Perspective of Life and Disease

Perspective is a powerful force. Not many of us realize it or have stopped to think about. We toss the word around like burnt popcorn seeds. Most times it’s a mask for saying we don’t agree.
To me, perspective shapes the world we live in. It helps define who we are. It influences how we judge other people and the situations we find ourselves in.
Too often we are trapped by our perspectives and can’t see the bars and locks. They become roots. They become beliefs. Or we believe they are our beliefs.
Unfortunately, changing a belief, particularly one that we have held onto for years or more, is immensely difficult. So onerous, it’s impossible. So we believe. Or is that just an ingrained perspective?
It is possible to alter our perceptions, perspectives and beliefs. It’s not easy but possible.
If the perspective you have is that mental illness is an indefatigable, unending shadow that will always loom over and control your life, your perspective is a telescope and you’re looking in the wrong end. You should, if you can, seriously ask and consider is this reality. More importantly, is this the reality in which you want to exist.
Perspective molds our perception. All too quickly and silently, perception becomes reality. It is self-perpetuating. If this is so, we should make every effort to change all of this.
Perspective can be seen as a story, a myth. Not necessarily the truth.
If we see ourselves as people who struggle along, barely managing illness or not managing it all, this is truth. We may view ourselves through the perspective of being in control rather than being controlled.
Certainly, many people do not have the luxury of choosing between these two perspectives (or a third or fourth). They are simply overpowered by their illness. I have been in this state and it becomes hard to remember why you are breathing let alone attempt to understand how you see yourself stunts recovery. No amount of positive thinking can change this reality.
Many of us, further down a healthy path, can change our perspective. We have the ability to make this important shift.
Perspective is ultimately subjective. No one can state this or another perspective is absolute and right. But as people, if we can pull ourselves back for a moment, we can gain a more objective vision of that subjectivity.
Perspective is much more than the idea of seeing the glass half full or half empty—pessimist or optimist.
These trite clichés are a meaningless short hand to draw beliefs in the broadest strokes possible. They do not arise from deep and real self-examination; they simply fall from our lips with the gracelessness of tumbling down a flight of stairs.
Can anyone honestly be glass-half-full person all the time? Can you be a perennial optimist no matter the circumstances befall you?
Absolutely not. It’s a delusional to think so and a superficial conception of the human condition.
Perspective, viewed in the light that I am trying to shine, is much more cogent and demanding. We must be truly introspective, look not at our facades but at the structures these facades hide. It’s the foundation of our beliefs about ourselves and the world that needs to be placed in the crucible of examination.
As I mentioned, perspective is subjective. It’s a creation. It becomes intertwined with our self-esteem and worth, too often with our lack of self-esteem and worth.
The unfortunate truth is many of us living with mental illness accept the perspectives defined by outsiders, by the world with its many biases and misunderstanding.
Changing our perceptions or perspectives is about self-awareness.
Perspective is about power, a power that we can claim—the power to define yourself, the power to separate myth from reality and the power to take charge. Changing perspective, positively, will lead toward the reclaiming control. Turn away from our automatic vision of ourselves we begin to see a different, more honest view of who and what we are. Negative perspectives become positive.
Our perspectives are what we see when we think we are facing reality. It’s time for us to blink and blink away at our perspectives. Question them. It’s time we put our backs into the hard work of creating a self-perspective that is positive and encouraging.
Even if we are the only ones who recognize our changed perspective, this is no reason to stop. Altering negative perspectives to positive is selfish. It can only be accomplished alone, though psychologists and counsellors can help, and it is accomplished only for ourselves.
Perspective. Change. Ourselves. Better health. That is what matters.
And who else should we be concerned about.

peace and love, Terry

Life Without Panic

Panic. We all understand its primal quality. It must be the flight part of fight or flight. It’s the overwhelming fear that goes along with catastrophe. The loss of control in the face of huge or small danger. We all have our limits.

All of have experienced panic once or twice. One of my moments of true panic occurred in a grocery store. My child wandered away. The panic was so true and hard that I could taste it. You can imagine the panic-ridden thoughts that raced through my head. Thankfully, she was just one aisle over looking at cookies. I had already broken a cold sweat and had an anchor of fear in my heart.

