Elis de Guerre

Everyone has their inner critic, the voice in your head that whispers all manner of terrible things:

You look fat in that outfit.

Many people are aware of bipolar disorder. Most know it’s a mental illness that swings the brain between depression and mania. Most understand depression to be debilitating, a condition that combines sadness, despair, exhaustion, and lack of motivation. But most people don’t understand mania (which is experienced primarily by people with bipolar I) or hypomania (which those with bipolar II tend to encounter more than full-blown mania) — at least not fully.

I’m a person who needs to know the facts. I bring a notebook with me to every doctor’s appointment. I record important meetings. The research list for my memoir is pages long. Why should pregnancy be any different? And so the research began.

When my therapist told me in 2012 that I presented with symptoms of PTSD, I was relieved, but also in disbelief.

If you see me with my partner, you’ll more than likely think that I’m a straight girl in a heterosexual relationship — and there’s nothing I hate more. Being with a man seems to negate my sexuality, rendering it secret or private when I’m anything but.

I have not been single during this time of year since 2005, my senior year of high school, and now, as a 27-year-old woman, I look into the next month or so of global celebration and see...nothing.

Learning is the best thing for us, and the best place to look? The sequestered nooks, and all the sweet serenity of books.

[CN: suicidality, hospitalization, rape culture, slut-shaming.] We all needed a place to recover, a place where our problems could be addressed and dealt with, a place where we could feel safe. However, the way the women in the ward were treated couldn’t possibly have made us feel safe or comfortable.

Last week, my mother came home from work, found the shower faucet leaking hot water, and told me to "get my head out of my cunt, and start thinking about other things."

I am 27 years old, 10 months into my marriage, and have been separated from my husband for two weeks. Consider this a letter from the trenches of impending divorce.