It's all in my head

Maybe I never even had bipolar at all, maybe it’s all in my head? 

Perhaps I am just a hypochondriac trying to create a reason for not fitting in, wanting an excuse for poor judgement and poor self -control. Is it possible the doctors were wrong, simply going off the history that I told them about and calling my anxieties about the threats of hospitalization ‘Mania’ Maybe I was never manic at all, maybe I just talk too fast and have trouble staying focused and thinking clearly sometimes, maybe the hallucinations were part of a flu – nobody ever checked my temperature.

Perhaps the depression that comes and goes isn’t depression after all, but instead a consequence of repeated failures and poor self-esteem. Maybe I’m just attention seeking, but I don’t want this kind of attention, I want it all to go away.

I don’t need this diagnosis; I just need to own my actions. The kind folks at big pharma want me to have bipolar, they want me to line their pockets with gold, “have some pills and be on ye way lassie”. I don’t need their ‘magic’ medicine, all I need is myself and I will be free to live the way I want, where I want, I don’t expect anyone to understand.

Part of me worries that they know what I’m thinking, that they know I am worried that they know I am worried, it makes me seem paranoid. Of course no one is out to get me, why would they be? I haven’t done anything special, I have no secret information – it doesn’t make any sense, so it can’t be. I don’t need a doctor to work that out for me, I know it doesn’t make sense, and I would never tell them that I was secretly wondering about that because then they might think that I am paranoid when I am not, because it doesn’t make sense and I am not saying that it does.

I have getaway plans in place, you know, just in case. Just in case I am wrong about being wrong and there is something to be afraid of. I think about it a lot at the moment, what I would do, where I would go, how I would deceive them, they’d never find me. The case worker that threatened me with hospitalization for mania all those years ago, she told me I had to be home in half an hour to pick up her phone call or she’d send the police to my home, I had never driven so fast in my life. Well I know how I would get away from them now, if that would ever happen again – the police couldn’t catch me.

So I’m not paranoid, but I’m worried of being accused of being mentally ill when I am absolutely fine, just worried that they will not believe that I don’t have bipolar after all and they will lock me up and forcibly medicate me with drugs I don’t need or worse threaten me again with ECT, I will die before I let that happen, quite literally DIE. 

Yes, I know people out there have had great success with it but it’s an absolute deal breaker for me and just the thought throws me in to an utter panic.

Deep breath because suddenly I’m talking myself into a frenzy imagining the worst and hiding blades and money in secret places ‘just in case’. See look around you Kate - nobody is here, nobody can read your mind, you are all alone and safe. I’m not paranoid, I’m just a hypochondriac.