For the bipolar book -- and for your understanding.

The things you don’t do while depressed:

·      You don’t drive alone on deserted country roads where there’s no speed limit.

·      You don’t stay alone. Even if you want nothing more than to be alone, complete solitude allows nihilistic thoughts to take hold. Coffeehouses remain a favorite refuge, even though you have to make small talk occasionally.

·      You don’t tell acquaintances you’re depressed. It makes them uncomfortable.

·      You don’t pick up broken glass without a sturdy pair of leather gloves.

·      You don’t smash the things you love. You don’t delete all your writing or destroy next summer’s garden under the grow lights, even though your writing and plants are living things and you are not.

·      You don’t give up your livelihood. You do not stay home from work no matter how bad you feel. You do not slack off on your work even though you’re sometimes so confused you don’t remember what to do next.

·      You don’t do anything that would put you in a behavioral health ward, because it will wipe out what little self-esteem has not been scoured away by the depression. The things the behavioral health ward does for your health and safety – taking away your phone, prohibiting you from doing work, taking your shoelaces, leaving you almost no alone time – depersonalizes you. Being in the ICU seems almost cheery in comparison – at least the nurses talk to you in kind voices there instead of flat parole officer voices.

·      You don’t let yourself eat or drink too much, do anything too reckless, or even speak the desire to flip your middle finger at an uncaring world.

The things you do while depressed:

·      You read the inspirational quotes your friend posts on Instagram and Facebook and assume that they’re not for you.

·      You answer, “How’s it going?” with “I’m doing pretty good”, even though you’re not.

·      You push yourself, push yourself, push yourself – until you can’t push yourself any more for that day, and then you sleep. Sometimes dreams are the best part of the day.

·      You try to find value in yourself and come up empty. The encouragement people give you seems to have come from a different world with different rules than the one you now live in.

·      You look for one thing, just one thing, to go well, knowing that your mind will merely dismiss it as irrelevant. You experience all bad things as the world’s way of telling you your demise is near, death by a thousand papercuts.

·      You call your psychiatrist, of course, and make an appointment. You feel like a failure doing so, even though you took your meds as instructed. You feel like a failure even needing to call your psychiatrist.

·      You wonder if you were being delusional all the times you felt you were accomplished, literate, and likeable.