STEPHEN FRY

I love, firstly, that Mr. Fry refers to this affliction as Manic Depression in the title of his documentary. Bipolar, as a term, of course, infers two separate ways of...well something I suppose. Manic depression hits it on the nose, though. When one (soul/life/moment) is manic, one is subsequently and eventually likewise depressed.
It actually got to the point that, when I was manic and energetic and happy beyond all belief, I couldn't even enjoy it because I knew that, in a few hours, the crash would come. But I digress... I'm trying to talk about the evolution of a manic depressive, so I'll start at the beginning:
I was molested at 13. It was an occurrence that shut me down. Probably a direct result from me counting from 10 to 1 over and over during the occurrence. For three years, I didn't feel like others. Not as in, "Oh, I feel like I'm not like others," but like, “I can clearly see that other people feel things and, shucks, to their extent, I simply don't" I smiled or frowned when the situation seemed appropriate, but I never really cared as much about anything, happy or sad, as much as anyone else. (Side note: sad movies always made me cry through this period.) The first time I cried (not via the cinema) was when I told my then BFF what had happened to me and, even then, the tears forced. I only told her to get her to confess what I already knew about her step-father. I fake-cried, she real-cried, step-dad got imprisoned. If nothing else, I can chalk up my molestation to being a terrible thing that stopped another terrible thing from happening anymore. However, the vocal admittance that I made to my friend triggered the outpour of emotion I'd been bottling quite well until then.
It was not sudden. I was not suddenly sad, or angry, or anything. Yet, though it was slow, it was noticed. A friend once noticed that, "You know, when you're happy, you're really happy; and when you're sad, you're really sad." Back then, I was simply a person of minute extremes...not yet a person whose moods would sway them into danger.
The vocal admittance of my molestation was shortly followed by my first real relationship. I told him what had happened to me and he said he was not scared away by it. In his defense, when I told him about it, I was not as crazy as I became during the 2 1/2 years we were together. And by crazy, I mean sad. Sad, Sad, Sad. I cried for no "real" reason. Once, we were out of salt and the giant dark veil slammed downed and I was immune to any happiness that might have prevailed otherwise. It became obvious that I was depression in a nutshell. I had years of pent of sorrow that decided to make its presence known all but all at once. It was toward the end of our relationship that sorrow gave some leeway to rage and, rage, at times, in self-preservation I suppose, manifested as mania. I was so happy. I loved sunny days when I was manic. I loved music more, I loved people more, I wanted to get out there and live more. Beauty was everywhere and I was part of it and you were part of it and I can't even say that "anything" was possible because "EVERYTHING" was possible! The sheer joy I felt when mania repelled the "real" world from me was as devoted to its cause as the depression that intercepted it and repelled me from the "real" world. After a year or so, however, I was disenchanted by the highs. It was sad, really. I couldn't even enjoy them because I knew that, too soon, I would crash and the dark veil would drop. I would fall from joy to complete sorrow in a second and there wouldn't be anything I could do about it. The boyfriend I had at this point couldn't handle my mood swings, so I dumped him (also he cheated on me). It was the first time I tried to kill myself. I downed [Edit: deleted by KS as unsafe information]. I started rolling and vomiting. My parents called the hospital to see if they should have me committed. I managed to talk them out of it, threw up some more, and commenced not dying.
Six moths later, I did some E and began dating someone else. He was funny, smart, and depressed. I thought, at least he would understand me... But it didn't work out that way. I understood HIM while he verbally and eventually physically abused me. During the interim, my manic depression was pivoting into full swing and we cooked meth in our trailer kitchen. Cliché, I know, but there's a reason things are cliché. We didn't sell the meth, we just snorted, smoked, and light-bulbed it all. It was during this phase, at age 19, that my parents sent me to a therapist. My first session there was preceded by a questionnaire that included a query of all the drugs I'd done and when. I was honest and eventually ran out of room in the allotted space, thus having to write in the margin that, among other things previous, I had done meth that day (on my way out the door, the first batch was done and my boyfriend and roommate asked if I wanted to try it...of course I did...who says no to new things when you don't give a damn?). The therapist was appalled and asked me if I thought that was a good idea. I told him I didn't think about it at all. After four sessions, he called me to tell me he was dumping me. He said I wasn't serious about getting better because I was different person every time he saw me. Fuck him. He was a crappy shrink. You know those cliché (and they don't become clichés for no reason) where all the shrink does is say "...um" until he can think of another question, but never proffers any answers because all your breakthroughs are supposedly built upon you talking until you realize what's wrong and then all of a sudden you're better? Yeah, he was one of those. The first day I went in there, I told him about my molestation and he thought it more appropriate to delve into family life. "How do you feel about your sister?" Who cares?
