I Never Want To Be A Child Again

A Bipolar's Response to I Resign As An Adult (a web page that's not defunct)

Dear God,

Please don't let me ever go back to my childhood!

Never again do I want the responsibility of an eight-year-old -- the constant struggle to concentrate on my schoolwork. Now that I am an adult at last, no longer do I have to sit and study for hours while my friends with better concentration skills than I laugh and play in the yard. Never again must I live in terror of having to tell the teacher that my homework is not finished.

Dear God, I thank you sincerely for ending those childhood years when everything frightened me: animals, the dark, the innards of machines, slides and swings, balls coming toward me, skating, and especially, people I did not know.

Never again do I want to return to the horrible time when life was simple -- simply hell. I not only could not understand the origin of my constant fears, not only did I think that everyone else harbored the same horrors in their souls, but I actually believed that I was somehow to blame for my own pain. Such is the simple mind of a child!

I thank you for letting me understand, as I could never have understood at the age of eight, why I would suddenly find myself on top of the world and then, just as suddenly, be cast into the hell of an inexplicable depression. If only I'd had just enough understanding to ask for help!

All I knew at the age of eight was that you had better not let yourself be really happy. Because, if you did, you would be in pure hell a few hours or a few days later. The joy was nowhere near worth the price.

Thank you, God, for letting me come to realize that the world is not fair. Because, when I was too young to know that, I thought that I actually deserved to be in the hell I was repeatedly thrown into.

Thank you for disabusing me of the notion that everyone is honest and good. Now, finally, the dishonest ones can no longer take advantage of me.

Thank you for the meds that keep me from being overly excited about trivialities. Now I finally have the deep, lasting, meaningful joys I always longed for.

I want to stay an adult, able to appreciate the finer things in life, to develop deep love relationships and, most important, to have the understanding I need to make my own choices.