When people think of bipolar, they think of happiness. They think of sadness. They think of the two of them as interchangeable emotions.

They think of a wicked smile cutting across someone's lips, only to quickly be replaced with a frown so deep that it makes the rest of your face sink; drag down so far that it can't be pulled up again.

That isn't all there is.

Bipolar is more than happiness and sadness. It's weeks of intense, utter depression, dragging you so far down into an abyss that you aren't sure if you even want to come out again. It's happiness so raw and pure that you can do anything - it's a confidence so strong that you know you can do it, no matter what they say.

It's a completely new part of your brain that opens. It's a power that everyone says you shouldn't do, but it's so strong and so tempting - because, come on, just touch the flame. One touch. It won't hurt. You're strong enough for it.

I blink and look away from the lighter in my hand, the orange flame dancing in my peripheral vision. Instead, my eyes focus on a much more daunting sight; one that send my stomach doing backflips and has my heartbeat racing just that much more.

Risperidone. It's in a clear, orange bottle with a small piece of paper taped to the side. I can see my name. My birth year. And then, right there, in front of my eyes: bipolar. Medicine for bipolar. To control it. To tame it. To hide it.

To hide me.

It's eight o'clock in the morning, and I know that in five minutes I should be swallowing two pills. In fifteen minutes I should be getting dressed. In twenty-five minutes I'll be taking the bus down to Oregon State University. In an hour I'll be sitting through my first lecture, and so on and so forth. My entire day is planned, and it all starts with that little pill.

It all starts with two pills of Risperidone that are meant to control me. To fix me. To allow me to operate on this schedule planned for me.

I don't want to. As I reach out for the pill bottle, my body hurts. The arms in my muscles contract painfully, begging for me to pull back. I clench my jaw and wrap two thin fingers around the pill bottle, pulling across the table and towards me. My fingers burn in protest. The sound of the pill bottle scraping across the table sends chills across my body, and I hate it. I hate it so much.

And then the cap is off and two white pills are in my palm and then down my throat and making their way through my body to fix me. The lighter has fallen from my fingers, abandoned somewhere on the messy floor, and it's exactly eight-oh-five. I'm on schedule.

I don't feel a change in my demeanor. I don't want to touch the flame anymore, but I'm not different. I don't feel calm or comfortable. I don't feel happy. I don't feel sad. I don't know what I feel.

I wonder if it's possible to lose myself if I never really knew who I was to start with.

I shake my head and stand up, quickly getting dressed and grabbing my school bag. I know I'm Jeff Williams. I know I'm twenty years-old. I know that two days ago I tripped down the very same stairs I'm walking down. But do I know me? Do I know the Jeff who takes his pills, or the one who went weeks without them? Is there really a difference?

I figure there's a difference between knowing ourselves and knowing the things we want to know about ourselves.

I finish my morning routine: grab a water from the fridge, lock the door, and start the walk down to the bus stop. My mind drifts back to the bottle of pills sitting on my dresser, an accessory to my room that I've become so comfortable seeing there.

I try to remember the me before the pills, but it's hard. I remember the two weeks I went off my pills, two weeks before I turned eighteen, and my chest explodes in happiness. I remember the utter euphoria I felt. I remembered going for runs for hours and staying up until the morning because I was so inspired. I wrote a book during those two weeks. Inspiration flowed through my veins, dangerous and powerful and inspiring.

And then I remember when my mom called my therapist. I remember being forced to swallow the pills. I remember trudging home. I slept for days. I didn't want to get out of my bed. My emotions were out of balance. I wasn't inspired. I wasn't happy. I was neutral. I was restrained.

I step on the bus and sit down in a seat in the front, head pressed against the cool glass of the window.

I try to remember what it felt like to feel true happiness. A feeling so strong and intense that they try to shut it off. That people can't accept the euphoria I feel when I'm free.

They wouldn't understand.

-

I live alone.

It's a big house, one my parents pay the bills for. My parents picked it out. It's two blocks away from their house, which is ironic. My parents always told me that I'd go out to do big things and go out in this world, yet they bought me a house that's two blocks away from them. I can go far out in the world, so long as they can keep a safe eye on me.

I sigh and push the door open, slowly dropping my items as I walk inside. I stop and kick off my shoes, putting my hands on the edge of the couch and flipping myself over onto it. I'm exhausted, but I don't want to move. Can't move.

One side effect of my medicine is drowsiness (along with a plethora of other side effects) and I can already feel my eyes starting to droop on me. My bones hurt. My mind feels too tired to function. I can vaguely feel my cell phone vibrating in my pocket, but my hands can't move to reach for it. I'm too exhausted to begin to care.

I roll over, legs hanging over the edge of the couch, but I can't bring myself to care enough to pull them up. I grip the pillow tightly, fingers digging into the seems until I'm almost sure I've poked a whole in it. I close my eyes tightly and breathe deeply, ignoring the vibration of my phone against my leg. I can't bring myself to care who it is; can't bring myself to care enough to move my hand from the pillow.

I can't bring myself to care enough to open my eyes.

-

I jackhammer awake.

My house phone is ringing, a loud and shrill sound that makes me shoot up from the couch, the pillow under me falling to the floor. My mind is hazy, my vision blurry and unable to focus on an object, my hands shaking lightly at my sides. I take a deep breath and slowly stand up, legs wobbling unsteadily underneath me as I take slow, careful steps across the room. My ears are ringing from the phone and I clench my jaw, quickly swiping it off the wall and accepting the call.

"Jeff?" my mom's relieved voice flows through the phone, and I pull it back from my ear slightly as she says my name two more times until I mumble a confirmation. Mom's voice is a mix of relief and worry when she speaks, "Oh gosh, hon, I called you earlier but you weren't answering. Your father said you were probably just out, but I was so worried."

