How To Do Laundry: An Original Poem About Beating Bipolar

For Sacha Shapiro Emerson and Dr. Dominic J. Maxwell. You two saved my life.
Inspired by "Last Hope" by Paramore.
Whenever I had pride
three months prior to this
and two years before that
it was covered in dirt, stains, faded kiss marks that were the shade of blackberries when your teeth bit into them.
I realized it was too much for people to handle.
I tried to wash it myself
but the detergent always spilled
asking for help was scary
because i realized that if I needed help washing my pride, it was dirtied up pretty good, and that scared me.
I could not throw that away; everyone needs it
I went to the laundry mat
A lady helped me
and it took two months
before we could start to see
it unstained and warm
clean like everyone else’s
The fact that I could see how pleased she was
made me keep going
The fact that she had a smile on her face every time we would meet to do my laundry together.
Sometimes she asked me to go home and deterge it myself
Scared as I was, I did it
When it was filthy
I always wore it underneath a BCBG cocktail dress
and stiletto heels
I used to jump on trampolines in them
And do back flips for an unknown reason
The sun still blazed at night
It harvested the shooting stars that came flying into my brain
It was distorted
Only Needing Three Hours Sleep
I was buzzing with excess alcohol and caffeine
that I did not actually consume for it was hardwired into my chaos that was naturally brewed and governed by the flow of the chemicals in my body
I forgot about the filthiness underneath
the hyperactive arrogance smothered in wanting to have unprotected sex and a bag of weed and the anger it had the potential to harvest and thoughts
I could not slow down
because it was disguised in creativity, loss of fatigue, and happiness
Until I was stripped of all the clothes I was wearing
And I was given nothing but a different dirty T-shirt
different, but still a dirty T-shirt
It was called Insecurity
I had that much longer than Pride
People were uncomfortable to be around me;
there was no covering the T-shirt...
The Insecurity Shirt
It covered me in the only sample of rancid honey in the world
And it turned black
when
it reached my tired, achey hands
Can you imagine?
Black Rancid Honey?
Bees would sting me
trying to see what I had done to their beloved glop.
Those bees hurt.
The stings contained
heaps of melancholy
rows of guilt
sleepless nights
leadened limbs
not enough food to curb my appetite
sluggish mornings
walls of hope
collapsed
lost thoughts
but thoughts that screamed
why do I have to participate
in life?
nobody likes me
and those bees... they wouldn’t go away
One of them happened to sting
both of my lips
and my lips didn’t swell. They had two little painful holes in the center
of each
and so I could speak of only words that stung
And so I didn’t speak very much, except with her; the lady at the laundry mat
She helped me throw the T-shirt away
(or at least put in the attic in a plastic bag)
somedays, those
ugly shirts
fly back
and I am
counting every pound
right down to the ounce
but I am able to throw those shirts
back in my regular washing machine
at home
and I know how to put on the detergent
She Still Has To Remind Me How To Do That
but I am doing it
I am able to tell myself to be content with the 72.2
and not the 38.0
I am able to put vaseline and cocoa butter
on my lips now so I can smile instead of keeping my lips pulled in, pursed, punctured, prodded, and shut with a
fucked--up
 messy
padlock
I Am Able To Smile
And I Am Able To
know when I should trade in high heels for sneakers
Sometimes, I don’t want to, but I know there will surely be residual blisters on my feet
if I don’t
And likewise, I have to balance my feet
physically, too
I am a spastic kingdom
I am a palsied empire
I am bipolar
Welcome To My Silly Life
I hope you enjoy your stay
My life is a balance beam.

FYI, news flash: I am human.

Morning comes and I'm already stumbling. I fall down. I can feel the tension in my muscles.  My mouth won't close and I sop the floor with a puddle of saliva that has left my mouth. I start to come down the stairs and my less-than-graceful attempt in landing on the floor to crawl down the stairs has me cutting my elbow and bruising my knees. Even though I am crawling, I still have to make sure that I don't spaz and fumble down the stairs. Fatigue sets in and I am reminded that I have spoons (like every other person dealing with a chronic illness or disability does) because of my cerebral palsy and bipolar disorder. I am reminded that 90-something percent of the time (I can only achieve this when I'm manic), I cannot achieve the utter perfectionism and energy that my driven personality warrants and is supposed to have. That even though that internal perfectionism is nagging me endlessly and is saying, "Push yourself, push yourself!" I have to listen to the CP and bipolar instead that say, "Don't please Perfectionism, you can't handle it and neither can we!" That if I go beyond my limits on one thing, I won't be able to do anything else for the rest of the day or maybe even the rest of the week, yet my physical therapist is demanding that I try harder, and my classroom teachers expect me to put my blood, sweat, and tears into every assignment that they give me. 

Why wouldn't they though, right? But see, here's the thing: statistically and scientifically, patients with cerebral palsy use up three to six times more energy than able-bodied people do. It's kinda like going for hikes in stilettos all day long when you can't stand up straight. And the harder and longer those hikes get the more your posture, balance, coordination, wherewithal, capacity, and stamina (which were already pretty awful to begin with anyway) drain and disintegrate. But even professionals like my physical therapist, who are aware of the excessive energy output and calorie burning do not exactly take their knowledge of this into very much account at all, unfortunately. 

I'm sick of getting yelled at for things I hate as much as the person who's yelling at me for the specific thing, i.e. having an "accident" or diving into a depressive episode or falling over and popping a zit. Do you think *I* chose this? Do you think *I* like these bitches of disorders. Hell no. I have no idea why anybody on the face of this Earth would think that I had any sort of control over the things they obviously know I loathe.

Take a second and think. Walk around in my shoes. That's right. Walk around in those stilettos, because you need to realize that everyday I'm just glad if I don't collapse into a heap of pain and bruises, both physically and mentally. And first and foremost, you need to realize that saying I'm "such a strong person" and you don't know "how I do it everyday" but then yelling at me for knowing my limits as a person with a physical disability (as well as a learning disability with math and processing speed) and a  mood disorder, than that is not compatible with the quotes above.

 It's not "comforting" in the least bit to get a whopping heap of too much sympathy, that is, quite frankly, repugnant and explicit, or to treat me as if I were some kind of almighty god. Because news flash, I am human. Humans have limits, feelings, pressures, and challenges, and the more we get used to our individual challenges, the more we learn to cope with them. So saying that stuff about me being "such a strong person" is like me saying you're such a strong person when your dad left your mom at 10 days old. (10 days old is when I developed my cerebral palsy) You've never known anything different and you've learned to cope with the slightly disconcerting family dynamic you've been given. Does that mean you don't ever feel spite towards your estranged father sometimes? Does that mean you don't want to just throw everything away more often than not? Absolutely not. But you've learned to cope with it. That's what I want you to know.