Writing Assignment 1, Draft 3

Before I begin writing about my emotional experience, I believe that I should write a quick introduction. Mental illness is an extremely serious issue. There is nothing funny about it. By posting this for all to read, I am trusting that who ever may choose to read this will not take advantage of this information. On the contrary, please don't feel sorry for me. I'm not looking for attention, I'm just telling it like it is. This is what makes me emotional, because this is what used to control my emotions.

The Monster

Lying on my bed, staring at the clock. 8:32:54. It's moving; but me? I am numb. I'm lying here in this one moment in time, mind is racing, but there's no time to think. The thoughts in my head, like race cars speeding down the track, going right by me. Trying to identify each one would be like trying to tell the difference between two galloping zebras. But I try to slow them down. I relax my mind until I can filter the thoughts, take the time to inspect each one. The first, is of last night. Hormones racing; so much energy. This doesn't happen when I'm gray. Gray is in between high and low, and gray is fading away. I'm about to touch the moon I'm so high, as I slip out the downstairs window. I think I'm going crazy, as I get in the car. And then mom calls his phone. From my phone, which I left at home. So I get home and ring the door bell at one in the morning. Their voices don't even penetrate my brain, they just wisp right over my forehead like wind, and I am coming down. The high I had only minutes ago is slipping away. Slipping into sleep....

As I wake up at 8:23:12, the Monster hits like a train going 185 miles an hour. Sleep was my temporary escape for the reality I had entered last night. The monster is clawing at my pajama bottoms, taking me to the dark depths of his layer. I look at the window. I see another kind of escape, different from the sexual escape out the basement window, different from the temporary escape the night’s sleep brought. A total escape; from the second floor window. As I open the window, take off the screen, I perch on the window sill, looking down at the pavement that could bring my skull the comfort I want. I Need. Adrenaline pulsing through my body like blood. Heart palpitating, pulsing, thumping, wanting to break out of my rib cage and tumble out the window. So heavy with feeling it will drag my limp body by the arteries down the side of my house. My tense body shaking. Shuttering in the skin I don’t want. Do I really want to do this? I do, but I can't. I lay back down, until my mom comes in and I tell her. I tell her that I almost jumped out the window. Yes, I want to kill myself. It's not my fault, I'm so trapped. My skin is wrapped too tight. The mania and the monster controlling me. The high and the low programming me like a robot.

From the ER, to the ambulance. It was a long ride on a stretcher, mother's tears pouring down her face like there was no tomorrow. Why is she crying? I'm the one who has the problem. As they push me into the ambulance, I wave goodbye. I think about why I'm here. The monster. Why did the monster come? Because the mania left. My inability to control my impulses, and the plunges I took into the icy blue madness some call depression. Put these two together and you have Bipolar Disorder. And I knew all along but no one would listen to the one actually feeling the pain.

What pain? Little girls can not feel pain like you describe. Little girls can’t love and loose. Little girls can not possibly understand what it is like to have someone give you everything you ever thought you wanted and have it taken because of something uncontrollable. Little girls can not comprehend the fact that it is wrong for men to touch little girls. But now you are a big girl. Now I am a big girl and I know it was wrong. Maybe that is why I feel so much pain, because I see it was wrong. Because I’m not a little girl like everyone thinks. I am Emily Thomas, and I know what love is. I know what lose is. And I know what pain is.

As I took my first steps into the Dominion Psychiatric Hospital in Falls Church, Virginia, I wasn't sure what to think. I'm now official crazy, a nut job. Yeah, I'm in the nut house. But when I woke up, I got my first dose of lithium, a powerful drug to treat bipolar disorder. And this gave me hope. Really, there was no where to go but up. Now, I just had to find the soul that I never had before. Who I was, just wasn't me. It was the monster, and the mania. It was madness, and I was starting to claw my way through everything that was holding me back. In a way that I couldn't have even thought of without some serious help. Who am I? It was time to find out, for the first time, in 14 years.