(no subject)
I wish I could recall the day my guidance counselor found me sleeping in the janitor’s closet. As a matter of fact, I wish I could remember anything from my freshman year such as my first day of school, how I met my best friend, or the time I was so frustrated with everything going on in my life that I threw all my family’s china plates down the stairs. These things are all a blur. It is unusual for someone my age not to remember such important events as these. It is also bizarre for someone as young as I am to be taking more medication than all their grandparents combined. However, I guess you could say I myself am unusual. When I was fourteen years old, just two weeks before I entered high school, I was diagnosed with a mental illness that would forever change the way I live my life. I was diagnosed as bipolar.
All throughout junior high school I was described as a well rounded student. Flip open the local newspaper and my name was bound to be seen, weather it be for achieving honor roll, a write up on a local play I starred in, or an announcement for the winner of the Presidential Award. Flip open the year book and you would find my picture on almost every sports page and twice on the eight grade superlative page (once for being voted most outgoing and the other time for being voted class clown. Needless to say I worked very hard throughout junior high. I graduated eighth grade one of the top in my class. I remember feeling like I was on top of the world the day I graduated. I had just been accepted into one of the best private schools in New Hampshire. Life was good. I was more than happy. Little did I know that summer my life would crumble.
The summer of 2002 started out normal but ended as a nightmare. Somewhere between the days at the beach and late nights with friends I changed for the worse. To this day I can’t explain how it happened. I just remember waking up one morning and telling my mom something was wrong with me. I couldn’t explain what wrong, all I could say is “The voices in my head won’t stop.”
I wish I could say that after I got out of the hospital everything went back to normal as I hoped it would. I wanted so badly to be the happy girl I once was. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. There were many side effects to the medications. I lost almost all my memory. In school, subjects that had once come easy to me began to become hard to understand. My mind was fuzzy and I was always exhausted. There were days when I felt as though I would never be able to get out of bed. I would have to push myself so hard to do the simplest tasks, such as getting ready for school. In school I would fall asleep in class and miss out on the day’s lesson. Sometimes I would be so tired that I would go into the janitor’s closet to sleep. I began to fall behind fast. I tried to hard to catch up but my body was just so run down that all I wanted to do was sleep. My grades plummeted. I went from achieving honor roll to getting almost all D’s.
Living with a mental illness has been more than hard. I have been through more than most people my age will ever have to go through. I have dealt with the up’s and down’s of being bipolar for almost five years now.
All throughout junior high school I was described as a well rounded student. Flip open the local newspaper and my name was bound to be seen, weather it be for achieving honor roll, a write up on a local play I starred in, or an announcement for the winner of the Presidential Award. Flip open the year book and you would find my picture on almost every sports page and twice on the eight grade superlative page (once for being voted most outgoing and the other time for being voted class clown. Needless to say I worked very hard throughout junior high. I graduated eighth grade one of the top in my class. I remember feeling like I was on top of the world the day I graduated. I had just been accepted into one of the best private schools in New Hampshire. Life was good. I was more than happy. Little did I know that summer my life would crumble.
The summer of 2002 started out normal but ended as a nightmare. Somewhere between the days at the beach and late nights with friends I changed for the worse. To this day I can’t explain how it happened. I just remember waking up one morning and telling my mom something was wrong with me. I couldn’t explain what wrong, all I could say is “The voices in my head won’t stop.”
I wish I could say that after I got out of the hospital everything went back to normal as I hoped it would. I wanted so badly to be the happy girl I once was. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. There were many side effects to the medications. I lost almost all my memory. In school, subjects that had once come easy to me began to become hard to understand. My mind was fuzzy and I was always exhausted. There were days when I felt as though I would never be able to get out of bed. I would have to push myself so hard to do the simplest tasks, such as getting ready for school. In school I would fall asleep in class and miss out on the day’s lesson. Sometimes I would be so tired that I would go into the janitor’s closet to sleep. I began to fall behind fast. I tried to hard to catch up but my body was just so run down that all I wanted to do was sleep. My grades plummeted. I went from achieving honor roll to getting almost all D’s.
Living with a mental illness has been more than hard. I have been through more than most people my age will ever have to go through. I have dealt with the up’s and down’s of being bipolar for almost five years now.