I’m sitting here at my computer, just after midnight, with cold feet. The only sounds I can hear are the whirring of my laptop, the ticking of my little blue clock and the occasional car driving past my house.

I’m grinding my teeth and my left foot is tucked up behind my right leg, just a little too tightly to feel comfortable. There’s something I want to share with you, but I’m nervous about saying it out loud. It’s one of those things that, once said, can’t be un-said. I can’t just tell you and then change my mind and un-tell you. It might change the way you think about me, the way you feel about me. It might confuse you, or it might even be obvious to you.

While I was preparing to write this post, I did some research online about what it has been like for other people to share similar truths about themselves. The range of experiences was vast. There truly seemed to be as many people advocating openness as there were people pleading for silence on the subject. I felt so sorry, reading about the lack of understanding and love that some people had experienced. Some of them lost friends, became estranged from family members and lost jobs as a result of their willingness to tell the truth about their own life. That frightened me badly, I have to say.

I also read incredible stories of lives changed through courageous openness. I felt encouraged and tempted to share my own story, in my own way.

Sitting here at my computer, with my cold feet, a thousand thoughts are going through my mind. Most of these thoughts are tethered to this core question: what will happen when people know? Can I survive whatever happens, whatever is said to me, whatever is said about me, after I tell? I just don’t know. One thing I do know, is that as a writer, a woman, a human being, I will never be able to be my true self in this world while I keep fighting an inner battle every day to keep the hardest thing in my life to myself. This is why I want and need to tell you that I struggle, every day, living with Bipolar Disorder.

Seeing those words on the page, getting ready to click the Publish button and send this post out to the www, I’m more than a little jittery. A thought occurs to me, pushing the jitters aside; once it’s out there, I can start writing about life as it really is for me. I can blog my mighty high ups and my deepest dark downs. I can share how easy it is for me to help other people succeed, no matter how I feel on the day, while daily sabotaging my own efforts to get ahead in business. I can tell you what it’s really like to be me: awesomely supercharged, terribly depressed, and best of all, those times when I get to cruise the middle road, even if it’s only for a few delicious hours.

If you know nothing about Bipolar Disorder, (BD) I recommend this Australian site: Black Dog Institute for a definition and other information.

I’ll tell you more about BD in another post. Right now I really just want to click on that publish button, before I change my mind for the thousandth time. If you’re reading this, I guess it means I published this post and therefore I have more courage in November 2012 than I’ve ever had before. No more cold feet.

be you xx Rachel