Spiralling Down the Staircase

There is a woman I know well that looks beyond others failings to help them find solace. She goes through life hopeful and open to whatever good things God offers. She is an empath that feels everything her friends and family feel. She is even minded and fair and tries to look at situations objectively. Tries to put her self head on into her work putting all of her into customer service rolls or interpersonal relationships she nurtures. She is loving and respectful more times than not knowing that without the social entanglements in the time to come she would not make it through. She is bright, light-hearted, and outgoing in nature. Yet even in the worst of times, this woman would still would rather socialize than be completely alone. She has a turmoil that wages revenge on her very life for at least a week out of the month at times more even her own body taking her under with only triggered warning bells to give her an idea of its arrival time. All of this so she can warn the villagers of their unknown onslaught. She never knows the severity of the monster she can release from its dormancy. She only knows how to micromanage herself and take whatever helpful placebos or might cure homeopathic treatments that she must because the supposed healers don’t fully comprehend the disorder that is making her sick of mind and spirit. “Anxiety! Nay, depression! Possibly just bipolar or mental!” are the guises of this disease I suffer in but are merely two parts of this epic novel in her life. They prescribe exercise and diet with mind-altering meds to motivate her on the days she can barely move or breathe much to her great resentment. This disease ever since she joined in the great ritual of womanhood at thirteen.  

Often enough, she finds her self atop the world feeling like a person. She is able to move her mountains and climb them too with all that she lives to do. She is able to cope well enough everyday staying together, dealing with all that comes from life. She is a tightrope walker juggling around the average thoughts of work, marriage, family- life in general like a woman does. She is able to withstand gusts of wind and equip her self with harnesses and safety. She is ever walking that wire tip-toeing the line between together and dissolving into what she knows will come in cycles to devour her self-esteem and control whole in one big gulp. The triggers and emotional cues for what she feels making her like she is about to fall into the great unknown of her emotional well-being. A magical being to be sure and feel the shifting of the sand underneath her feet giving way until that time comes again where she is normal. For now, she cradles her thoughts that are good and pleasant in the sake of being safe and sound... All until- there she finds that harness became unhitched, unclasped, and she is undone. And down she goes! Grasping for anything down the stairs she’s felling that will give her any stay or leverage to hold onto. Where there only seems to be splinters, nails, ripped up carpet, and missing boards. She is falling far too fast for her to find anything to sustain her anyways.

Her mind races as if it were a sprinter in a one-person race or perhaps it’s the gun that called the race to begin spinning further in its trajectory until it ends- rise and fall. She becomes desperate for air fighting her self doubts in a lockdown, drag-out prizefight. She is expertly knowing in the way that there are no winners here only her survival matters until the light and dark parts of her that are fighting for supremacy ring the bell and head off to their sides resting until they are ready to fight again.  

The irritation and irrational ideas that cross her... Holding her hostage as she is harboring more hatred towards her self than any person could or should. Wanting the comfort of home away whilst drowning in crowds and when at home wanting the walls to stop looking at her severe loneliness. “Am I really loved or is everyone else pretending to care,” she asks pleading for God to answer knowing that it is only in His good time. Grace being her only shred of hope to hold fast to even when she is lost. Yes, she is lost as she zones out feeling tired and achy because of the great race she ran the night before. She does for her family by getting up and pretending on these particular days to be congenial and carefree afraid of her own surface tension and the aches and pains underneath.

Medication seems to work at times and at times reminds her of the ennui of it all. She is extroverted still; she is smiling brightly and headlong into tasks appearing to be swimming placidly- that is until the piranhas below her start to gnaw on her piece of mind piece by piece and the smile she's faking fades from view. She goes into her car before and after the throngs she serves have had a fill of her energy and enthusiasm for the day and she talks her self out of whatever hole she wants into. These days with the crying jags filled with tears of rage or tears of absolute exhaustion. She is this frantic apologizing, self-deprecating, people pleaser… this her way of making everyone else happy by her pleasing countenance all the while suffering from a disorder breaking her ever so daily underneath the surface. Everyday she is making sure of no one else falling down the staircase that she is falling down just to get back up and rise again. She rises even when she feels like giving up entirely. She rises because no one should ever feel like her because staying down is an escape from the love she knows exists beyond the days of despair.