If God created me in His/Her image, I was a perfect jar of chaos.

It was 2018, maybe 2019. I had just graduated college with a degree in Psychology and found myself drifting through the day to day of a world that was no longer my own. The past seventeen years a blur of memories and milestones. Of champions and failures.

I remember my first day of Kindergarten, pink overall-shorts and flour hat. I remember getting my first B in math class and sobbing like it was the end of the world. I remember my first crush, my first heartache, my first kiss. I remember missing the bus and running to the next stop praying to whichever God would listen to carry my legs because heaven forbid I missed it again and have to wake my mother.

I remember the first time I thought I wasn't meant for this place. I thought about death, romanticized it, more than I care to admit. I remember how clever I felt weaving these thoughts into poetry. Sh*tty, rambling poetry from a child who felt too much but knew too little. I remember how my mind would wander and fall in love with the paranormal, things dead and undead: fallen angels, ghosts, demons, and vampires. Why these characters brought my comfort is a whole other story, but the point remains that I was depressed and I stood outside the gates of the Grim Reaper hoping he would look my way.

It was 2018, maybe 2019, that I graduated college with my psychology degree. The past seventeen years a blur of memories and milestones. Of champions and failures. Now I had found myself floating through a world that was no longer my own. Familiar faces became less familiar. Food lost its flavor. Every conversation turned to Simlish; I couldn't tell you what they asked or how I responded. Several breakdowns later, I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder.

I almost laughed. I had joked about this in high school, but never fathomed I could be manic. Just depressed. So, exhaustingly depressed. I was prescribed a mood stabilizer and an antidepressant. That was 5 years ago.

It was in 2020 that I picked up the book Perfect Chaos. I don't frequent the non-fiction section of libraries or bookstores. I spent half of my high school years with my head in the clouds and slept through the weekends so I could live my own fantasy - could you blame me? This book. This beautiful, heartbreaking, almost terrifyingly accurate am I reading my diary? book shook me to my core. Not only did it change my perspective of the sterile stereotype of non-fiction. This changed my way of looking at bipolar disorder, and what it means to share this diagnosis.

The back of the cover will tell you it's about a daughter's journey to survive bipolar, and her mother's struggle to save her. But it is more than that. It's a story about love. About life. About connection, and the funny ways our brains trick us to think and do the impossible.

Between Cinda's memories of Linea as a child and Linea's personal accounts of the highs and lows, I couldn't help from tallying up the similarities between her life and mine. Linea was a "drama queen" as a child. Capable of holding such big feelings in a little body. She loved the arts, music, expression...just like me. Each chapter echoed my own trauma, unlocked memories I had long since forgotten, and there were at least three passages I read my own words. I gasped, slammed the book shut and pressed it to my head while I held my breath, waiting until my lungs felt strong enough to let go.

Looking back, knowing what I know now, I'd like to say I would have done things differently. Maybe I would have told the truth about how I felt; it certainly would have saved money on the wasted therapy sessions. Maybe I would have pushed myself harder. Climbed a little higher. Fallen a little farther. Embraced that this was more than angst. That there actually was something about me. Not imaginative or paranormal. It wasn't in my head, it was my head. Some biological imbalance. Some mess of switches and synapses and electrical and chemical reactions that made me bubble like champaign and so, so unbearably still you would think I had froze to death. And they were undeniably, authentically me.

This book made me laugh. It made me cry. It made me scream into my pillow and face parts of me I had so happily tucked in a corner - hoping that by the time I remembered them they had long since disintegrated. This wasn't just a story about Linea and Cinda Johnson. Their story, selfishly I suppose, is also my story. So much of their courage, confusion, heartache, and faith resembled my own. I laughed with them. Sighed with them. Cried my heart out with them, for them. I wish I could meet them. Tell them how grateful I am that they shared their experiences with the world. Because they were able to put words to the feelings I had could not yet name myself. Because they made me feel valid. Understood. It didn't excuse some of my behavior, but it made me feel less like a sh*tty person, especially for what happened with my long-term relationship. I gifted my book to my mom. She laughed as I laughed and cried as Cinda cried. It healed some of the fractures in our relationship (no thanks to her narcissistic ex-husband - -not my dad), and it felt like I had my mom again.

I truly cannot recommend this book enough. I cannot thank Linea and Cinda enough. To the mother and daughter team, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your story made my voice feel heard, my experiences validated, and my outlook on life much, much more hopeful.