I’ve been considering panic, the concept of panic, lately. I’ve been trying to understand its place in mental illness.

I believe it has more influence than I realized. Of course, this is just my opinion borne of my own experience. Your opinion could very well be different. You may feel panic is irrelevant.

Last week, I was convinced, no I knew, I was heading for a substantial manic period. And I was frightened. My head was full of noise and formula one thoughts. Despite my fear, the episode didn’t send me into the stratosphere and a few days later I found myself again.

One thing that really helped in this instance was not a boost in medication but some time sitting still in the dark. No music, no television—pure silence or at least as close as I could get. Call it meditation. Call it a mindfulness exercise.

I can’t explain why I did it. It felt right. It helped calm my mind?

After I thought about panic. Thinking back as mania began to swell, panic began to swell. Panic came with, or was caused by, the spiral of mania and the plunge of depression.

For me, I’m convinced that panic is a contributing factor to the intensity of my moods. It’s part of the vicious whirlpool that I swim so hard against when I know that something is going to spin me out of control.

How much of a role? I cannot say right now. I have only put this idea together. I haven’t had the opportunity to find out if I can reduce panic and its impact on a major mood swing. I hope that I will never have the opportunity. It’s quite likely that I will though.

Maybe panic is out of my control. It’s worth the effort to try. And try I will.
Hope and love Terry

Ain’t No Business

Yeah, there ain’t no business like the business I got. A business I want no part of.  A business I was thrust into.

What business? The pharmaceutical business. The profit driven, multi-billion dollar industry that churns out new miracle drugs that turn out to be no miracle. That sometime turn out to be a minor alteration, useless or harmful.

Listen to American advertisement for new anti-depressant medication. The list of potential side effects are rapidly rambled through in the last 5 seconds. The side effects seem endless and contradictory, such as may cause drowsiness or insomnia. What the hell is that? The entire thrust of these ads is to prompt patients or, I presume, people who have diagnosed themselves to demand these drugs from their doctors.

In Canada, advertising medication is illegal but I am Canadian and as you can see I know as much about advertising of medication from U.S. television and print. The difference I can’t go to my doctor and prescribe these drugs for myself.

Most other countries also prohibit for a couple of sound reasons. Medicines are different from consumer products because of the harm they can cause if they are used when they are not needed or not used the right way. As well, a seriously ill person has much more to lose from an advertiser’s false promises than someone buying a new car or other product.

Still, I found myself in the middle of the pharmaceutical industry. At the beginning of this year I looked in my medicine cabinet, counted the amount of drugs I was taking and did some research into them.

The results were ugly. It was uglier that I was just taking them.

I had become a consumer. I felt like a mark at a carnival game. I was customer and the best kind. I was buying products without asking any questions. What was I doing or swallowing? I didn’t know.

Doctor’s prescribed. I ingested. Doctors knew more about medications than I did. I just went along with them blindly. I accepted their wisdom, their expertise and judgement without thought. At that point I didn’t really have any thoughts to bring to any conversation we had.

The truth is that I was willingly ignorant. I didn’t want to know. I wanted to leave my health to someone else, someone smarter than me, someone who knew me better than I know me.

The truth is I had no idea what medications I was taking.

Now I have become more involved. I’m making the effort to be a partner in my treatment.

And now the story trails off…because I’m not sure of the outcome.

Lean On Us

Hi, it’s me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb5w3pGhhQ4&feature=youtu.be

Sleepless

4 a.m. My eyes don’t shut. I want them to. I force them to but sleep doesn’t arrive. I wrestle with my bed, depressed that I have yet to sleep. Depressed that I know I won’t.

4 a.m. I think of angels. Where are they? I don’t care where they come from. I just need their comfort. This late at night or this early in the morning is the shining time to see angels, find hope in them.

I wait. No angels arrive.

I don’t sleep. I know what deprivation does. I know you can’t force sleep.

4 a.m. Sleeping brings a strange sensation of belonging. If I sleep while the rest of the world sleeps, I’m part of society in a small way. Not sleeping is like being wrapped in cellophane. The world just out of touch, me out of sync.

