Dear 15 year old me,

Man are you in for a ride.

And I don’t mean one of those smooth sailing, dreamy boat rides that you find in Disney. I’m talking Six Flags Goliath, being suspended in the air with no choice but to stick it out.

That’s probably not what you want to hear, but preparation is key.

Let’s start with the good: You win homecoming queen your senior year. I already spoiled something huge, so now you don’t have to make such an ugly crying face when they announce your name as the winner.

But underneath the tiara, something is happening within your brain. The extreme episodes of depression and highs aren’t just hormones and the instability that comes with being a teenager.

I know you remember the bouts of sadness you witnessed from your dad. How he’d stare out the window for days, completely mum. How you’d crawl into bed and sleep next to him, hoping to incite some reaction out of him that wasn’t stillness.

But his depression never permanently stayed. You know those nights he’d be up for hours, awaking you and your mom at 2 a.m. with a plethora of brilliant ideas that he wanted to get started on? True, you haven’t seen him for years, but he left you behind something. You probably don’t want it, but it’s not up to you.

It’s more than looks that are hereditary. Everyone says you look just like him, but every time you see your mom’s face, you swear you look just like her. Maybe it’s wishful thinking or sheer admiration since she was the parent that stuck around.

That gift he left leads you to therapy your junior year of college (Sorry, but I can’t spoil where you end up at). But as soon as you hear your therapist, who you made so much progress with, utter the words “bipolar,” you no-show enough appointments to the point they bar you from coming back for months.

You wait. And wait. I know that sounds improbable since you’re the most impatient human on this planet. You’d hit the fast forward button on life if you could … but again, you wait, and try to get better on your own.

I want you to know that it’s always okay to ask for a helping hand. If you did, the episodes of hypomania and depression might’ve been frozen in their tracks earlier.

You’re 24 by the time you seek help. Your “Kobe year” as they call your 24th birthday (here’s your head start on all the cool kid lingo) kind of feels like a championship, word to Black Mamba.

You’re finally diagnosed. But this time, the mention of bipolar II is almost a relief. A win. There’s still a stigma around taking pills for your mental health, but it’s not as cutthroat as it is your freshman year of high school. It helps that you’re surrounded by people who can relate, navigating their own battles just like you.

This totally sounds like a nightmare, and your mind will jump to the worst after reading this forewarning. But let me tell you this — you will experience so many moments of beauty that it’ll be hard to wrap your head around.

Yes, you have bipolar disorder, but that didn’t stop you from embarking on a solo trip to the Canary Islands (No shade, but do you even know where that is on a map? If not, you’ll soon figure it out). You live in Argentina for a summer. You see the Coliseum and your high school textbooks won’t do it justice. You spend surreal nights partying in Madrid, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and all over Italy. You pack up your life in Atlanta and turn over a new leaf in Boston.

I know you’re dying to know about your love life too. Again, let’s start with the good news: you meet a LOT of cute boys. Bad news: they all suck. So let’s not focus on that part.

Life is going to put you through the wringer, but you will be astonished and so, so proud of the person that comes out on the other side. To simply be alive is an incredible thing.

Your disorder is a gift. It’s made you into a force that’s resilient beyond belief.

So buckle up champ. Your journey starts now.

Dear Future Butterflies,

The ones that are having a hard time fitting in with their peers. I see you guys sitting in your school gym listening to a speaker that doesn’t give you any encouragement for your future.

Right now, I know many of you feel lost in a world that’s giving you confusing messages on who you are and who you should be. You’re made to believe that you’re supposed to be tough all the time or be a bully & terrorize other kids, but, that’s not who you are deep inside your heart.

The school world probably isn’t helping bring out those characteristics about yourself that make you ”you”. Nor are your loved ones (bless their hearts). They’ve already picked certain students who they believe will be future stars and left ones like you behind because they see no value in you.

You want to cry and take your anger out on those who mistreat you, but, you’re afraid, that you don’t have the strength to defend yourself. You have more power inside than you think. You just haven’t been allowed to see it yet. A long adventure awaits you.

I was like many of you for a long time. I had a hard time showing the qualities that made me feel alive -  because the environment I was around didn’t allow them to grow into healthy flowers. I grew up in a small town in North Carolina for the first fifteen years of my life. I would discover my love for History and Reading there.

A lot of kids I knew, didn’t share the same love that I had for those two things, so, it was impossible to make friends because the boys I knew were into making fun of others, fighting, and establishing dominance over others.

Those things never interested me so I became a target of their cruel games. They enjoy bullying me and making me feel low whenever they had the chance. Enough bullying had happened that they got their wish. My self-esteem was in the negatives. That bubbly kid died in middle school.

I became quiet and only said the bare minimum just to get by without anyone picking on me. It would take years for me to finally rejoice and embrace the qualities of myself that are a part of me. It was a long journey into learning more about myself.

