A quick note: I have bipolar disorder and at the worst point of my mental state leading up to my eventual treatment I penned this poem describing the exhausting back and forth of my mind, moods, and behaviors. Since then I’ve received feedback from people with other mental health issues such as PTSD, OCD, and Schizophrenia saying that they have often felt like this as well. I hope that if you have never experienced this type of state of mind that it will help you start to build an understanding and compassion for people who have. If you have experienced these feelings or thoughts, please know that you are not alone, and —I promise you—even at your lowest points someone still cares about you, and you CAN get through it. My wife was that person for me, and I couldn’t have asked for a better lifelong best friend.
Half of me wants to remember.
Half of me wants to forget.
Half of me wants to be angry.
Half of me wants to repent.
Half of me wants to change something.
Half of me doesn’t like change.
Half of me longs to be free.
Half of me rots in a cage.
Half of me looks to the future.
Half of me looks to the past.
Half of me loves where I am.
Half of me knows it won’t last.
Half of me walks in the light.
Half of me lives in the darkness.
Half of me only exists;
To save half of me from my own conscience.
A Poet’s Qualm 