workshop here. Visit Mental Health Connecticut’s YouTube channel for a video version of Kendra’s story.
Kendra Monmouth is a Halsey fan who enjoys writing and loves any take on the Alice in Wonderland stories.
