My mind doesn’t work like most people’s. I hate that sentence even though it’s true. To some people it sounds mysterious and cool, but the reality is a lot more annoying and chaotic.

Sometimes it’s reaching for a word to say and my mind simply producing nothing. I’m a college graduate, I’ve worked all around the world and spoken to everyone from prisoners to generals and now I forget words in the middle of a sentence. Not how to say them, the actual word. It floats at the forefront of my brain but just out of reach. Until you’ve forgotten how to say “pizza” I can’t fully explain the frustration. One of my therapists calls it word salad; pick a word any word but it’s probably not gonna be the right one at first. Could be the meds, could be the fact that my brain jumps, zooms, skips, and stops occasionally. Jury’s still out.

Other days it’s having a small buzzing sound or a radio just barely out of listening range, reverberating through my skull until it becomes an almost physical itch that can’t be scratched. I strain and strain but I can’t fully hear what’s being said in most conversations, the buzz and my brain just won’t focus. So if you see me looking totally zoned out, it’s not you at all and I’m not bored, just usually struggling to focus. These are the times I’m most likely to be extra crabby. Ladies will understand this, it’s like having the irritableness of “that time” without, well the other stuff. Guys, remember the itch analogy, it’s right in that spot of your back and nothing quite reaches it.

My more favorite days are usually everyone else’s, “Heather is driving me crazy” days; these are when my brain isn’t just firing on all four cylinders but it’s zooming at warp speed! Everything is great, I can almost know what others will say before they say it. (Probably why people get so irritated but honestly, they are speaking sooo slow.) In the back of my brain, I know this won’t last so I’m going to try and get the absolute most done before I slip back into forgetful me. Which always happens and then I have to start all over again.

The merry-go-round I never signed up for.

And yet I am created in the image of God.

Genesis 1:26, 27 (NLT), “Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us….So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” That’s quite a bit of repetitive writing in just two verses. It must be God wanted us to understand that we are in His image.

When my brain pops out the wrong word or no word; I am made in His image. When the mental itch is driving me up the wall and I’m ready to lose it; I am made in His image. When I’m flying through conversations faster than I can comprehend them; I am made in His image.

Bipolar isn’t His image, but Heather, the person He created in my mother’s womb, the soul He gave me at conception; that was made in His image. And even the days where my mind is different or struggling will not take from the fact that I am still created to become more like my Father’s image. Illnesses, whispers to our minds, we may have to deal with but they are never a part of who we are meant to be. All God ever wants of us to be…to be His image in the way He made us, not the same but beautifully unique facets of His likeness. To be unashamedly the creation He made us.