This piece has been named an honorable mention of Lena Dunham’s Famesick Writing Contest with Girls Write Now.

I hadn’t slept for 72 hours and I had never felt more awake in my life. 16-year-old me wondered why frat boys turned to cocaine for stimulation. They really should just try a manic episode on for size. In the last three days, I accomplished the following: reorganized my entire closet, finished the spring layout for the spring newspaper all by myself, took up watercoloring trees, painted my nails each a different color, read three novels, re-reorganized my closet, watched French movies to feel sophisticated, baked (bad) French macarons, wrote my newest Dramione fan fiction, went for a run around my cul-de-sac in the middle of the night twice (equipped with my trusty inhaler), wrote a few drafts of college essays for east coast liberal arts schools to feel important, rubbed one out to Reylo fan fiction, and perfected Julia Child’s Beef Bourguignon. I was what I liked to call Up. For those well-adjusted folks, I can only compare it to the ovulation phase. Or cocaine for frat boys. 

I would know Up was over when I began to briefly contemplate killing myself — mostly for attention. The mania was wearing off and settling into what I call Down. Down roughly translates to “wanting to slip away from existence, but haunt loved ones to know what they actually think about me.” More or less. Down is akin to wanting to peel off your skin, realizing how tight it feels against your body. Down feels like your bones turning to lead. Down is a heavy diet of 30 Rock and Hot Cheetos, the Red-40 shocking neurons into trying to care about something. Anything at all. 

Trapped on this Seesaw of Psychosis, I would hurdle rather than carefully tip into these two versions of myself. Up Me would ace tests without studying for them, while Down Me would cry to Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours until my pillowcase was wet enough for me to wring it out like a towel. Even worse would be when I would stare at the ceiling, losing myself in the glow-in-the-dark star stickers, and feel empty. 

I wanted a way off this ride, but I worried about a diagnosis, a label stuck on my breast for the rest of my life. “Hello! My name is… Unidentified Mood Disorder!” I grew up with labels, especially being a twin. While she was always the “pretty twin,” I was the “book smart twin.” We’re identical, for reference. The other reason was I didn’t want my boyfriend at the time to get the satisfaction of being right about calling me his “crazy girlfriend.” It pains me to admit he was clinically correct.  

Terrified of being reduced to yet another adjective, I found relief in writing about Up Me and Down Me, trying to make sense of my Jekyll and Hyde. I didn’t tell anybody about hiding these two people within myself, like stacked henchmen in a trench coat, until I told a Very Important Doctor when I was 19. Very Important Doctor didn’t say much, he just blamed my “melancholia” on my period. After all, crazy women having been burning at the stake for centuries — why did I think watching all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls in the course of a week made me an exception? He didn’t appreciate my joke about a trip to the seaside or leech therapy to cure myself, much like how I didn’t appreciate his offhanded comment that I might be Bipolar. He administered a white pill that caused UP! Me (I unlocked a new chemical imbalance like the overachiever I am) to reign terror over my life. 

UP! Me was mercifully short-lived, much to the disappointment of my friends who thought she was more “fun” than her despairing counterpart. I went back on the Seesaw of Psychosis, which became a Seesaw of My Personal Hell. I watched as friends came and went, unable to ride on the other side with me, as my family watched me swing helplessly. My boyfriend, who only calls me crazy in an endearing way, hung on for dear life, flailing behind me. Up Me and Down Me stayed in my diary, a fuzzy pink one with a key.

Until a new doctor, a Doctor With Hip Glasses — a woman this time, duh — said the first doctor had been correct. No, not about my period melancholia, but about the mood disorder. But hearing her say it, listening to her explain this war being fought inside me, it didn’t feel like a label. It felt like Up Me and Down Me merging to help me discover who Me actually was. For the first time, it felt like it was quiet enough upstairs to discover who I was, removed from all of the constant yelling and white noise. And I quite like her. I like Me. 

Process

I am so grateful to the Girls Write Now Team, Lena Dunham, and PRH for the opportunity to share my delusions to other delusional girls. Here’s to writing about weird girls and their even weirder lives forever & ever!