Once I was asked if I was bipolar. I had no clue how to answer that question, so I laughed it off and chuckled, “No, I am a writer.”
Needless to say, I was vexed, perplexed, and very much intrigued and curious in the moments following that spiritual reading that unearthed the question. It did not take me long to learn that the definition of Bipolar Disorder I had in my head was pretty far off from the actual diagnosis. Nevertheless, I quickly came to the very humorously uncomfortable conclusion that I was most definitely harboring some very deepseeded bipolar tendencies.
So, you may be wondering what being a writer had to do with being bipolar in my mind. I get tickled every time I think about the childlike answer and the amusement I got out of the question, “Are you bipolar?” See, somewhere along the course of life, I started unconsciously grouping bipolar disorder, multiple personalities, and schizophrenia in the same basket. Fun fact, they are not the same.
Well, to my credit, I have always lived with undiagnosed versions of what some might call Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder), Bipolar Disorder, and Schizophrenia. I have never really considered either diagnosis a hopeless disorder. Although, I can see how they can produce quite dysfunctional realities or illusions depending on a person’s environment, nurturing or rearing, and other factors. In my personal and professional experience, each of them points directly to a necessary spiritual journey for a persona’s enlightenment.
For me, multiple personalities have always manifested themselves through many forms of writing and storytelling. However, it was not until I was confronted with the psychological definition of Bipolar Disorder that I made that connection and many others. As a youth, I was constantly developing fictions to manipulate life and people, improving a narrative to suit my whims, creating worlds that only a version of me could control, and writing characters onto some form of paper or into my reality and that of others, so on.
Often these conjurings were very low vibrational fathomings, and often mere facades to hide the more mundane and seemingly less exciting me, the authentic me. The me who would eventually prove to be more exciting, impactful, and empowering than all of the imposters combined. At times, living in the fabricated life of characters I made up was almost euphoric. Some people might even call it orgasmic.
Over time, I began suffering. It is only so long you can entertain many scattered factions of yourself before your internal compass starts to spin out of control and you lose sight of yourself and who you are. Not to mention the immense weight and impeding pressure that weighs you down in the form of masks, facades, and outright lies that you must maintain to keep up with the personalities. You only begin to feel the result of that pressure when you become aware of yourself and your true identity.
If you are reading this, you may be shattered, but you are mending. You may be broken, but it is for your greater purpose. You can piece together all of the facets of yourself. That is my story—the authentic one. For now, I will lay down my pen here, but we will speak soon on how I discarded the fictions, sorted the voices in my head, and pulled them back together.
Masha’Allah
