Conquered.

I always thought that I would struggle with bipolar disorder, but it wasn't until the other night when I was hanging out with a good friend, Kendall, that I realized that I'm really not bipolar anymore. Somehow, I've taught myself to overcome it and I've learned to live without drastic highs and crippling lows. I've gotten better about saving money and I've cut unhealthy things out of my life for good. I deal with things so much better. I'm calmer, I'm happier, and I'm finally the person I always dreamed I would be. I fit the ideal of the girl that I knew was somewhere within me. All the things that I thought a person should be, I became and it feels so good.

It's so nice, in fact, and so natural, that it almost feels like my life isn't even mine. My past doesn't really belong to the person I am now, because she was so depressed and so lost and so forsaken. She was determined to die. But then it's like this life picked up somewhere around the time of turning twenty, and it hasn't stopped rolling ever since.

I just can't imagine where I would be had I not met Scooter. I don't even think I'd be alive today...Most likely not. Anyone who knew me in the past could never have seen what lay under my skin, inside my brain, crawling around my bones all day long, breaking me down more and more. I know what it feels like to lay in bed at night and wish that you would never wake up. I know what it's like to stare at yourself in the mirror and think that this would be the last way you will ever see yourself. I contemplated all the ways I could kill myself and was pretty sure what I was going to do if pushed slightly farther.

It breaks my heart to think about what I used to be. Now, I can't think of why I would ever want to kill myself. That's how I know I'm a totally different person. I never feel the depression anymore, I never feel the highs. I'm not nervous about what my life holds. I'm ready to break free of this place and be natural and new. It's like my life has been given a clean slate and I want to fill it with all the things that make me...me.

I couldn't be happier.