Whenever I used to sit down to write, it would usually be with one theme in mind. I’ve had a few of those floating in my brain, but never sat down to write them. Is my attention span cooked? Maybe. Am I too exhausted after working & emailing all day, to write one more sentence? Perhaps. As I’ve approached and passed 35, have I felt deep embarrassment about not being where I thought I would be? Definitely. Do I feel more and more trepidation about being open about my mental illness? 100% Do the words not flow as freely because I’ve started holding things inside so much more? Yep. Did I make mistakes last year that have me asking myself every single day if I deserve to speak at all? Also yes. Has my confidence plummeted to new lows — something I didn’t know was possible? Another yes. Does AI make me fearful of people judging my misuse of the em dash, bad grammar, and untidy writing? Of course.
Many reasons. Many days gone by. Unless the photos are of the kitties, I’ve taken less of those too. Feeling self conscious as I compare myself to the AI editing, but rejecting it more and more because I value reality.
Here are some jumbled bits and pieces of the last year…
I’ve faded as a mental health advocate. I felt unable to keep up as the demands of work got bigger. All my energy went to focusing on not letting my performance suffer. It has led to me often feeling a deep exhaustion in my bones and no energy to get loud. On top of that, I hurt someone a lot. Without intention. My heart and soul feel raw and wounded. I’ve always taken my impact on others extra seriously while being an advocate. A psychiatrist had their partner tell everyone I was impacting them by demonstrating at the Waterford— I felt it would be hypocritical not to move location s. When someone approached me with any error and told me it impacted them mentally, I would take it to heart. Every move I made had me worried about causing harm. It felt suffocating, quite frankly, trying to be perfect. And then one day, without meaning to, I hurt someone I thought was one of my closest friends. The shame has engulfed me. I stopped having the sign face the road. I wrestled with stopping all together. I’ve overhauled how I talk to people and communicate— told my therapist to be blunt with me no matter what, and tried to solve the puzzle of what I did, but knowing ultimately it caused hurt.
As someone who stopped taking communion at church years ago because I feel so strongly about hypocrisy — and as someone who has overhauled my life a few times in pursuit of not being a hypocrite, this has unravelled my life. How do I move forward? I’m still thinking about stopping all together. Recently I decided to do a fundraiser, thinking the focus wouldn’t be about me, but the foundation it's for— but it’s been my first fundraising failure. I don’t think it will touch what I hoped. A small & private social media presence, and losing support of some of your biggest cheerleaders, will do that.
Do I continue? I wrestle with this daily.
Marriage has been HARD. We’ve been going to therapy together about once a month. So many tears. So many conversations where I lead with feeling and he leads with logic. I thought he was going to leave me twice. How do I be a better wife? Was I silly to think I could be a partner to someone? Two mental illnesses in one marriage leaves for a crowded room and aching hearts. How can you be open & honest about a marriage faltering while it’s happening? Would it be easier if we could be up front with others and ask for perspectives other than from a paid professional?
How important is it to share household chores? How important is romance? Does it matter if only one person believes in love languages? How do you navigate expectations and needs you don't agree with or want to fulfil? What do you do when there’s SO much love and a whole lot of pain?
A new tiny panther has arrived at the shoe. He’s not new, actually. Hearts tore wide open with his move here. Hearts are still broken. I don’t know if they will ever heal. Every day I ask myself if it was the right thing to bring him here. I know he’s happy. It feels like we MIGHT have his health under control, but I’m always on high alert. He loves the other two tiny panthers. I never thought he would enjoy company of his fellow species. But he lounges in the sun with them, chases them at 3AM, and has finally gotten comfortable to climb on the bed at night and sleep at my feet. I love him so much it aches. My kitties have become my everything. If I ever cross my exes mind, they must feel intense relief about dodging the bullet of the bipolar cat lady with far too many feelings.
Still, the tiny panthers are the light of my life. Bringing smiles when life hurts, marriage feels uncertain, work overwhelms, and the emptiness from longing to be a mother feels so vast I can’t look at a baby without my eyes welling up.
The loss of Mo & Len still knocks me off balance. I know so many won’t get it, and that’s okay.
Johnny got cancer this spring. We caught it early. It was still terrifying. I found it because when I was crying on the couch, she came up and cuddled next to me. That’s when I felt the lumps. She did so well after the surgeries, but it reminded me not to take a moment with her and the other two for granted.
Work has been wild. I worry every single day that AI is going to take my job. I’ve pushed myself to the max and then some. It never feels like enough, even though I keep doing more than I ever thought possible. I worry a lot about choosing to be open about my mental illness in the past. Should I delete the post I wrote on LinkenIn? If AI does come for my job one day, will all employers google me and decide I’m too much of a risk? How do I sell myself?
I'm confident in my work ethic, but how could they know when all they would find is me talking about what it's like to live with bipolar?
Work has always been a constant for me. This year, with the world changing at a rapid pace, I’ve found it not as comforting as I wonder when the wave of change will hit me.
