The Bipolar Path

(And I don’t know how to unlearn that.)

There’s a story I’ve been telling myself since the breakup.

It goes like this:
“They left because I’m bipolar.”
Not because we argued. Not because we weren’t right for each other.
But because of me. Because of this disorder that follows me like a shadow I can’t outrun.
Because I’m too much.
Too intense.
Too sad, too happy, too chaotic, too broken.
Too… extreme.

It sounds like the truth when I’m lying on the floor at 3AM.
When I replay the things I said – things I didn’t mean.
Worse, things I said that aren’t even me.
But I said them anyway, because that’s what bipolar can do.
It turns fear into anger. Love into panic. Hope into obsession.

I pushed him away.
I clawed for closeness and then ran from it.
I made him responsible for my safety when I wasn’t even safe inside my own mind.
And I hate myself for all of it.

I said I was fine. I wasn’t.
I said I’d get better. I didn’t.
I said I was easy to love. I lied.

And yet…
I imagined our future like it was already written.
I imagined how our kids would look.
The wedding theme.
The colors. The flowers. The invitations.
I had a name for our baby. For a girl.
Because a boy – he would’ve named him.

I didn’t just fall in love.
I built a whole world around it.

And now it’s gone.
And the loss isn’t clean.
It’s loud.
It screams at me from inside my chest.
It makes me question everything:
Was I the monster?

Because I am friends with the monster under my bed.
We go way back.
It whispers to me at night, when I can’t sleep.
It tells me I’m too much to love, too unstable to keep, too broken to fix.
And some days, I believe it.

Because I had everything – and now I’ve lost everything.

I want to escape.
I want to run.
I want to scream and sleep and drive with no destination.
I want to forget who I am, just for a little while.
Because right now, it feels like I’m drowning in a version of myself I can’t explain to anyone.

But even in this mess, even in the shame and the silence –
There’s a flicker.
A whisper.
A voice that says:

Maybe you’re not unlovable.
Maybe you’re just unfinished.
Maybe you need people who won’t flinch when you unravel.
Who won’t walk away when your sky goes dark.
Who don’t just love your light – but learn how to stand in your storms.

I’m still hurting.
Still healing.
Still angry, sad, confused, and weirdly hopeful.

But today, I wrote this.
And that means something.