what burned me down also brought me back
A transmission from Bipolar 1 mania, death, and rebirth
Scorched Earth: I Burned Everything to the Ground
My relationships, my sanity, my sense of self
But even in ash, life finds a way to grow. I watched it happen.
Recently, I had a manic episode.
I mean full-blown... screaming at people I love, believing I was Jesus reincarnated, crawling under my parents' bed like a snake-level manic. Actually, it happened about a month and a half ago. Since then, I’ve been in deep scorched-earth mode in the psych ward. EVERYTHING burned to the ground, soot all around.
But even in this desolation, new leaves are starting to sprout. Life never stops trying to grow back.
The Hidden Gifts of Mental Collapse
Some truths you only learn when you’ve got nothing left to lose
What I’m discovering are glimmers of insight—precious to me—that I wouldn’t have found without going through this deeply painful and stressful experience.
Life is what you make of it.
Truly, it’s all just a series of expansions and contractions. Other beings have stood where I stand now (archetypally, emotionally) and on some level, they are me and I am them. Recognizing that can feel uncomfortable. Am I right?
Perspective is Painful—But Necessary
What if I’m not always right? What if I’ve caused harm too?
Reckoning with the part I played, without drowning in shame
One hard truth I’ve been sitting with: everyone has a valid point of view, and it doesn’t always align with mine. And sometimes—deep breath—I’m the reason our views didn’t align.
Whew. It’s heavy to admit that I’ve caused harm, that some of the destruction was my fault.
the complexity of the universe sometimes feels like… (crop from my print everything everywhere all at once)
Could It All Have Happened Any Other Way?
What if no one’s to blame? What if it’s all just... what it is?
The peace I found in surrendering to complexity
And yet, I keep circling back to this: it takes more than one to tango. Maybe no one is to blame. Maybe multiple perspectives can be true at once. Things happened as they did because of who everyone was. They couldn’t have happened any other way and everyone was trying their best in the moment given the circumstances.
Life is what you make of it, in the sense that the stories we choose to believe about the meaningless events we experience shape everything. For me, believing that things could not have gone any differently—given who I was, what I knew—makes life feel a lot lighter.
Kindness or Chaos: The Choice We Make Daily
You, me, everyone—we’re temporary. So what do we do with it?
I like to frame things in a way that helps me enjoy being here. From that space, I can try my best to act with love. We can either be kind to each other in our temporary time here—or unkind, exploitative, violent, disconnected... and everything in between.
Me? I’d rather walk closer to the path of a bodhisattva than the path of a Donald Trump. You?
My prayer is that this transmission nourished your contemplative and creative practice, which so often feed each other. Writing through mental illness recovery and exploring spiritual growth are part of how I heal and connect.
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So hit my line. xo 💗
