Feeling Cursed

The human brain tends to remember the negative experiences of life. I'm pretty sure it's an evolutionary trait that helped us survive by reminding us of things, places, activities, etc that put us in unhealthy or dangerous situations. It's a good idea that, at least in my case, has gone awry. It acts with an intensity that can be paralyzing.

The negatives cling to me like parasites and leave little to no room for positives. I have a terrible time finding the positives and, when I do, keeping the positives in mind is just as hard. It adds up to feeling like I'm cursed. The extent of that cursed feeling waxes and wanes with my moods. Recognizing that correlation to my mood has been helpful in the sense that I'm better equipped to wait out the feeling but it does nothing the reduce the pain, anxiety, and sense of helplessness that comes along with it. Family and friends criticize me for being pessimistic or defeatist. Saying things like, "It could be worse," is not helpful. I continue to feel what I feel and a certain guilt for feeling that way is added to the emotional burden I already carry.

The other day, a valuable lesson I learned in a class I took a million years ago popped into my head. The context of the original lesson was completely different from my current situation so I never thought to use it in my battle against my curse before. The mind is resilient but that characteristic must be nurtured, it must be fed. Feeding it a diet primarily consisting of negatives kills it. It must be given plenty of positives. One positive for each negative is insufficient, though. It makes for a malnourished resiliency, one that's sick and leaves a person at risk of giving up. Because of this and the fact that critiquing each other was a significant part of the class, the teacher established an important rule. Before someone could offer up a criticism, they had to provide three compliments.

This provided me with a technique, a new weapon to wield against the darkness. I am forcing myself to find at least two positives that are directly related to the negative situation feeding the cursed feeling. A recent example is when the transmission went out on my vehicle. Positive 1) The vehicle rolled to a stop in a location safe from traffic and from being impounded. Positive 2) Someone near and dear to me was willing and able to tow it to the shop for me.

My curse is a little more intense than that. It involves a large number of things going wrong all in a small window of time. The transmission was just one of them. Looking at each problem, each thing that's gone wrong, and finding a couple of elements in each situation that worked to my advantage is time consuming. Hopefully it will be worth time.

Checking on my Comfort Zone

Recently, a friend introduced me to a site called Superbetter. It's all about making yourself better - more resilient, more optimistic, more motivated. It's filled with games but not like flash games or xbox games. These are quests and you face challenges, gain allies, learn skills, and fight off bad guys. It intrigued me and, since my friend signed up for it, I figured I would sign up, too. I don't play everyday. Honestly, I haven't been to the website in weeks.

While working through my quest I got stuck. It's my own fault, too. I was faced with a challenge and didn't do it. I haven't done it yet. I started to but it was uncomfortable so I set it aside with the intention of returning to it the next day. I did return to it but I didn't do anything about it beyond rereading the description of what I was supposed to do. What did I get stuck on, you ask? It's silly, really. All I needed to do was write a journal entry answering this question:

What is your current relationship with your comfort zone?

Fortressed within it?

Always busting through it?

See what I mean? It's simple. Yet, it's so complex. Formulating a reply has been troublesome and it's been weighing on me.

Source: Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

My comfort zone is always changing. It varies with my mood - how manic or depressed I am or if I'm neither. My level of anxiety plays a big role in defining what I enjoy doing or what I'm willing to try. Likewise it determines what completely freaks me out, it draws that proverbial line in the sand which I cannot cross. What feels impossible for me one week is second nature the next and vice versa.

Source: Clinical Junior.com

My healthy self, if I know my healthy self - which is dubious, is bound to be somewhere in the middle between manic and depressed. That's only logical. She must be more cautious than the manic version of me and must also be more relaxed than the anxious version of me. Surely she is, or at least believes herself to be, more capable than the depressed version of me.

So, today? At this moment? I feel good about myself. I believe I'm good at my job and I enjoy it. I feel good about my relationships with family and friends. Calling my best friend is not a stretch today even though the same activity yesterday was distressing and I couldn't bring myself to do it. I feel like I have something worth sharing on my blog and I'm able to adequately answer the Superbetter question.

Will I feel the same tomorrow? Who knows.

If you're curious, here's a little about Superbetter from TED Talks.

Don't Judge Me (POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING)

NOTICE: This post may be a trigger for you.

