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So, I’m crazy.

We may as well get that out of the way upfront.

I have bipolar disorder. And until recently, I’ve kept that under wraps. Because I didn’t want it to change the way people saw me. I didn’t want them to start treating me with kid gloves or second guessing my abilities. I didn’t want my BP to define me.

Which is precisely why I recently decided to come out about it on my blog.

Because I was afraid to. And I wanted that to stop. Stigmas are built on silence and fear, and I was tired of playing along with that. That’s just not the way I roll.

My Personal Adventure into Craziness

I don’t love reliving this. I’ve actually done a pretty remarkable job of forgetting it ever happened–like it was some bad dream, some parallel universe I briefly descended into before returning to my regularly scheduled life. But I think it’s important to share it, because not sharing it is exactly what gives it the power it doesn’t deserve.

In high school, I was your typical straight-A overachiever–in a million clubs, researching colleges my sophomore year, dreaming of one day becoming a famous writer-slash-editor-slash-journalist.

Then I got to college, and suddenly everything went all wrong.

Instead of launching into the next phase of academic glory, I found myself morphing into a gloomy slacker I didn’t recognize. I managed to make it to class and turn my assignments in on time, but I didn’t seem good for much else. I didn’t join any clubs. I barely talked to anyone. I felt slow and muddy and lackluster.

For a while, I thought I had mono. When that tested negative, I chalked it up to freshman homesickness and told myself to just snap out of it. I believe the exact phrase I used, in a journal entry to myself, was “Stop crying, Emo Girl, and get on with your life already.”

But no matter how many motivational/smackdown talks I gave myself, I just couldn’t seem to shake the gloom. I started to resign myself to it. Maybe high school had been a fluke. Maybe at root I really was just a lazy, miserable human being.

More Manic, Less Depressive

Then one day, completely at random, a switch flipped somewhere and suddenly everything seemed okay again. Not just okay, actually–fucking brilliant. I breathed an enormous sigh of relief. Whatever had been wrong with me, I’d finally gotten clear it. I was myself again.

But it wasn’t that simple.

I wasn’t just myself–I was a bigger, better version of me that seemed almost epic. Me on speed. I started joining things again. I thought up a million new projects. I was so energetic I was jittery. I felt…almost…preordained. Like parking spaces opened up just for me and every song on the radio had some significant meaning I was supposed to unravel.

After months of feeling like I barely existed, I felt so alive I could hardly stand it. It felt fanTASTIC.

But after a few days, the high started to turn. My thoughts were going too fast, like the little gerbil on the wheel in my mind was running for his life. I didn’t have the energy to keep up with myself anymore. I was getting less and less sleep, and I started to get edgy. Everything irritated me. I felt wired and strung-out and brittle.

And then I burned out altogether.

And the whole thing started all over again.

That’s what college became for me–one horrible roller coaster ride that could veer at a moment’s notice. I’d fall into a slump, then emerge from it feeling better than ever, each time reassuring myself that this was the point where the cycle finally broke and things got back on track. But it never lasted. Eventually, I’d crash again, and it would be even worse than before. Every time I failed to make progress, I hated myself a little more.

I lost all grasp on who I really was and where I was going. The only thing I knew for sure was that because I couldn’t seem to get my ass in gear, my brilliant writer-slash-editor-slash-journalist future was quickly going down the drain. I’d blown my life by not being able to get a grip on myself. Talk about a waste.

Fear #1: Admitting I Needed Help

It seems ridiculous to me now that my lost years in college could have been salvaged. All I needed were a couple prescriptions, a little education on what was really going on with me, and I could have been where I am now so much sooner. It didn’t have to be so hard, or so scary.

Being a recovering crazy now, I know that. But at time, it wasn’t as easy as just going to a doctor and telling him my brain didn’t feel right. All I associated with “mental illness” at the time were images I’d picked up from Girl, Interrupted and The Bell Jar. Craziness wasn’t something that happened to normal people. It wasn’t something you ever really recovered from.

Assigning the “crazy” label to myself felt melodramatic, and dangerous. Because if it were true, it meant I was screwed up beyond saving. Something inside of me was inherently and fundamentally broken. It was a miserable way to exist, but I honestly thought I was better off beating myself up for my lack of ambition and discipline. At least then, it meant I was still in control of things, even though I was currently fucking them up something spectacular.

The irony is that refusing to acknowledge my symptoms only gave them more control over me. Not understanding them, not treating them, gave them the power to do whatever they wanted with me, and all I could do in response was be scared and confused. Once I was diagnosed and learned to deal with my illness, it seemed ridiculous that I’d ever let it get so bad.

I wish I’d had someone at the time to tell me that bipolar disorder doesn’t have to be a be-all or end-all. That it’s actually a completely manageable disease, and having it isn’t a statement about your strength as a person. That was one of the reasons I decided to finally come out about it–the thought that maybe someone somewhere was as scared and confused as I’d been, and telling them it could be o.k. might help.

The other reason was that I was just plain sick of keeping a part of myself a secret.

Fear #2: Admitting My Craziness to the World

I’m doing well now. I’m seeing a nice crazy doctor and taking my crazy pills as prescribed, and I feel more “normal” and “happy” than I have in a long time. I actually forget all about my BP most days, and that’s exactly the way it should be.

Because my BP has nothing at all to do with who I am or what I’m striving for. All it means is that the chemicals in my brain are a little wonky, and I need medication to make them work right. It’s no different than having lactose intolerance or diabetes or any other health problem. Sometimes our bodies don’t work the way they’re supposed to, but the miracle of modern science lets us correct that and get on with our lives. My malfunction just happens to be in my brain. But I’ve learned to manage it. It doesn’t rule my life anymore.

The more distance I’ve put between myself and that bad period in college, the more uncomfortable I’ve felt keeping my story under wraps. Sure, I didn’t want it to change the way people saw me. But hiding it changed the way I saw myself. It made me feel like I was harboring some dirty little secret, when if anything, I’m actually pretty darn proud of how far I’ve come. Secrecy turned my BP from a manageable health problem back into the taboo monster-in-the-closet that was too dangerous to acknowledge. Which only gave it the stigma I’d been trying so hard to avoid.

Coming out of the crazy closet wasn’t easy. People were wonderful about it, but I still wonder sometimes when I’m talking to a coworker if they secretly know that I’m nutso, and if that changes anything. My post is out there for anyone to stumble upon it. But that’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Because no girl should be huddled up in her dorm room wondering why she sucks so much and can’t get a hold of herself. No one who’s managed to come through a black period and emerged stronger for it should feel ashamed to talk about it. No one with bipolar disorder, or panic attacks, or OCD, should feel like they’re somehow defective or unusual.

Yes, I am crazy. But I’m so much more than that. All us crazies are.

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Kelly AKA Cordelia is the author of the website, Cordelia Calls It Quits, where she is fighting to call it quits on living life on autopilot, structuring her world according to everyone else’s expectations, and to the notion of “that’s just the way things are.” She’s on a mission to live deliberately, make intentional choices, and make each day closer to a life she’s inspired to live.  She’s currently working on a novel titled, “More Manic, Less Depressive,” as well as an eBook designed to summarize her life philosophy, and inspire others to take charge of their own existence.

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Find past segments of the Fear, Exposed series here.

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