In any case, I tried to kill myself while I was dating my second boyfriend. Our electricity was shut off and, in the dark, I couldn't find the razor blade we used to cut meth, so all I found was the cheap girly pink razor I used for my armpits and raked it fervently all about both wrists. Those pink pieces of crap cut flesh worse than they do hair. A few days later my mother saw the beleaguered scrapes that slipped from beneath my long-sleeved shirt and she started crying. I never tried to actively kill myself again. However, I tried to self-destruct. I spent two or three CRAZY weeks on meth, feeling alive and dead both consecutively and separately depending upon which mood you asked. I stopped eating and kept listening to sad songs. I knew I was never supposed to be where I was but I knew there was nowhere else for me to be. I hurt and believed and cried and felt and was and wasn't and hated and loved and if doing everything wrong destroyed me then good...I would have not committed suicide...I would have died "accidentally"...my demise being the result of a hidden flaw and my mom could rest easy that I didn't commit suicide. I'd let both of us off the hook. Oh, an overdose preceded by subtle anorexia...no one's at intentional fault. She can rest easy knowing I didn't kill myself despite her and my father's love and I can rest easy being dead.
After a few months, I broke up with this funny, smart, depressed, abusive, methy boyfriend (because I may abuse myself, but I don’t hate myself enough to let someone else abuse me) and moved back in with my parents. Life happened for a year, interspersed by fits of crying hysterically for no and, yet, every reason and laughing hysterically for the same. Moments were perfect, moments were punctured, moments were finding me living an hour away from my parents and returning to visit when my sister was taken by ambulance to the hospital because she tried to kill herself…because depression is hereditary. In the ER, I never asked her why...I just blew up rubber gloves and stuck them in my bra. She thought it was hilarious.
Six months and a billion crazy moments later, I met Kvn. Short story, we liked each other and I worked hard trying to drive him away. I told him about my past and I never hid my crazy from him. I cried when I wanted to... The first time I did, I had enclosed myself in the bathroom while the house was full of people there for a party and I just cried. He came in and asked me what was wrong. I could only cry harder. For about half an hour I cried as hard as what seemed physically possible and said only two things over and over. "I'm sorry," and "I was just a kid." He said nothing, but he stayed with me. He didn't leave. I poured out my hurt, rage, crazy, and shame all over him, but he stayed. Eventually, I cried myself to sleep and, when I woke up on the bathroom floor the next morning, he was sleeping right there beside me. After a few months of this kind of devotion to me, my manic depression began to fade. My parents and sister had always, ALWAYS, been there for me and loved me through everything, but they (in my mind) were obligated by familial duties. Kvn could have left at any time...especially during the times I encouraged him to lest he have to deal with the likes of me and my crazy. But he never left. He loved me and he made me feel loved. If anything can blur the line between mania and depression, it is someone who loves you for who you are in between...or when you're happy...or when you're sad. After four or five years of him listening when I wanted to talk or him just holding me when I was sad for no reason or him (and this happened more than once) him waiting around for me to come to from a crying black-out, I was all but cured of my manic depression. After seven years, while mostly I'm normal, if I have a relapse, I'm actually manic more often then depressed.
I've never fully regained the sense of feeling that other "real" people seem to have (a few minutes after a friend's car was stolen, I was asked how I could just continue eating my pint of lo mein as if nothing had happened, to which I answered that there was nothing I could do about it, so why let a good meal go to waste), but the lack of appropriate feeling I have now is a ton better than the inappropriate feelings of dead-insideness that always ruins...well, just about everything it touches.
In any case, what you feel now, is not forever. It will seem like it. But it's not. It all changes all the time. Stick it out, try your best, have some faith, and see what happens. It took me over half my lifetime to regain myself from the clutches of my moving moods, but I've come far enough away from the brink to see it truly is possible. Even when you're sad and can never remember why on earth you were so happy yesterday, the sadness is NOT forever. It will portray itself to be, it will trick you into thinking this is it, this is life from now on, just sorrow and pain, but it's not forever.
I have a thing I say to myself when I'm having a bad day: "This is not the worst day of my life." I've have had and can vividly recall some of the worse days of my life, but, as of yet, if I include my future days, not one of my past or present days has ever been the worst day of my life. It might sound dumb, but that small sentence is a harbinger of hope and on-the-spot not-taking-things-for-grantedness because, even when if feel like you have nothing to take for granted, you have something.
When I went full-fledged depressed and knew, KNEW!, that I had nothing to live for, thus contemplated, and twice tried, to kill myself, it was not selfish as people always say it is. I was crazy with madness, the pain in my soul, the noise in my head was just too much...I just wanted it to stop. I didn't want to hurt anybody else...I didn't even want to hurt myself. I just wanted it to stop. I just wanted it to stop. But if you just wait...and reach out...and hold out...and reach inward...and just hold on, you will find something. It may take time and work, but this is not forever. Just like you, everything changes all the times.