Manic Depression Explained Simply in Seven Stages

Here I am.

I'm myself for a while

before everything gets a bit too extreme.

A rare feeling of balance & sanity

hard for me to measure

or to understand where it goes

when other feelings take over.

This is where I make my decisions

and memorize my rules,

this phase of life is least distorted

compared to my perception

of how most other people feel.

The things I'm feeling now

are most likely to be real,

emotions effected by external events

and the internal thoughts they provoke.

This is who I want you to know,

as I want to know myself.

I don't get that long,

but for a while

please listen to me talk.

My heart is open

and I try to weave together

the words that explain my world.

This is who I choose to be

This is me.

.....
.....

This feeling runs throughout my entire body

Bright light shooting underneath my skin

I'm flying

I'm singing even as I'm dying

The world appears in vivid multicolours

I am a giant who controls all the other puppets

I am everywhere at once, spinning

One step away from the edge of a cliff,

so close to eternity.

I fly so high there is no ground

the universe is upside down

Every structure supports me

Everyone adores me

My blood runs red and through my heart pumps light

The end is out of sight.

Here I am,

and I love the entire world at once,

everyone who has ever lived

and ever will live.

I am everywhere and everybody else

Within the eyes of all of you I lose my sense of self

It almost gets too much

I'm blinded by the light I love

There's no way to stop seeing, hearing, thinking, talking

and so I see and hear and think and talk so much,

so much.

Everywhere is so bright and loud

I can't shut out the light and sound.

There are so many people around, so many faces.

They begin to dissolve what's left of me

and in the space I used to be,

floats just an empty smile

This is mania.

.....
.....

This feeling takes me by surprise

I'm being watched by a thousand eyes

I'm half dissolved with nothing left to hide.

I look in the direction I suspect is upwards

but see no peaceful view

The sky's on fire and my world's about to burn

will I never learn?

The higher the climb the more painful the fall

I will never have it all.

As I begin to hurt

I hate them all

they let me do this to myself.

I feel the rage across my skin

the old world's breaking down

the new world's leaking in.

As it all begins to burn

life spins around.

The sky is light and dark and alternating

or is it just my eyes?

The optimistic constant was a time bomb in disguise.

As I blink

everything changes

I don't know where

I am anymore

an alien halfway world

where at least two things are true at once.

I contradict myself

and live in this conflict

of feeling and paranoia

until I will give in

and jump headfirst off that emotional cliff.

My only salvation

to throw myself in and risk it all

This is how it feels as I'm about to fall.

.....
.....

This feeling runs throughout my entire body.

An acrid black poison, a shooting pain

courses through my veins

it leaks throughout my soul

it suffocates my hope

and destroys every last drip of happiness left.

This is hell on Earth

it is everywhere I turn

As far as I can see

the sky is black

and I am a scar in the darkness,

an insignificant moment

in a universe of pain.

I will perpetually feel the same.

Every time I close my eyes

the torture devours me,

a void that kills all light

a pain that lacerates

each thing I see and feel and touch.

My eyes bleed tears of separation from the earth

as I seem to vacate my flesh,

only an animated corpse

that aches and writhes and screams and walks.

I'm falling away

beneath myself, the lowest thing on Earth

This is depression.

.....
.....

This is not feeling.

This emptiness is the worst hell I know.

Even one second is too long to live without a soul.

I need to cry

but I don't care enough to hurt.

I am the void

and there is nothing left

but the frame of a smashed mirror

that didn't care as it was broken.

Dead eyes stare back blankly

that couldn't hate, that couldn't fear, that couldn't love.

I try to scream, but have no voice.

I have no doubt, I have no hope.

I am a twisted mask

with only awful blankness behind it,

a plane without a pilot, out of control.

I am suffocated, emaciated, vacant

but I am too numb now to care.

There is nothing at any point on the horizon any more.

Like a vacuum, I take whatever comes too near.

It is dangerous to live without a fear.

Something deep inside remembers

I should feel

Like a distant, dying star in an empty sky

the only cure will be to cry

but I don't care enough to hurt

and so I hurt someone

that I might care eventually.

Malice creeps into my mind

a desperate last attempt to feel alive

inch by inch I go too far

without a conscience as my guide

I try to regain emotion by force.

I am a human machine

desperate to feel empathy

nobody can help me.

.....
.....

As I cry I feel again

I am reborn again

resurrected from a world without emotion

I stand here, now in the light

weeping that I am still allowed to live

somewhere so beautiful.

This liquid pain reminds me

Life is wonderful, even as I cry.

Even as I die, I live

even as I hurt, I hope.

A spectrum of emotion filters back behind my eyes

I am free to feel and I am feeling.

This pain is an old friend

reminding me to live

and I become myself again.

For now I hurt

but know that soon the peace will come

and all these tears will dry

This is how I'm feeling as I cry.

.....
.....

This feeling runs through me and touches you

It is a perfect calm.

I hope I can help you somehow

if I was you I'd want me to.

I know how it is to feel

so many different ways.

I look into your eyes and feel your thoughts

I join you in your pain

at the edge of that cliff

the last point on the Earth,

before the ocean of eternity stretches out in to the night.

Far away the glassy sea touches the starlit sky

but here we are

alone, both of us.

I reach you with my words

my voice, the only rope I've got

to pull you back to safety.

I am only the messenger, a stranger

brought here to help, if I can, tonight.

As we talk

I slowly mould myself to your soul

a mirror image,

so that I can speak in a language you will understand.

I become a calm voice in your ear

asking you to hope and hoping you will hear.

I am at peace

and the world is wonderful.

You are so amazing

and you are all worth saving.

Helping you I help myself as well,

to return here I'll travel back through

each and every kind of hell,

let me feel it all

and use it well

This is healing.

.....
.....

Here I am

I'm myself for a while

Before everything gets a bit too extreme.

A rare feeling of balance and sanity.

This is who I want you to know,

as I want to know myself.

This is who I choose to be

This is me.

.....
.....

Copyright LEF 2004