writing – The Daily Opinion

As you know, I came up with a great, grand plan for how I was going to survive the inevitable winter blues. The plan was relatively simple, albeit in four parts. One aspect of this plan was to ensure I kept myself distracted and occupied. To that end, I resolved to take part in National Novel Writing Month. This is something that takes place every year, in November, and is something I have always wanted to do but never quite got around to.

My efforts—despite the best of intentions—got off to a poor start as the first day of this particular month is also the anniversary of my Nanny’s death. So, while budding writers up and down the country were chugging coffee and refusing to detach themselves from their computers for longer than it took to go to the toilet or re-fill their mugs, I was with my family. My word count at the end of the day was a measly 84. Not to worry, I thought, I’ll make up for it at the weekend. Saturday passed with only a few more words written, while Sunday saw no progress at all. A slight improvement was made on Monday and I managed to inch my way up to 2720 words, but progress then stopped.

Completely.

Until Sunday.

Having resolved to actually do this thing, and even asked for sponsorship towards it, watching the days tick by without any progress being made was rapidly ceasing to be something which improved my mood and becoming something which only served to worsen it. NaNoWriMo was becoming just another thing at which I was failing.

Miserably.

On Saturday I became annoyed about this, and I said to myself “Self, this simply will not do.”

I have been getting emails since signing up for NaNoWriMo and my regional group (Chester), to come to their ‘Write-Ins’—basically a load of people sitting in a pub, all writing together, instead of sitting alone, at home, distracting themselves with Facebook, Twitter, and whatever happens to be currently trending on YouTube. The aim of these events is to encourage people to keep writing, to give them a little moral support, and also to meet like-minded people. I did not think for one second when I signed up my online account that I would ever being doing this thing in the ‘real world’. To me it was just another virtual activity I would conduct over the internet and I was perfectly happy with that idea, until last night.

Saturday night I decided (against all logic and normal behaviour) that the solution to the problem was to go to one of these write-ins and spend a whole afternoon in the presence of real people who would encourage me to write.

I found this quite a shocking decision.

More astonishing still was the fact that Sunday dawned and I hadn’t changed my mind. In fact, I did all my jobs with alarming speed hopped in the shower with peculiar gusto (yes, really, enthused about a shower!) and even, dried my hair. With a hair dryer. This is unheard of; the effort it takes is phenomenal, plus it’s always too hot and gives me a headache. Not only that, I applied makeup.

So, wearing my nicest dress (and actually feeling nice in it, despite having re-gained some weight) I toddled off to Chester (bit of a trek) and tracked down the location of this social event. Now, despite many hurdles (it wasn’t where I thought it was, when I finally did find it there was nowhere to park, when I finally did park there was a long walk to the place, when I finally got there I realised it was a Weatherspoons I had at one point actually frequented with my (now ex) fiancé, once I convinced myself to go in any way I couldn’t find the people I was looking for, once I did find them there were only two small tables and I was forced to actually sit next to people and … you know … talk), once I’d got over all that, I found the strangest thing happening. I had a GREAT time. Not only that, I wrote about five thousand words. I met some new people who were both amusing and very nice, I’m fairly convinced I managed to interact with them without doing anything that screamed ‘I’m a total head case, RUN while you still have chance’, and better still I found myself asking when the next one was. Tuesday you say? Great, see you then.

To fully understand the importance of this please let me explain something. For the past two years I have not had any interactions with new people, with the exception of those met during group therapy, once last year and once this year, and the various people with dogs I pass while walking Dexter. I may nod to the latter occasionally and talk to their dogs, but I rarely make eye contact with the human half of the pair, and even less frequently manage to actually talk.

The only other people I have seen are family and two friends so close they may as well be family.

That’s it.

So, for me, this was quite a big deal. I think the strangest thing about it is that I expected to get home and have a total panic attack about it. I expected to be hit with the usual merry-go-round of ‘did I sound stupid when I said this’, ‘what did they mean when they said that’, ‘how could I possibly have allowed myself to go out in public while I’m this fat’.

It never happened.

It still hasn’t.

There is another one tomorrow which I am fully intending to go to. What’s more, I’m looking forward to it.

As I’ve mentioned before I’m currently attending group therapy. Last year I did the same thing, and while I met a couple of nice people with whom I’m still in touch, I didn’t really feel I got anything from the group itself. I was told an awful lot about bipolar disorder which I had already found out for myself. It gave me no deeper understanding of why I reacted to certain things in certain ways. It did nothing to help me identify my own trouble areas and try to find ways to break the bad patterns I’ve been stuck in for years. This year, group is very different. It’s very difficult, it’s emotionally draining, often has me in tears, it is physically and mentally exhausting however, it also appears to be working.

For those of you looking to get any kind of therapy, take my advice. Unless you know absolutely nothing about bipolar, avoid CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), it will frustrate you, demoralise you, and generally leave you with the impression that therapy is pointless. It took some convincing and the threat of lithium for me to try again. Instead, opt for CAT. No, I’m not referring to the fluffy feline, although they make great companions if you’re a loner like I am and don’t like dogs. I’m talking about Cognitive Analytic Therapy.

