Some people in here don’t think I should go to college next year. At least not Reed. This nervous, frog-eyed woman named Jill says it’s too much stress, I should stay home, maybe take a couple classes at the community college if I feel up to it, get ten hours of sleep every night, and wear a gas mask when I go outside. Jill’s a hypochondriac and is scared of everything, including water, so I’m not taking advice from her anytime soon.
But I do wonder about it. What if I’m at school and I go manic and think I can fly and jump off the roof, or what if I get depressed and lock myself in my room and nobody notices until they can smell the stench of my decaying body? I feel fine now, but they’re always warning us about getting too confident, “hubris,” as Jeff the bipolar history professor likes to call it. It’s like they’re trying to make us scared of everything. They say people with bipolar disorder need to be vigilant about keeping track of their moods. Every day I’m supposed to record how I feel in a journal, even several times a day, then report my findings to my outpatient doctor. But it seems like anything could be considered a sign of impending doom; anything can trigger an episode—stress, too much caffeine, not enough sleep, lack of a consistent schedule, arguments with loved ones, loss of a pet, a loud noise, too many donuts, clowns, roller-skating. Maybe not the last few, but you see what I mean. If I start feeling irritable or horny or craving chocolate, I must sound the alert. If I lose my appetite, I should call 911. If I have a headache, I need to check myself in to the hospital. While everyone else is going to be busy worrying about their grades or if some boy likes them, I’m going to be obsessing about every little mood so I don’t lose my mind.
I’m not sure what I’m doing in this journal, in these notes to you. I’m not sure what you want to hear, or what I want to be telling you. Maybe I’m supposed to be reflecting about my life, figuring out what went wrong, dissecting everything very rationally and coming up with theories and plans and all that logical stuff. Or maybe I’m supposed to just feel my way to sanity, open up and talk about my childhood and my mother and my brother and my fears until they lose all their juice. Maybe all I need is a good old-fashioned cry, and I can catch my tears with this paper and mail it to you. I could do all the exercises in this Cognitive Behavioral Therapy workbook. I could turn them in to you like homework. And the gold stars will pile up—the new tools, the coping mechanisms, the rules to live by. I could lay everything out, draw you an annotated map of my psyche. I could narrate my road to sanity like a nature documentary, English accent and all, very authoritative.
But no. You must be tired of the Isabel Show by now. And this dramatic plot twist, so contrived. Now is what happens behind the scenes, the real work, the construction and bookkeeping and all that boring stuff. I will do what they tell me. I will take my medications as prescribed. I will go to outpatient therapy three days a week. And then they’ll give me back to the world one piece at a time. I’ll earn my way back in. Little by little, I’ll start to convince people I’m sturdy. And it won’t be a show, it’ll just be me, and that will have to be enough.
I wonder what it’ll take for you to believe me. What do I have to do to convince you I’m solid, that you don’t have to tiptoe around me with a net, waiting to catch the falling pieces? Connor, you can stop holding your breath now. You can stop losing yourself to keep me standing.
I saw you that day in the ambulance. Maybe you assumed I was out of my mind and wouldn’t remember, but I do. I saw the exact same face I remember from the summer. Even through your fear, I saw everything I always loved, and for that second I felt like I was in the world again.
I try not to wonder what you saw. Certainly not the girl you remember. I think about all the almost-plans we made in the last few months, how close we came to meeting again. But I would always sabotage things, wouldn’t I? It was always me canceling our plans. I realize now I was doing it on purpose. I think I was scared of disappointing you. I was scared of you realizing I’m not who you want me to be. Part of me thought you’d keep loving me only if I could keep you at a distance. Your memories of me are part trees and part ocean and part magic, and I don’t know if I will ever be that girl again. She was the best version of me. Connor, I’m so afraid of you being disappointed. I’m someone else now, someone I’m afraid you won’t be able to love.
Mom says you’re coming to visit on Thursday. I’m terrified. I don’t want you to see me in here, in this context. For a second I thought of asking her to tell you not to come. The doctor says I can probably go home on Tuesday or Wednesday, so it wouldn’t be too much to wait until I get out in a few days. I built up a whole list of excuses and explanations in my head. But it felt wrong. It’s the kind of thing I’ve been doing my whole life—making excuses, running away from things—but somehow now it feels wrong. So I asked myself what I’m so afraid of. Am I scared of you seeing me in here? Am I scared of you knowing exactly who I am? God, I’m so tired of running and hiding from everything.
Then I remembered that there’s nothing I want more than to see you right now, and I’m not going to let fear take that away from me.