Manic It starts as white noise, a sort of rushing water sound in my ears. I shake my head, trying desperately to dislodge the upsetting sound but it stays stubbornly stuck. I can imagine the static that should accompany the sound and when I close my eyes I can see a blood red version of it clouding my mind's eye. My body shakes with a tremor. It's as if my very skin is trying to shake off the reality that threatens to engulf me. But I can't shake it off because it's the sea; it's a ocean. It's the biggest, deepest, darkest ocean ever imagined and I'm right in the middle of without a life-saver or buoy in sight. And I'm kicking and clawing against the tide but I can barely manage half a mouthful of fresh, lucid air. I'm being dragged down and there's no one there to save me. The white noise sucks me under as I struggle and gasp. I struggle because I don't know what's going to happen, and because I know exactly what will happen, because it's all happened before. The last lungful of clean, sane air leaves my lungs. Down I go. Under the cold, unforgiving waves of white noise, up from deep, dark depths of the ocean come The Voices. They're low and speak in a drawn out hiss. They whisper right into my ears, disembodied mouths with sharp teeth and forked tongues that lick me as they speak. “Stupid,” they tell me. “Stupid.” “Ugly.” “Worthless!” I toss my head, right, left, no, no. I don't want to hear it. Breathless and submerged, I still kicking for the surface. I can do this, I think. I'm not that far down. Kick! But the mouths have hands – cold, sharp hands – that grab me in vice grips. They don't pull me. The white-noise-water is so thick that I sink all on my own. But they keep me still, powerless. “Dumbass!” “Fucking worth... ... middle of paper ... ...m dragged up and up until I break the surface with a cry. I lie face down on my bed. The pillow under my head his damp and my head hurts and my face burns from the salt in my tears. Pushing myself up I looked around. There's no disembodied mouths, no terrible humanoid monsters. I'm in my room alone. In my panic I've trashed the place but it's nothing a good clean up can't fix. I feel empty. The catharsis is over and there is nothing left in me but a weak feeling of uneasiness. Manic hallucinations always leave me like this. Sluggish, I kick my way under the blankets and tuck myself in. I'll sleep for a while then clean up. At this point, I'm not sure whether to be happy or not. It's over and I don't run the risk of another episode for a few weeks but fact that it happened again fills me with dread and shame. “It wasn't real,” I mutter to myself. “It wasn't real.”
“The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.
Squatting on the ground, I was weeping. I couldn’t see anything, not even my hand although it was not far from me. I made my eyes widely open to make sure if my eyes went blind or not. When it was around 8pm, I started looking for the window. Touching my hands on the corners of the room, I finally found it. I used up all my energy opening the window, but it was covered with hard dust and it was rigid. I fell down, and cried a lot. I couldn’t sleep throughout the whole night, because I was hungry and thirsty. In addition to this, it was cold in the middle of that night. I was shivering and coughing persistently. Time passed, and it was early in the morning, but nothing
“ It has a name now I know what it is“ ( gold pg 26 ) Manic depression also know as bipolar disorder, is classified as a type of disorder ( also called mood disorder ) that goes beyond the day’s ordinary ups and downs, and is becoming a serious medical condition and important health concern in this country. Manic depression is characterized by periodic episodes of extreme elation, happiness, elevated mood, or irritability, also called mania countered by periodic, classic major depressive symptoms. There are three types of manic depression: Major Depression or Clinical Depression, Bipolar Disorder or Manic Depression and Dysthymic Disorder.
I squirmed, I screamed, I squiggled trying to fight my way up to earth but it seemed like I was going nowhere but down. My stomach was now under the earth. The earth was slowly eating me inch by inch, second by second. Nobody was helping me and I sure was not enjoying this. I remembered the show I saw the night before. The man had survived quick sand by not frantically moving. I could not help but move. Moving was the only way I could fight the hungry earth. My feet kicked the earth underneath and my hands slapped the earth above. Eventually, my energy dwindled down and I just stopped. I had stopped moving yet the earth was still absorbing me. I began to cry. This was how I was going to spend my last minutes: in quick sand, getting eaten by earth.
Manic depression is an illness that affects how people think, feel, and act. These people have really extreme episodes of mania (highs) and depression (lows.) It happens to about 1% of the population, both equally in men and women. When the person is going through a manic episode they have lots of energy, talk fast, jumping from topic to topic. Also, their thoughts are racing, they have a higher self-esteem, and have more enthusiasm. They also may not need as much sleep. During this time, the person feels normal and they are not aware that they’re behaviors may not be normal. They almost feel if the are “on top of the world.';
I woke up drowning again, gasping in the air as if I’d swallowed water. There was plenty of it about me. Sheets of it were sure to be falling from the sky and pounding dimpled rows into the waves. The ocean was yellow green where the light shown through the surface but here, it was black. Always.
Darkness that’s all I see, I float unknowingly in this darkness. The last vivid thing in my memory is running to get to my college campus from my car, I was extremely happy that I recently got my license to be able to drive anywhere I wanted to. The excitement made me forget about the car speeding towards me, I herd a loud car horn and immediately after, pain rapidly coarse through my entire body. I remembered hearing screams and sirens before I shut my eyes while saying “I hope the next life is more interesting than this one”, with that I breathed my final breath. I eventually woke up here and I have been floating in this sea of darkness like a piece from a shipwreck. My senses seemingly shut off except for my eyes which only can see darkness.
