I see me and the guy you think is me

Hello people,

People who love me, those that don't, those that don't give a damn
Family, friends who care, those that don't and those that pretend to
Neighbors that adored my music
And those that called the cops when I played it loud

I have a truth to tell
This will hopefully fill in the blanks
 And give you an answer to a question you often asked
"Why are you like this?"

I have always pretended to be someone
Coz there are things about me that I cannot wear on my sleeve
But I'm sick and tired of this act
So I want to tell it all

I am manic depressive
I was given the label two decades ago with a prognosis
As bleak as the prospect of the sun rising in the west
Prophesying I had about five years , maybe ten

I was scared when I heard that
I thought many thoughts
There started opened Pandora's box
And mayhem time began

A period of rapid transformation had started
Exploring hitherto unknown paradigms
I went far and wide into the labyrinths of my mind
Sometimes it was fun and sometime scary

The high times were swell
There was a lot of drinking and dancing
But the lows were hell
With no energy to do anything

With a staple diet of alcohol and marijuana
Self medicated and self satisfied; I had found a way to ride the waves
Whether they helped or hindered I don't know
But that's the history that has landed me here now

What I have learnt is that I was scarred for life
In a society that has a narrow bandwidth of acceptable behaviour
I was swinging way off the boundaries
Up sometimes, down sometimes; barely resting in between

With people around, my motto was simple
"What I show you is what I choose to show;
There are other dimensions that I don't."
Coz I know I myself stumble through them myself

Its been a herculean effort to stay alive
To bear the stress of hiding from a judgemental society
And tolerating the resistance to live a life of hiding
And knowing that was much more to me than this

Most people won't get what I'm trying to describe
Unless they have experienced a condition on the same spectrum
Those of them who haven't had such an opportunity usually do the same thing
Judge me on the basis of my behaviour and their inability to see what I have

So the moral of this story is simple
People like me are struggling everyday
Just to make it alive through that day
Without showing talking about it much

When celebrities come out with their stories of depression
There are enough people to embrace them
There's a whole lot more of us mere mortals
We would also benefit from your understanding and support