In the 60+ posts I made private last year, I often spoke about the “manic episodes” I go through. I’m not sure if that’s what they really are. I just know that for a few short days every month or so (if I’m lucky,) a darkness lifts from my soul. Suddenly I have energy. My mind is clear, and even if I still falter to ADHD brain from time to time, I know what needs to be done, and I do it. I clean, I write, I draw. I become the mother I always wanted and that I know my daughter needs.
It only lasts a couple of days. 5 at most. And for those few short days, I feel like a real person and not the drifting husk of the person I could have been if someone had given a damn about me in my formative years.
I can’t tell which side of me is the real me and which side is the defect in my brain. I’ve lived most of my life in a darkness that I can’t control, but the feeling when that darkness lifts is better than any other sensation I’ve ever felt. It’s like wearing 50 lbs of wool clothes in the dead of summer and then stripping down to my underwear in the shade of an old tree. Total freedom.
The worst part about this “manic episode” is when it starts to slip away and I feel the darkness creeping over me in real time. I can’t describe how much it hurts to go from carefree and mellow to hopeless and painfully aware of the world around me in a matter of minutes.
I’m day 3 today. I hope I don’t crash until after work, when I’m able to thrown on my PJs, wrap up in a blanket, and hold my daughter as she sings to me all those little songs she’s recently learned.
I don’t want it to go away.
Update: It’s the day after I wrote this. I forgot to post it and it sat in my drafts all night. I felt my energy drain some time last night, after I got home from work, made dinner, and was walking on my treadmill. I’m trying very hard to fight it. My daughter wants to go outside and play in the snow. My body says no, but I told her we’d get bundled up and go out as soon as I finished my coffee.
It’s going to be a day.
Help, I Need An Adult! 