“It can take days and days before I even shower properly, or do the dishes, or open the windows.”

When I finally got myself together and went to see a psychiatrist, I already had done a lot of bulls**t. Too many wrong, stupid, nonsense and embarrassing bulls**t. For years. Decades. Let’s say, since I have memories.

The last straw was a phone call with my mother. I had a couple of shots of tequila (maybe four), then she called me. I started the phone call with a huge alarm bell ringing in my head so loud, screaming No, don’t say a word, pretend you are asleep, but you know, mum is mum. I ignored it and went on blabbering.

I went way, way too far.

I have no clues about what I told her. That happens to me independently of the alcohol I drink. I sometimes have very high days. I do so many things. When I do them I feel like Wonder Woman and perfectly conscious, but I’m not, and the cherry on the cake is- the day after, I can’t remember a thing.

So, basically I think I told her everything about my past love for cocaine, alcohol, random sex, hurting myself, and almost dying of an infection caused by a stupid piercing -three of them in fact- that I had done when I was high (everybody thought it was for another medical reason, they almost sued the doctor).

Let’s explain. For ‘high’, I mean hypomanic. For ‘down’, I mean depressed. As simple as that. But it’s obviously not easy nor simple.

So, there I was, the day after. Two options: disappear, or get a cure.

I can’t really disappear. I have a nice job, I have a mortgage, but most of all I have two beautiful daughters in their teens. I am divorced, free and happy to be so.

Option two: get a treatment from a doctor who actually knows what he’s doing.

I’ve been trying to seek help from psychologists and psychiatrists for years, but I always dropped out the very moment I saw they weren’t taking me and my concerns seriously. Period.

I choose a great psychiatrist, his career is exclusively dedicated to bipolar issues. It took him only 15 minutes to see it. Cyclothymia.

I thought it was Bipolar 2, but yet he’s obviously right. My mood changes so quickly. In a single month, I can go from deep depression, to extreme high, to total numbness, and then to being normal for some blessed few days.

Now, I am well aware that, “We all are moody from time to time”. Yeah darling. But not as moody as a bipolar. Not every single day. Not all of your life. Not for no reason at all. You don’t just wake up and want to die, if you can get what I mean. Or wake up and call a perfect stranger, make him come to your house and have sex with him, all of this at 9am, without even knowing his name. Or waste 500€ online even before getting out of bed at 8am, money I can’t obviously spend on bulls**t.

So, the doctor told me to keep a diary, a very visual diary: X up, X down, X in the middle, with a range that goes from killing myself because I’m too depressed, to have myself killed for getting into huge troubles. In the middle, normality and little up and downs.

I always hated the concept of normality. It’s boring. In fact, the first thing I told my doctor when he suggested medication, was if I would lose my personality trait, my eccentricity, my craziness, my special touch. I don’t want to be “normal’. But at the same time, I don’t want that ‘Option B’ anymore.

So, you all, I guess the interesting thing here is knowing what kind of craziness was mine. I have a few stories to tell, but it would take a whole book for them all to fit in. So I’ll just share some little ones.

High stories.

I had a passion for cocaine. A true love. Because whenever I was in a hype moment, I didn’t want the hype to stop. I mean, I was already high, and I wanted more and more and more adrenaline. I honestly wonder how I’m still alive.

Of course, after that, here it comes the dark depression for days, to compensate the craziness I lived for a night. Or two. Or few days. Actually, during the last period of me doing coke, I would go on for days, a little bit but constantly, just to avoid the scary down that would come afterwards.

I got out of it in just one day: I stopped craving for it. I don’t believe in god or anything like that, but I’m sure something -not my brain- got me out of that. It’s been years now.