I’m as cold as the moon, the night’s slow and silent passenger. The sun rises. A long night has passed, a long fallow day waits, the process repeats.

4 a.m. I can’t sleep. My bed an enemy, night-time hours its ally. I’m too tired to sleep, too tired not to sleep. I’m so aware of needing, wanting, crying for sleep—it’s absolutely painful and frustrating. Another night—another starless knife to my throat.

I look at the clock. Black numbers against illuminated white. A stark 4 a.m. Nothing to look backward at, nothing to look forward to. A forever moment.

4 a.m. I wait for angels. For the sweep and breeze of their shimmering hollow-boned wings. The touch—the strange normal they might bring. The guidance they might offer even if they never touch us or we never see them.

In the emptiness of 4 a.m. I don’t know that angels exist how we envision them. No wings. No halo. No surrounding light of purity. I know that I can’t see them. They, if they exist, don’t wrap me in comfort, don’t offer hope in bleak nights, and don’t carry away my sleepless anxiety.

If angels exist they should appear in our darkest hour. At 4 a.m., I feel so apart from the world. The world is something I watch from my window. I am surreal, nothing but body parts, molecules, space and water. I am a non-being cocooned in a non-reality.

At 4 a.m. It’s hard to believe in angels. I need to suspend my beliefs, disbeliefs or questions.

4 a.m. I want to know the reassurance and calm of being brushed by the wingtips of angels.

4 a.m. I know that I will live another opaque, photocopy day.

4 a.m. I wonder if I’m still of the same world.

4 a.m. All I wish for is the redemption of sleep.

4 a.m. I want to believe in the prophecy, in the myth, in the healing of angels.

4 a.m.  Again. Always. Numb.

4 a.m. I dread time.

4 a.m. I want to search.

I find no faith.

Time and Time Again

Do this. Breathe in and out slowly. One nostril, then the other. Feel your deep breath. Let’s meditate on time a while.

In this moment this is what I’m considering. I have this strong feeling that I have wasted a lot of time. Internally and externally, I bemoan this. I wonder how and why time has slipped away.

Why didn’t I notice?

Lately, I’ve thought there must be some purpose to this. Maybe this is my reality or something I’ve conjured to justify what I’ve missed. Perhaps I needed this time to gather myself for whatever is to come. Now that is mere justification.

What do I know? I can count the years I’ve been on the earth. I could give a fairly accurate estimate of many days I’ve been asleep or awake; at work or play. Unfortunately, I know how many days I’ve been in hospital; how much time I’ve been sick.

That’s a dull, wrong way to measure time. All it reminds me of is what I’ve missed, what I haven’t done. It keeps me in the realm of loss. It takes away hope.

Ultimately, it takes away life.

Words tell us much about how we think about time. Or how we ignore it as though we have an infinite supply. We constantly aware of time of appointments or deadlines but never take time to understand the reality of time. We move so fast, we don’t notice ‘the now.’

We say sometime or whenever easily but these vague words are meaningless. How many of us  have said ‘I’ll do that sometime’ and have never done what ever it was.

I know I’ve spent too many years thinking this will change in time, my life will be better sometime, maybe tomorrow or next year. I’ve just waited for something to happen. Honestly, I can’t even say what i was waiting for. Hopelessly waiting for hope?

But words like never or now or Tuesday at 3:00 p.m., even always an forever, in a certain context, are concrete. They help to set goals or decide that some things will never change. We need to pay attention to these words.

They give us power. They give us control. They are more definite, shift our reality, even bless us with hope.

I have written before about time, its effects and our experience. It’s been very much in my mind following a recent significant illness and facing the stark fact that the end of our time comes when it does. It’s beyond our control, except if we make the sad decision to end our own lives.

My point is I know I will have bipolar disorder the rest of my life, unless a medical breakthrough comes along. It will always be with me. I know that I love my children now and will forever. I believe that we as humans will always continue. I don’t know how but always.

I want to control my life now. Whether I choose to write this or poetry or go for a run or go back to school I want make choices rather than roll through life. Now or as many nows as it takes to understand the focus of my life. For too long I’ve thought, even promised, I’ll worry about this tomorrow or the day after.