I think I manage the anxiety I experience rather well. Most days I can keep my darker emotions from ganging up on me and I've done a great job of successfully beating them off. There is a certain threshold, though. Somber turns to despair and I feel defeated, crushed beneath the weight of my own sick brain. Grumpy morphs into a full blown rage and the catalyst will be something ridiculous. Discomfort becomes humiliation and shame as my brain brings to the forefront of my conscious mind everything it believes I've ever done wrong. What happens beyond the threshold is not anything I'm proud of.

I scratch and cut myself. It makes sense to me in the moment. I've done it enough throughout my life that I no longer carry sharp things with me when I feel the stable ground beneath me tremble, a sign that a terrible fissure threatens to open under my feet. Leaving the pocket knife at home interferes with my attempts to cut myself. Most of the time, the appeal of cutting fades away before I can gain possession of an object capable of drawing blood. Sometimes cutting is so terribly seductive that, unable to access anything sharper, I resort to using my fingernails. They don't cut per se; they scratch well, though. They become claws that scrape at the skin of my thighs in moments of desperation.

I don't know if it's seeing the stripes or feeling the sting that helps me keep my demons at bay. I guess it's both. I make more cuts and scratches when my distress is more intense. The more my efforts fail to ease my anguish, the more ferocious my actions become. The physical pain is probably the larger part of it although the blushing lines swelling on my skin do create an odd feeling of satisfaction - gratification blended with disgrace.

Don't judge me for this behavior. I know it's messed up. I don't need to be reminded. I don't even want to talk about it most of the time because the people I confide in almost always focus on the action and make me feel even more ashamed which isn't helpful. The problem isn't the cutting or the scratching. They are symptoms, physical manifestations of the dark hurt and anxiety that have escalated beyond my ability to fend off in a manner deemed healthy by the normal people of the world. Let's deal with the emotions I can't handle and the scratching will go away.

Don't judge me for this behavior. Other peoples' actions are mesed up, too. Making an 11:00pm run to the stop-and-rob for a cheap six-pack of beer because you can't slow down your mind enough to go to sleep is damaging to the body, too. It's just not exposed. Is harming your liver somehow more nobel than injuring your skin? I'm not even referring to alcoholism, just the occassional "had a rough day" gin and tonic. What about smoking when stressed? Over-eating? Going on spending sprees? All of these have consequences.

Don't judge me for this behavior. We all have our coping methods and mine usually heal within a few days.

A Little Gratitude Please

What are you grateful for?

The usual answers include:

• My family
• My friends
• My health

Other common answers are:

• A good home
• Healthy food
• My pets

The answers are all legitimate and I'm sure most people are being truthful in giving them. They aren't unique, though. They are so common as to be cliche and, like any old adage, the words fall out of our mouths without a moment of consideration. The thoughtlessness of it all only registers when the words land with a heavy thunk across the top of one's left foot. Saying "I'm grateful for my family" has become an antiphone that doesn't require the least bit of contemplation. "I'm grateful for my friends" is an automatic reply, a reflex similar to the startle response we have when someone sneaks up behind us. It just happens.

"For my dog" or "for my health" are comfortable replies when playing the I'm Thankful For game round-robin style with people we might call friends but we're not particularly close to. They are safe, true statements and, most importantly, they don't even hint at the intimate matters living closer to our hearts. I get it. Don't get me wrong. I use those standard answers, too. I think I've even gotten pretty good at the Sincere Smile which dresses up the shallowness of my randomly chosen, standard answer with the guise of heartfelt earnestness.

All of this begs the question, what are you grateful for? Peak into all the little crevices in your brain to find something particular to you and your life. When you're being candid with your real self, who and what rise to the top of your Grateful List.

Me?

I'm grateful that a certain someone picked me up after work one day, like always, and took me directly to my doctor. We did not pass go or collect $200. This person told me s/he was scared for me, told me I was sick and I needed to get help. This person got me the help I was incapable of getting for myself and promised to stand strong for me until I was able to stand for myself again. That event took one hour out of one day and changed the course of my life.

You Understand? Really?

My friend expressed some concern about me not long ago. She is a newish friend and does not yet know much about having a bipolar brain. She knows even less about my particular brain and the life experiences it initiated and stored in its memory.

"You're not quite yourself today. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah. I'm just in a funky place right now."

