Bipolar & the Seven Deadly Sins: A Manic Essay

The first panic attack I ever remembered having I think I was around twelve. The details of the triggers or the event itself are hazy. But, oh, how I remember my current ones. I lose time as if I’m outside myself. My brain a misfiring of billions of neurons, I recognize them for the way my skin feels. It’s like it’s not…mine. Foreign and cumbersome, almost like a cheap suit that’s too tight and the legs too short. Millions of bugs crawling beneath my skin. I pick, scratch, attempt to hurt myself for it to go away. It’s only when I skip my count, my prayer beads don’t spin as smoothly as I roll them between trembling thumb and forefinger that the rage starts.

Hallucinations form with the building crescendo of every labored breath—each more ragged and painful than the one before it. Time ceases and I’m frozen, skinning the flesh from my arm, setting myself on fire, removing fingers, and driving 100 miles per hour into oncoming traffic and it doesn’t stop. Seconds, minutes, maybe an hour goes by and I’m back, yet always a piece missing. I know I should feel terrified, no, horrified at what my mind devises for me. Yet I’m not.

Depression, Failing Self-Care & What's Left

It could be the holidays or just my usual mental state, but depression has been nipping at my heels for months. Several weeks ago, it sunk its teeth in and hasn’t let me go. I believe mental illness shouldn’t come with a stigma—some stupid reason we shouldn’t speak up.

As an Atheist, I’m not big on holidays or what they mean. Christianity pillaged pagans for their traditions, whatever, but it’s around this time everyone gets a bit down. We don’t have family to spend it with for whatever reason. It highlights our anti-social tendencies. Whatever it is, holidays just seem to exacerbate the shifting of our moods.

I don’t think that’s what has me down. Spending days in bed to awaken and just turn back over because I’m tired of existing. A week ago, I had to be taken by ambulance to the hospital, my panic attack didn’t come on with that annoying tightening of my chest and the bugs crawling beneath my skin. The nosebleed which isn’t a normal part of my attacks. It hit me like a sledgehammer and I had no way of controlling it. All the counting, visualization, none of it worked and I let others see the weakness.