Hide and Seek! I’m looking for you, but you are very hard to find. You’re folded up somewhere, waiting to be discovered. Three lined notebook papers, hand written. I just want to see your words, since I will never see you again.

You were right you know, all those years ago, that wasn’t the best place for me. I could barely breathe by the time I resigned, and I struggled through two more weeks. My colleague called me once and then gave up. I think she was mad at me after discovering what disarray I had left my job in. And she was left to pick up all the pieces. The feeling of shame is so unforgiving, it surfaces when this memory comes up, then it links itself to other memories filled with shame, and I have to claw my way back to the moment I am in, where I have a stable job and it is going okay, and you will be fine, I tell myself.

How do I move beyond being fine to thriving? I have to do the hard things that I am avoiding. I have to be hard on myself because bipolar is fighting against me every morning when I awake. Bipolar does not want me to get out of bed and take a shower. I have to kick the covers off and scream “Get up!” inside my head. Oddly, it is the most difficult when the day stretches out before me with no expectations. Creating my own schedule and treating each event as an actual appointment is a great start.

Where are those three pages of your writing? Now I know why I am looking. Shame takes so much from our self esteem, and your words were filled with unconditional love. I was looking for an external pick me up. I need to look within, build the synapses inside my mind that tell me I am worthy, deserving and capable. I have to know in my heart that even without your three pages of reassurance, I am loveable.