chaos, purpose, & my fragile mind

There has always been an urge to change living inside of me, burning bright like the proverbial fire under some dude’s ass. It comes in waves, this feeling like I need to do something, anything, to feel like I am worth the pain my mother went to in birthing me. This feeling made me feel exceptional and destined for greatness, like what was within me would propel me to greater heights than even the most prophetic of my church aunties foretold. I’ve always struck a frightening mental balance between feeling chosen and feeling stuck, but none of that mattered if I trusted that God had a calling for my life. Never mind that this feeling, this ever-pressing burning, fended off any joy or contentment that might tempt me away from greatness.

How do I say this next part? How do I divulge a thing that I don’t want to treat like a thing? Here are the words on paper, on awkward, stilted dark mode in Microsoft word:

            I have Bipolar 2—

And suddenly the greatness sheds its godly skin to reveal mania, and the winds of change remind me that they are unstable and never calm, and the fire within has left a horrifying third degree burn on my ability to choose if I go or if I stay. The things that I have always loved and hated about myself- how much of that do I chalk up to me and how much do I chalk up to the illness? Where does the whimsy go? The chaos? The comedy? The melancholy? The stubborn belief that if I try hard enough, I can make it happen? The bursts of productivity?

What is me, and what is Bipolar 2? This thing has eaten me alive since puberty, and probably before then. How do I parse out what belongs to me, to the little girl looking for herself in the mirror, and what belongs to the scalding illnesses in my brain?

I wonder if I would wonder so much if I hadn’t been posed the problem of identity so often as a child. Know who you are in Christ! For as long as I can remember, there were oceans and wildfires raging in me. The devil is an agent of chaos, the Lord is the Prince of Peace. The devil lived in me, no matter how many times I asked for the Prince of Peace to rule my heart- at every altar call, asking again, Jesus come into my heart, just in case the first time didn’t count.

I don’t want to identify with Bipolar 2, or with the other one (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), or with the work I do but don’t want to do forever, and I don’t want to identify as a Christian anymore, not really. Who am I, then? How should I introduce myself? “Hello my name is Abigail Davenport-Walker, except for not really because I haven’t gone to the trouble of changing my last name to my husband’s, I studied something I hardly believe in some days, I have a mood disorder, and also, I’m an Enneagram 4!”

What the fuck do I say?

You don’t have to have it figured out except for I do, because I am the oldest of four children and I married a wonderful over-achiever who has only ever wanted two things in his whole life, and I grew up lower middle class so I have something to prove and people to provide for, and I am nearly 25 with nothing but hopscotch on my resume.

Do you see it now? The mania? The feeling of being chosen and stuck? It isn’t about where I live, its about what lives in me.

Is it the illness, or is it apart of my charm? Who am I if the chaos isn’t me? Am I prophetic, or can I see patterns quickly and determine probable results? What if the holy spirit is the same voice telling me to double check that I shut the bathroom door when I’ve laid down, even though I know that I did?

There is no sum to this; no hopeful conclusion; this is my life and this is my brain and this is my currency, the wildness, the run-on-sentences, the poor grammar and the staccato career choices, and I am right in the middle of all of it, gasping for breath.

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I was diagnosed with Bipolar 2 Disorder on April 7th, 2023. This was written about three weeks later, on May 1st.