Welcome all you creative and/or crazy folks!
Let's be clear that those two adjectives are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they tend to clump together in unholy matrimony more often than not. I pride myself in being part of the "creative class" here in Portland. It's so much easier than admitting I could just be living a little outside the realm of reality.
I felt compelled to start this blog today because I read on Facebook that one of my ex-students (I used to be a High School teacher) is struggling with "grey days". In the middle of a gorgeous summer. Not only does she feel grey, it appears she feels somehow deficient for feeling this way. How often do we do this to ourselves folks -we're already feeling shitty but then we have to pile on by hating ourselves for our feelings. The constant mantra "there is something wrong with me" making a grey day into an impossible one. What else is one suppossed to do but curl into fetal position and retreat from the world?
Now I'm not sure if my student is a bona fide bipolar -but I am. It has taken me decades to finally admit to my dual nature. Part of the problem is that I grew up with a mother and sister who exhibited manic-depression at historical levels. I was the sane one in that house. How sad is that? But it did serve to create a delusion in my mind that I had somehow escaped the family curse.
It wasn't until my son started to exhibit the family proclivity of going off the rails at a moments notice (he was 5) that I had to stop and examine my own behavior.
My behavior is this: some days the world is my oyster, I have a million Fabulous ideas for creative projects and I must do them NOW. No one has the world more by the balls than this girl. And to be honest, I get a LOT done on those days. I write, paint, sew, change my hair color and rejoice in this awesome life I have created.
Then it stops. I don't "crash" like coming off a drug -I slowly begin to realize I'm not as happy as I was yesterday. I'm a bit achy in the body, crave some chocolate. I withdraw from people a bit, sleep too long and become VERY dissatisfied with my life. My awesome life is now a piece of shit. Just like me. I am a failure, a has-been, a never will be. Then I make GRAND plans for a move, a new career, I look into going back to school, opening a new business, fnding a new lover -ANYTHING to take the blues away.
It never works. That old adage -"wherever you go there you are" is true, true, true. What I really want to change is my DNA. I don't want to be the crazy girl anymore. And if I have to be the crazy girl, I'd rather not know about it. But depression and bi-polar disease leaves me horribly cognizant of my own distress. It allows me to judge myself. Mercilessly.
How do we get through it? I've got to think about that for a bit. Just for now, know you are NOT alone. Or as crazy as you could be.