I’ve been at the shoe long enough that the home repairs are needed. We need a new roof, floors redone, new deck, and a new door. Oh, and the tree needs to be cut back from the house. I brace myself in every storm. Holding my breath and praying it stays together.
I’m less scared of thinking about God and considering what I believe. I do still think God has punished me in some pretty big ways, but my soul still cries out. There's a sliver of faith. It’s stripped back to the bare bones and only one centimeter high, but in the darkness I will pray instead of resisting— when I’m in the car alone, I will turn on songs sung by people who can’t stay on key and sing along. I can say what I believe in about one sentence and strongly denounce what I no longer believe in an essay, but grateful to not feel so angry anymore. I'm glad to have found a space where I can face all of it in quiet.
I LOVE food and wine. Some people love to travel, shop, and get their nails done. Some love spending on decor, clothes or sports. For me, I love eating a delicious meal, savouring the perfect glass of pinot noir, and talking with a friend.
Messing up a friendship so wildly has had me examining what friendship means. I’ve thought a lot about community and what we owe each other. I’ve found myself feeling intense gratitude for people I once took for granted, and grief for the ones I let myself drift away from— not realizing they were gold. It’s scary opening up myself to friendship now. I feel entirely unworthy. When someone says they liked hanging out with me, I want to weep and dance at the same time. I crave connection.
I’ve spent hours talking to my therapist about what it means to be a friend and asking how to be better. Analyzing my mistakes and figuring out how to never repeat them.
If there is one area of my life I want to dramatically improve — it’s in being a better friend. I struggle with the vulnerability this requires. I can’t imagine a world where I feel comfortable enough with a person to ask them if they want to go to the grocery store with me and have them say yes, but I hope one day I find it again.
I think and dream about 130 MacKay almost every day. It went back on the market and never in my life have I been more jealous of the people in my life who are rich. I find myself day dreaming of winning 300K so I can buy and renovate it. Going back to Nova Scotia makes me want to shout with an emotion I have no idea how to name. My relationship with my family is SO very complicated, and as the years slip by I believe it’s never going to untangle. But my feelings about the tall 3 story house have become less and less complicated. I can’t bare to look at the listing. Every Tuesday I ask my coworkers to look it up and see if it’s still for sale. Then I go home, go to bed, and dream about it. I can smell it, see the nooks, and feel the floors beneath my feet. I hope the new owners love it. I’m scared they will gut out all it’s character and not cherish how special it is.
How lucky am I to have so much love for a childhood home even though the emotional & people side of it is still a tangled web of emotions?
I’m grateful to not feel bitter about it. Grateful to love it so much it hurts.
My health hasn’t been great. I chalk this up to struggling so much with my mental health and trying to hide it. It’s very similar to all those years ago when I was trying to conform to what I thought I should be and started getting dizzy beyond words + scratching my legs to pieces. Both those things happened in the last 12 months + more. I find myself worrying about dementia, cancers, and other things. I know this is stupid and very likely due to never having been so stressed or suppressed since my early 20s. I’ve found myself walking up and down the lane, begging the fresh air to be the cure everyone says it is.
My mental health has felt like an internal horror movie. I’ve lost hope of proper treatment, but also resolved to be an outwardly functional person who doesn’t blame everything on it.
But that doesn’t stop the darkness from tumbling in. As the sun shines, I will find myself feeling like I’m driving down foggy Blackhead road in the dark with a moose capable of walking out in front of me at any second. I feel like my hands are gripping the steering wheel as I navigate the crowds, events, and trying to show up for my community. I’ve felt more and more strongly that it’s important to hide how sick I am.
With that, means getting creative about hiding it.
The hypo-mania truly sent me to literal insane heights. I feel grateful EVERY day to not go into psychosis. Still, rather than gripping the steering wheel in the dark. It’s like holding onto the guardrail during the worst roller coaster ride of your life. Screaming in terror, adrenaline pumping through you as you do the hard thing of navigating the world in an entirely different place than others. The same world, but with the intensity, sparkle, unbridled spending, sensory extremes that make your skin crawl, and a sex drive that makes you feel like you’re going through puberty all over again.
What a trip to return to hiding it most of the time. I miss feeling free to name what's going on. I truly think it helped. Both physically and mentally.
To return to this world of keeping it hidden has been… well, a return to physical symptoms all the time.
And yet, I am lucky. I am lucky to pass as functioning. I am lucky to love my job. I am SO lucky to have my tiny panthers. I am lucky to be loved. I am lucky to see the sunrise. I am lucky to see another sunset. I am lucky to have been diagnosed so I have answers & tools to navigate. I am lucky to finally not feel so bitter that I can’t pray when I wake up from nightmares. I am lucky to have a home.
I don’t know where life goes from here. I don’t know if C will keep loving me. I don’t know how long I have with the tiny panthers. I don't know if I'll be forgiven. I don't know if if stopping demonstrating is the right thing to do. I don’t know if I will find someone who wants to go to the grocery store with me.
But I do know that it's important to cling to hope. I know it helps me to put my messy thoughts into long winded paragraphs.
So this is me trying.