​​I took a break.

I haven’t written since March.

Life took an odd turn.

I went to more funerals than I care to remember.

I made more complicated decisions than I ever wished I had to take.

I witnessed more layoffs than I am capable of handling.

I fought back more tears than I care to count. 

Grief has an odd way of expressing itself, even more so when you’re diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It is one of those emotions that has a life of its own. It carries every feeling within it; sometimes, there’s no way to discern it.

Even worse, grief is as much physical as it is emotional.

You feel heartbroken like there is a hole punched in your chest. 

You feel heavy, like there’s a giant weight on your shoulders.

You feel like your legs are weak and shaking from trying to stand after someone pulls the ground from underneath you.

It’s hard to breathe because the wind has knocked you out.

The first couple of months, I just tried to get by.

I did the motions.

I nodded and shook my head at the appropriate times, ensuring I showed up each day and did the work.

I became more productive than usual.

I was like a machine.

In the darkest moments, I convinced myself that if I kept going and moving forward, I would not have to feel the pain I carried in my heart. 

My therapist held space for me and kept asking me what I needed. But I didn’t know what I needed.

It was only months later that things started to change. Slowly, very slowly, I learned to slow down. Just showing up, even if it meant showing up broken. It worked magic. 

I danced on top of 2,000-year-old ruins, and a sense of trust and groundedness emerged between all the crying and cringing. And occasionally even joy. 

I re-established contact with myself by slowing down, which helped me process my feelings while moving, breathing, sensing, rooting.

I've learned a few things, one of which is that everything takes time. The right amount of time. And the right moment in time. We can’t control what happens, but we decide how to respond.

Grieving or any other emotional process is held inside a very personal timeline. My typical strategies, which had been effective in some prior situations, were no longer effective. My gut advised me to have patience with myself, let things happen naturally, and let time work its magic.

I feel more grounded, more rooted. I am vulnerable yet able to access power from my rootedness. 

Gentleness, slowing down, and emotional transparency are priceless gifts. We all struggle. Whether it is visible or hidden, acknowledging this struggle grows compassion for ourselves and for others.

When we slow down, we make space for this acknowledgment: we make space for the subtle inner voice of wisdom to teach us. We make space for growing, compassion, and healing.

I learned along the way that grief is not something you heal from. When you lose someone or something (a relationship, a job, a house.), you carry that around with you forever, and it becomes a part of you. Grief can mold itself into something beautiful that reminds you of your strength and capacity to love and be loved.

I've learned to trust the cycles of life. Just as the universe follows its rhythms, so does our heart. There are moments of stillness where the world seems to stand still, and grief consumes us. But, like the sun that always rises, there is a natural ebb and flow to our emotions. Even in the darkest of nights, dawn is inevitable. Trusting in these cycles can provide solace, reminding us that even in our most profound moments of grief, healing and hope are never out of reach.

In 2002, Dr. James Kaufman of California State University in San Bernardino conducted a retrospective study of 1,629 writers that showed poets — specifically, female poets — were likelier than non-fiction writers, playwrights, and fiction writers to have some mental illness. He coined the link between creativity and mental illness as "The Sylvia Plath Effect."

Popular culture has long stereotyped poets as depressed and creative scientists as mad. The idea of a link between creativity and mental illness goes back to the time of Aristotle when he wrote that eminent philosophers, politicians, poets, and artists all have tendencies toward "melancholia."

Professor Kay Redfield Jamison is an international authority on the subject, both as a psychiatrist and as a person with bipolar. She observes that manic-depressives in their high or manic state think faster and associate more freely. When manic, people need less sleep and have unusual energy, remarkable focus, and an inflated self-belief, all of which may allow the production of original work. Depression may be the flip side of the creative manic state and the price artists pay for their bouts of productive work. 

There is no question that the writing processes of people in a bipolar episode differ from the typical processes of others. The differences are significant and complex. One is that writers who are symptomatic or undergoing treatments are forced into or barred from specific abilities despite their struggle not to be. If editing is needed, but the person is in a manic or hypomanic state, the editing might be over the top. If idea generation is necessary, but the person is depressed, such idea generation may not be possible. If drafting by hand or taking notes is usually the most effective for a writer and that writer is undergoing specific treatments, hands may shake too much to use, and vision might double or triple. In addition, ideas may be foggy, and chunks of memory may be erased.  

