My Kind Samaritan

Today I got bad news piled on bad news, then more bad news.  I could feel myself sliding into a depression; one that I've been working my ass off to stay out of for the last few months.  Once you've been diagnosed with a 'mental disorder' (in my case, bipolar and schizophrenia - is anyone surprised, even for a second?) you have a few options: do nothing, and get trapped in it's vicious cycle, some sort of counselling, with or without drugs, or learn to read your moods and deal with them.  Clearly, the first and last options aren't widely promoted, and they can be very dangerous. 

I chose the last option.  I don't really trust psychiatrists or physiologists; my cousin, who was my idol and my best friend committed suicide after being taken off her drugs prematurely.  It was horrible to watch her slip deeper and deeper, and eventually never resurface.  And the aftermath literally tore apart my family.  The times I have been to psychiatrists, they've wanted to drug me on everything from prozac to lithium.  I can't do that; I can't live in that foggy mess.  I'd rather feel everything and hurt, than feel nothing at all.  And I don't like talking about my 'problems' to people I don't know.  It doesn't help - it helps a lot more when I bring things up in my own time, and I can deal with it when I want to, rather than in a 90 minute session once a week on a Thursday at 4.15pm.

I'm not really one for ignoring things, so I have made it my goal to live happily with these 'disorders' (funny, because they actually have made me very orderly and organised!).  How it works basically is I had to learn my triggers.  I had to know what it feels like to slip into that black hole, and to pull myself back out.  I had to learn what the highs felt like, and learn to ride them out without doing anything reckless or dangerous.  The schizophrenia has been the hardest to deal with; it happens almost randomly; I don't need to be in a certain mood, and I know when it happens that no matter what, I have to get around people as soon as I can; it's the only thing that can 'save' me.  

To people who have depression or bipolar or whatever, don't think that just because this works for me, it will work for you.  It's not for everyone, and I'd even argue that for most people, it isn't safe.  For me though, it's my only option, and I have no choice but to make it work.

Anyway, tonight when I felt myself teetering on the edge, I knew I had to do something.  Usually, I have two options; I can ride out the low, and remind myself every 5 minutes that I will survive, or I can pull myself out.  It's sort of like ripping off a bandaid, only harder, and more painful.  The issue with riding it out is sometimes it can take weeks, and with my workload at university, I really can't deal with that right now.  Tonight, I went for a run.  I know that exercising to the point of mental exhaustion will fix it.  I put on loud dance music, and ran up the highest, steepest hill in my area.  Eventally, I ended up down by the water.

I sat here for about 10 minutes, and cried.  They were tears of anger, fear, frustration, and exhaustion.  After a while, a man walked from around the corner (I was on the other side of a train bridge, hidden from the road and cars and people), and simply sat down beside me.  He put his arm around me and said 'No matter what it is, it will be okay.  You can get through this.'  We sat like this for maybe another 5 minutes, then I started to feel all of the pain and anger and desperation was much more manageable.  It's not gone, but I can get through it.  I thanked him, and he gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and told me to 'run safely'.  

This man, who I have never seen before and will probably never see again, saved me tonight.  I'm not going to be all dramatic and say I would have committed suicide, because that's a blatant lie; I wouldn't.  But he did save me from sinking into a pit of nothing; he literally pulled me from hell.  How can you ever thank a stranger who does something like that?  I guess the answer is, pay it forward.  There's probably nothing I will ever to do repay him, but I can repay my debt to the world by helping others.  

Remember, sometimes, little words that you say to strangers might mean the most to them.  The fact is, someone I don't know just told me they believe in me, and today, that has literally changed my life.  Be kind to others, love your neighbour, smile to people in the street you don't know.  You never know who you might be helping, or what's behind their smile.