The Mask

I wear a mask.

I put on so you or I are not aware of the reality of my life.

That is living with a chronic illness.

When I was first diagnosed with Bipolar Type I, I didn’t believe I had the condition.

I studied AP Psychology in high school and learned the condition.

I never would have thought that I would be a case study for mania, depression, psychosis, or schizophrenia.

Yet here I am, writing an article about the things that have plagued me.

I played a game with myself, and it was a dangerous game.

It was a denial of a disorder and a biological misfunction.

I hoped to blend in with everyone else and not take the medication to balance me.

I stopped taking the medicine when I was first diagnosed at 17.

I went a year and a year without the medication.

At first, I was fine.

However, as stress built up in my life, I could no longer deny I had an illness.

When I was a student at Liberty University in 2009, I made a pact with myself that I wouldn’t tell anyone that I was hospitalized for a mental illness a year ago.

I lived with shame and guilt for my conduct when I was manic, and I carried the burden of depression.

There’s no doubt that I have a mental disorder.

My actions spoke louder than words.

My conduct was explicit on how I was mentally unstable without medication.

As much as I wore that mask and suppressed my emotions on the reality that I was sick, it was to no avail.

At the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011, I experienced yet another episode of mania and psychosis.

As much as I wanted to control my perception of reality that I wasn’t sick, my brain thought otherwise.

In December of 2010, I began to become very depressed.

I failed myself because I didn’t get into the nursing program.

I couldn’t afford school and had no direction in my life.

I was hospitalized for a couple of weeks, and the hospital notified the school that I’d be returning medicated.

When I got back to school, I stopped taking the medication, and I went manic.

I did odd things and made people uncomfortable.

I wandered the halls out of my mind and had no sense of reality.

Plus, I wanted to have sex, and I was hypersexualized.

This wasn’t conducive to the culture of Liberty since it was a Christian University.

My demise was when I exposed myself in my friend's dorm room, trying to look at porn.

My friend walked in and reported me to the Student Council.

I was sent back to the mental institution for a few weeks and given medication to control my moods.

While in the hospital, I was told I would be put on medical leave, but when I was released, they decided to ban me and kick me out of school.

I had a few hours to pack my bags and leave campus, or else I would be arrested for trespassing.

Dejected, I sought nothing more than to hide from the world.

By grace, I had a good friend who believed in me and kept in touch after I was kicked out of school.

He told me to get better and that I had the potential to overcome my illness.

I believed him and did whatever I could to be better.

After a couple of years of being in and out of hospitals, I moved to North Carolina in January of 2023.

It was there that I rebuilt my life and took the medication.

I learned my lesson.

However, I still battled the shame, guilt, and stigma of the illness.

So I put on a mask.

I denied the trauma of my past and pressed on to a better future.

It worked.

I became uber-successful in sales.

No one suspected that I had a mental illness.

All was good until I was laid off from my job in 2016, and I had nowhere to go.

I didn’t want to keep investing in sales development, yet it was the only skill that made me money.

I tried for years to go back to work, but my depression became a monster.

I tried to deny it, but I became so overwhelmed with intrusive thoughts that the only thing that made sense to me was to kill myself.

I tried so hard to control my perception of myself to the world that it became a burden.

The mask that I wore was becoming a curse to me.

I wasn’t living authentically, and it came at a cost.

This led to me attempting suicide in 2021 when I decided that if I were to die, I would do it by overdosing on lithium.

I still try to wear the mask and appear normal, but it’s no avail.

My condition is chronic, and I will be dealing with this for a lifetime.

I have realized that one aspect of this life is to live as authentically as possible.

Admit your weaknesses and strive to be as congruent with your beliefs as possible.

You may think that I am uber-religious based on my other post, but I am not.

I’m trying to figure it out.

I sought Hinduism, Buddhism, Atheism, Nihilism, and Agnostic beliefs to fill the void in my soul.

I read books and online articles and talked to many people from perspectives other than the Christianity I grew up in.

Yet I have found that Jesus fills that void.

I am loved despite my Schizoaffective Disorder.

I have increasingly realized that my condition doesn’t define me or my intellect.

I am open to other world views and other people's perspectives on their take on life, and I am here to say that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

For some reason, I survived my suicide even though the doctors had said I should have died.

I guess that it was this very article that I am writing.

I hope to share this hope with you now.

Christianity is not for everyone, and I get that.

I thought it wasn’t for me until I lost it all.

All I can do is point to my hope, Jesus, and His love for this world.

I am perfect because of Him.

I am loved, and I can love because of Him.

I am not a sinner because of Him.

I am a new creation because of Him.

I am given the Comforter to direct my life because of Him.

I write today because of Him.

I no longer have a void because of Him.

I hope this is encouraging to you.

Like everyone else, I struggle, and I have doubts and fears.

Despite all that, I have a worldview that comforts me.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

To be honest, it sucks that I have to pretend and wear a mask to not be authentic with myself, or at least that I had to do that.

I wish to live in a world where we can be honest with each other and ourselves.

Maybe more on that later.

Thanks for reading. Till next time.