Haze / ✓

part I

When people think of bipolar, they think of happiness. They think of sadness. They think of the two of them as interchangeable emotions.

They think of a wicked smile cutting across someone's lips, only to quickly be replaced with a frown so deep that it makes the rest of your face sink; drag down so far that it can't be pulled up again.

That isn't all there is.

Bipolar is more than happiness and sadness. It's weeks of intense, utter depression, dragging you so far down into an abyss that you aren't sure if you even want to come out again. It's happiness so raw and pure that you can do anything - it's a confidence so strong that you know you can do it, no matter what they say.

It's a completely new part of your brain that opens. It's a power that everyone says you shouldn't do, but it's so strong and so tempting - because, come on, just touch the flame. One touch. It won't hurt. You're strong enough for it.

I blink and look away from the lighter in my hand, the orange flame dancing in my peripheral vision. Instead, my eyes focus on a much more daunting sight; one that send my stomach doing backflips and has my heartbeat racing just that much more.

Risperidone. It's in a clear, orange bottle with a small piece of paper taped to the side. I can see my name. My birth year. And then, right there, in front of my eyes: bipolar. Medicine for bipolar. To control it. To tame it. To hide it.

To hide me.

It's eight o'clock in the morning, and I know that in five minutes I should be swallowing two pills. In fifteen minutes I should be getting dressed. In twenty-five minutes I'll be taking the bus down to Oregon State University. In an hour I'll be sitting through my first lecture, and so on and so forth. My entire day is planned, and it all starts with that little pill.

It all starts with two pills of Risperidone that are meant to control me. To fix me. To allow me to operate on this schedule planned for me.

I don't want to. As I reach out for the pill bottle, my body hurts. The arms in my muscles contract painfully, begging for me to pull back. I clench my jaw and wrap two thin fingers around the pill bottle, pulling across the table and towards me. My fingers burn in protest. The sound of the pill bottle scraping across the table sends chills across my body, and I hate it. I hate it so much.

And then the cap is off and two white pills are in my palm and then down my throat and making their way through my body to fix me. The lighter has fallen from my fingers, abandoned somewhere on the messy floor, and it's exactly eight-oh-five. I'm on schedule.

I don't feel a change in my demeanor. I don't want to touch the flame anymore, but I'm not different. I don't feel calm or comfortable. I don't feel happy. I don't feel sad. I don't know what I feel.

I wonder if it's possible to lose myself if I never really knew who I was to start with.

I shake my head and stand up, quickly getting dressed and grabbing my school bag. I know I'm Jeff Williams. I know I'm twenty years-old. I know that two days ago I tripped down the very same stairs I'm walking down. But do I know me? Do I know the Jeff who takes his pills, or the one who went weeks without them? Is there really a difference?

I figure there's a difference between knowing ourselves and knowing the things we want to know about ourselves.

I finish my morning routine: grab a water from the fridge, lock the door, and start the walk down to the bus stop. My mind drifts back to the bottle of pills sitting on my dresser, an accessory to my room that I've become so comfortable seeing there.

I try to remember the me before the pills, but it's hard. I remember the two weeks I went off my pills, two weeks before I turned eighteen, and my chest explodes in happiness. I remember the utter euphoria I felt. I remembered going for runs for hours and staying up until the morning because I was so inspired. I wrote a book during those two weeks. Inspiration flowed through my veins, dangerous and powerful and inspiring.