I’ve often experienced what I would come to call depression block. It's not writer's block. I've experienced writer's block, where I get to a specific part of the story or something else I'm writing, and I don't know how to continue. But no. When it just comes to a screeching halt, you know, it's the illness. And I can't get up on top of it for some reason.

With depression block, there is the sheer difficulty of putting anything on the page: difficulty finding even the most basic words, difficulty coming up with ideas,  difficulty keeping things together, difficulty mustering the energy to write, and difficulty mustering the energy to even sit at the computer. 

I'd get to the computer, sit, and watch the line blink. And I'd try to type and get a sentence in a half hour. Then I wouldn't say I liked it. It was so frustrating that I would go back to bed.  

Depressive symptoms such as apathy, anhedonia, low self-confidence, lack of thought, and low energy kept me from being able to write. As much as writing meant to me, I didn’t want to have a thing to do with words when depressed.  

I also experienced anhedonia, a loss of enjoyment in otherwise pleasurable things, including reading and writing. This loss of enjoyment was all the more pronounced because I wanted to identify as a writer. I felt like a fraud. Whenever I thought of picking up and writing, I felt unworthy, and it stopped me. You can't write when you're depressed. 

When writing is possible while depressed, such writing tends to be personal. Even if I did write, the work is never whole because I lack the energy and the ability to make something coherent and structured.  

In most hypomanic episodes, I had the feeling of flow. It was the feeling of everything, like your knowledge of words, your memory about your life, your analytical skills, and everything flowing together to make it come out to be just about as complete and sound as possible. Everything in the world was connected, beautiful, and had the utmost meaning, and everybody appreciated that meaning.

But, as the hypomanic episode progresses toward mania, the precise and swift connections and flow of hypomania can get more and more "out there" and more bizarre. The clarity becomes incoherent. Manic writings begin to have no substance to them. The pen keeps moving, and it doesn't make any sense. 

As mania progresses, the writing might become frantic and illegible, and one might be unable to keep up with one's thoughts. You can’t write as fast as you can think. Ultimately, psychosis can make the writing so disjointed - if the person can gather thoughts to write at all, the writing makes no sense.  

In The Midnight Disease, neurologist Alice W. Flaherty writes about hypergraphia, or "the overpowering desire" to write, which accompanies mania. Like writing in a depression, writing in a mania parallels manic symptoms. For example, people tend to be more verbose, have more thoughts, and have those thoughts at incredible speeds. In addition, they might experience pressured speech - a clinical hallmark of mania, which for writers can mean writing more and more.

You think you're writing the most significant thing ever when you're doing it. And it's very humbling when you go back and read it, and it's so broken up.

Artists often resist taking medication, fearing that losing the instability will also mean losing their creativity. But Jamison, who is on lithium for bipolar, says recent studies of artists and writers diagnosed with bipolar and taking medication found three-quarters were as productive or more productive on medication.

She says the destructive effect of depression on the brain, the progressive nature of bipolar, and the genuine risk of suicide argue against refusing treatment. “No one is creative when severely depressive, psychotic or in four-point restraints…Artists and writers tend to focus on the risks of treatment and not on the risks of no treatment.”

Treatment enables me to be more creative because I am more stable.  My medication affects my "creative impulses" but not creativity itself. The medication also provides stability for my everyday life and gives me an outlet to maintain better control over my creativity.

I'm unquestionably happier, more stable, capable, and competent on medication. So why should I biologically or neurologically punish my brain and body when I've been healed in so many ways? 

How about you?
How do you deal with your creativity?

​Join the discussion in the community.

​“Emotion” is a dirty word.

I spent the better part of my twenties oscillating between bipolar highs and lows. Ever since my diagnosis, I’ve been wary of any emotion. They became something that would make me vulnerable, fragile, and weak. Prone to a relapse. 

Yet, this fundamental inability to admit and discuss my emotions, even in front of myself or my therapist, the lack of skill to navigate and work through them, and the suffocated curiosity to realize what underlining internal disharmony they indicate, have kept me in an emotional and psychological pressure cooker.