It's a good answer. Most people accept it easily and we move on. More importantly, I avoid thinking at a level which would prompt tears or temper. My friend, however, didn't like it. She pressed the issue. I don't remember the exact string of questions or my answers but I kept trying to politely and nonchalantly redirect the conversation. The only way to make her interrogation stop was to be direct and probably rude.

"Look, there's nothing wrong in the world around me. My bipolar head is just screwing with me. It's illogical, it happens, and I'll be fine."

What else could I possibly say? The 15 minutes we had together before going to work was not enough time to explain the meaningless anxiety churning in my gut or the darkness I was walking into. I didn't really want to explain anyway. I wasn't ready to share the very personal, raw details she was trying to elicit and her aggressive, albeit well-intended, poking for information has made me less inclined to share in the future.

Then she said, "I understand." The conversation could have, should have, ended there but I laughed and shook my head. It was a knee-jerk reaction and it was stupid.

We pulled into the parking lot at work. "Really. I understand."

Northern Goshawk

My mind commenced to spinning as a result of her audacity. Thoughts. Feelings. Images of "understanding" eyes full of pity. Memories of "understanding" voices telling me to suck it up. It all moved through me so fast that the only knee-jerk reaction I had was stunned silence and the inability to move. Long moments passed.

I scoffed and stepped out of the car. As we walked into the building we work in she continued looking at me. Her eyes oozed just how pathetic I was to her. She looked at me like I was a sad, little, wounded sparrow even though I felt much more like a Goshawk whose territory had just been invaded.

Those not initiated into the pain, euphoria, confusion, and chaos that bipolar disorder gifts to the fortunate sick and the people who love them do not understand.

She Speaks - Washed and Whipped

Hot water slid down my back. I leaned my head against the shower wall using my crossed arms as a pillow. The fissure inside me grew wider. All joy and contentment spurted from an emotional wound, like blood from an artery. Misery and pain slowly clotted the hole. Memories of everything I ever did wrong, real and imagined, played on a giant screen in my mind’s eye and I was powerless to turn it off.

Water washed down my spine splitting at my hips into tributaries that rolled down my thighs and calves. Focus on the water. The heat. I wanted it to help but it did little to carry my distressing thoughts into the drain. Make it stop. I pleaded with the universe which yielded nothing in return.

My mind slipped from the moment and into a space I knew to be imagined and real at the same time. I held a bullwhip in my hand, poised in desperate readiness to use it against my enemies. Who were those foes? I didn’t know. I only knew that I temporarily forestalled their attacks.

The bullwhip disappeared. Rope restrained my wrists and pulled my arms over my head. A whip struck me from the darkness. Confused by the pain and lack of control, I stared into the gloom searching for my attacker. A strap of leather lashed out again, beating me like Jesus or a slave. I cringed.

“I’m not a savior! Or a slave! So why are you doing this?” I cried.

Another crack sounded and the whip landed surely on my back.

“Am I so terrible that I deserve such punishment?”

A woman’s voice in the darkness said, “If you are going to use a whip, you should know what it feels like to be on the receiving end.” She was calm, not the slightest hint of anger in her tone.

Even though an infinite shade limited my sight, I knew the woman’s voice had a body and companions.

A length of leather braid smacked my back and she said, “You never know when they’ll hit.”

Another lash, harder than the last, burned my shoulder blades. “You never know how hard they’ll strike.”

I heard a loud snap in the air to the left above me and felt a strike from the right. “You never know when they’ll miss or where they’ll come from.”

The beating continued from all around and, just as she told me, I could not predict if, when, or where I would be hit next. I could not tell how much pain would be inflicted or who was controlling the whip. My mind, intoxicated by so much pain, held up who as the most important information to have.

The woman provided the answer before my pain-soaked brain fully formed the question. “Sometimes it’s others, people you’ve wronged. Most of the time it’s not.”

A dark haired woman in a long crimson dress stepped into view. The whip reappeared in my hand and I stood outside my own exhausted body. I used it on the tied woman, myself. I couldn’t stop torturing the part of me that a rope still held in place. She rolled her head weakly and looked at me. I helplessly turned my attention to the woman from the shadow.

I pointed to the bleeding woman. “Why are you doing this to me?” Tormented tears dropped from my burning eyes.

“I’m not. You are.” She looked at me through steady green eyes reminiscent of the undisturbed surface of a pond. The woman’s companions gradually emerged from the darkness.

