The Story of a Bipolar Bear.

Things that use to bother me don’t bother me as much as they use to.

I sort of learned to block them and just ignore them.

I get myself into trouble fighting a pointless battle.

I get angry and build up on things that honestly have no significant in it such as racist Muslim jokes or wrong interpretations of my post.

I really don’t care anymore.

I’ve learned to put things in my attic that are important and not fill it with useless shit and frustration. 

I want to remember and put a value on things that do have a big significant impact on me.

Trying to remember something useless that someone did to me 2 years ago won’t help me in the long run..

Once you start ranking your memories and thoughts, everything makes more sense.

I always see the electrocardiogram and the line: If my heart beat stops, would someone care?

I went through a pretty traumatic experience in my childhood and through the severe stages of my illness, but out of all that I’ve learned one thing.

Never expect.

Attempting suicide and the aftermath was extremely hard. 

I don’t think I’ll ever get over that experience, especially when you come home after staying a week and half at the hospital and check your phone with barely any messages regarding your absence is hard to deal with.

No one knew and no one asked.

Even after you hung out with them the day before you attempted suicide. 

It took me a while to come out of it, but I’m glad that I’ve learned it the hard way.

I’m glad I can say that I’m slowly learning to not expect anything from anyone.

My life is for myself and if a few of my friends/family don’t care, what will it do?

Will my existence stop because they refuse to care?

I am grateful for having my best friend and my family for caring and no one else matters.

No one does and even if a few people that didn’t bother to call or check up, it doesn’t affect me anymore.

My life depends on my own happiness and my surroundings of people that helped me get through those rough patches.

My life and my values are for me and no one else.

Whoever comes with me in this journey will stay if they want to.

Not because I want them to stay.

In An Unquiet Mind, Jamison talks about a patient of hers who had very severe bipolar disorder. He refused to take his lithium, which was very effective for him, but would stop taking it once he got better.

She talked how her staff did everything possible to get him to stay on his medication and get the right treatment, but nothing would help him.

Eventually, he committed suicide.

It was probably the most emotional part of the book for me seeing that someone who had good results from medication, still refused to take it. 

My own thoughts of getting off medication in the future made me think twice on why I wanted to get off medication in the first place.

I feel as if I don’t need to rely on medication to get through life.

I also have this irrational thought that my illness is cured now and I can finally get off it.

In reality, bipolar disorder is a life-long illness and there is no cure.

I still hesitate to take my medication, but now I know how important it is to stick to my medication.

I don’t want to die.

I just don’t.

Not this way at least.

The story of a bipolar bear.

Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to be without a mental illness.

Probably, I would be graduating tomorrow.

Probably, I would have gotten into medical school or some other top-notch program.

Probably, I would have a boyfriend.

The “what if” thoughts kill me.

They kill me inside and out.

And I’ve eventually accepted that there is no what ifs in life.

There is a certainty in life and somehow every path we make, we learn something.

Even if we don’t understand it at the moment, we do pick up on it a few days later or even years and realize wow, never would have changed my perspective on it.

I would do anything to get rid of this illness, but at the end of the day, I don’t have a choice but to live with it.

I’ve chosen to make the bad into good.

Somehow, I’m managing to make my past and my “what if” thoughts into rational thoughts that can help me today. 

Help me at this moment.

We all have regrets, but I don’t want to make another regret.

I don’t want to regret anything else in my life.

Not now and not anymore.

I send an email to my Professor who holds study sessions:

Dear Professor...
I received a B- in Organic Chemistry II. It's not an A, but I've learned more about Organic Chemistry with your group sessions than I could have ever done on my own. At the end, I'm proud of the B-, because I probably know more than the students that got an A. Ahaha. Stay safe and have a great summer. Thank You for all the help, it means a lot. 

Sincerely,
S.. 
P.S. I will be enjoying my summer by studying biochemistry inside and out, so I can actually get an A in M's class.I know how tough it is to get an A in his class (especially reading the reviews), but at the end of the day, when I get into Cornell Medical School, I know I've made the right decision.Thanks again.

His reply:

Awesome attitude. A B- isn't terrible and the most important thing is the desire to improve and to keep working towards that goal.

Two of my favorite quotes:

Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal. 

-Joseph Crossman

“Be the person that shows others miracles do exist”

-Not sure who wrote it (I think I read it on  Sixbillionsecrets)

Doubt.

I doubt everything about myself.

I doubt my abilities to survive this illness.

I doubt I’ll ever become a psychiatrist.

I doubt that I’ll find a guy that will love me and not hate me for things I do because of my mental illness.

I doubt my intelligence.

I doubt I’ll ever be who I want to be.

I doubt my answers on my exams because I think I’m wrong.

I just don’t know anymore.

I just can’t do it, how hard I try, I just can’t.

I can’t get up and stick to my goal.

I wake up everyday for school to get where I want to go, but no motivation to work towards the goal.

I have this overwhelming feeling of being a failure and have already forecast that I will fail and and the end I do.

I have no confidence in myself and I don’t think I will ever be confident in anything I do.

At the end of the day, no one will get me into medical school except me.

I can cry and go into suicidal mode, but I eventually get up every morning and try again.

No one knows how much I fight this inner battle every day, but I always have some sort of hope.

I have some sort of hope that I’ll make it alive.

It’s probably hard right now, but everything seems hard the first time.

I wouldn’t have imagined my life the way it is now two years ago, being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and being at a psychiatric ward for attempted suicide.

“I want to show others that miracles can happen.”

There is no way out of this pain except facing it and hitting it with your best shot.

Force field.

At all times, I need to force myself to do things.

I must lock my computer, silent my phone and put in ear plugs to just study.

I love my major, but with a mental illness, there is never no motivation.

Never any motivation to do anything.

I hate waking up.

I hate brushing my teeth.

It’s not because I don’t want to “live.”

I do want to live, but I just don’t understand why I feel this way.

I feel like dying, even though I’m not suicidal.  

My biggest regret..

is not my attempted suicide, but neglecting I had a problem in the first place.

I neglected I had suicidal thoughts.

I neglected I was depressed.

I neglected that I thought of million of ways to kill myself.

I neglected everything that was abnormal.

I regret not making the first step to getting help.

If I did, I would probably not have attempted suicide that nearly stopped my heart beat.

I regret thinking that my problems were nothing but just in my head.

At the end of the day, they weren’t.

I was sick and still am.

I don’t feel I fit in anywhere anymore.

It’s weird.

I’m not religious, and I sometimes read the Quran on my nook. 

I can’t really relate to anyone in religious level because I sort of dislike most Muslims. 

Not Islam, but most Muslims. 

I don’t really relate to anyone in my culture. 

I also am starting to fade away from the mental illness community.

I have nothing to contribute.

I am way too “stable” to feel anything or remember how fucked up a mental illness can make you become.

I’ve become this dull zombie every person told me medication would you feel.

Here I just want my old self back.

Probably it was broken me, but it was the true me.

Not the one medications have made me become.