Mania

About a week ago, I went to church with my mom and dad. During bible class, our preacher asked the young people in the room what our parents did that made us feel good. I thought it was an odd question, as did my mom.

He provided us with slips of paper on which to write our answers. I started writing, but nothing made sense. I knew what I wanted to say, but I misspelled every single word horribly, and I wrote random letters into each word. In the midst of struggling to write, our preacher said everyone was going to read their answers out loud.

I did not look forward to that. I fenagled it so I’d go last. My mom pulled up a chair about four feet away from me, which made me uncomfortable. Pretty much everyone but her started leaving the room before I gave my answer.

I looked down at my paper and tried to remember what I wanted to convey. I couldn’t do it. Everything was muddled and nothing made sense. I was so anxious. After struggling for a minute, I said, “I’m giving up. I can’t even read my own handwriting.”

Nobody said anything. Everyone just continued to trickle out of the room. I was mortified, and worse, I knew I was manic. I was displaying classic symptoms and it all felt similar to my episode nine years ago. I talked to one of my friends, and she said she could tell something was wrong. I told her I was manic, and she said that would’ve been her guess.

I cannot describe to you the dread I felt. Manic?? Why now? I’ve been sleeping so well. How could this happen so randomly? I always take my medicine!

I was so confused and I felt immense despair.

Then I woke up.

It’d just been a horrible, horrible nightmare.