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Nutshell Kingdom: 15 Months
2005
I've been off the Lithium for 15 months.
I quit after graduation last year. The very next day.
Y'see, I've been diagnosed as bi-polar twice in the last five years. But I have my doubts. I doubt it.
In those 15 mounths (no Lithium, no Xanex, a couple of aspirin), I've waded through my share of life's rough waters and rounded plenty of its sudden curves. I've said goodbye to the closest friends, taken and failed the Virginia bar exam, left my home of three years, moved to DC (where I knew no one), survived an unemployed winter in an unheated basement apartment with insanely horrible roommates and not enough money to buy even needed foodstuffs, weathered a couple of break-ups, started a new career. That's at least a normal amount of stress and transition. And I feel pretty good, relatively sane.
15 months.
And still I wonder...am I sitting on a timebomb? Am I manic right now? Was I ever truly sick? I have no doubt I endure certain things. Like the daily driftings at work that seem awfully close to anxiety attacks. Like when my head fills with a drifting song that won't stop until I have tears in my eyes and I have to go for a fast walk around the block to get it gone. Like the sudden enthusiasms which dominate my every thought for weeks at a time and then BAM! disappear like a snooze-alarm dream cycle (last week, it was baseball statistics, today it is nostalgia for an Appalachian Trail adventure I never ever took).
And so what? I'm not looking to turn Nutshell Kingdom into a forum on bi-polar disorder. I certainly don't want any lay diagnoses. I guess I just wanted to get it off my chest a little bit.
And it worked. I feel better. I'm definitely not sick. Definitely. Well, maybe a little.
