Abilify--Zonegran

A very personal piece that won me state recognition and an LTAB finalist title.

My Mood Disorder, From Abilify--Zonegran:

A is for Abilify, and my inability to be mentally stable because that means more medication and more medication means more

B-breakdowns. The cracks in my mind turn to craters as time slips away because sometimes

C-calling my therapist just isn’t enough to prove I’m okay.

D-don’t tell me that this illness is something that can be drowned in liquor and dosed with drugs, because we all know that the real healing starts from within.

E-earning the status of “popper” “psycho” and “piss head” is a pretty big accomplishment, I mean, who else can update their medication list every month?

F-it

G-eodan, a medication you’ve never heard of, but I have to hear every day as it calls my name through pill cases and gargled cries, A drug I first met at the

H-hospital. No, don’t tell me that’s where you go for a broken bone, because if that were true, where would you go for a broken soul

I-imbalanced chemicals cause an impossible array of immense behavioral changes.

J--Jane Magnani, just another face to a name trying to find a a way to fill the void because

K--killing yourself is never the answer. This line gets drilled into your head like the needles into your arm, but no matter how much you say it to yourself, it sounds like a broken record.  

L-loving yourself is harder than loving someone else.

M-making up lines about the lines on your arms is like lying to fill the void. You lie in service of the truth, because the truth is too hard to handle.

N-never. Never is a word I say a lot, because I never wanted to have this illness. I never wanted to be the weed in your garden, or the storm cloud covering your sun. I never wanted medication, never wanted to be anxious, never wanted to try to kill myself three times, never wanted to go to a hospital. Never, never never….goddamnit!

O-outside. No...outside scares me. Out there, people don’t understand, they don’t care, they don’t realize--hell, they don’t even want to breathe the same air as me. Out there, out there no one cares, but in here, inside, that’s where I’m fine.

P-please. Someone. Help. I’m sending silent SOS messages through space just see if they’ll bounce back to me. I’m sinking in the sea of misery, I am the Titanic, sinking the unsinkable me.

Q-questions from strangers and friends alike trying to pry open the corners of my mind I really don’t want to

R-remember because I’m

S-scared of you. No, I’m scared of myself. Scared of what I’ve become, who I’ll be and who I was.

T-trust you. You held my hand and walked me through my forest of mistakes, past my mountain of grief and over the field of worry. You stood tall as I fell down, picked me up as I came crashing through. You. I trust you.

U-understand me. Having a mood disorder often means misjudgements, misunderstandings, mishaps, misfires. But it shouldn’t mean missing out on life.

V-victory. It only took 25 medication changes, 16 years, weekly therapy visits and trips to the hospital before I can finally say I

W-won. I am standing in front of you, staring the world in the eyes, head held high, and arms to the sky because I have found calm within the storm. The rain no longer wakes me up at night, the thunder sings to me to sleep, the lightning shows me the way through the darkness.

I EX--tend my thanks to

Y-you. On clear nights, your silhouette glimmers against the ever-constant North Star. You. You have remained in my sky, on my ground, in my life just as the stars have.  

Z-Zonegran. A medication I still must ingest because I’m still such a mess and I still can’t express how I feel so

STOP.

If I can write a poem using every letter of the alphabet to tell my story,

Then the least you can do is be there for someone just starting to tell theirs.

Be brave.

Author's Note

This piece is the most personal piece I've ever written, and I have received backlash about it before. If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say it at all. --JM