Page 47 of The Golden Boy's Guide to Bipolar
Denial
If there’s any upside to being here, it’s that I don’t have to fake taking my meds every morning. Abuela has no reason to think I wouldn’t take them, so my meds get to stay in the bathroom where I can do with them what I want. That little bit of freedom makes me just a little less grumpy when Abuela wakes me and Moni up before the sun even comes out. Apparently, it’s time for our horoverse reading. Once we’re all sitting in the living room, she hands both me and Moni a piece of paper and a marker each.
“I like to print off our verses so we can write notes in the margins. I underline stuff that sticks out to me, but you can mark yours up however you like.”
I look down at my paper to see the famous “love is kind” verse.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Abuela reads it out loud to us while I start immediately marking it up. Instead of underlining stuff I like, I find myself crossing things out.
I don’t hear what Abuela and Moni say next. It’s a few minutes before I’m done blocking out the parts I feel like and making this whole verse actually relevant to me. I look down at the page one more time.
1 Corinthians 13
Though Ixxxxx xxxx xxx xxxxxxx xx xxx xxx xx xxxxxx, xxx xxxx xxxlove, xhxxx xxxxxx xxxxxixx xxxxx xx x xxxxxxxx xxmxxx.
xxx xxxxxxIxxxx xxx xxxx xx xxxxxxxx, andunderstandxxx xxxxxxxxx xxx xxx xxxxxxxxx, xxx xxxxxx x xxxx xxx xxxxx, xx xxxx x xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx, xxx xxxx xxx xxxx,I am notxxxx. xxxx xxxxxx x xxxxxx xxx xxgoodx xx xxxx xxx xxxx, andxxxxxxIxxxx xx xxxx xx xxburnxx, xxx xxxx xxx xxxx, xx xxxxxxx xx xxxxxxx.
Lovexxxxxxx xxxx xxx xx xxxx; xxxxdoes notxxxx; xxxx xxxx xxx xxxxxx xxxxxx, xx xxx xxxxxx xx; xxxx xxxbehavexxxxxx, does notxxxx xxx xxx, xx xxx xxxxxxx, xxxxx xx xxxx; xxxx xxxrejoice inxxxxxxxx, xxx xxxxxxxx xxthe truth; xxxxx xxx xxxxx, xxxxxxxx xxx xxxxx, xxxxx xxx xxxxx, xxxxxxx xxx xxxxx.
Lovexxxxxfails. xxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxxxx, xxxx xxxx xxxx; xxxxxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxxxx, xxxx xxxx xxxxx; xxxxxxx xxxxx xx xxxxxxxxx, xx xxxx xxxxxx xxxx.For we knowxx xxxx xxxwexxxxxxxx xx xxxx. xxx xxxx xxxx xxxxx xx xxxxxxx xxx xxxx, xxxx xxxx xxxxx xx xx xxxxwill be done away.
xxxx x xxx x xxxxx, x xxxxx xx x xxxxx, x xxxxxxxxxx xx x xxxxx,I thoughtxx x xxxxx; xxx xxxxIxxxxxx xmxx, x xxx xxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxx.
xxx xxx xx xxx xxa mirror,xxxxx, xxx xxxxface toface. Now I knowxx xxxx, xxx xxxx x xxxxx xxxxjust as Ixxxxam known.xxx xxx xxxxx xxxxx, xxxx, xxxx, xxxxx xxxxx; xxx xxx xxxxxxxx xx xxxxx xx xxxx.
After we drop Moni off at school, Abuela and I spend the rest of the day cleaning the house and doing odd jobs, like taking down the Christmas lights, which have been up forwaytoo long since it’s almost February.
Still, I’d rather clean than go to therapy, and with this all being so new, I get to skip therapy exactly one time. Unfortunately, the week somehow goes both excruciatingly slowly and too fast to process a thing. All that exists is cleaning and being kept awake at night by Moni talking about literally anything. I guess I wouldn’t be sleeping much, anyway. Before I know it, I have to go to therapy again, and I’m more than exhausted. I can’t believe I even still have to go to therapy after everythig I’ve done. If my mom is really disowning me, why would she still make me go? Just to be cruel? I wanted her to stop caring and forget I existed, not keep tabs on my suffering.
In the beginning of today’s session, therapy is mostly small talk. I’m not usually bursting to talk or anything, but I guess there’s usuallysomethingto say. Eventually, Dr. Lee asks a more specific question than her usual open-ended “How was your week?”-type bullshit.
“Can you tell me a little bit about why you’re staying with your grandmother now?” I guess either my mom or grandma must have filled her in, at least partially, for her to know that.
“I got expelled” is all I say at first, but she just keeps looking at me like there’s more to it. And yeah, there is, but that doesn’t mean I have to tell her. Still, her hot stare feels like it’s trying to sweat theanswers out of me, and it’s succeeding. “There was a picture online of me drinking at a party, okay?”
“And that’s why you got expelled?” she asks.
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” I shoot back.
She writes something down. “Your mom mentioned a new conflict between you and your sister. Do you want to talk about that?”
“No,” I say automatically, but I have a feeling she won’t drop the subject, so I deflect. “I stayed up all night a while ago and cleaned the whole house and made breakfast and caught up on all my homework and all that.” I almost mention that I even showered, but the shame in admitting I don’t do that as regularly as I should eats at me and keeps my mouth shut about that part. “And I rearranged Yami and my mom’s jewelry stuff by color, which I guess was a bad idea, because it means they wouldn’t know whose order is whose....” I trail off, hoping this explanation is enough.
She writes something down in her notepad as she speaks. “Do you find you have those bursts of energy often?”
I shrug. “Recently, I guess, yeah. But it doesn’t happen all that much usually.”
“I see.” She writes something else down. “And this caused a big enough rift in your relationship with your sister for your mom to bring it up?”