While my peers had seemed like they had figured their life out and were doing great things, I remained behind just trying to make sure I don’t take the wrong path in life for most of my 20s.

The amazing part is I would start coming across people online & offline in my 20s that would help me find the path where I’m on today. Now at 32, my self-esteem is in a better place than it’s ever been. I can’t wait to see my progress in five years.

I share my love for history out in the open. I also would discover this amazing gift called writing -  thanks to a close friend I met on a social media site that I remain close with to this day.

If someone from the future told me that my life would change 20 years ago, I wouldn’t believe them– because of the mental state I was in at the time.

Like me, you’ll discover people who will bring those amazing qualities you have out of you and made you feel safe being who you are.

I wish I could tell you that your journey would be easy, it may be a tough one for you. Rejoice though, you’re gonna make it. Just trust the process, even when it gets painful (which is a hard challenge).

You’ll do a lot of inner work on yourself, a lot of it will be uncomfortable. You’ll read articles that talk will make you feel bad about yourself. You’ll even have a lot of self-loathing moments.

You’ll even be mad at yourself for not having the courage to stand up for yourself when you were younger. All of the hardship & pain you’ll go through is to produce a strong human being.

So, I hope this message empowers you, you’re journey is just beginning and I hope to see you on the other side someday.
I wish you all much success,

Ciao 13 year old me,

Here’s an update from 2021!

We’ve been living in NYC for the past 6 years.
We live with our partner, whom we love in a way we never thought we’d be cable of.
We met him 4 years ago at a party we didn’t want to go to.
Every time we feel the urgency of trusting our intuition, we must do so.
Even when we’re too indecisive – which yes, we’re still very much so – please follow our gut. It’s what got us to New York, what made us grow in love and get where we are.
Always trust yourself, your feelings, your abilities.
We still have plenty of strength, but we did lose a bit of confidence along the way.
The few times we didn’t listen to our gut, life made sure to slap us in the face.
The roughest time was last summer.
It might be hard to believe, but a deadly global pandemic has been decimating the population since the beginning of 2020.
After 3 months of social isolation, we eventually escaped the City.
We went to Ohio to take in some nature.
One day, we went skateboarding in a park. After skating around, we reached a steep hill.
We hesitated.
Our gut told us to stop.
But we wanted to impress our partner and ourselves.
We are still very competitive and absurdly hard on ourselves.
So we decided to bypass our intuition.
We took a few steps down to quiet down the fear to then skate downhill.

The first memories are very chaotic.
We’re underwater. People are trying to talk to us from above, expecting us to respond.
Do you remember how we used to try to talk and sing underwater?
Same thing, only this time we are laying in a hospital bed.
We hit our head pretty bad. We weren’t wearing a helmet.
We were sedated after our brain had some internal bleeding and we subsequently had to bed put on a ventilator in the ICU. We were in the hospital for 5 days, than our partner took unconditional care of us at his parents’ house for a couple moths. It sounds absolutely horrifying, and it was, but don’t worry, we are going to be fine. But it’s still going to be the most challenging experience we lived so far.

We spent 25 years worrying about not being enough, not doing enough and trying incessantly fill that void.
After this accident, we are going to receive so much love.
An overwhelming and humbling horde of love. Which is going to make us realize that our life mattered so much to so many people.
So maybe we are enough.
And you are.
You are enough.
You are more than enough.

Eventually, our body is going to recuperate impressively fast. Which is going to be as encouraging as overwhelming, because all other cognitive symptoms caused by this brain injury – as well as our mental health – are going to take a very long time to recover. As the more apparent symptoms quiet down, people are going to inevitably move on, because the danger was escaped and we externally seem to be just fine. Unfortunately, this is going to make us feel extremely lonely and crazy.
It’s almost like being a teenager all over again.
Only this time it’s just in our head, I promise.
We kept holding on to gratefulness and our partners’s love, who understand us and loves us like anybody else.

Listen carefully though when I am telling you that we are not crazy.
You are not crazy.
We are a product of experiencing something absolutely crazy.

We are still addicted to validation, now actually more than ever, can you believe it?
We are constantly seeking for it. From everything and everyone.
However, what we’ve learn from this experience, is that we need to learn to validate ourselves. We are still struggling at it, but we are trying.
It took us to hit our head and not being around our family to be forced to learn how to take care of ourselves properly.
Learning to love ourselves properly.
Learning to prioritize ourselves.
Properly.
It’s hard. So hard.
We are a long way down.
But I can’t wait too see how worth it’s going to be.

Please do me a favor.
Keep doing whatever you’re doing.
Just add a bit more of faith in yourself.
Unapologetically. Authentically.
Your family is going to test you on it.
Schools are going to.
New York is going to.
This injury will.
This is the biggest test that life keeps us having to take over and over again.

I adore you.
Thank you for getting us where we are today.
I promise I am trying.
You deserve it.
And I want to believe I deserve it too.