“But I’m not, I couldn’t,” I stuttered. “I wouldn't do this to myself. Something or someone is making me.”

She shook her head, “You are beating yourself, punishing yourself for things you believe you should be punished for since no one else will do it.”

I handed the whip to one of the woman's companions, the featureless person nearest me. It was a shadowy thing, a stark contrast against the brightly lit and blood-striped body in front of me. I watched as the unidentifiable person whipped her, me, further. Others joined it and they took turns beating and abusing me, spitting at me and occasionally kicking me. I looked at the crimson woman again. “Why are you letting them do this to me?”

“I didn’t give them permission. You handed them the whip. You’ve stood here idly watching them assault you.”

Standing beside the woman at the edge of the shadow, I cried from the guilt of persecuting that person hanging limply from the rope. Returned to the delirious body I started in, I cried from the physical pain inflicted on me but stayed without a struggle because of the disgrace I felt. A chill moved down my spine.

My everyday self leaned face first against the shower wall using my crossed arms as a pillow. Cool water washed down my back, burning as it rolled over my spiritual wounds. I slid slowly to the shower floor, my face turned to the wall, and wept.

"Drops of Jupiter" Describes Mania?

If you've never heard the song "Drops of Rain" by Train there's a video here for you. It's an absolutely beautiful song. I promise it's related to this post.

People ask me what mania was like and it's so utterly hard to describe. I don't think you can really have any sense of it if you've never experienced it. When trying to answer that question for people, I can almost always tell if they understand me on an intellectual level or an experiential level. Their eyes shine differently. Sometimes I see laughter in them revealing the wonderful experiences that can and do happen during a manic phase. Sometimes it's sorrow and shame. Sometimes it's relief and the weight of silent loneliness falls away.

Trying to describe it to the people that nod their heads politely, "Uh huh, yea, uh huh. I see" is a challenge to say the least. This is where that song by Train comes in.

It's not about mental illness but most of that song does a good job of describing mania. I certainly related to a lot of it when I was falling back to Earth, through normal, and headlong into depressed. Being out there so high that I twirled along Jupiter's atmosphere describes me at that time rather well. Feeling so bright and energized that the Milky Way and heaven are dim and uneventful does too. Yes, the wind swept me off my feet and in the best kind of way. Yes, I did get to dance along the light of day. Line after line of this song resonates with me and I think the poetry of it offers people a way to grab hold of the idea of mania so they can begin to understand.

X is for Major Arcana X: Wheel of Fortune

I have a tendency to think about some things in terms of opposites. Life and death. Right and wrong. Up and down. Manic and depressed. Placing the ideas on the flip side the same coin organizes them quickly and easily. That approach to thinking is so prevalent that I am compelled to believe it's human nature to do so. The coin system works great for a lot of things but it's sorely inaccurate for many others. The 10th card of the Major Arcana always reminds me of that fact.

This card has two wheels on it. The obvious one that's the focus of the card and another one tipped over on its side at the very top. Do we make our own future, our own destiny, or are those things determined from above, from the divine? The artwork on the card says the answer is both. The lighting bolts in the background, the power from above, are always hitting our lives from one direction or another. The other wheel, with the Sphinx, the monkey, and the crocodile is the destiny we create for ourselves. The swirling pattern farthest in the back is the motion our lives add to the world around us - the proverbial ripple in the pond.

I don't dare speculate about the wheel at the top. After all, who can really know the mind of the divine or the rules from beyond the veil that govern the physical and spiritual universe we live in.

The wheel in the front I can talk about because it is my own life and its movement is the result of my own choices, good, bad, or indifferent.

The ape on the left is riding the wheel up to the top. It represents creation, initiation, those things that are coming into being in my life and they are not necessarily positive  things. The ape could let go if it chose to. It could refuse to allow the emergence of the next thing in life. I could refuse and at times I have.

The crocodile on the right side is riding the wheel down, to its lowest point. It's tied to the wheel with absolutely no choice but to experience the destruction that occurs in life. Or does it have a choice? The tie is loose, there's no knot. The crocodile could let go, just like the ape. In letting go though, it will fall none the less. Perhaps something wonderful is being destroyed causing pain that we cannot escape from. Of course, something causing us great pain might also be disintegrating.

