I woke up this morning with Where is My Mind stuck on a loop in, well, my mind.

My mother is diagnosed bi-polar, suspected borderline, and a host of other issues. I’m fairly open about the fact that we’ve been estranged for a long time, but don’t often get into particulars. I don’t think I ever knew her as she was before things got bad. My dad’s talked very little about things “before.” I know she always struggled with depression and likely the bi-polar for as long as even he knew her, but my mother’s mental health degraded badly after she had kids. My brother, and then myself.

Of course plenty of folks navigate challenges like bi-polar and depression and are still present, functional, kind people. Present, functional, kind parents. My mother was not. My childhood memories exist in a weird state. Lots of holes. “Swiss cheese” is how I described my brain to my best friend when I was in high school.

People have asked me things like, “What holiday traditions did your family have growing up?” and I haven’t had an answer. Did we not do things? Do I just not remember? Was it a bit of both? The things between the gaps are often unpleasant too. Getting punished for my mother’s own gaps – being given a pair of her old jeans that didn’t fit her anymore (but, she kindly pointed out that I was “fat enough” for), to later see them in my laundry pile and ground me for a month for stealing them. Annoying, but maybe not anything alarming. Then there’s the time she made me watch as she force fed my hamster whiskey until it died. Or the time my brother annoyed her at the grocery store, so she left him there. I was, at best, 4 years old. The vision of her standing in the parking lot under a street lamp has remained imprinted in my mind, even when other things have slipped away. My mother calling my dad from a payphone, when those things still existed, and telling him that if he ever wanted to see his son again then he better come find him. I remember wondering if I’d ever see my brother again. Some things stay with you.

At some point, my mother began disappearing. Sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks at a time. She would just leave as if going out for errands and then not return. They were some of the most peaceful times in our house, before my parents finally divorced. My brother, dad, and I would actually sit down for dinner together. And then, some random night my mother would come home. She’d grab a plate and sit down at the table with us as if she hadn’t been gone for two weeks without word or explanation.

All that to say, it was very obvious to me at a very young age that my mother was unwell.

Growing up, my greatest fear was turning into her. Losing my mind. My sense of self, my ability to function. To be present. My ability to be….not normal, I already knew that was out of reach, but something like it. Not that.

I made it past more milestones than I ever expected to. The fear hung around, but as I moved out west, built my own life, discovered myself, and set myself free – the fear faded. Still scary, but less real. Less dire.

In January 2023, I finally caught Covid and it hit me badly. I’ve struggled with post-viral issues since. The physical issues are usually the most obviously disruptive. I’ve had severe GI issues that have affected my ability to eat – I’m reactive to so many foods these days. Eating can leave me in significant pain, nausea, and at the worst times regularly throwing up after meals. Sometimes I can’t even tolerate water. I’ve spent more time than I care to count stuck in bed or on the couch, my body physically heavy and unmovable with fatigue. Nevermind that I was running marathons and backpacking across the country before getting sick – I could barely walk around the block for almost a year after Covid. And even when they improved, every step was a war fought at disadvantage. Steps backward for every forward movement.

And oof, do I not recommend that! But with it all came the disorientation. The brain fog. The vertigo. Brain fog is such an innocuous term for what it is.

Because I finally know how it feels for my mind to not be my own.

To not be able to think my way through conversations that should be light and breezy. To not understand what I’m being asked when I’m being asked simple questions. To simply not be able to do my job because I no longer understand how. To not have the energy, drive, or ability to even do simple tasks I enjoy.

To fail at sitting down to doodle or writing a silly poem.

I’ve waged war against my own body for almost 3 years now. I’ve seen every doctor, tried every med, finally made myself open to holistic approaches. I’ve tried all the diets, the exercises, the cleanses. I have pushed myself in ways that I didn’t know existed physically – even when I was covering 30 miles a day every day while walking across America on the Pacific Crest Trail. I have fought and clawed my way back to activity. It was slow as hell, but last year I even managed to run a marathon again. I haven’t been able to consistently stay running and could not in this moment run a marathon. But I can run at least a few miles and that’s something.

I don’t know how many of my old dreams are still possible. I don’t know if I’ll ever backpack a long trail again. Hell, I don’t know if I’ll even be able to backpack for more than a few days in a row again – I haven’t done that successfully yet. My last attempt had us backtracking and hitchhiking back to our start when I became disoriented with vertigo after our first significant climb of the trip. We sat on the summit for over an hour waiting for the disorientation to pass and it didn’t, so back we went. Trying to make good, safe decisions. But I can at least do some running. I can at least do some hiking. And even when I can’t, I’ve learned to be content getting my hands dirty in the garden.

The thing that haunts me most these days is not knowing how to fight the battle in my mind. When my head’ll collapse and there’s nothing in it, and you’ll ask yourself where is my mind? Where is my mind?

Those are the times I still grieve for what I used to be. Writing and art are mostly a war for me too now. Harder to conceptualize, or track the progress of. I win some battles. I have no idea who’s winning the war.

I do get days of clarity. Rushes where I feel like I used to. The fog is lifted, the way is clear, and I have brief but intense bouts of creativity that leave me sated. Until I try to capture the feeling again and am left wanting.

Maybe if I try this tool. Download that focus software. Give this supplement another try. Get an accountability buddy. Move my little desk to a new spot.

But at the end of the day I’m at the whims of the weather, and whichever way the fog is blowing.

In most ways I’m better off than I could be, and I know it. I’ll take this over the disappearing, child dumping, hamster killing version of myself I always feared becoming.

But the root of it, the lack of control over my own brain and my own self, is still not one I’d wish on my worst enemy.

And while I savor the days where the fog clears fully – in some ways they’re the worst. Because in those moments I know most clearly what I’m missing.

And when the clarity passes, that’s when the grief for who I used to be hits the hardest.