They Told Me I Could Be Anything—But I Wanted (and Still Want) to Be Everything

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve wanted to do every single job out there.

I didn’t just dream of one life—I wanted all of them.

People ask me how I know so much, how I’ve done so many different things.

This is how.

My brain doesn’t pick one path. It lights up all of them at once.

When they diagnosed me Bipolar I, mixed state, I didn’t agree.

Not at first.

I had just gotten used to my last diagnosis. Before that, it was Borderline. Before that, Bipolar II.

It felt like every time I started to understand myself, the name changed.

At some point, it stops feeling like clarity and starts feeling like confusion.

But when I really looked at the patterns—the highs, the lows, the intensity of both—it fit in a way that was hard to ignore.

And then I pulled this card.

The Seven of Cups.

When I pulled it this morning, it felt like looking at my own mind.

Nothing explains my hypomania—and sometimes mania—better than this.

I want everything.

I want to be great at it.

And I want to master it yesterday.

There’s no patience. No slow build. No learning curve.

Just urgency.

I don’t just want to try something—I want to be it. Instantly. Completely. Like I’ve always known how.

There’s a moment—if you know, you know—when everything lights up.

It feels like a steam engine without brakes.

Like something inside me has started moving and I can’t slow it down—even if I wanted to.

For me, it’s not even always staying up all night.

Sometimes it’s the opposite.

I get up earlier than I should.

In those quiet moments when everyone else is still sleeping—when there’s no noise, no interruption, no one asking anything of me—that’s where it takes hold.

And I go hard.

Focused. Locked in. Completely consumed by whatever I’ve sunk my teeth into.

I’ll tell myself I’ll stop soon. That I’ll pace myself this time.

But I don’t.

I keep going until my body literally shuts me down.

I’m tired, but wired.

My body is exhausted, but my mind won’t stop. It won’t let me stop.

Because it feels too important to stop.

That momentum.

That clarity.

That feeling that I’ve finally grabbed onto something real.

I dig my teeth into it.

And I don’t let go.

Ideas come faster than I can keep up with them.

Every single one feels like the one.

The one that’s going to change everything.

My life. Other people’s lives. Everything.

And I believe it.

Completely.

I’ve started hundreds of books in that state.

Not casually—ferociously.

Like I’ve finally figured it out. Like this is the one people are going to read, the one that matters, the one that proves something.

And then…

later…

I open it again and feel like I don’t even recognize the person who wrote it.

Do I even know what I’m doing?

Who would even care?

What the hell was I thinking?

I’ve started businesses in my mind—and even on paper—that fizzled out somewhere along the line.

Not because they were bad ideas.

But because something else caught my attention.

Something new. Something just as exciting. Just as convincing.

My ADHD doesn’t gently redirect me—it yanks me.

Another idea. Another plan. Another version of my life that feels just as real as the last one.

Another cup.

And I follow it.

Of course I do.

Because in that moment, it doesn’t feel like distraction.

It feels like truth.

But you can’t travel down every path at the same time.

If you try, you end up lost—distracted, pulled in too many directions, and before you know it, you’re already somewhere else entirely.

And then the light changes.

And everything that felt magical starts to look ridiculous.

In the light of day, the enchantment doesn’t just fade—it turns on me.

A path that felt so clear, so exciting, so meant for me suddenly looks foolish. Insurmountable. Like terrain I was never meant to walk.

And I feel embarrassed.

Even if I never told anyone, I know how far I let myself go with it.

The intensity.

The certainty.

The ferocity.

And then it’s gone.

But when the mania dissolves into depression, I feel foolish.

I’ve spent time. I’ve spent money. I’ve invested myself in ideas that, in the light of day, don’t hold up the same way.

They felt brilliant at the height of it.

But they don’t survive outside of it.

And I have to sit with that.

I take ten pills in the morning and eight at night—if I can remember before my body shuts me down.

And even then, they only rein it in a little—it’s not a fix, just a bandaid.

Not enough to stop it. Just enough to dull the edges.

Sometimes I’m thankful for the hypomania.

It’s the closest I feel to normal.

Productive. Engaged. Alive. Like I can actually function in the world the way I’m supposed to.

But sometimes I think I like the depression, too.

At least then everything slows down.

At least then I feel like I’m seeing things for what they are—without the distortion, without the urgency, without the pull.

A more discerning lens.

Even if it’s heavy. Even if it hurts.

At least it feels… real.

When the depressive episode hits, it hits just as hard.

I don’t see possibility anymore—I see failure.

I look back at everything—the ideas, the energy, the belief—and I judge it. Harshly.

I hate that part of me in those moments.

For chasing it.

For believing it.

For thinking I was going to be the one who finally figured it out.

There’s a part of me that embarrasses me.

And I know it’s not gone forever.

I know it will come back.

I still want to do everything.

But now I wonder if I’ve made myself smaller.

If I’ve tucked myself back into fitness because it’s comfortable—because it’s something I can control for 45 minutes to an hour at a time.

Because it doesn’t ask me to risk that kind of fall again.

Where is the balance between dreaming and doubting?