Being bipolar is still something that I’m learning to cope with. Despite living with the illness for quite some time, there’s a difference when you have identified what something is. It is only then that you are able to get the help and care that you need. Treatment, however, doesn’t mean that you are 100% better.
As an entrepreneur and business owner, I’ve found it difficult at times to manage my business -particularly in regards to the cycles of bipolar. For me, irritability and irregular mood patterns (at least, I feel they are irregular) do it in for me. I can go months on end functioning normal. Then suddenly a high comes that lasts for an extended period of time. Or, worse, I get really depressed and begin to withdraw from everything.
This constant struggle of moods is what prevented me from enjoying most of my twenties. It harmed my ability to make lasting friends. It even harmed a long term relationship. My goal is to make sure that it doesn’t hinder my ability to develop and grow a sustained business. Along this course, the struggle is real.
This isn’t to say that I don’t have excellent coping mechanisms in place to help bring my mood back into balance. Music certainly helps -as does writing. As I’ve mentioned in other blog articles, I’ve never been one to talk about my feelings or my past. Those two areas have always been my own to explore and correct. That’s just how I was raised. So talking about my feelings or my past is a moot point.
A struggle of moods is a difficult battle to fight. For a lot of sufferers of bipolar disorder, the end result can be tragic. I don’t want to end up among the many who have made the decision to end their own life. I’ve thought about it -but those thoughts always end up to dwelling on all the people who would miss me. To take the words from Manchester Orchestra’s song, I Can Barely Breathe, if you knew I was dying… would it change you.
In a way, my illness -and the struggle of moods that accompanies it- is what drives me to want to succeed. To prove that someone who struggles with an inner battle can amount to something in this life. That my life isn’t just a tragic tale of a guy, who grew up in poverty and abuse, just gave up living because he couldn’t go on anymore. That’s not the story I want for my life. That’s not the story I want to live.
I want to make an impact on the people around me. I want them to see someone who -when others said he wouldn’t amount to jack shit- took life by the reigns and created something for himself. That I could stare my supposed fate in the eye and demand more than what it wanted to give me. That I built my own future and created the change necessary to make it happen. My struggle of moods pales in comparison to that goal. My future depends on it.
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Jason A Woodruff 