This denial of emotional affect I’ve diligently practiced has led me to transform into a person who is overburdened with emotional and psychological stress that no amount of self-help books or weekly therapy can quick-fix.

I have emotions.

Big ones.

I’m an emotional, driven, type-A, intensely passionate, and overwhelmingly sensitive soul. I’ve always also had low self-esteem and have cherished the approval I’ve seen in people’s eyes as a reaction to my overachieving momentum.

I learned to bury my emotions under all sorts of addictions.

I was addicted to playing the piano, dancing, theatre, studying, overworking, and smoking a pack a day. And just getting immersed deep in any activity or fixation I could get my mind obsessed with in a desperate effort not to think about my emotions.

I’ve spent the past four years trying to undo the psychological and emotional damage I have consistently caused myself my entire life. Because I systematically denied myself feeling pain, sadness, anger, or grief.

It took me way too long to realize that you can’t solve problems you’re unwilling to have.

And by that time, I had no muscle memory in place. So I have to train my brain to process unpleasant emotions.

Not to bury them.

Not to rationalize them.

Not to distract itself with anything and everything.

But to face them, acknowledge them, embrace them, accept them, understand where they’re coming from, and eventually reach the root causes of their existence. 

When we try to control or eliminate our emotions, we deprive ourselves of experiencing the richness of life. 

We numb them all because we can’t selectively numb them. 

We feel it all or nothing at all.

If we want a life full of deep meaning, true love, and emotional strength, it will involve the risk (and often the reality) of discomfort, conflict, and loss. It means there will be sadness, fear, anger, and disgust. If we eliminate negative emotions and experiences from our lives, we will be poorer and weaker for having done so.

And the truth is, by denying myself sadness, I’ve lost joy. 

One of the greatest consolations of old age is that while older people have negative emotions just like the rest of us, they suffer less from them. One reason is that they have learned that although adverse events are inevitable, negative emotions are fleeting unless we choose to hang on to them. They figure out that they get a head start on feeling well not by avoiding negative emotions but by simply choosing to let them pass through them. 

I learned that when I resist these emotions and suppress them, I close up my heart and begin erecting inner walls within me. I pull myself into a restrictive space and hide in the darkness. 

I do this for one simple reason: to avoid feeling that pain again.

But there lies the problem. 

When I fail to create for myself the space I deserve to sit with the pain of my emotions and fully feel them, I am blocking my inner flow of energy. So instead, I hold on to this pain without even realizing it. It becomes a soft, sensitive spot for me—a weakness. It becomes an unmet need—a trigger point. And anytime someone touches that or an event triggers that memory, it’ll rise instantly, and I’ll feel the pain all over again.

I can’t run away from fear, anger, sadness, grief, or pain. It will simply chase me again. Running away from my emotions gives them more power —it lights them up. They become louder, clouding my sky and filling it with noise.

The truth is, while we consciously work to face the darkness and attempt to free ourselves of our inner emotional traumas and pains—and while we might completely dissolve their hold on us—the scars will stay with us forever.

And so we might feel them once in a while, but that's okay. Scars. They’ll always be there. But their stories are how we choose to write them. 

The scars are not there to hurt us or draw us back into the void. Instead, they serve to remind us of the progress and growth we’ve made. They help to remind us of how far we’ve come in our strength and transformation. They remind us of the person we consciously choose to become for ourselves and others.

I’ll be riding the waves of sadness until I find joy again.

Carl Jung said that when light is made, so is the shadow. One cannot exist without the other.

What is the source of your inner light? What brings you peace, calm, joy, and connection? What drives out the suffering? The answers may be vastly different for each of us. 

I recently read the Buddhist teaching about comparing suffering. As sentient beings, we each suffer in our unique way; we cannot compare our suffering to that of another, for it is measured within our own context. Because context varies so widely from one individual to the next and one culture to the next, we cannot compare suffering. We all suffer from fear, loss, and grief subtly and grossly.

Light and darkness are symbiotic. One gives canvas to the other’s expression. But if their interrelation is well understood through experience, darkness can be metabolized into a light that heals oneself and others.

