cause a part of you in me died

I’m having panic attacks. Well, maybe not panic attacks, but mini-nervous breakdowns. I start thinking about everything I need to do and I start freaking out. I mean, I start hyperventilating and crying. This can’t be a good thing right?

I had a full-on nervous breakdown last week. I shut off from the world for a few days except for small outings and locked myself in my apartment. Heather means well, but she just can’t see that I’m falling apart completely at the seams. Its not just my recital hearing; its not just the baroque exam; its not just italian class or church or one of the other hundred of things I have on my plate right now. It’s something else. Something darker and colder.

I’m just spinning and falling out of control. I’m losing my sanity and I don’t understand why. This is so unfair. That I can’t be okay. I called Manny tonight during one of my freak outs. He didn’t answer but he did call back. We talked for a while and I realized something.

He can’t be there for me like he once was able. I just miss him. I miss the way we were, cause it will never be like that again. No matter how good of friends we are. It will never be the way it was. I need a part of him, a part of him that he used to be able to be for me, a part that I can’t have anymore. He’s never gonna be mine that way again. I know he would do anything for me, literally. But there are some things he is just no longer capable of doing. Because we’ve grown and changed. We’re not the same people we were before.

I thought I was stronger. I thought I was better. I am stronger; I am better. But I’m just spinning out of control and I don’t know why!

If nothing else, that’s what bothers me most. There’s no reason for this. I should be fine. What excatly is so wrong in my life that I can’t get through this? The answer is nothing. I should be fine. I should be okay and I’m not.

This is the part of bipolarism that is so frustrating. I’m smart and educated and intelligent. And somehow I’m so helpless. I can’t do this. The simplest things, I can’t do. I’m falling to pieces.

But I’m so good and pretending everything is okay, that everything is fine. Manny was one of the people who saw through that bullshit and saw how much pain I was in. But I know the toll that takes on him. And he can’t be that anymore. Not to me. Not ever again. He’s just not strong enough. No one is really strong enough to deal with this. I mean, I’m obviously not dealing with it well, so how could I expect anyone else to deal with it?

I need to stop crying and go back to work. I’m finishing the one page of studying and I’m going to bed. I’ll deal with the rest tomorrow.

Ghost on the street today
Doorways of Jackson Square
In tinsel and tap shoes
Mardi Gras beads in her hair
Down to the graveyard
She wrung out her hands
As if he will meet her
All day she stands

So don’t leave me
And I know you’re justified
So don’t leave me
Cause a part of you in me died

We wish ourselves beautiful
We cry in the night
And it’s not the love you feared
But the fall from the height
My personal ledges
Afraid to look down
My crepe paper bridges
Enough water to drown

So don’t leave me
And I know you’re justified
So don’t leave me
Cause a part of you in me died

And I see the lonely souls
Searchin’
But before the heartbreak rose
Draw the curtain

I’m a ghost on the streets today
Surrounded by eyes
I feel them peer through me
And my harlequin disguise
If it makes you feel better
Come join me awhile
Cause love in my open arms
There’s love in my spirit’s smile

So don’t leave me
And I know you’re justified
So don’t leave me
Cause a part of you in me died

Ghosts of Jackson Square ~ Edwin McCain