That Makes Two of Us

In the kitchen today, leaning up against the counter by the coffeemaker, Tim described to me what having bipolar disorder is like.  He seldom offers any commentary about his feelings or his illness, so my ears perked up and I watched his face as he talked, which became a mix of despair, hopelessness, and bitter anger.
As he spoke, faces of those I've loved who've suffered at the hands of this or similar illnesses appeared in my mind.  I could see them all:  Bob, at 20,  jumping on our bed at Elm Street at four in the morning, with his arms straight up in the air, laughing like a loon; Cory, at 18,  sobbing her heart out in a puddle in my hallway, with no idea why she was crying; Tim, any night of the week,  exhausted after a long day's work, but propped up on the couch in front of late night tv for endless hours, unable to shut his mind down, and sleep.
This is what he said,
"It's like one day, you're just going along, feeling great, everything is good, and you're thinking to yourself, yeah, I can do this.  This feels all right. 
Then the next day, you wake up, and for no reason you can tell, everything is wrong.  You feel horrible, but you don't even know why.  Things that never bothered you before, are all you can think about.  You don't feel right in your own skin.  You can't do anything right.  No one else can do anything right for you.  It's a struggle just to force yourself out of bed.  Everything hurts...your body, your head.  Even if you're taking your meds, they don't always work.  Then you're just stuck...stuck feeling horrible without knowing why, and not able to do anything to stop it, but wait for the day that you wake up and feel ok again.
 I hate this disorder."

That makes two of us.