As I sat across from my mother and really looked at her face and tiny frame, I saw her age, frailty and worry lines for the first time. Her life has not been easy. It has been fucking brutal. She has endured and cared for too many loved ones suffering mental illness. Every decade of her life has been spent caring for a loved one, someone other than herself. Not like
When life throws shit at you, and most assuredly it will, remember this. I see you. You are stronger than you think. You are kinder, graceful, brighter, smarter, funnier, richer (and not monetarily), and unique. On the days I forget and think manic depression will most definitely kill me, I dig deep. Who the hell knows where or when life’s reservoirs will dry up. I don’t, neither do you. Then,
It is after all, just a life. No bigger, no better. I have breathed more shades, more pain, more joy, more crazy, more fear, more sadness than I thought possible to carry in this one body. Death, song and daydreaming are my respites; temporary escapes from this swirling madness. I inhale deeply, the rich, sweet smells of nature flooding my senses. Music coursing the veins like venom. I wait for
When they zapped my brain, I did not recognize the nurse who had been there all along. I recalled my mother’s face, worry lines and all. Too familiar. I forget sometimes with all these cells coarsing through veins, tripping up emotions that things came easier once. Life was uncomplicated, and I took it for granted. It was the little moments I shrugged off, the nothing less than important. Vital lessons
To never forget the page. The page carries me when I cannot stand, crouched in fetal position on the bathroom floor. The page dreams the big dreams when I see nothing through misty eyes. The page promises hope when I have exhausted all roads and left dreaming behind. The page holds my hand and guides me towards the words that are a wee bit brighter. The snow has lost interest in
I am told the brain feels no pain, no pressure. That is only half-truth. I have experienced a different reality; never exposed to screaming silence quite like this. I’m scared out of my mind imploding from the inside. I make ballsy, hasty decisions to beat down the bullshit, chemical imbalance. Humiliated, I lie alone on a gurney, port in my arm, the tacky acrid green plastic band too tight around my
The Unwilling Participant Some idiot had the bright idea to hang a birdcage outside a locked window on a mental ward. It hung from metal steps dangling like a goddamn Snickers bar, only filled with birdseed and shit. The rustic, red paint had chipped away seasons past. Maybe it was part of an arts and crafts afternoon, who the hell knows? I used to stare at it for hours, tapping
Humanity By Jacqueline Cioffa We are a sick society. Before you hurl stones, rocks and bullets at my beliefs, or me please don’t. I never asked to be put in a 2 x 2 narrow minded, cement block box filled with blame and shame, yet here I am. One of the crazies. On the outside I appear pretty, well mannered, kind and a little bit eccentric. The three-pound brain
Turbulent waters soothe the gypsy, calming and evoking blue myth mystery. The maudlin, tumultuous sea, her wishing wells of fragile glass trinkets, forgotten treasure, and pools of sunken love, long discarded. The ocean and her black ink mystery whisper in tongue, tales only I can decipher. The beach house perched precariously on a bluff, is blurred and out of focus. Drifting farther and farther from reach, I am flailing and kicking. I scream sea bubbles trying desperately not to
I couldn’t resist responding to the lovely Carol Adriana Estrella‘s post on Facebook this morning. “Doing a small survey: What are your first thoughts when you hear the word “bipolar”. Being that is an illness, I see it used around A LOT as an adjective or a subject.” Visit the very hip and informative blog Is Ok Not To Be Ok to view some of the varied responses (including my abridged one). Carol explains, “I did a very informal