I’ve spent a large part of my twenties in crippling depressive episodes. I was in the darkness and could not find the light. At times, the pain of it was agonizing, heart-stopping. I could not think. I could not eat. I could not sleep. I could not breathe. My sense of self was shattered. 

Every time it happened, I would drop everything and start again—work, family, friends, community, even countries.

I intended to escape: to run from the darkness, as far and as fast as possible, and to somehow exchange my old, broken life for a shiny new one.

It didn’t work the way I expected it to.

Instead of resetting my life as I had envisioned, I created an (in)voluntary retreat into solitude and self-reflection.  

I was only changing my environment; it didn’t change my internal landscape. After the excitement of the change of scene faded, I was left with the one thing I couldn’t leave behind: me.

When a massive manic episode with deep psychosis led to my diagnosis in 2018, I could start understanding that maybe in that darkness, there was indeed light. 

It took a lot of effort and time to begin the process of healing my invisible scars. But, beyond the bipolar disorder diagnosis, the traumatic events, the bullying, the abuse, the abandonment issues, and the shaken sense of identity, I started to see the light. 

To my amazement, my internal landscape is becoming rich, complex, and engaging. The gradually dawning knowledge that I could not just survive but thrive and feel whole and happy—even in small bursts—was a revelation to me.

Out of the ashes of devastating personal stories, I found unlooked-for self-respect and a renewed excitement about living my life. Gradually, a vision of myself emerged, contrasted against the darkness that had enveloped me.

Since then, I’ve had other experiences that have pushed me to an edge, but I’ve found my way back to center each time by drawing on the essence of who I am.

It doesn’t mean I’ve overcome all my tragedies or figured it all out. But I know I have a map that can get me back to where I want to be instead of being stuck someplace awful.

It can take time to find the way back, but you can be sure of the way by keeping just a few things in mind.

#1 You, you are the only thing that you have control over
Who are you? That’s the only thing you can know. So let what is inexplicable be inexplicable. You can’t change what has happened, and you can’t control other people. But you can choose to let adversity teach you something about yourself.

#2 You are the only thing that matters
Nothing that happens can erase who you are, no matter how bad. You are always you, no matter what happens. Experiences may change you, but deep inside, there is always that shining seed of self, the blueprint of who you indeed are, guaranteeing the possibility of renewal.

#3 Keep an open mind and heart
It is hard work to generate gratitude and serenity when you are in the darkness. Luckily, just wanting to be that kind of person can be enough. With your intentions set in the right direction, peace and contentment will find you.

In persevering through my darkness, I found a self who can survive whatever life throws me. My experience has taught me that the human capacity to endure—and do it with grace, courage, and joy—does not depend on anything outside ourselves. Even when life seems impossible, the brilliant light inside yourself is enough to see your way through your darkest nights.

*Disclaimer: I am currently not in a depressive state, but some days feel like that, and getting out of bed and into the world is sometimes challenging. 

Morning. My alarm is painful. I’ve already snoozed half a dozen times. I need to get up. I put my feet on the floor.

My mind cycles through a dozen excuses. Reasons to stay in bed. None stick.

The days change, but the routine remains.

I stand up. Yesterday’s clothes are in a pile by the bed. Those will do.

When was the last time I showered? I’m not sure it matters.

I manage clean underwear, but being naked feels awful. Plus, it’s cold. The bed was so warm. My T-shirt doesn’t smell fresh, but it’s not stale either.

I pick up my jeans. This is it. If I put them on, I have to start my day. That’s the agreement.

The impossibility of living haunts my mornings.

The jeans are comfy, at least. I’ve worn them every day for two months now. Washing them would rinse away all their power. That’s what I tell myself. That’s the agreement.

I wrap up in a hoodie. It’s a reluctant progression. I’d rather be wrapped in my duvet. My bed is calling. It’s safe there. Warm. I could crawl back in.

Exhausted, I climb back into bed. Hopefully, I’ll feel more up to the world soon.

I’ll try again tomorrow.​

I got pregnant.

It was a nonviable pregnancy that needed to be aborted.

