Author: Nicholas A Duran, LMHC

I want to run through the city. Then I want to lie down in the street.

I’m sitting in the park, crying. I’m fighting for my life.

One minute we’re celebrating our anniversary— I’m happy, in love, present. The next morning I wake up to the heaviness of my body, holding more than my bones and muscles can carry.

What’s happening to me?

It’s so rapid. So everywhere. I thought I was in remission—so what is this?

My psychologist and my psychiatrist are concerned. They start talking about hospitalization. They change my medications three times in a single weekend.

By Friday, I can’t work. I can’t see beyond what’s right in front of me. I can’t walk in a straight line. I can’t keep my eyes open. My mind is going numb.

(An inter-episode is the space between defined mood episodes in bipolar disorder— not quite mania, not quite depression, but unstable, shifting, and often disorienting in its own right.)

I’m home. My home becomes a hospital.

My husband counts my pills, cuts them in half. My medical team calls every day, checking on me. I’m in and out of the office, or on video calls.

It’s dark—then light—then too bright to stand. Then calm again.

I sit against the wall until it passes. I get into bed before I’m ready. He helps me into my pajamas.

I blink hard and slow. My fingers twitch as I wring my hands together.

And still—there is a light.

I wake up, and I’m me again. I’m working. I’m listening to music. I’m walking my dog.

If only I could stay here— in this imperfect moment where I can breathe a little deeper.

I have no answers to the questions I wish would go quiet.

The carousel keeps spinning, slow and endless. The race car stops dead in its tracks.

The space between the highest high and the lowest low isn’t always stable. It has its own rhythm. Its own repercussions.

I’m close to the shore, and the waves keep coming— until it becomes a tsunami with no crest, no break, no retreat.

And then—finally— it stops.

I wake up and the day stops hurting. I wake up and the colors return— not dull, not muted, not too bright to see.

What is in front of me. What is me. What is now.

Still wet. Still moving.