Woke up this morning feeling pretty good. Wondering how long it can last. Hoping it will be for a while. But I know better.

That's one of the worst curses of bipolar disorder. Especially if you stay in a state of depression most of the time. The clouds sort of clear out of the sky. You can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but you know that even if you get to the end of that tunnel you're only going to enjoy it for a short while before you get thrown back to the dark end. So you get to the point where you start wondering how long it's going to last. It's like watching a marathon of movies with sad endings. It becomes hard to enjoy the rest of the film if you know that they're all going to end on a down note. And that's my fucking life. I'm not talking about finding oneself in a state of bliss, enlightened, then coming down and moaning and groaning because you can't seem to make it happen again. Normalcy, that's the prize for me. Mental health...a life more stable. It shouldn't be so fucking hard, should it? But it is. It's like God dangling a carrot in front of me...the carrot is stability, a calm mind, an end to guilt feelings and uncontrollable hatred/meanness. To the extent that my sluggish schizo mind can be motivated, I chase after it. I get closer and closer. It's within my grasp. I catch hold and even manage to nibble a small bit from the tip. Then God yanks the string, pulls it away, leaves me to wallow in the failure and disappointment while he ties a fresh carrot to the line. I mean, it gets to the point where you just say, fuck it. Is it even worth it? Easier to just make a home in the depression. But if you do that for too long you really will feel suicidal, so when God comes around again with the carrot you pull yourself up by your bootstraps and the chase is on.

That's sort of the way it is, from a certain perspective...but the deal is this: the good days just come around without warning. I don't have any control over WHEN they come...obviously, if I did I would sure be having a lot more of them. Please don't get me wrong. I am grateful for the good days. I live for them. Still, they are tainted by the incontrovertible certainty that they will be soon over with and I'll be right back in the same shit hole I started in. See? I'm already starting to feel bummed. I'd better stop writing this and listen to the Deep Purple CD that came up in the "Randomly Chosen CD Game".

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