Was I supposed to learn something?

I've been trying to make sense of my experience with the bipolar disorder I didn't actually have. It seems like, if I were a spiritual person, I would find meaning in why I was given this burden, this bad joke, this painful, unnecessary horror show.

I'm neither spiritual nor religious, so I can't look to any god's greater plan. Still, it seems like this was all laid before me so that I would learn from it or have take-away knowledge to apply in another context.

My Buddhist friends tell me that profound experiences are a gift of sorts, meant to help us understand something we need to know about or work on in becoming more evolved selves. Perhaps it is to become more mindful, perhaps it's meant to develop a sense of compassion.

I consider myself to be a compassionate person and reasonably open-minded. That wasn't a lesson I needed. The whole mess probably cost me $20,000, as a conservative estimate. It was likely quite a bit more when you factor in the things I ended up paying for because I couldn't keep my finances straight once I started medication. I didn't really need the lesson in poverty.

Loss. Was I supposed to experience loss on a variety of levels in order to understand loss better? I help people work through their experiences of loss every day in my job. Loss was never lost on me.

What was the lesson? Did I learn it but I just don't realize it yet?

I choke on the thought that a series of egregious misunderstandings and inappropriate treatment were nothing more than a series of unfortunate events.

My life is not richer because of this experience. Everything has been stripped down--my relationships, my attachment to work I loved, my finances, my ability to experience emotions, my interest in the world. It is not refreshing; rather, it has left me feeling broke, lonely, and vulnerable. I don't remember how not to feel that way.

Sometimes, I think it was all an extreme warning, like one of those disaster drills big cities put on so they're ready when the real thing comes along. Perhaps I was supposed to see that I have the mental, emotional, and behavioral capacity to experience bipolar disorder and I need to be prepared for the upheaval should my brain melt uncontrollably in the future. Perhaps I was supposed to see that I harbor mental illness inside of my brain and I need to build a life that compensates for that more effectively than before. Watch your step, May, or we'll do it again.

The what-ifs keep me awake at night and push more practical thoughts out of my consciousness nearly every day. Why, why, why...What, what, what...

The loss of sleep, the self-introspection, the wondering, and the frustration always lead me to the same conclusion:

There was no reason beyond poor clinical practice and compounded mistakes.

There is no meaning.

What a waste.