Lack of Writing - An Update:

When I logged into this blog I had no idea what I was going to write, and as I type this I still do not have a clear-cut outline or idea where this will go. At this time, I have no title for this, so I will try to name it after I am finished.

I entered the New Year optimistic that 2012 would be MY year. I do not believe in the typical "New Year resolutions", but I did had personal goals, dreams and plans of what this year would bring, and where I would hope to be when I reach the end of December. However, January was still young when personal problems came pouring in.

My mom, whom you read about, became and still is very ill. She has been in the hospital, rehab, and back in the hospital several times. In addition to the mental illness she faces, her health has changed overnight. The very strong 74 year old mother who up until a year or so ago would briskly walk an easy 5 miles a day, has developed heart problems; trouble with her knee; extremely and dangerously high blood pressure that no doctor or medication has yet been able to control; and now with only the one kidney she has, they suspect it is going south also.

Then, in the middle of this, I have been to medical specialists also. It looks like I am paying the price of the wonderful years of living under the beautiful, hot, southwest sun and skin cancer, once again has developed and I will have to undergo surgery.*

All the above, as you can imagine, has been a challenge to keep my unpredictable manic-depressive - moody, extremely depressed, mania, irritable, angry, dangerous mind… under control. Not writing for a while did not help either. It was just too difficult for me and… this obviously adds to the depression. I have come to realize that dealing with this “mental” illness; worried and trying to help mom; and scheduling and worrying about the upcoming surgery, there is no doubt why I feel as though I am in the center of a ferocious circle of problems - each one magnifying the other until I feel, mentally, it is impossible to handle them all.

There have been so many things I have wanted to write about and I will...as soon as I can. At least I hope you understand, and will "hang in there with me" until I am able to write more.

"Manic-depressive illness is an inherited vulnerability to a disease that can manifest itself in a wide range of fluctuating emotional states, behaviors, thinking patterns and styles, and energy levels. Heightened passions and partial derangement of the senses tend to come and go."

Kay Redfield Jamison

"Touched With Fire"

Bless you all,

"My Mind"

Mental Obscurity:

I am sorry it has been awhile since wrote anything. As if the continuous battle that rages in my mind is not enough, many other things involving family and my health joins forces against me and at times - the ever present symptoms of my illness - leaves me wandering if I am equipped enough to fight this battle. If it were an earlier time in my life I would most assuredly have surrendered by now. With everything going on, writing was virtually impossible. Some people in my situation can, but I find it very difficult.

I often think back of the poets, writers and artists who many years ago battled the same condition I am in, and now, just for a fleeting second can relate to how they wanted so badly...and some did...go off the medicine because the miss the "highs" when they were the most creative. As my condition changes, the mild highs come very quickly, and disappear almost as fast as they can and then the grey, mood sweeps in. In between the mixed state is constant; never knowing what I will feel from one second to the next.

One must remember that in the last twenty years or so this illness has drawn more and more attention, but it is not a disease that has just recently came upon us. As far back as 1751 Richard Mead wrote:

"Medical writers distinguish two kinds of Madness, and describe them both as a constant disorder of the mind without any considerable fever, but with this difference, that the one is attended with audaciousness and fury, the other with sadness and fear: and that they call mania, this melancholy. But these generally differ in degree only. For melancholy very frequently changes, sooner or later, into maniacal madness; and, when the fury is abated, the sadness generally returns heavier than before."

It seems Mead might have been talking about me when he wrote that. There are many things I want to write about, and I will, when I can. In the meantime, I am trying to..."hang in there."

"My Mind"

Therapist and Author Kay Redfield Jamison Interview about Bipolar Disorder

I thought this was a good piece and wanted to share with you.

"My Mind"


Therapist and author Kay Redfield Jamison will talk about her life with bipolar disorder

Million Thoughts a Minute!

"My Mind" is racing, flowing with things of greatness, and things no doubt later will seem silly. This is a day where every draft waiting, and every idea that can race into my head just "has to be written right now!" I sit down, content with one subject but then the next one seems more important so I save that one and move on - completing - nothing. I am sure, or I assume, some of you know what I am talking about. It's exciting, exhilarating, and exhausting all at the same time. Worse yet, deep down, I know what usually follows...the total opposite. So I am sitting here "flying by the seat of my pants."

There is the one thing I do want to start doing that I have been thinking about a long time. There are many times when I am writing and I hit upon a topic, phrase, or subject and I think that I would like to expand or write about it later at another post. It is also at this time that I feel the need, or desire, to let you know that eventually I will be writing about that subject. It could be a word like "medication" or a complete sentence. So this is my idea - when I do hit upon that phrase, word, or subject I will put an " * " at the end of it. Example would be if I say "the medication I am now on" would look like this - the medication I am now on * - does any of this make any sense to you? I hope so, because as we all know when we are in this mania* where we cannot keep up with our own mind, later it will seem like "you have got to be kidding! I said that?" No doubt this will also be that time when I read this in a day or so. At least, some will not relate what I am talking about now and will seem like a mad, rambling mind, but those of you who experience it will understand. I hope. 

Later...

My "Crazy" Mind    

A Cry For Help By--Edgar Allen Poe - Introduced By Kay Jamison

In the book by Kay Redfield Jamison " Touched With Fire" I found a paragraph which she describes "the more serious depressive states" so elegantly that few people can match. For me, she can describe the very heart of what we ourselves, or at least me, are feeling but having trouble putting into words. This paragraph leads to the quote by Poe I want to share with you. Poe, no doubt like many, yours truly also, in his condition was crying out for help. Kay Jamison wrote:

"Mood, in the more serious depressive states, is usually bleak, pessimistic, and despairing. A deep sense of futility is frequently accompanied, if not preceded, by the belief that the ability to experience pleasure is permanently gone. The physical and psychological worlds are experienced as shades of grays and blacks, as having lost their color and vibrancy. Irritability, quick anger, suspiciousness, and emotional turbulence are frequent correlates of depressed mood; morbid and suicidal thinking are common. The mood of misery and suffering that usually accompanies depression was experienced by Edgar Allan Poe in a letter written when he was in his mid - twenties:"

"My feelings at this moment are pitiable indeed. I am suffering under a depression of spirits such as I have never felt before. I have struggled in vain against the influence of melancholy - You will believe me when I say that I am miserable in pain in spite of the great improvement in my circumstances. I say you will believe me, and for this simple reason, that man who is writing for effect does not write thus. My heart is open before you - if it be worth reading, read it. I am wretched, and know not why. Console me - for you can. But let it be quickly - or it will be too late. Write me immediately. Convince me that it is worth one's while - that it is all necessary to live, and you will prove yourself indeed my friend. Persuade me to do what is right. I do not mean this - I do not mean that you should consider what I now write you a jest - oh pity me! for I feel that my words are incoherent - but I will recover myself. You will not fail to see that I am suffering under a depression of spirits which will {not fail to} ruin me should it be too long continued."

Edgar Allen Poe

"My Mind"