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all my black-belt badassery flying out my brain window.
All the molecules in my body halted. Mitochondria stopped mitochondria-ing.
my head engaging in a riot, neurotransmitter storefronts on fire, gray matter spray-painted with anarchy symbols, cars overturned near my frontal lobe.
If today wasn’t the best example of making lemonade out of a dumpster fire, I didn’t know what was.
“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
“Desmond! Hello! I love you!” My sister’s greeting wasn’t unusual. This was how she answered all my calls.
60 percent of people diagnosed with bipolar attempt suicide and 99.9 percent have suicidal ideation,
dude—don’t date her in the first place if you can’t trust her to make her own decisions. You don’t deserve her.”
And I have these—these fucking feelings for her, I always have.”
Why would I torment myself like that? The chemicals in my brain already torment me enough.”
buying expensive things to woo a girl was like showing off wealth instead of thoughtfulness, making the gift about yourself instead of her.
The kiss had changed everything. Absolutely everything. In the span of five seconds, Ava had grabbed the steering wheel of my life.
Well, society had told me to go fuck myself repeatedly from a very young age, so—as far as I was concerned—society could go do the same.
Inattentive type is only an inconvenience for the person suffering from it, so it often gets written off as laziness, or ditziness, or flakiness.
I did need to get over it. And I would. It was part of that mountain I was still climbing.
No wonder so many people confuse bipolar 1 for demonic possession and call the Catholic Church about an exorcism.
Did he think anyone would sign up for electroshock therapy and lithium if they didn’t have to?
According to the paperwork—which, let’s be honest, is all that really matters to society—I
five years of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to accept that this was his decision
He was a line-in-the-sand kind of guy. My sand had no lines. They kept getting washed away by waves, and I’d accepted long ago there was no such thing as controlling the ocean.
she possessed mad hacking skills. Also, she was eleven.
Pro tip, if you want to go unnoticed, put on glasses. Superman knows what’s up.
Out of everyone in my biological and extended family, only she and my mom seemed
to consistently speak my language and didn’t always need my motivations spelled out for them.
It had forced me to adhere
to certain standards. I took pride in my work. My reputation belonged to no one but me, and it mattered.
For exercise, he swam laps every morning,
a way to focus the excess energy. Swimming was perfect as it required I concentrate on
multiple things at once: breathing, form, stroke length, power, speed.
And swimming was exhausting.
Did you eat? Did you accidentally consume sugar or caffeine?
“Ineptitude is not just underestimated in depth and breadth, it is more dangerous to society than bad intentioned competence, I’m afraid.”
Your dad is not like this with anyone else but you, you know? He’s not so black-and-white usually. Or ever.
His rigidity with you makes no sense.”
Meanwhile, during all this, I had either undiagnosed, untreated, or unstable bipolar.
And, you know, I was lazy. And defiant. And not trying hard enough. Whatever.
For no reason I immediately understood, I cried. Deep, soul-aching sobs, pulled
from my chest, like I might never stop crying.
He wore a short-sleeved T-shirt today, his forearms exposed like they weren’t salacious.
If we were mad or didn’t want to talk to the other person, we’d say yes for as long as possible in order to irritate the other person.
“Keeping it real, I think I’m most upset about the lack of dragons.”
She’d undergone multiple brain surgeries, chemo, radiation, and then went on to study engineering, getting her master’s while becoming a black belt in basically every martial art possible. And she taught herself how to knit.
She was a five-foot-nothing package of lethal possibility.
Subtlety and gently nudging people in the right direction were more her style.
“Your mom is so proud of you. So proud. She talks about you like you’re the only star in the sky.
also know you work hard, every single day, just to be here.”
because I never want you to doubt your own value, or what you bring to the table. You are not less than. You are, and always have been, greater than.”
My mother was poised and competent in all matters relating to everything.
grateful for my dad. He made obvious mistakes, owned them, and had taught me how to move on gracefully. His constant mess-making made me feel less foolish.
