I could go far back in time to my childhood and tell you about my mother and blah, blah, blah, but it really doesn’t matter. All I can say is that I’m not perfect; I’ve been through a lot in my life, most of which was by my own hand. At age 6 I was diagnosed with ADD/ADHD. (It was the 90’s. What kid wasn’t diagnosed with something and given pills?) Age 16 I was “living on my own,” a.k.a on the run for a small handful of misdeeds. Now I am almost 26, and been out of prison for over three years, am $90K upside-down on a house, have a 3.75 GPA and a wife and am expecting a wonderfully handsome little baby boy.
Recently I found out that I do indeed have a “disorder” called Bi-Polar. Apparently people with this…illness go through cycles of highs and lows. The highs are exciting and busy and feel great as I get much accomplished. The lows are depressing, confusing, and I don’t get much done. Like almost everything else in my life, I found this out the hard way. I was in some sort of phase, and was working long hours on a personal project at home and living on coffee and protein bars. This lasted a few weeks. I was mentally and physically exhausted, more so than I’ve ever been in my life, and that’s saying a lot. But I got my project done. At what cost? It put me behind in my schoolwork, and I became stressed about my grades. In my mind if I didn’t get good grades then I did not get financial aid and if I did not get financial aid then how is that going to affect raising the baby and when we have a baby is he going to go through the same things I went through and I just want the best for my wife and child and I have no job and…Yeah, it sounds very confusing. I quickly fell into a place I never want be again. I began to worry about everything, and became suspicious of people. As I went deeper and deeper into my own mind I began to think those closest to me were working for the government to put me away for the rest of my life. For a couple days, or a few, or more because I really am not sure, I was having audio hallucinations. I’m not sure if I had visual hallucinations, which is a nice way of saying I don’t really know if I was seeing things. My wife finally took me to the hospital.
Long story short, I was and am more screwed up than I ever thought. Over all that I’ve been through in my life, this was the scariest. Not because of what I thought I heard or saw but the fact that I really believed what I thought I heard and saw, realizing that there was something wrong and not knowing difference between what was real and what was a fabrication, and putting my wife who is carrying my unborn child through it all. That part is what hurt the most. I dragged my own beautiful and lovely wife through the mud with me. Imagine knowing that part of the past week of your life never happened, and not knowing which part.
This will become yet another pillar of significance in my life. Now I find myself questioning…well, myself. I know I had never experienced this before, but how do I really know? This was totally unexpected, and I did not even think it possible of me. Will it ever happen again? Can I prevent it? Does my wife deserve better? Can I be a good father? I am very concerned about these things. I try not to take minute things in life too seriously, but I do believe in doing things right the first time and doing them to the best of your ability. I take being a husband and a father very seriously. I am about to be responsible for another human being. This is huge! (And I know that I don’t know a thing about raising a child.) I take school very seriously. And when I have a job I take that very seriously. I expect perfection with everything that I do that matters. Not to say I ever obtain perfection, but that does not mean I don’t try.
So now what? Well, the truth is now I guess I’ll have to take medications that I despise and that my mother was right, and I guess I keep going to school, and I guess I’m just going to have to fucking deal with it. I will do whatever it takes not to jeopardize my family, not to hurt those closest to me, and not to let my life fall apart because of circumstance. I’ve come too far to just let go. I’ll be damned if I let a little thing like being crazy stop me.
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