The Beast: A Diary

I was diagnosed bipolar when I was 14 years old. During one of my mom's pep talks on one of many mornings that I refused to get out of bed and go to school, she said to me "Isabel, you can't let the beast win." And thus the affectionate pet name for my lifelong companion, my illness. I believe we all have our own beasts, and we struggle with them in our own ways. This blog is a record of mental illness, and the memoir of a beast within. This is a story about a girl and her beast.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Not Like the Others #5

I'M REALLY FRUSTRATED AND IT'S REAL AND I'M NOT CRAZY I SWEAR

I have been unhappy with my living situation for a while now, and although there have been points in time where I feel a renewed sense of appreciation for my home, it has not lasted and I find myself once again feeling trapped, frustrated and misunderstood.

I'm trying so hard to be healthy; I am more committed to my mental health than I have ever been, and I do believe that in this process I will learn how to better care for myself in all aspects of my being. I am beginning to realize that some aspects of my life are not encouraging my self-care.

I need to make some serious changes, and I am afraid that I may hurt some of those that care about me, along the way. I can only hope that they will understand how important it is, this journey of mine. That I am trying to change my life.

I want to be a whole person. A happy person. A healthy person.

Right now the state of my apartment makes me hate myself. Missing class and assignments make me hate myself. Work makes me hate myself, eating makes me hate myself.

I have so much hate for the person I am right now. But I can feel it, the change that is headed my way.

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"my beast comes in the afternoon he gnaws at my gut he paws my head he growls spits out part of me.

my beast comes in the afternoon while other people are taking pictures while other people are at picnics my beast comes in the afternoon across a dirty kitchen floor leering at me

while other people are employed at jobs that stop their thinking my beast allows me to think about him, about graveyards and dementia and fear and stale flowers and decay and the stink of ruined thunder.

my beast will not let me be he comes to me in the afternoons and gnaws and claws and I tell him as I double over, hands gripping my gut, jesus, how will I ever explain you to them? they think I am a coward but they are the cowards because they refuse to feel, their bravery is the bravery of snails.

my beast is not interested in my unhappy theory—he rips, chews, spits out another piece of me.

I walk out the door and he follows me down the street. we pass the lovely laughing schoolgirls the bakery trucks and the sun opens and closes like an oyster swallowing my beast for a moment as I cross at a green light pretending that I have escaped, pretending that I need a loaf of bread or a newspaper, pretending that the beast is gone forever and that the torn parts of me are still there under a blue shirt and green pants as all the faces become walls and all the walls become impossible." -Charles Bukowski