That tomorrow never comes.

I’ve wallowed in the hurt and blame of yesterday. It carves black into my thinking and erodes the foundation of today and ‘now.’

I need to live moment to moment. I, and we, can live this way. I’m making progress though more slowly than I thought. I’m struggling forward, inching toward a better life.

Time moves with or without us.

Life is today is now. This brief time won’t come again. However, another moment is coming, ready for us to grab it. Another chance to try.

Let’s live and cherish now, the next now and all the nows to come.

We owe it to ourselves.

 

peace and love

What About a Mental Health Day?

Today is Canada Day. Our national day of celebration when in 1867 the seeds of Canada were planted.  We celebrate things like the discovery of penicillin, the heroic efforts of Canadians in war and the Canada Arm. We celebrate Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson who came up with the idea of United Nations Peacekeepers. We take pride in our growing multiculturalism.

But we don’t celebrate the achievements of the many Canadians with a mental illness. I think we should.

We should put faces on mental illness and let’s use famous faces. They lend weight and inspiration, whether we like it or not. Our society worships the famous so why not use their celebrity to call attention to the fact that most people with mental illness function and succeed. Famous people help normalise mental illness when they speak out.

Well known Canadians who live with mental illness is eye opening, wide-ranging and perhaps surprising.

Jim Carrey, and his elastic face, has struggled with depression and the effects of medication.

Robert Munsch, author of wonderful children’s stories says this.

“Several years ago I was diagnosed as obsessive-compulsive and manic-depressive. Those challenges have led me to make some big mistakes. I have worked hard to overcome my problems, and I have done my best. I have attended twelve-step recovery meetings for more than 25 years.

My mental health and addiction problems are not a secret to my friends and family. They have been a big support to me over the years, and I would not have been able to do this without their love and understanding.”

In fact, I have a number of his books memorized not because I admire his honesty but because my kids loved them.

Matthew Good, one of Canada’s best musicians, is open about bipolar disorder. Some songs from his album Hospital Music were written while he was in a psychiatric ward.

And I could go on.

A national day can’t hurt and could start a national conversation. Mental illness is still misunderstood. Too often it’s hidden away—by celebrities and ordinary folks.

The stigma remains, resistant to change.

I propose a mental illness day officially declared by the government to create an open discussion, reduce misunderstanding and perhaps increase research and care.

Call me crazy, and some have, but this makes sense. We have Family Day, Flag Day, Heritage Day and Victoria Day (that creates a May long weekend) so why not. A mental health week exists but hardly noticed and at best given lip service or ignored.

A Mental Health Day (of mental illness if you prefer) may be a symbolic gesture but it could be also kick start awareness. Why should anyone reject this idea?

I call on the governments of Canada, federal and provincial, to get engaged, show some leadership and put mental illness on the national agenda.

It’s the least they can do.

Peace and love.    

The Changing Truth

I talk a good game but really I’m a falsehood. I’ve ignored facts of my life. I’ve lied to myself and, therefore, I’ve lied to anyone who has read this blog.

I didn’t set out to do this. I am surprised, even stunned, to reach this conclusion. I’ll try not to lie again, but how I viewed many years of my life has changed—dramatically.

Over the past few days, after getting through a serious medical situation and of course still living with bipolar, I have spent time reflecting. A few days of reflection that has shifted how and what I think. Some might call it an epiphany.  I can’t be that grandiose.

What I write is honest. My prime goal of this blog. Honesty, I see now, shifts through time and perspective.

I have been tumbling through life. Not in control. Not wanting to be in control. Just tumbling as the winds of this disease have pushed me this way or that.

I am struck forcefully that I was just breathing to exist, not breathing to live. I was letting my life slip out of my hands, just watching it slowly turn grey and turn to nothing.

Perhaps this was the only way I saw to cope. Perhaps it was a manifestation of my anger—no rage—I’ve felt at having a disease that has no true solution. Maybe I just gave up long ago and became used to having no power.

If I accept one or all of these suppositions then I have to accept my own irresponsibility. I have to take responsibility for where I am and the state of my life.