The Sphinx at the top is balanced. The wheel turns easily so maintaining that balance is difficult. It looks back into that space between the wheels, between how we influenced our own lives and how the higher power influenced it. If we are to learn anything, it will be from trying to merge the what and why of our past. There's no point in looking forward for the what and why of the future, because we cannot know what lighting the universe will throw at us next. If the Sphinx turns to peer deep into the future, the balance will be lost and the wheel will resume its movement. People being people, turning to look is inevitable.

I guess I should tell you why this card always reminds me that life's things and events are not represented on the opposite side of a coin very well. After all, that's where this post started.

The wheel of life does not flip. It does not have heads or tails. It revolves around a hub. The animals, representing creation, balance, and destruction, do not sit on one face or the other. They ride the rim, diminishing and expanding continuously - never appearing or disappearing in an infinitely small moment in time.

Life is not, can not, be the opposite of death. The wheel is the very representation of life and it turns, not flips. Health and sickness are not opposites either. Getting sick happens over time, so does regaining our health, and maintaining it is a balancing act. This is no more apparent than in trying to live between mania and depression. Is it possible? Absolutely. Is it permanent? Absolutely not. I will make some choice that will start the wheel turning. Lightening, far beyond my control, will strike. Do I hold on to the wheel, trust that it will not stop at the bottom? Will the momentum of its movement be enough to carry me through the low point?

I've lost count of how many times I have been so afraid of the motion that I have tried desperately to climb back up to the top. When I was on the downward side, trying to climb back up only made the wheel turn faster and faster until I couldn't hold on anymore. I had no more control. My fate was dictated by the powers from above and it was my own fault. Learning to hang on is one of the hardest and most painful lessons of my life. Riding the wheel is hard, that's true. It hurts and I selfishly think sometimes that it hurts me more than others. The wheel keeps moving and it always brings beautiful things with it along the way. They are not permanent but neither are the ugly things. There's one exception to that. Letting go.

Letting go meant I was always at a low point, lower than the wheel would have taken me if I had only held on. I could have closed my eyes and screamed in terror. Instead, I let go and screamed a silent sort of terror. I could not close my eyes. It was as if my eyelids had been torn away. I was ignorant of how far I would fall, when and if the divine would finally pull me back up within reach of my life, and what the divine would put me through next. My life stopped, suspended in that terrible space I should never have entered. The swirling motion of existence continued without me because I was stuck in a single moment. That which should have disintegrated, what should have fallen from the wheel instead of me, stayed there. It left no room for that which should have developed in my life.

There I remained, experiencing the pain and anguish created by the enormous power from above and the choices I made in response that lightening and thunder. Angry, desperate, screaming in pain, I learned what hell truly was.

U is for Ups and Downs

Up and then down and then up and then down. Like a roller-coaster ride. Really? It's like that?

I don't think so.

• You choose to be on the roller-coaster.
• People with bipolar disorder did not have the option of such a choice.

• Your roller-coaster ride will come to a predictable end and you'll return to your normal, every-day life.
• The cycles of bipolar disorder have no such end; they are life-long. There is no stopping and getting off the ride.

• Your roller-coaster ride is engineered to be safe. Even when you are falling, you know you'll arrive at the low point safe and sound.
• Falling into depression is falling into a great unknown. You don't know how deep the hole is and you won't make the journey unscathed.

• You know you'll emerge from the low point of the roller-coaster.
• Not everyone returns from the low point of depression.

• Your roller-coaster ride has a specific maximum height. You're likely to return from the heights with messed up hair.
• Mania has no maximum height and it can escalate to the point of messing up entire lives.

The ups and downs might look like a carnival ride when they are plotted out on paper. In real life, though, comparing bipolar disorder to a ride designed for fun... that's just wrong.

Lines for a Fortune Cookie for NaPoWriMo Day 21

The next time you feel down, someone will tell you to pick yourself back up and get over it.

You will "like" a Facebook page dedicated to mental illness advocacy and education.

Choose your words carefully. Stigma bites and it might come back and bite you.

An important message is waiting for you at http://www.bringchange2mind.org/

Someone close to you has a mental illness. They're just not saying so.

Stress is wearing you down. Slow down before you hurt yourself.

Talk to someone. You need to share and they need to hear.

Are you really OCD? Or do you just like saying that?

You will soon meet someone with depression.

Participate in your local NAMIWalk.

Sing. It's good for you.

Recovery is possible.

Are you crazy?

Meditate.

Just breathe.

Take one step at a time.

