Tag: depression

Mental Health · Writing

One Thing

Ruby Pipes20 Comments
“Slow – Hwy 101 old growth” © Sam Bebee, 2005. CC BY 2.0.

I tell myself to do just one thing. Put clothes on. Eat something. Open up my computer and write a sentence, a word. One thing. Just one.

Then I think of how it will compound. How one thing leads to another and that’s how everything gets built. I lose track quickly of how important just focusing on the first step is. I start to zoom in on how all those little pieces will join together to make something I deem worthwhile. Then I’m not thinking about each individual part anymore. I’m thinking about the entire lifespan of the thing. Seeing the tree in the seed.

But there are seeds that never become trees at all. And trees that never soar above me. Never make me feel safe and small and powerful and insignificant all at once. Trees that turn into tables or door frames. Paper for notebooks. Trees that burn in fires. That live high in mountains, where the air is thin, and put in everything they can, but never get over three feet tall.

And I’m reminded not to get too caught up in the building. Not to cling too hard to the idea that one thing always becomes another and another. Or that it always needs to. Sometimes one thing is just that. You write one sentence and then you curl up on the floor and sob for the rest of the day. And that’s okay.

You don’t have to get bogged down by the bigness of the possibility. Not every word has to be part of the next great American novel. Not every day has to be dripping with productivity. Has to have tangible accomplishments to point to.

Not every seed exists to become towering.

Autobiography · Poetry

Lush

Ruby Pipes18 Comments

“Cathedral Grove” © Bradley Davis, 2008. CC BY-ND 2.0.
September finds us holding
fragments of past months.

We search out a forest, green space,
somewhere lush to plant them.

Trees and grass we can walk to,
untouched by the traffic,

by the ever-present whine
of the endless energy cities spit.

Over and over we’ve asked
what’s missing,

but never stopped to wonder
if it might be nothing.

That we might be overflowing
instead of empty.

Longing for the quiet.
The stillness of rainforest.

The song only evergreens,
moss, mushrooms,

and our broken hearts know.
In the cold, wet air

they sing it to us
and we can finally hear

ourselves echoing it back.
Pulsing empathy.

“I know you. You belong here.”
Hush.

Autobiography · Mental Health

Dance

Ruby Pipes34 Comments

"Bubbles" © Steffen Ramsaier, 2010. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
“Bubbles” © Steffen Ramsaier, 2010. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
“I don’t put a whole lot of emphasis on diagnosis,” she said. She lowered her pen back to her clipboard and locked eyes with me. It was something I’d heard from every medical professional I’d ever liked. The people who understood they couldn’t put me in a box and go through the corresponding motions. But you still have to have something to submit to insurance. Diagnostic codes: 309.28, 305.00, 309.81, 296.33, 296.53. Each had its own set of symptoms and accepted treatment options. Each meant something, even if what it meant wasn’t the end of the conversation.

She took another breath and changed the cross of her legs. “That being said, we need to start talking about medication. You have some options, but I’m not comfortable leaving this where it’s at.” Because all those diagnoses have very real, tangible symptoms attached to them. And bipolar disorder is one of those.

Bipolar disorder–for me–is like depression with a scheming side. I get miserable for a couple months, but then I feel pretty good for a few weeks. Just long enough that I start to think maybe my depression isn’t going to come back with force. But right when I’ve gotten comfortable, it sneaks in. Like a friend you were just starting to trust breaking your heart again.

My mania gives me just enough confidence to be dangerous. I sign up for things I won’t be able to follow through with when the depression comes back. It makes me just optimistic enough to line me up for a solid let down. Swings wide enough to make me feel like I’m never getting my feet under me. Narrow enough I can sometimes convince myself nothing is wrong.

We’ve known I have this illness since I was sixteen. It wasn’t extreme then, either. Since it wasn’t getting me in trouble it was left untreated. But over the last few years it’s been getting more violent. It’s been growing teeth. And so a couple weeks ago I made the call.

“Do you talk to your husband about how you’ve been feeling?” the woman from the psychiatric outpatient program at the Bellevue hospital asked me.

“Yeah, I do. He’s great. He doesn’t like those conversations much, though.”

“No, of course he doesn’t. You’re trying to kill his wife.”

I slid down the wall, landed slow on the ground and pulled my knees up to my chest. “It’s time to get help, isn’t it?”

So we doubled up the therapy. We added medication and adjusted doses. Took time off work and wrote for hours every day.

And today I woke up and I felt… Okay.

For the first time in a long time I feel safe.