I feel like I used to be this deep, moody, interesting girl. Even in my depressions I was longing, searching, obsessing. Inspired by ideas and truths and feelings. I just remember this mystical magical sense, quality. my reflection in the mirror glowing in candle light, the way my hair felt in my fingers, rain drops running across a car window. what felt like hours and hours of thought. amazing, deep, soul stirring thought that would entertain me forever. i was excited by books, movies, ideas. my mind was always going even when i was down. chakras, astrology, estoteric science, the mystical ideas of life. i was open and connected. bursting into tears in the bathroom because the tag in my underwear said made in indonesia, having nightmares about a movie i saw in women's studies, writing letters to the dining hall.

i feel like a shell of that girl. i feel like all of that confusing but wonderful magic and thought has totally dried up. I feel like all of the spirit is gone and just the neurosis remains. The poetry, the painting, the deep thoughts are gone and what is left is just mental illness.

i don't know how to be deep anymore. i'm not inspired to do anything, read anything, be or become anything. i'm not inspired by anything.

i remember being dragged around by my moods but i felt more in ownership of it. it was my craziness, my moodiness. it was who i was and i didn't apologize for it. i had no real responsibilities so i had the luxury of indulging myself in whatever mood i happened to be in.

there was such longing. it was like i needed answers or something. or maybe distraction from my craziness. i was longing. searching.

i thought i had found all my answers when i got married, and then had my baby. life was sweet. perfect. a dream come true. i was contented and calm and genuinely happy.

two years later my brain was blasted with a mixed episode the likes of which i had never experienced. nothing has been the same since. that moody magical girl is gone, the contented wife and mother is gone.

now i feel like a walking mental illness. depressed most of the time. depressed with no depth, no searching. my spirituality is totally gone.

i just watch tv.

i wonder if i still have any magic left anywhere in me. i'd like to think there was some hidden somewhere. i'd like to think i'd be happier if i connected in some way to spiritual ideas or something again. i don't know how to. i don't know where to start. i feel like it is gone.

of course maybe i wasn't magic. maybe i was just mentally ill and dealing with it the best i could. maybe all that thought and searching was just me coping. it isn't like all of that stuff really made me happy. it just made me a little less restless. it just distracted me.

i just feel like nothing now. i don't know where i've gone or who i am.

people always talk about all of the good things about people with bipolar. that we experience the world differently and can create things and all this stuff like that. but what if you don't do anything with it. then what. then it is just all the bad things about being bipolar. what is the point?

i used to be creative and interesting and restless and driven and excitable and obsessive and wide open and passionate.

now what? nothing.

i'm not even that depressed right now.