Your insurance will cover it.

Imagine your world if she wasn't sick.

Try listening to understand rather than to respond.

Good things will come to you if you follow this blog. ;)

You are the 1 in the 1 in 10 that will experience depression.

Your bad attitude is the reason people with mental illnesses don't seek help.

Every criminal is not mentally ill and every mentally ill person is not a criminal.

Suicide is not funny. Tell that to the next person you hear make a joke about it.

Remember to tell them you love them. Every day.

R is for Reflection

These are few of the images some high school students created as part of an artsy lesson on symmetry. Every picture is different as each one is made from the letters of that person's name. They used the letters in their name to form a kind of code that told them where to graph and where to dray the lines. In choosing colors, they only had to make sure that each sections' neighbors were of a different color.

What does this have to do with mental illness? Well, much like we experience mental illness, these pictures are all expressions of symmetry. Yet each person's experience with mental illness is unique, just as these small works of art are unique.

Artwork created by my students (c)1913

Many of the kids got part way into the activity and started complaining that their picture was ugly, that they wished their name made something pretty like that person's over there. Mine's too simple, it's boring. Mine's too complicated. I don't know how to color it.

I had to do some poking and prodding to get them to move on, to keep working to the finished product. They are beautiful, aren't they?

The activity got me thinking about how often we wish our lives were different. What if our lives were more like that person's life over there. How often we think our own lives are not pretty or are not worth working on. My life is so boring. My life is so complicated.

We can only work with what we're given, just like these kids did. At the risk of sounding cliche, I think we can create something beautiful, balanced, and worth sharing with others if just keep taking that next step.

M is for Music

I think it's funny how often science lags behind the things that people already know. Did we really need a scientist to tell us that music helps us manage stress?

I have music that I like to play when I'm angry - something loud with drums and guitars that seems to growl.

I have dance music, romantic music, sleepy relaxing music. I have music that helps me keep an up-beat attitude and other music that, whether I like it or not, moves me to tears.

I play Patty Griffin's "Heavenly Day" when I need to be reminded that things are going to be okay. It's one of my favorite songs and has been for a number of years.


I'm sure there's more to the study than proving that music affects people's moods and can be used to help regulate moods. Considering that people have essentially been using music to self-medicate for as long as humans have existed, all I can say to this is, "Well, duh."

Like I said, there's more to the study. Here's the link to the article I read and it contains a link to the study for those of you who want to check out the other elements of the study. http://io9.com/can-music-be-more-effective-than-drugs-465249779

Hatred

Hatred

rises at the

thought of you standing there

before me with arms outstretched like

I should still be in love with you. I cringe.

I recoil and you advance like

touching me will make right

all the hurt and

hatred.

Anger

rises at the

thought of you watching me,

eyes searching for a flash of hope,

a moment of weakness when you can pounce,

say sorry, and think our lives will

go on like all is right.

You'll see only

anger.

by Jennifer Clark

(c) April 12, 2013


For more information about National Poetry Writing Month go to the NaPoWriMo website.

Gift

Sweet breath, sweet air, I lift up hope on you.
Convey my love across the stormy skies.

Deliver hope to heart and heart renew.

You must relieve such hurt and pain and cries.

Soft wind, take gentle care as you imbue

In tender soul, new life before it dies.

We have not long; you must be swift.

Bear my hope and make of hope a gift.

by Jennifer Clark (c)April 2013

For more information about the 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge see the website of the same name.
For more information about National Poetry Writing Month go to the NaPoWriMo website.

F is for Failure

The Failure of the 7 of Disks: Failure’s Lessons

It’s painful, not just disappointing. With the rise of failure I experience the loss of hope and a loss of whatever it is that I hoped for. Look at the card. It’s dark and dead. The suppleness that exists when life moved through the plants is nowhere to be found. Instead, the branches and twigs are dry and brittle. All hope has fallen away, leaving a pain that cannot be avoided.

It happens, even though I hate it. When I am finally and completely wrapped in the decaying landscape of failure, all that exists with me is me. I come face to face with my own failings, weaknesses, and mistakes. I hate it and "it" is me. I must recognize the darkness in the place where failure lives as my own self. Without recognition, I cannot ever fully emerge from that place.

