Live Deliberately

An essay I wrote for a scholarship contest.

------------------------

I walk the fine line of bipolar disorder, one that has cut a raw, jagged scar deep into my heart and mind. I’ve been teetering on this tightrope since I was six years old and held a pink jump rope, considering how to hang myself from the tree outside my father’s house with it. I feel too deeply and have tried again and again to cram my feelings into bottles, neatly lining the shelves of my mind, secretly hoping they stay contained and away. But one by one, the screws loosened, and the bottles shattered on the floor of my mind, spilling their poisonous contents down into my soul. I became angry, depressed, suicidal, and isolated. I began taking medication, something I had been warned against by my church, family, and friends. They claimed it was a slippery slope, one that could lead to addiction and problems with being able to fight the illness on my own. I had to learn to lock those voices out and pursue my own path. It was terrifying, and here I am now, 21 years old and stronger than ever.

Thoreau is a muse of mine in a sense: a cynical writer who dismisses common society with a nod of his head, choosing to settle into nature and observe the ways of the world without the distractions of busyness. It was this type of isolation I had to achieve in order to attend to the warring voices, opinions, and feelings I felt so trapped by. Slowly, an unweaving of the crookedness in my own heart began to unfold. I began to gently kill my anger, feeding the hope and joy I had in my life and starving the flames of the raging injustice I felt I had been dealt. I felt angry at God, my bipolar father, my doting mother, my adoring fiance, my loyal friends. I was mainly angry at myself, and I had pursed the path of destruction and self-loathing for years. I found it always circled back to the same two signposts: Cycle and Progress. If I wanted to continue the easy cycle of remaining angry, refusing to fix my own faults and blaming everyone around me, that was a wide path that just left me running on a hamster wheel. Progress proved to be a rocky path full of pain and pruning - I had to cut away my old habits and mindset in order to achieve a love and reverence for life. For my own life. And for the lives of those around me, friend and stranger.

Love and reverence are two virtues I have heard Sunday after Sunday as a Christian: love the Lord with all your heart, mind, and soul and fear Him. ‘Fear’ in this context means to have a healthy reverence for: a shock of awe that deepens cords of love and loyalty in a relationship. I had to stop holding on to hate and ignorance in order to gain my shock of awe: awe at my own heartbeat. Love for my family, friends, and even the annoying strangers I meet. Reverence for the ability to see colors, hear music, taste food, walk, run, and jump. I wrote apologies to many people in my life who I had hurt with my anger, and began blogging openly about my struggles and how bipolar disorder affected me. It’s amazed me how many people have come to me with love and reverence, telling me how my words have helped them in their own struggles and to understand their own emotions.

Progress begets rewards that are priceless: joy, amazement, connections, and love. Reverence. Hope. The path of Progress is narrow and crooked as humanity is narrow and crooked; despite the vast differences and complexities mankind shares, there are the common themes of desiring to love and be loved, and to respect and be respected. However, neither of those things can be achieved without first looking within one’s own self: what is wrong with me? It is one of the most painful questions to ask, because it goes against our very ingrained nature: to be all about ourselves, what we need, who we are, what we want to achieve. Magnifying our faults and blemishes is precisely what we do not want, but it is what begins the path to improvement and killing selfishness, ignorance, and hatred. I have found it, and am now pursuing that path. It only takes the first few steps with no desire to turn back.