I am of two minds about this
...I thought that was a charming title. I am bipolar, you see.
It took me quite a while to be diagnosed, but I always knew there was something...not quite right about me. I would grip friends in a panic and tell them I was afraid. Afraid and exhausted. I felt too much, I felt everything, and I could hardly contain myself. I wanted to be well-adjusted, be on my best behavior, and be the best friend, brother, lover I could be. On my best days I managed to hit the mark. On other days, man...
In November 2025, I sat with my therapist and gave her a detailed account of my life the preceding months. She remarked that I may be bipolar. This was the nth diagnosis I was receiving so I didn't quite know if it was true, or just another stop point towards a Grand Theory of Me. She said I was becoming increasingly erratic and reckless. She said she was going to titrate my medication. I took the quetiapine and felt even more erratic.
I was going to Nairobi. She advised against it, but fuck it. I'd paid for the ticket, and I really wanted to go. In Nairobi, I planned to tie a neat bow to the hassle I called my life. End it far away, and make my body the problem of a hapless Airbnb owner. I even wrote a preamble to my suicide note. I couldn't quite bring myself to write the actual note.
In December, I ran out of the quetiapine and texted the psych people. We're on holiday, they announced sweetly. You promised, I said. You promised you could ship the meds when I needed it. They went silent on me. I smoked to get through the anxieties I feared. In those days I felt, consistently, that I was losing it, that rationality was oozing out of me and all that would remain would be insanity.
By January the psych guys returned to inform me they were now open for business. Happy new year, dude, and also: we've increased our prices.
Having survived the yuletide without them, I ignored their messages. I tried to distract myself in Nairobi, but everywhere I was, there I was.
By March, I was back in Lagos.
I visited Mauritius shortly after and by April/May, I was truly back in Lagos. I rented an apartment and decided to put my life in order. I had decided to live, you see.
I adopted a dog and quit weed. My father called me to pick a fight with me for not calling. I could have said "for all you know, I'm a dead man", but what I did say was "get to the point". He disowned me and told my brother to let me know. Shrug. I went to the magistrate court and swore an affidavit to make it official.
I had weddings to attend. I barely had any money left, but I was positive that I would attend them. The air smelt rank, but it also smelt sweet. There was much promise in everything. I loved the smell of decay that Lagos greeted me with, and I called Petra and told her I was the happiest i had ever been. She did not trust it, because I had been in the pits only a few days ago. That should have been a sign, but I blew past it.
People on the internet were telling me I was full of a lot of energy on the internet. I was painting, writing and just up and about. That was another sign. I blew past that, as well.
Then my first episode happened, and I systematically dismantled every social structure I'd spent the decade building. I was kicking, hissing and spitting until my friends kicked down the door of my guarded apartment building and dragged me to rehab. There I sat, caged and sedated, for months, until the full implication of my life finally dawned on me.
When I was released seven weeks later, I spent the next few weeks writing apology letters to the people I said nasty things about. Most of them ignored me. Some sent perfunctory messages saying there was no harm and no foul. A few showed me kindness and forgiveness. I did it for me, so when I was done I sat, with the weight of my actions lightened some.
These days I sit by myself, alone. The realization of my condition and the permanently altered state of my world rings in my ears. I spend a lot of time in church, trying to understand what my life means now. I am constantly medicated, and this makes me sleepy and often groggy.
All of this is happening at a time when my field (software engineering) is changing. I am running out of money and cannot muster the strength to get a job.