It’s not the end, but that’s hard to swallow. I don’t want to be happy about it or throw my hands up and say, “Oh, well.” Matter-of-fact is probably a good attitude to have. Failure is painful and dark enough without allowing myself to sink into misery. I can clean up after failure. Pull up the dead plants, brush away all the dead leaves, and move forward. It’s not failure that keeps the hurt and dark around me. It’s the depression. Failure does not want me to live with it. It’s depression that wants you to stay in that place where failure lives.

For more information about the 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge see the website of the same name.
For more information about National Poetry Writing Month go to the NaPoWriMo website.

Her Name

Warning: Possible Trigger

Remember. Say her name aloud. It’s right.

Though heart will hurt and cry and rage and fight.

In suicide, the mind it lies to you.

It says hope’s gone -- review your life for proof.

Controlled by pain and frail from sadness deep,

through suicide she found a sick relief.

Yet denigrate her life on how she died

with words so cruel. In ignorance defile.

The fault’s not hers, nor mine, nor yours. Instead

the blame belongs to darkness left unsaid.

How can you understand her hopeless fear?

Lost hope. Lost light. Lost will to persevere?

Do keep in memory how her life was lived.

Let anger fade. Compassion find. Forgive.

By Jennifer Clark (c)2013

For more information about National Poetry Writing Month go to the NaPoWriMo website.

C is for Crazy

Wordle is just too much fun. You enter a bunch of text into the box on their website and then they create an instant picture with all the words. All sorts of formatting options are available - format, font, color, etc. The smallest words show up least frequently and the largest words show up most frequently. I went to thesaurus dot com and looked up crazy and then posted all the antonyms into the Wordle program. My choice of words was motivated by an attempt to figure out some language to use when talking about mental illness. Rather than indicating what we don't what people to say, I wanted to get some ideas for what we do want people to say. I'm not sure what I expected to see. Here's the image it created....

I'm rather irritated by the results. Are people without mental illnesses the only ones that can be sensible? or reasonable? People with mental illnesses cannot be rational or balanced or smart? Really?

Changing the language that we use is important. I think it's time that we advocates change our choice of words, too. Nature abhors a vacuum. Taking words out of people's concept of mental illness leaves a gap that must be filled. What are we going to fill that space with?

For more information about the 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge see the website of the same name.

Describe Depression

Warning: adult language.

"Depression hurts. Cymbalta can help."

I hate that commercial. For years I criticized the need to take medications to deal with depression. All those side effects. How in the world can someone think that taking a medication with all those side effects is a good idea? Who wants to live with diarrhea for the rest of their life? Who wants to develop a shake, a jitter, that never goes away?

I was convinced that depression could be handled by a good diet, good exercise, and a balanced life. I had none of the above. No wonder I was depressed. I didn't eat right at all. Coffee in the morning on an empty stomach. And not just one cup either. Several cups. I needed several cups of coffee each morning or I would get a headache. Several cups of coffee has its own side effect - shaking, the jitters. The irony of it. Take the medication to avoid depression and you get the jitters. Don't take the medication and live with a coffee breakfast and you still get the jitters. So fuck it.

I didn't usually get lunch either. The demands of my job were sufficient that I worked right through lunch most days. As the school year went on, I ate lunch less and less often. I ate foods that were less and less good for me, too. I resorted to quickie foods when I took… when I stole a moment to grab something to eat. Chips and a soda. I often skipped the soda, but not for water.

I avoided just about all liquids. If I drank anything during the day, then I needed to use the restroom during the day. The life of a teacher does not allow for such luxury. Passing periods are short and students are shuffled along and into their next classroom as quickly as possible. I couldn't leave my room unattended. That could be disastrous. My room had all kinds of equipment in it that the kids could have messed with. Graphing calculators go missing when they are not accounted for at every moment of the day. Even with eagle eyes on them the batteries still manage to be stolen. The projector is a favorite to fuck with. The kids can't steal it (at least not easily) but they can still mess with the buttons and disconnect the cords. The same with the Elmo. It's a great piece of equipment, but needs to be watched over. Going to the bathroom between classes was not an option. Going to the bathroom during the class was not an option either.

My diet was terrible. Dinner was usually decent. My husband cooked well and often. I worked so much and for so many hours that he usually took care of dinner. He was typically home well before I was.