I’m halfway through my treatment, and I’m actually finding myself able to go out, try new things, meet new people, and above all enjoy doing so.

This is, in my opinion, a minor miracle.

I have heard Bipolar Disorder described in many ways. Perhaps one of the most confounding descriptions I have heard is that it is like a thief, stealing from you and never giving back.

This may well be the case for many people, but it is not the case for me. Yes, bipolar is a disorder that takes a lot from you: from me it has taken, at various times in my life, my friends, my family, the only man I have every truly loved, my career, my figure, my health, my sanity, and finally, my will to live.

But it has given me a lot in return.

I see the world in a way most people simply cannot fathom. I do not say that this is a better way of viewing things, or that it makes me in any way better than those who see things the ‘normal’ way, it is simply an observation: I do see the world from a different perspective. A perspective so different in fact, that at certain times I find myself beyond frustrated, because so many people in my life are simply incapable of understanding what I’m try to say. This has nothing to do with intelligence—although it is true that many people with bipolar and similar disorders are also highly intelligent—it is a matter of perspective.

That is the gift of bipolar. An ability to look at things in a completely different way, and quite often find the beauty in them where others see nothing but mundanity. One needs only to look at the works of Van Gogh to have some understanding of what I’m speaking about; he saw the world in far greater detail than the majority of people ever could. He saw the wonder in that intricacy, the stunning nature of situations and objects that others would have found commonplace.

Van Gogh is now widely considered to have been bipolar. His insanity, for want of a better word, is well documented, but so too is his vision.

There are downsides to my cycling moods, no matter which state I am in. It has to be said that I find the depression the most difficult to deal with, the hardest to drag myself through without causing myself physical harm. It is also arguable that I do more damage to myself while manic, for I tend to act during these times, and my actions have severe consequences. The positive thing about both states however, are the insight you gain.
This is a commonality I have found many people with mental illnesses share, so much so that my fiction writing began to explore just what this meant. A series of novels was born, looking at people with various mental health issues and how they see the world as a result. These novels are heavily metaphorical, using paranormal elements and some of the more enigmatic sub-cultures in society to demonstrate various points. The very fact I was able to write them however, tells me that my ‘illness’ is not entirely bad.I am well aware that my best work has happened while I have been completely manic. I have sudden bursts of creativity and productivity, during which time I complete entire novels, huge sections of my thesis, or write full papers, in a very short space of time. These works are not always brilliant, although I am generally always convinced that they are brilliant while still in the grips of mania. What they are, however, are the building blocks of my world view. And it is so very, very different, to the view that most people have.

Such thoughts I would never have had, if it had not been for my bipolar. It is my hope that my writing will some day allow others to gain some insight into this very elusive perspective I am trying to explain. It is what I say to myself when I step on the scales each week, or catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror: my body may be ruined, but my mind is not.

Contrary to popular opinion, being ‘crazy’ does not mean you are incapable of higher though. Quite the contrary.

I know a lot of people with similar conditions to my own, and indeed other people with bipolar, who have stated categorically that, despite the fact they hate what bipolar does to their lives, were they able to take it away, rid themselves of it completely, they would choose not to.

If a magical pill existed, that could cure bipolar, would you take it?

I wouldn’t.

My psychiatrist recently offered me the option of taking lithium based MEDs. After discussing it with him at length I eventually declined. My reason for this was simple. The lithium would further stabalise my moods and decrease the depressive episodes from which I still suffer, despite the MEDs I’m on. It would make be feel, for want of a better word ‘flat’.

I have no wish to be flat.

This may sound very strange considering how horrendous this illness can be, yet I am given to understand it is not an unusual reaction for patients to have. Last week I remarked that many people, myself included, begin to heavily link their condition to their identity and, as a result, do not know who they are, or how to cope, if and when they feel ‘better’. Lithium, at least to me, seemed like a far worse curse than becoming, for want of a better word, ‘normal’.

Lithium would actually flatten out the ups and downs a person who didn’t suffer from bipolar would have.

I have an aversion to the colour beige. It is, to me, far more so than grey, the blandest colour imaginable. I currently live in a world of vibrant colour. Sometimes those colours are angry, blacks and reds, deep stains of purple and flashes of violent orange. Other times they are more bubblegum colours, pinks and lilacs, the colour the ocean always is in postcards of places you’ve never been to, but would love to see.

Lithium would make the whole world beige.

No reds, no purples, no oranges or black. No bubblegum pink and ocean blue. Just beige. Flat, unremarkable, uneventful, emotionless beige.

I may despise the negative aspects of my condition, but I also appreciate the positive sides. I know the gifts I am given, and I am not ungrateful for them. I would never wish to be without them, even if that means continuing to endure the bad, so that I might also have the good. To do otherwise, I feel, would be to become a different person entirely.

Bipolar is a thief?

Yes, there is no denying this. It is an illness that robs you of a great many things, things that can never be recovered, things that are unbearably painful to lose. But, contrary to the expression, bipolar does give back, in ways that are difficult to understand if you have never experienced them for yourself.

If bipolar is a thief, then it’s Robin Hood. And that’s perfectly fine with me.

Tag: writing

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Just Like Robin Hood . . .