Blossom 🌸

Arlo 🌀

Bipolar wasn't about staying awake for three days straight or dancing in some cheap shot night club where they grew pot under heat lamps in the roof.

It wasn't about kissing ten strangers on the dance floor or stripping naked and dancing for them just because at that time you deemed it as fun.

It was in the mind.

It was thoughts, telling you that you were invincible so when you jumped off a bridge you believed so strongly that you wouldn't get hurt.

It was voices in your head, telling you everybody hated you. Or sometimes, it was voices in your head telling you everybody loved you.

It was extreme anger.
Extreme sadness.
Extreme elevation.
Extreme anxiety.
Extreme.

I was extreme.

I rung the intercom bell outside our big, iron fortress gates and just before the camera turned towards me I pulled my pants halfway down and bent over, mooning it.

"Welcome home Mr Arlo." Bentley the door guard spoke through the intercom with a tiresome voice. "It's a pleasure as always." He spoke sarcastically before the gates swung open at a slow pace.

I looked up at her window and wondered what she had been doing or thinking these past few days.

"Lola is waiting for you in the conservatory." My mom told me. I flicked off my shoes and grabbed the sandwich out of her hand before heading to my therapy session.

"Hey Pilot. You're such a good boy, I love you so much, oh yes I do! Oh yes I do!" I rubbed his fury head and kissed his wet nose.

"Am I invisible?"  I looked up at her and smirked.

"Hey Lola."

"Hey douchebag, you look like shit. Bad week?" I flopped down on the sofa and Pilot the golden retriever therapy puppy jumped onto my lap so I ruffled his ears and kissed his head.

"I got a blow job, wasn't all that bad." I muttered, feeling the sting surrounding the whole situation but pretending to be cocky and arrogant about it.

"Wow." She nodded her approval but I think she could sense something wasn't quite right with me. "And how did that make you feel?"

I smirked, well Fearne finished the job so I wasn't left unfulfilled. "Is that an actual question, you want details?" Lola laughed.

"So it was a poor question, but you know what I mean." I sighed and petted the dumb dog.

"It was pretty great until it wasn't because she was drunk and I didn't know, then she regretted it and called me a freak for staying afloat on so much medication." She tilted her head to one side, the way people do when they're offering sympathy but I didn't want or need sympathy.

What Fearne said to me was true.

I am a freak.
My brain is a freak.
My whole functioning  system is a freak.

"I'm so pissed at myself, I should've known she was drunk. Why didn't  I know? It was obvious. It was obvious."

"Arlo—" She was about to doctor me. I didn't want to be doctored. That's what I loved about Lola, she gave it to me straight. She was never professional with me. She spoke to me like a friend and I trusted her.

"Lola, I wasn't even sure I wanted to do that with her. She wanted it and I like her so I said yes. I'm so fucking stupid. She told me she never liked me like that, she was never ever that forward. I should've known."

"Let's digest this slowly, okay? You're taking really fast. It is not okay for men to take advantage of girls when they're drunk and vise versa. But not every drunken act is sinister. I know you Arlo, I've known you your whole life and I believe fully that you would never do anything to violate or betray anyone.

We've talked about this grey area of consent a lot. It's something that weighs heavy on your mind. The lines are not simple with you, they're blurred and when we're faced with blurred lines, communication is so important. Do you understand that?"

I nodded my head slowly.

"So when your disorder is controlled, that's when you want to be having these conversations with the people you plan to be intimate with. You both need to know what could possibly happen when things are out of your control. When you're manic, when you're sleeping, when you're zoned out on drugs. What are you okay with? What are they okay with? When the consent is gone, all you have left is trust and that's only built with honesty."

"But with Fearne it's just so new that it's not even a thing. The blow job just happened."

"Yeah I get that, it's really hard because you're too young to have any experience but you're old enough to want that experience.

You have to be really careful when it comes to sexual relationships Arlo. I'm all for casual sex but maybe trying to limit your body count is the soundest advice I could give you and I hate that but I know you well enough to understand that you don't want casual sex, you want the long-term relationship."

"Is that even possible for me?"

"Of course! I mean, statistically people who have bipolar disorder are more likely to cheat but that's down to your mania and that happens to be the easiest thing to treat. Stay on your medication Arlo, work on it during therapy and remember the healthiest thing you can do in any relationship, friendship or otherwise is communicate."

"Communicate." I repeated, rolling my eyes.

"Yeah and you're fucking shit at that. You take aboard everyone's problems and you never express your own. It's okay to ask for a little help sometimes, it's okay to let people know you're struggling. If you weren't sure you wanted anything sexual to happen between you both, only you have the power to voice that."

"So, your medical advice is to talk."

"Exactly, you don't know powerful it can feel to just be listened to." I sighed. "Now, tell me what happened when she confronted you. She said something really hurtful. How did that feel?"

I shrugged, fluffing up Pilots fur between my fingers.

"I guess I've always known she was a bitch, can't say I was surprised."

"So what did you say?"

"Nothing, she left. I haven't spoken to her since."

"But you've continued taking your meds daily?"

No, I flushed them.

"Of course."