Travels Through Psychiatry

  I’ve been called by these two descriptors throughout my life: inconsistent and elusive. At this point, rather than hearing those as insults, I accept. It’s not that I embrace; I accept. My life has been a series of partial accomplishments that I abandon. My life has been a series of friendships that I let drift off with the wind. My life has been about gathering courage and belief in self and desire to reach a vision, taking steps, impressing myself, then hitting fear. I’ve left jobs and schools and projects and groups because I became afraid and self-conscious about others seeing me stumble. Even the mental illness I carry around, bipolar disorder, is about cycling through highs, and then falling into lows, potentially losing my way as I shift and rock to and fro. I’d like to know more about my patterns, at least in this regard. I see a therapist now who makes me feel comfortable and I talk on and for an hour, going over my history and how I function. My therapist says I have ...

  My mind and body balance all aspects of me so well at times, then not. I’ll be thinking I really have it together, creatively drawing and painting, enjoying cooking and tidying and going out for walks, even liking some light socializing out in the big world. My goal is to move forward, carrying stability achieved as I accomplish and develop more skill and expression in art, as I find home activities and exercise and being in real life more natural and less infused with anxiety and need to force myself. So, there I’ll be, pulling elements of good life for me together, and then a small piece breaks off. Maybe I’m extra tired, or maybe I get a twinge of how useless it all is, or maybe the buzz of doing gets so exciting it spins all colors into a whiteout and I can’t tell what I’m moving through. So, I stop, a little bit, joined by more bits, until I’m walled in by what I feel I can’t do, until I’m paralyzed inside, just gazing out a small window and wondering, so bitterly, why eve...

  I wrote a guest blog post for Psychiatry at the Margins, which is available to read at this link: link to Psychiatry at the Margins