I was very promiscuous for years. In fact, since I have memories I’ve always been interested in dating guys. I’m talking about being 4 or 5 years old. And by ‘guys’ I mean not one. I would fall in love -or better said, desire and make up with- more than one at time. Adrenaline. I’ve never been normal. That thing went on all of my life, never being faithful, ever. Even if I was in a happy healthy relationship, and really didn’t need anything else in a normal world. I’ve always been after that big, big up sensation. Desire- not able to control it, just going on with my instincts- even if I eventually realized I was actually hurting people. I didn’t care. I wanted that high.

Let’s talk about self harming now. When I was 12, I started piercing my own ears with a needle. Like, not once, but 12 times, and stopped because my parents started to ground me for months. I still have those piercings, and I pray whoever is anywhere up there listening to me, not to see my daughters doing the same.

I also loved being scratched by my cats. In fact, I was provoking them just to have the scratches. Again: pain, feelings, adrenaline. I also loved cutting my hands or body with a little sharp blade I kept in my purse, and then blaming the cats. Because I knew the numb time was right around the corner. In fact, I still practice self harming, but it has a new name now: it’s called BDSM. And masochism, if you want. I found a way to be me without feeling I’m the weird one, even if in that world too I am one of the most extreme people, talking about certain stuff. But that’s another story.

I got divorced, went to trial, bought a new house in just three months. I got rid of a person that wouldn’t understand when I said, “I can’t deal with myself, I need help”. He was always saying that it was all in my head, and guess what, he was right. And guess what, I filed for divorce after spending more than one year with a psychologist, who helped me to see things clearly. I then caught the wave of a very high mood to do all of it by myself, no help- I’m in a foreign country, no relatives. Just me. And I did it. Of course, later on the depression came knocking on my door, but I was finally safe. No regrets.

I am a very creative person. I love singing, painting, drawing, creating things, all sorts of DIY you can imagine. I could literally build a house when I’m high, because I have that strength and power coming from inside of me, and I eventually will succeed. Sometimes I go through stuff I made and I think it’s amazing. When I’m down, I can’t understand how the hell I made them. It feels like they’ve been done by someone else.

Of course it does.

Down stories now.

This is interesting. I mean, not. Nothing. I have nothing to say to anyone, feel like doing nothing, horrible thoughts, feeling completely useless and wrong. I also signed a new life insurance, thinking of my daughters, just in case one day things get worse in my head and I kill myself, you know. How awful is it, for god’s sake.

I can wake up one morning and not wanting to do anything all day. Of course, we all have that blue day. But it can take days and days before I even shower properly, or do the dishes, or open the windows. I just can’t. I think of how much a perverted open minded bitch I can be when I’m up, and can’t believe it’s the same person. I would like to mix up the two personalities living inside of me, just to have a careless, normal life.

But you know what? No, I don’t. I don’t want to lose that sparkle. I believe I would just die if I turned ‘normal’. And yet, I admire people who don’t have to wake up terribly worried about what they did or said the day before, on a regular basis, every day, thinking you may have fucked up your entire life and you’re going to die alone, be shamed by everybody in the whole world, because everyone knows you are a fraud. Even for that little embarrassing thing that happened 15 years ago.

And then, you realize you actually didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing.

And get some confidence again. Until you get high again.

There are some days when I wake up and by 10 o’clock in the morning I’ve already gone out of my house three times, cooked for the whole week, cleaned every single item in the apartment and still feel like, “Yeah, what can I do now?”

There are other days when I am dead scared of getting out of my own bed and go to my own kitchen to have my morning coffee. For days. My house. My living room. No one there to see me or judge me.

Just to give you an idea. I can have like 10 days of high in a month. Then other 10 days of down. And what remains in between, is normal life. But of course, it’s not 10 days straight. It’s a couple of days up, three down, a week up, one day down. It’s a f***ing rollercoaster, every single month, for years and years.

I am on medication now. It’s been getting frankly better. I’ve been in treatment for 7 months and I do not feel so embarrassed as I used to during my entire life. Of course, I know it’s not over and probably it will never be. But I’m trying so hard to get a balance. Crazy but not mad. Sad but not depressed.

The path is difficult, and long. And I’m aware it’s for life.