"I can remember the first time I finally realized that something wasn’t right. It was the summer before I started high school, and it was dusk. I was listening to music and lying in the backyard of the house I grew up in. Suddenly, but quietly, I realized that I was depressed.

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Change had never been easy for me. Transitioning from middle school to high school was especially tricky, and though I managed to stay afloat for several months that first semester, by spring of my freshman year I was at a new low. I began self-harming. Life was heavy and the days were long.

 

By the fall of the following year, however, I had seemingly transformed. No longer was I the quiet, anxious, and shy girl I had been; suddenly, I possessed a confidence that was borderline reckless. This lasted for nearly a year, and then I tanked again.

 

It wasn’t until a few months after my 18th birthday, nearly three years later, that I began seeing a mental health professional for my intense and rapid mood swings and instability. After several sessions with a psychiatrist, a diagnosis was made: bipolar disorder.

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Coming to terms with having a chronic and lifelong illness is not easy, especially when it lives in your head. However, after years of anxiety, self-harm, disordered eating, and debilitating mood swings, it was comforting to know that there was a name to describe what was causing me such distress. I began psychotherapy and mood stabilizers, and things finally felt better after years of being so dark and confusing.

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However, the start of college came with greatly unexpected challenges and change, and in the spring of my freshman year of college, I was hospitalized for major bipolar depression following a suicide attempt. Trying to pick up the pieces and live again after a suicide attempt is terrifying.

 

But, with time, I began to notice the beauty around me. I fell in love with the little things. I learned how to knit. I began surfing again. Once you live through wanting to die, you realize that you really can do anything.

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This is not to say that in the several years since my hospitalization it has been easy. It most definitely hasn’t. I began experiencing hallucinations due to the severity of my bipolar depression, and at times have been so paranoid that it was difficult to leave the house. More recently, I have come to find out, after rigorous testing, that I have ADHD. With that diagnosis, too, came relief.

 

However, these illnesses will not define me. I am still Kaela: I love horses, punk concerts, grilled cheese sandwiches, slam poetry, and my sheepdog. I love sunlight through the trees, and cool water in the summertime, and very fluffy blankets.

 

One of my all-time favorite slam poets, Neil Hilborn, has a poem entitled 'The Future', in which he artfully describes his personal experience with bipolar disorder. In the poem, he says, 'I saw the future, I did, and in it, I was alive.'

 

I have seen two futures. One that I am apart of, and one that I am not. Every day, I wake up and decide to choose life. And every night, as I am falling asleep, I am immensely glad for that decision."