Not quite a year ago, I was officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder. During a manic episode or a mood swing, I’m trapped in a place I can't escape from. I’m encased within two extremes. I can't stand living in my own skin. Hysteria scrapes its talons against my veins, and it feels like I’m drowning in my own blood. I can't stand where I've been, where I'm at, or where I'm going. I can't go forward, but I can’t go back. I'm stuck in a self-loathing so fierce that I wish it would finally leave me in a pile of ash and dust. It tears me away from my family. It tears me away from my friends. I constantly am plagued by my own worst enemy. Me.

Other times it feels like I’m sinking down into icy, inky depths which threaten to finally crush my soul and end it all. But before that happens, I skyrocket back up to the surface and remember what the sun feels like. I can conquer all that lays before me, and the horrors of those ugly depths melt away. I function how I need to, but the tension still lingers.

The good times never last long without dimming or extinguishing all together. The threat of a mood swing still looms overhead, waiting for what it can demolish next. One wrong move on my part, and it all comes crashing down. Sometimes I can shake it off, rub some dirt in it, and get right back into the grind of things. Other times, I'm not so lucky. It can take weeks, or even months before it finally fades or goes away (if I'm lucky). For a long time, I hated the fact that I had bipolar disorder. Before I was diagnosed, I just thought I had an aggressive case of depression and had no idea how to handle it. Even now, there are times where I feel weak and hate myself for letting my emotions get to my head. Even now, it feels so dramatic discussing it, but it's always there, just as a raven is to the gallows.

As ugly as it is, there's one thing I learned a few months ago that has helped with how I handle my illness and take care of myself. Surprisingly enough, I heard it in the church. I was sitting in sacrament meeting, and one of the talks was specifically about depression. Before that afternoon, no one had ever mentioned that depression carries spiritual side effects in addition to the mental, physical and emotional ones. In her article, Rebecca J. Clayson talks about how depression makes it difficult to feel peace, love, joy or any of the fruits of the Spirit. In the LDS religion, being able to feel and follow promptings of the Holy Ghost is key to living a happy and successful life. Throughout my life, that safe and steady presence was hard to find. With something so key to my relationship with my Heavenly Father hardly there 95 percent of the time, I was plunged into thoughts, like I was damned and wasn’t loved, or perhaps I managed to commit a crime so awful that I had managed to offend Him enough for Him to withdraw His presence from me forever. On the rare occasions that I did feel the Spirit, it never stayed, and I always doubted what I felt. I had a hard time keeping it together when it clicked that it wasn’t my fault, that the Heavenly Father in fact still loves me (and always has done so), not to mention that I was going to be OK. Even though I still have serious struggles with religion, it plays a significant part of my life. It's made talking to Him when I needed to out loud less awkward and a little more real like he was actually there and waiting for me to take that first step. It's made my decision to move possible. I know that He's there when I need Him, as well as the times when I might doubt or forget.

Understanding that my illness is not me, but a part of me, has made withdrawing and examining both what's going on and how I feel a more solid practice. Having bipolar depression has made me stronger and a kinder person. I understand how people suffer. I love myself and watch for the things that might trigger a depressive or manic episode. Having the proper knowledge to recognize and treat symptoms has transformed fear into strength. I'm better equipped to battle the monsters who threaten to destroy both myself and all that I cherish. I lost a couple of battles, and almost lost the war, but I haven’t given in, and pray that I never do.