A curious beast.

A curious beast, bipolar disorder is. When I find myself struggling out of the abyss of a particularly bad low episode, some days I will go through feeling fine, like I can do anything, like it’s “finally over.” I can see all the plans I have for me stretched out in my mind like unalienable truths. Yes, I can get a 4.0, yes, I can work out everyday, yes, I can memorize the entire Quran, yes, yes, yes. Everything seems so full of hope and light and promise. Then there are the days where it seems like I am just destined to fail, to go back to my turtle shell. I’m finding myself on the trailing edges of this “mixed-mode” stage, like where two different colored brushstrokes meet in a painting, one light and one dark.

I read Saba’s The Muslim’s 5-Step Guide to Bipolar Mastery. It’s been helpful just knowing that I’m not alone in this, that other Muslims go through the same thing. I read through it very quickly the first time, pretty much absorbed it like a woman dying of thirst in the desert who has finally found water. The second time around I’m going to go through it more thoroughly, insha Allah.

So this particular Muslim Humpty-Dumpty has put back the salvaged pieces of her life, again. I feel like there are pieces still missing here and there but nothing a little plaster can’t fix. I know, inevitably that I will fall and break again, but Allah made us strong and stubborn, and somehow I’ve always found a way to keep going.

This must be what it’s like to walk after surgery, he thinks. You see the scars and know that nothing can ever work the same again; you’re ready for that. But no one warns you that your heart will break just a little when you take those first steps, because your body is stubborn and stupid and will find a way to keep going, no matter what they take from it, and one day you’re going to get dressed and walk out your door and no one will know you used to be different at all.