“BEEP!” the buzzer goes off. We were off like cheetahs after prey into the water. All the thoughts that are coming to my mind as a swim through the crystal blue water are, what will happen to me if I don’t take enough breaths and pass out? What will happen if I miss the wall and end up getting disqualified? What if I choke on water and get last, what if I get last? As were swimming everytime that I took a breath, I can hear the crowd cheering as loud as lions.
I laid peacefully in my bed and contemplated catching a few z’s. I laid unable to doze off , there was this switch in my brain that, for some reason made it impossible to shut everything off and sleep.As if there are little people in my brain who are dilebratly playing a game of tug of war with the switches that controlled the thoughts stored within my brain. had enough of it and picked myself up and proceeded to the door, grabbed my bag and headed down to the library nearest to my room. Upon arrival to the library, I didn’t hesitate to shuffle over to the closest self that appeared of interest to me. I picked up a book and glanced over the summary, I can’t believe that they haven’t removed this book because of how boring it is. I weave through the shelves, and I finally stumble across some pretty interesting books. I scan the bookcase and I picked up a Book with a old, grainy picture of an insane asylum upon the
I woke up to the pungent smell of hospital disinfect, invading my nostrils. The room was silent apart from my heavy breathing and the beep beep sound you often hear in hospitals that indicates you're alive. I slowly opened my eyes, squinting in attempt to sharpen the blurred images before me. I glanced around and took in the deserted, blue and white colour schemed hospital bedroom. How long have I been here? I shut my eyes, trying to remember what had exactly happened. Then it all hits me with a bang. The memory of it all starts to occupy my thoughts.
often feel a sense of worthlessness and helplessness. In some cases a person may feel
Suddenly, an oily breeze blew in a faint rumbling sound. Slowly, the roars that started dim and faint grew louder and more gigantic. I slumped down staring to the skies helplessly trying to cling to the mud with a weak grasp. The wind swiftly howled ferociously. I felt the sound coming from my eyes.Responsively, I tilted my head to the side away from the wind. My face pinched in anguish feeling the p...
Fear has taken a hold of every man aboard this ship, as it should; our luck is as far gone as the winds that led us off course. For nights and days gusts beyond measure have forced us south, yet our vessel beauty, Le Serpent, stays afloat. The souls aboard her, lay at the mercy of this ruthless sea. Chaotic weather has turned the crew from noble seamen searching for glory and riches, to whimpering children. To stay sane I keep the holy trinity close to my heart and the lady on my mind. Desperation comes and goes from the men’s eyes, while the black, blistering clouds fasten above us, as endless as the ocean itself. The sea rocks our wood hull back and forth but has yet to flip her. The rocking forces our bodies to cling to any sturdy or available hinge, nook or rope, anything a man can grasp with a sea soaked hand. The impacts make every step a danger. We all have taken on a ghoulish complexion; the absence of sunlight led the weak souls aboard to fight sleep until sick. Some of us pray for the sun to rise but thunder constantly deafens our cries as it crackles above the mast. We have been out to sea for fifty-five days and we have been in this forsaken storm for the last seventeen.
I will never forget the first time I went snorkeling, it was something I had been afraid to do up until the moment I touched the water. Beforehand all I could think about was what if I got attacked by a shark? I was too young to die and I felt like I was tempting fate. Then once I made the plunge into the water everything washed away, as if the waves carried the fear with them as they folded over me. I remember that day so clearly, rocking back and forth, up and down, I sat on a small glass bottom boat. The enormous ocean waves making me nauseas as I put my snorkel gear on. I hurried as fast as I could, knowing my nausea would go away as soon as I entered the water. This wasn’t the first time I have gotten sea sick, but it only shows up when the boat is sitting still. As soon as I got my equipment on I jumped into the water, fins first. I felt the sensation of goose bumps shivering up my whole body, tiny bubbles rolling over my body from breaking the surface, they ran from my toes upwards to break free at the ocean’s surface. Once the bubbles cleared, I looked around to see a new blue world I have never experienced before. I heard the sound of the ocean, mumbled by the sound of my deep breathing and the tanks of the more experienced scuba divers below me. It’s a very relaxing and peaceful sound, and if I had not been in such a new and unusual place I could have floated with my eyes closed for hours.
The lonely empty silence is overpowered by a wall of foam rushing towards me. Wheels of sand are churning beneath my feet. My golden locks are flattened and hunched over my head to form a thick curtain over my eyes. Light ripples are printed against my olive stomach as the sun beams through the oceans unsteadiness. I look below me and can’t see where the sand bank ends; I look above and realize it’s a long way to the top. Don’t panic Kate, you’ll get through this. I try to paddle to the top but am halted by something severely weighing me down- My board. That’s what got me in this mess in the first place. I can see the floral pattern peeping through the sand that is rapidly crawling over it. I quickly rip apart the Velcro of my foot strap and watch my board float to the surface effortlessly as I attempt climbing through the water to reach the surface. The fin of my board becomes more visible to me as I ascend. Finally, an alleviating sensation blasts through my mouth.