Writing As A Form Of Therapy

Hi @Silenus,

You ask the difficult questions but you ask the right ones...

It hard to face the mirror when you have a serious MI and you're not a fan of the fact, however a person needs to hold it up to the mirror to accept, move forward and be free of self stigma even if you cannot be free of the stigma placed upon you by others.

When we accept we have a disability we free ourselves and learn to move forward accepting it as part of who we are. Not all of who we are but a big part of us.

To know the quality of our mind is to put it to use even with a MI.To turn it from some sort of negative into a positive some how. That can be hard when society doesn't want to know you and turns its back on you but we all have a right to be hear and should never lose sight of that fact.

At least in accepting our disability we can then know our minds limits. Even those with a serious MI have something to offer. There is quality and potential in every human mind, even the minds of those with MI. By realising what we have to offer as disabled people and promoting that to wider society, we can properly live and complete life's tasks. Maybe a little differently to others but we can complete them in our own way.

p.s. Even Dr. John Nash the economist was a schizophrenic, who found himself homeless and living on the streets at one stage of his life. Inspiring story that one. Have you seen the movie "A Beautiful Mind" starring Russel Crowe? Its about the life of Dr. John Nash. Worthwhile seeing.

Vale John Nash

So very true @Vanessa5. Beautifully written and well said.

Hahaha... whoever said all that stuff about 'work-life balance' forgot to look at the fact that full-time employment is 5 days a week, and the rest of our lives only 2...

My MI (bipolar, OCD, a smidge of anxiety, a whole lot of who-knows-what) sees me burning out if I try to function at "normal" 40 hour week stuff... often, because of my hypomanic highs, that sees me clocking in 65 or more hours per week or more... then you start skipping nights of sleep in favour of non-stop action... Icarus flies closer to the sun, and heeds not the wax dripping off his wings, nor does he see the feathers start to fly... gravity is not your friend if up-and-down MI is your thing, I have found... fly too high, you end up in a very bad place when the low finally dumps you down down down... oh the self-recriminations and self-hate and all sorts of other forms of self-sabotage, as clever and merciless as any medieval dungeon master... such excesses bring the falls for me... I fly too high, then I plummet too low...

But I digress in one of my usual wordy ramblings... flying high, I get verbose...

Then the awareness comes after a few years of crash-and-burn... or a few decades, in my case... hahaha...

You learn to put the brakes on, forcibly... to ensure you don't fly too high... and all of that energy and effort, on top of trying to hold down your day job? Yeah, well... I gotta say... sometimes, it's damn tough... just trying to hold my shite together can take all the life energy that I have...

But you learn over time to do what is needed to manage your condition... for me, a 6 month extension on my current contract would be great for my finances, not so great for my mental health... a choice to be made... I think at this stage, a tentative yes is in order for the extension... but indeed, it is a difficult thing to live with MI and to try to pretend to be "normal" in this society...

Hugs and happy vibes beaming to you @Vanessa5. Thank you for your insight and interest.

There is the basic reality of what is. That is what I call the "Really Real". Us people then project our selves in the form of our fears and prejudices and past experience and hopes for the future on top of that base reality, and we obscure the base reality with so much of our selves that we may as well be constantly looking at ourselves in an endless hall of mirrors... learning to see past ourselves, and to truly observe the form of the Really Real... that is one of the highest arts there is... a core part of the SelfEvolutionRevolution, if you will... hahaha...

The Forever Days

Where does the crazy go at times I'm mostly sane,
With chemical imbalances inside my addled brain;
At times I cope, at times I cope, at times I can cope well,
Yet other times I'm coping not at all, withdrawn into my shell;
That stuff that others do, they make it look so very easy,
Even just thinking about it is making me kind of queasy;
I've spent months and months with quick dashes to the local shops,
Just the bare essentials, gone no more than 10 minutes tops;
Curtains drawn, darkened room, jump at any sound,
This is how to lose yourself in all that's lost and found;
Shower? Did that last week, or was it the week before?
No need to wash yourself when you don't make it past your door.
A second turns into minutes, turn into hours, days, weeks, months, years,
It's all exactly just the same, part bland, part numbing fears;
Eventually the Forever Days, well, they come to their end,
And even if just for a short time, you feel you are on the mend.

I don't know what to write
I want to let it out
But I don't know what to write

My brain can't pick a point
It's like looking at the night sky
there are too many to pick just one

but if I did it would be the memory of a glare
a star or planet that was no longer there
just a reflection from the past

or perhaps a point so dark
from the future, unknown and stark
yet to form the solidity to bounce the light

I'm not here but I'm not there
not on hard ground, not floating in air
It seems I am nowhere

@eudemonism

I love the story of your jasmine. WHy I havent I done that with mine. I have started with my rosemary.

Thanks Bella for new ideas that are right in front of me and down my alley.