I used to walk through parks, woodlands, sit outside my house until 4am, and meditate on the meaning of life and love. At 12 years old, I had never felt a force of love from my parents, and the few friends I had were not ones that I could love unconditionally. The lack of love from my own parents formed the introversion of my inner self. My emotions hardened and if anyone came near me, I would walk away. I would also never let anyone touch me, not even family. My mum said that this behaviour hurt her a lot. I could not bring myself to tell her that she was part of that problem.

My parents never showed their love for me or my brother, I didn’t know what it was. (I was 19 when I first told my mum and dad that I loved them. And I was able to hug them. It was my first year of university).

But the love I felt came from the life around me. The more time I spent in nature, the more my true unconditional love began to flow out from me and back into nature. I hugged trees, picked flowers, cried whenever I saw a dead animal (and wanted to die with it.), I ran my hands through the grass, I took my shoes off and walked in the shallow waters underneath the weeping willow. I spent hours in parks and woods, I was me. I was free. I had separated from humanity, and took nature as my family and my love.

The more I sat in the fields in the countryside, the more I began to feel within me. As I meditated and focused on the beautiful bird song, my senses heightened to a point to where I Could no longer feel what was around me, but I could still feel that love inside me. The love burned my heart and it felt like I was moving towards a flame of love that had such force and heat…I then passed out.

When I saw my psychiatrist, he told me that it was all in my head, and that it was probably due to a hypomanic episode. I realised how easy it is for a doctor to disregard anything their bipolar patient feels, ridicule it and blame it on the illness.

This caused me much pain, because love is love. The doctor would not disagree with me if I said I loved my mum. But here he is looking at me with pitiful eyes, denying my expression of my love towards the love of the nature around me. I never spoke to him about that love again.

Human love I see like the love I have of nature, but I realise that very few people are worthy of true love. all I ever wanted from a relationship was mutual unconditional love, a fun and spontaneous spirit of exploration, and a trust that cannot be equalled anywhere else.

But thanks to manic psychosis, I have never known that beautiful love, that a man and woman can have. My experience with a mentally abusive secret husband, left me begging to die, and I no longer wanted to be with a man ever again. I lost that trust. There was never a love, there was an infesting hatred towards him that started the moment I woke up and saw him. …….

However, after the abuse and divorce (he would not let me divorce him, so I hate to pray that one day he would divorce me, and by the grace of God he did).

I still wait, for that unconditional love, I have so much to give and so much to share. (But I have a feeling, that for me this could be a dream and not a reality.)

So for all bipolars who are lucky enough to have found true love and true freedom, don’t waste a single moment of your lives together. Share everything together, be together for a love that will hopefully never die.