Milligrams

Bipolar seems to have this way of robbing you, when you’re not manic, of decent conversational skills. One day you’re doing fine, talking to everyone you know, having a fucking ball, then the next you’re barely able to smile when you’re supposed to. The people around you get that particular rhythm in their conversation — they pause, ever so imperceptibly, for something from you. And of course it never comes from you, because it can’t come from you because you’re feeling like this, so incapable of speech.

My doctor calls it self-censorship, but I think he’s wrong again and think it’s something deeper. I think there’s a biological component to this lack of speech; verbal portions of the brain are shut down during depressive bipolar attacks. People talking circles around you, stunning you not so much with their wit as with their capacity to access phrases, and even words, at the right time and pace. No amount of milligrams seems to have protected me against this deficit. This is where the drugs have let me down the most.