A few days later, Eli left me while I was still bleeding out our unborn child. He didn’t want to have bipolar babies.

The breakup was civil and quick. I packed two suitcases and left on the same day, back to my mom’s. Of course, she was delighted to have me back home. 

It took me a few days to completely move out. It took me a couple of weeks to understand that it was over and we shouldn’t see each other anymore. It took me a couple of months to fully get over it.

I quit smoking up just as abruptly as I quit loving Eli.

And just like that, my moods magically started to lift up. Week after week, I got better at managing my moods, reading book after book to better understand my illness, sticking faithfully to the med regimen imposed by my doc, and going systematically to talk therapy.

The hard work paid off. 

I started to feel better on most levels.

My heart had mended, though I couldn’t see myself falling in love any time soon.

My mind was not foggy anymore; I could now work and think as clearly as day.

It was good that we broke up. I never would have adequately healed had we stayed together. His moods would have always brought me down, and his habits would have negated all the benefits of my medical treatment.

I am better without him, healthier, happier, and stronger. 

And so begins my journey toward mental stability.

In the next post, I’ll talk more about my story about bipolarity and hopefully start exploring the various topics dear to my heart.

​

The first time I was severely depressed, I was 20 years old, and Al and I had just broken up.

I had lied to him. We were in an open relationship and had agreed to talk about our other romantic interests, but there was this one guy that I didn’t tell him about. He eventually found out and confronted me about it. I was utterly devastated.

I lived in Montreal, and it was my last semester. I had a full schedule with 6 courses and was also trying to find a job.

One day, while walking to class, I had a complete breakdown. I thought I was going to die right then and there. I was having my first panic attack.

I got so scared that I immediately went to the university's clinic and asked to see the doctor. After explaining my symptoms and describing my episode, she diagnosed me with depression and prescribed Celexa and talk therapy once a week, which I never had time to attend with the course load I had. 

Three months later, I had finished my courses and had decided to return to Lebanon, so she gave me a three-month prescription for Celexa and wished me well. Back home, as soon as my mother discovered I was taking antidepressants, she panicked and called her family doctor.

You see, my mother had always been a very cautious person when it came to medication. And she was convinced that whatever was troubling me could be resolved with therapy rather than medication.

So I weaned myself off the meds and started seeing a therapist. I was still depressed as fuck, even more so now that I had graduated and didn’t have a job. I felt like a failure.

I was lucky because my first therapist was one of the best CBT therapists I’ve ever had. He gave me excellent foundations to start rebuilding myself. I still have the therapy journal I kept when visiting him and often read back through it. 

This depressive episode lasted for a little over a year.

When I emerged, I had a full-time job at which I excelled and decided to volunteer on a couple more projects. I was working all the time, late nights and weekends.

There was no end to my energy and patience.

With my bipolar diagnosis, this must have been a hypo-manic phase.

My boss at the time said that I had outbursts of enthusiasm and energy that quickly shriveled down once I lost interest or faced challenges.

I think that’s when the cycles really started.

Every year during spring, my energy would increase, I’d start taking on more work, I’d get really excited and enthused by whatever it was I was doing, I’d start taking on more than I could handle, and by the time summer was over, I’d have crashed and burned, and I’d become depressed. 

A cyclical life that’s the kind of life I seemed to be leading. A series of upward and downward cycles that almost always start the same way and almost always end the same way. 

However, this time, there is some sort of diagnosis. 

Bipolar disorder. 

It had only been two months since my episode, and I expected myself to be fully operational again.

Yet here I was, with 5 days of work under my belt in any given month, a meager salary from a couple of places, and a partially functional mind.

Most of the time, I feel tired. Sometimes, I would decide it was time to activate the beast mode. But I couldn’t manage to find this mode around. Again. I knew it would come back if I just let it be.

So in the meantime, I was doing the best I could, with a smile, as often as possible.

​I guess I’ve always been this way, and I should just be used to it by now. I feel, however, that this mind of mine keeps evolving and morphing. The cycles keep changing and cycling. 

