Mental Note(s)

Another unfinished piece I found while going through my folder so cleverly titled as "WRITE" One day I will finish some of the stuff in here, well there.....



Mental Note(s)


Mental Note(s) chronicles the struggles of mental illness. What makes my story unique is I wouldn’t receive a diagnosis until late in life, long after the self-destruction and damage had been done.

Looking back on my life I often do find humor in the insanity, but I am somewhat saddened that it wouldn’t be until my late twenties that I would be diagnosed with Bi-Polar Disorder. Bipolar disorder is a serious mental condition, sometimes called manic-depressive disorder causes mood swings that range from of the lows of depression to the highs of mania. When you become depressed, you may feel sad or hopeless and lose interest or pleasure in most activities. When your mood shifts in the other direction, you may feel euphoric and full of energy. Mood shifts may only occur only a few times a year, or as often as several times a day. In some cases, bipolar disorder causes symptoms of depression and mania at the same time.


Part One: Troubled Child

At a very young age I knew that I was far different from the other children in my family, and those who ran the streets of my neighborhood. My emotions were extreme and my thought process somewhat advanced and considerable dark. As a little girl I would often seek sanctuary in the closets of my childhood home in a desperate attempt to escape to absolute silence.

My moods would shift quickly and without warning. In one moment I am captivating my audience with playful humor and silly antics and in the next I am filled with such a sense of sadness. Sadness as I curled up in a tiny crawl space between the redbrick’s and evergreen shrub, my auburn hair tousled, in other moments I seem to have been struck with lighting as my little hands would work quickly to color the pages of a coloring book, careful not to break through the bold black line.

I would be seven years old when my first poem of darkness flowed to the wide lined paper, the execution of each letter perfectly placed within the blue lines. As the years passed I would fill spiral bound notebooks, folders and Trapper Keepers with tortured tales and random twisted thoughts, however within the pages of death, heartbreak and emotionally turmoil occasionally a poem of sun filled skies, love and humor would break like the dawn through a blackened sky.

Teachers and School authorities would often bring up some concern is to my behavior, whether it was my boisterous outbursts or my attempts to seek out pure isolation. They had no idea is to the chaos that wrapped my mind. I would often be sent to the counselor’s office where I would be encouraged to speak of my feelings, feelings that would change from day to day, moment to moment. By the time I reached 6th grade the insanity seemed to go through the same growth spurt that I was going through and the hormonal change that was going on inside my body seemed to feed the disorder. Day after day I would be led to the office due to an emotional outburst or some other emotionally charged situation, tardiness or my completely missing class because between my home and school the illness would take control and I would seek out the same sanctuary once found in closets of our home in the trees of Lions Park. It would be these journeys down the long tile hallway to the office that would eventually brand me as the “Troubled Child”



Part Two: Masquerade

I would be 12 years of age and in the 6th grade at Grandview Elementary School when I learned that whatever had taken residence in my head could not be understood by others, I knew that I had to pretend, mask the madness if you will. The earlier branding as the “Troubled Child” would assist in my deception. This would be the beginning of a life long struggle and Masquerade.