Exercise? What's that? The closest thing I got to exercise was hiking up to my second story classroom. Up the stairs in the morning. Down the stairs to walk the kids to the cafeteria. Up the stairs to work in my room through lunch. Down the stairs to pick my class up from the cafeteria. Up the stairs to start the afternoon classes. Down the stairs at the end of the day to walk my class out the door. That doesn't include any of the ups and downs that happened during conference periods. Meetings. Copies. You would think that counts for something. But it doesn't. I was thin enough, but not because of exercise. I was thin because I wasn't eating. I was malnourished I'm sure.

Picture is not mine.
Source: http://www.desura.com/mods/star-trek-continuum/images/black-hole

Depression is black beyond all that is black. It's inky and deep. It's a black hole that sucks you in and it's devoid of all things.

A black hole has an event horizon. An object farther away than the event horizon can swing by the black hole and escape. It's trajectory will be affected greatly but it will not be swallowed into oblivion. An object at the event horizon can orbit the black hole without falling into it but also never escaping it. The object is locked in place, forever attached to the black hole. Never really falling prey to it but also never really being free of it. Anything that is inside the event horizon is doomed. It will orbit round and round getting ever closer to that infinitely small point of everything that is called a black hole. It will never escape. Doomed.

Depression is like that. There is a point of no return. As you approach depression you have the ability, the chance, the possibility of escaping it. You'll fall into a funk and your life will be changed some but you'll swing out of it and be on your way. Hopefully you'll never come across another black hole depression again.

It's possible that you can live your live at a balance point somewhere between completely depressed, clinically depressed, unable to function and might even kill yourself depressed, and living free of depression, a happy, fulfilled life. That emotional event horizon is probably like living a basically depressed life. Always in that state of wondering if this is all there is. Never truly satisfied with anything that life has to offer.

At that point of no return, though, everything changes. If you've ever approached it, then you know. It's a terrifying realization that you have slipped inside the event horizon and there is nothing you can do to stop the fall. Your perception of existence is warped, time is slowed, energy is pulled away. You can feel yourself detaching from the world. On a molecular level. There's the sense that the molecules in my hand are somehow not part of my hand. They are part of the molecules that make up the world. They are part of the world before they are a part of me. The matter that makes up our mundane existence takes priority over the matter that makes up my body. I don't know if that makes any sense at all.

Depression is deep. It's a hole that keeps going. You fall infinitely far and then you still have infinitely far to fall. You're falling into nothing. You're falling through nothing. Try to imagine what existed before the big bang. Nothing existed. But nothing is still something. Like zero. No. Nothing is nothing. If anything goes into that nothing, it is scattered into a million billion pieces. Anything that was me is torn apart, dissolved into nothingness.

How do you define hope?

Hope is the feeling we have that the feeling we have is not permanent. 

~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

I love that quote. It tells a truth of hope in a nice, neat, little package and it’s wholly appropriate for a blog dedicated to mental illness. Of course, like any sound-bite, it’s not a complete description.

Personally, I think hope is a kind of coping mechanism. Facing fears and sorrows is easier when I have this thing we call hope. It doesn’t make the hurt or difficulty go away, but it allows me to look forward to a future in which I have successfully passed beyond my current challenges. Will I actually make it? Who knows? Hope does not guarantee that I’ll get what I want or where I want but it lets me believe that it is possible.

He that lives upon hope will die fasting. 

~Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack

To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death. 

~Pearl S. Buck

Those quotes seemed so pessimistic at first but they go together quite optimistically. They tell me that action and hope are companions. Hoping for bread without doing anything to get it? Or a house or a job or a significant other or .... ad nauseam. Hope alone won't do the trick. Doing something without a sense of purpose or meaning? That's not going to work out well either. Without both, hope and action, my world and my life will surely seem pointless and valueless. I will wither and die.

As far as action is concerned, sometimes it comes from within and I act on my own behalf. Those days are easy. I am competent and confident. My life is my own and I have control of my fate.

When I am weak, though, hope doesn't move me to act. It can't. It gives me just enough energy to breathe from one terrible moment to the next and to believe that maybe the next moment will be better. In those desperate days, I hope I can I put my hope in someone else, someone who will be strong in my place until I have grounded myself in my own power again.

If one truly has lost hope, one would not be on hand to say so. 

~Eric Bentley

I find it reassuring to know that I can safely trust people around me to be hopeful when the world I experience is black. It's humbling to know that sometimes I must be the one to hold hope, like a torch, high above my head and yell into the dark, "It's not lost!"