Well Bottom Blues

When my decades in remission  bipolar came roaring to the fore after Hurricane Katrina / The Federal Flood and my ugly divorce it was easiest just to let the demon take possessions and run the streets with Mr Hyde. He was a fun guy to be around except for the roaring hangovers on far too little sleep, waking next to strangers.

What’s hard, as it comes creeping back after almost 10 quiet years, is trying to contain the demon inside, where I feel it squeezing my heart; containing it without the lobotomizing and addicting pharmacology that I have renounced since quiting risperidone four years ago and recovering my ability to write and read deeply.

I need to learn to manage it while I’m on the full reuptake of some ugly, inescapable realities. Sure the pills would let me hide from the emotional realities of that, but I have elected instead to be fully human.  I need, in spite of today’s terrible weather, to get out into the forest.