The most comfortable thing I could do during this period was sleep. Everything else seemed uncomfortable. Writing, talking to people, being in front of a screen, holding a book, driving, and being surrounded by noise and various stimuli. I’ve been feeling weak and exposed. It had made me an unpleasant company. That’s probably why I was isolating and feeding into this weird circle. 

I felt like I was drowning, but I was swimming against the current at the same time. I didn’t want to be negative anymore, so I would think positive thoughts, but my body felt heavy and empty simultaneously.

When I was manic, I enrolled in a writing academy to improve my writing skills and encourage myself to publish more. I dropped out of the academy in the first few days because I couldn’t write a single article. I didn’t have it in me, not this time, this week, or this month.

I was a writer without words. 

I don’t remember everything that happened during my recovery.

Surprisingly, I know from my WhatsApp history that I didn’t ignore everyone texting me. In the past, when I’d have a mental breakdown, I’d shut myself out from society and turn my phone to silent.

This time though, this time I had a diagnosis.

Bipolar disorder.

I knew what was wrong, and there was a kind soul who had the necessary medical knowledge to heal me. Lithium, depia, lorazepam. Eventually, I’d open up the boxes of those pills and read the medical literature that’s included to understand what those pills are and what side effects to expect. My friend Celine, an ex-nurse studying to earn her Ph.D. in some advanced medical field, would explain what each med did and how I’d react to them. I would also research my condition online and read up on it. 

For the first three weeks after my diagnosis, I still felt manic. I’d later learn that some of the symptoms I was experiencing were side effects from my meds. I had a strong tremor that would incapacitate me at times. I felt a strong urge to constantly move around. So I’d go on long walks. Raphael was in town for a while and had enough free time to spend with me wandering around the city. We’d go to a neighborhood and explore its shops or just aimlessly walk around until we were tired and found a coffee shop to spend some time in. But we mostly sat on my mother’s balcony and talked for hours. His stories from his recent travels would fascinate me, and I’d listen intently while fidgeting with my hands and feet to calm my tremors.

I desperately wanted to look normal and be normal. I wanted my treatment to work.

Eventually, Dr. Michael told me that Depia, an antipsychotic, might be causing this side effect, and he decided to switch me to Abilify and added Prometal to my regimen. He explained that those meds were working on my brain chemistry to help avoid another manic episode and that, eventually, he’d wean me off of them, and I’d only have to take Lithium.

Nevertheless, he was pretty happy with my progress and felt hopeful that my recovery was going well. I felt lucky. I’d heard stories of manic patients being hospitalized and restrained, and I felt damn fortunate that I hadn’t been. I was convinced that I would get better if I just stuck to the treatment.

During those three weeks, I wasn’t allowed to work or drive. Dr. Michael wanted me to avoid any kind of stress. I lived at my mother’s for the first week, but then I decided it was time to go back home to Eli and spent my time taking cabs up and down. It didn’t take me long to start smoking again. Eli hadn’t quit, and it’s nearly impossible to avoid smoking when you have your partner in your face smoking up all the time. 

I wanted to write every day. I wanted to record everything that was happening to remember and avoid making the same mistakes.

But there is a muted period.

From the day I was diagnosed until well into the fall, I stopped writing in my journals. I don’t know if I was giving myself excuses, adjusting to the new meds, to a new binary reality in a constant quest for balance, but I was excessively relaxed, and it started to frustrate me.

I wanted to return to my beast mode. I didn’t want to be manic, but I just wanted the drive and energy that fills me when I’m hypomanic without the obvious mental symptoms. I wanted to grab life by the balls and start making money again to afford the expensive lifestyle Eli, and I devised for ourselves.

As I wrote in one of the rare journal entries, I wanted to whip my bipolar demons into submission and show them who’s boss. But I was slow and tired and lacked the energy to do more than a couple hours of work daily. 

I was also wondering, where was that book I wanted to write when I was manic? Was it an epic tale of family, lust, and love, or was I working on a new economics theory? And why wasn’t I writing anymore?

By December, I had to admit to my psychiatrist that I was depressed. As expected, he added a new med to my regimen, Deanxit, not precisely an antidepressant, as recent studies have shown that they can trigger mania.

I’m not all there.

Parts and bits of me are missing, and I’m just trying to patiently get back to myself. 

​