I frown and glance up at the clock, a bit surprised to see that it's almost ten at night. And then my chest constricts lightly, because I'm in college and my mom calls me all hours of the day because I didn't answer. She calls me because she doesn't trust me. She doesn't know what I'm doing alone and I hate it.

I walk back into the living room, sitting down on the couch and propping my feet up on the table. I blink at the dark TV screen, "I'm fine. I took a nap."

I hate the pills. I hate coming home so exhausted that I can't even lay on the couch without falling asleep for hours. I hate having no control over my life. I hate the fact that I feel so exhausted that looking up at the steps makes my legs cramp in annoyance. I hate knowing that swallowing two pills at eight-oh-clock in the morning is going to make me come home hours later so exhausted to the point where I can barely stand.

"Oh, Jeff," mom says, using the voice she uses on me when I've done something that she's told me not to do a thousand times prior, "You know you aren't supposed to take a nap on the pills. You already have trouble sleeping, and that only worsens it - wait, you did take your pill, didn't you?"

The pills. Of course. That's where the conversation always goes to and always will go to. My mother will always think of me and then think of the pills. Jeff. Risperidone. Is there really a difference between the two, or have I become so dependent on two little, white pills that we have become one and the same?

"Yes," I answer, standing up off the couch and tugging my fingers through my auburn hair, pushing it back from my face, "Of course I did. Every day, mom."

I want to hang up, but my mom is talking again, saying how she's proud of me and that I even sound better. I turn the volume up on my phone and hold it away from my ear, only keeping half of my attention on what my mom is saying. I want to hang up - I want to hang up so badly - because I hate hearing what she's saying. I hate hearing that she thinks the pills are making me seem so much better. I hate how proud of me she is for taking my pills.

I want her to be proud of me, not the me who takes pills every day.

"I'm tired, mom," I cut her off, feeling a twinge of guilt at the disappointment in her voice when she apologizes for rambling, "I've got an early class tomorrow and I really am tired. I love you. Tell dad the same."

"Love you too, sweetie," mom says, voice losing the pride and happiness it held only seconds ago, "I'm so proud of you, Jeff. I'll come over tomorrow, okay? Sleep tight. Love you."

I hang up the phone and go back over to the wall, putting it back where it belongs. My eyes land on my schoolbag, filled to the brim with textbooks, and I roll my shoulders before walking over and grabbing it. Walking up the steps is a physical pain - my body is so exhausted, and I have to keep blinking to keep my eyes open. I heave a sigh when I make it up and walk into my room, throwing the bag on my bed and rolling my shoulders again.

I peel off my shirt and throw it in the corner of the room, tugging off my jeans as I do so and replacing them with basketball shorts. I've only managed to sit down on the edge of my bed and pull out my philosophy book when my eyes land on a light orange bottle sitting contently on my desk.

I want to say that I know the pills are good for me, but it's hard. It's hard to appreciate anything that controls me; that's supposed to make me "acceptable" enough to go out in public. The pills have taken control of my life and I know it. When my mom says she's proud of me, she means she's proud of the pills. She's proud of having found something that helps me. That hides the bipolar.

She's proud of the pills.

I'm up before I know what's happening, smacking the textbook off my lap and grabbing the pill bottle off my desk. I storm out of my room and kick open the bathroom door, wincing slightly when the door slams into the tub, and I know that the door is chipped. I don't care though, not really, because I'm lifting up the toilet seat and taking a deep breath, body working faster than my mind.

I grab the cap tightly and twist it to the left, watching the arrows for open swing around until the cap has fallen from the bottle and onto the ground. With the two slim, pale fingers I flip the bottle open and watch as all the little pills fall from it and into the toilet.

It feels as if all my anxiety is being pulled from me too, falling down with the pills and leaving me with a feeling of relief. I shake the bottle until it's empty, white pill residue sliding out of the clear bottle. I shake it and toss it behind me, smiling when the empty pill bottle clatters into the bathtub behind me. There's something so relieving about hearing an empty bottle clatter to the ground. Maybe the bottle suddenly feels as free as I do.

I put one hand on the handle to flush the toilet and look down, eyes locking on the couple of pills floating around. There's was only about a fourth of the pills left, but seeing them in the toilet sends a grin splitting across my face. I don't need them. I can live without them, and this is the first step. Out of sight, out of mind.

I flush the toilet.

The pills are gone instantly, and my chest explodes in relief. I don't need the pills to live, and now that they're gone, I can go on living my way. I won't be restricted to a schedule that starts with taking two pills in the morning. I'm finally free. The restraints of the pills that have been holding me down are finally gone.

I laugh. I'm grinning and laughing and leaning against the edge of the sink because everything feels better. I know I can live without them, and the thought sends me laughing again, the loud sound booming throughout my empty house. A sound I haven't heard in so long, brought on by one simple action. One movement and now I'm free.

I'm free.

Hi! So as you can tell, this is gonna be kind of serious. I just want to put a couple of things out there:

- I do not have bipolar, nor do I know anyone with it. I'm sorry if anything in here is portrayed inaccurately! I'm just writing this from my knowledge of studying and researching bipolar. If anything is off, feel free to point it out!

- THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH TAKING PILLS. I do not agree with Jeff's perspective in this story, so please don't think I'm advocating for going off pills/thinking pills are bad or restricting. Pills can be helpful for certain mental illnesses, so please don't let Jeff's views conflict with yours. He has a lot of development. The thoughts/comments of Jeff's do not necessarily reflect my own!

So I really hope you guys like this! I know it's really intense right now, but I just want to get some things out there! Please let me know your thoughts, thank you so much :)