Writing Prompt: Is It Safe?

Prompt: Write about your “safe space.”

Is It Safe?

So I took some time yesterday and this morning to read over past entries on my blog, Bipolar Bared, all the way through to last January. It was eye-opening, kinda unsettling to read between the lines and see my psychosis evident last winter, then me coming out of it in the Spring, around the time we started our creative writing group. I can see clearly the bipolar grandiosity, plus disruption in my sleep, the telltale sign that mania has its hooks in me. And then I detail coming back to reality, and all that confusion realizing I’ve been through a major psychic clusterfuck, where I was blaring rock music in the car and talking out loud to myself, thinking I was under observation and being recorded, and people were sending messages to me through their license plates and car decals.

This week’s writing assignment is to write about our “safe space,” and that’s incredibly challenging for me to describe, as I never have felt truly safe since 2002, when I had my first manic psychotic episode. I’ve been rocked by repeated episodes ever since, which used to occur approximately every two years, but since getting completely sober and religiously med compliant in 2017, I’ve been able to cobble together much longer stretches of time in relative sanity.

I don’t feel safe because I’m constantly on edge that another episode will occur, when I don’t know, what will happen to me in it, I don’t know either. I pay big bucks to a top psychiatrist to keep me sufficiently medicated enough that psychosis is kept at bay, but he does not give me certainty that I’ll never have to experience psychosis again. I’ve just started working with a new therapist who is going to use an eye movement therapy to help me process all the trauma I feel from having gone through repeated episodes and hospitalization. Will this therapy help me stay stable, can I get say ten years between psychotic episodes? I don’t know.

I do often look at my husband, when we are sitting in the TV room, and ask, “Is everything OK?” To which he always replies, “Yes, honey.” I think what I’m really asking is, “Are we safe? Am I safe?” Because I’m always, it seems, living in fear that my sanity is going to be snatched away from me, and I’ll turn into a wanderer, picking up trash outside, and talking out loud to imaginary cameras I think are filming me.

I think my biggest challenge is figuring out how to feel safe in light of the likelihood that psychosis will happen to me again. I’m definitely not there yet, but I have put things in place to assist me. Like I mentioned, I have a new therapist who I meet weekly to work on my past episodes. I also have sponsor Shawn, who I meet weekly at a local Starbucks where we discuss my fears of losing my mind again and he helps me to laugh and realize there are some pretty colorful other people out there. I’m definitely not alone, and in many cases my episodes pale in comparison to some other individuals’ experiences.

So no, I don’t have a true “safe space” that I can think of, though this worn, brown recliner I’m presently parked on is very, very comfortable. Perhaps I should have devoted my writing today on a reflection of my beloved brown chair, but it feels good to give you some more insight on me and my struggles. I would like to end with the firm declaration that I have always felt safe to share in our writing group, so maybe I have indeed carved out a kind of “safe space” on Saturday afternoons. Thanks, gents, for making this possible.