Simple, I was sorry for myself. Letting life batter me as though I had no defences. I wasn’t even trying to defend myself. I was standing still while my life went by.

And I liked it that way. It was easier to blame something else for ruining my life. In truth, I was a tag-along passenger and had no interest in driving. Without consciously knowing, allowing myself to complain silently and go on without thought or positive effort.

My life became nothing but bipolar. I’ve been hiding behind it.

Looking at some of the posts in this blog, I see a lot of words, a few interesting ideas and a lot of setting myself apart from myself in some way. The whole situation just saddens and frustrates me.

Positively, I’ve come to this realization. Now I have to make it real.

 

peace and love

Stroking Bipolar

This past week has been one of the most frightening of my life. Any post that starts like surely must be hyperbolic. i would think this. But I’m not exaggerating.

Last Wednesday, I had what initially diagnosed as a major stroke. My body just refused to do what I wanted. I saw double, couldn’t touch my nose, couldn’t walk. I couldn’t feed myself. Luckily, after many tests no signs of a stroke could be found and nothing tangible could be found as a cause.

I thought this was just damned unfair. First I have to deal with the life changing impacts of bipolar disorder, now I have to cope with this as well. For the rest of my life. I wondered if there was a correlation between bipolar and stokes, or perhaps the medication that I take.

I’m so much younger that an average stroke victim. I couldn’t understand why all this was happening. The first two days in the hospital, I was a scared as I can remember.

Luckily, my recovery was swift and complete. Now I wonder what was this all about. I have realized that for a long time I didn’t care if I lived or died. That struggling with bipolar had taken away all good reason for living. I often thought that it would just be better if I was dead.

For a while I didn’t know if I would be able to write. I didn’t know if I would walk, run of live on my own again.

I didn’t know if I would ever hug my kids again.

Now it’s over or at least as over as it can be. The doctors were amazed by my recovery and I was too.

After so long wondering what is my life all about, I have a new perspective. It’s hard not to.

Something has changed. There must be a reason. I feel new. The light of day has changed. Perhaps I’m more at peace. I have hope again.

And believing in hope is enough for now. I must be here for some reason. I will have find that reason.

Best of all, I still have the chance to search.

 

peace and love to all

Walls

The walls of my life have been part of me for so long I don’t remember when I raised them. I don’t know how to raze them even if I wanted to.

I have painted these walls luminescent black. A flowing black. High gloss.

They’re tall, higher than the point where the atmosphere changes to space. They’re sunk deep, a foundation that will never alter its position or sway in an earthquake.

Four walls that are my home, becoming more and more overwhelming, less and less likely to be breached. Go ahead, lay siege.

I have stood in the middle, watching as they have hardened over the years, as they slowly, almost imperceptibly, closed ranks around me. Shrinking my world, holding my safety zone.

Locked in here, at my core not wanting to break free. I wonder why I often ask, “How would it feel if I did leave these towers, this home I’ve made for myself?”

I ask myself how I feel about these walls of comfort, walls of confinement. I don’t know half the time. The other half I don’t believe myself.

I ask myself these questions with diminishing interest. If I find answers I’ll be a fool. The question are seared into the future. They’ll carry on. They won’t end. What should I hope for? To describe myself by what I don’t feel or know.

What I do best is something pointless—describe these walls. The walls are so much a part of me, they are like skin. They are an anchor that stops me from moving. I’ve been shaped by these walls to keep what I am. I haven’t decided what I am yet.

These walls are, at best, intimidating and intimate. Aside from the sky-scraper high wall, I feel the earth falling out from beneath me, unfathomably. Is this insufferable and just the direction my life has settled into. Or is it the life I have settled for.

I neglect these walls at my own peril. I tend and repair them at my peril.  The balance between fear and safety. The risk is something so near, it’s paralysis.

Times are such that I come close, dangerously close to the edge of an explanation. But do I really want an explanation. Any relief is over top the 100 metre looming walls. Should I grow talons and claw my up? Is there salvation on the other side or a world that waits to plunder me?

It’s fear that prevents me from honest consideration. It’s a fear of confusion if I tear down these walls. It is a fear that nothing will be clear. Nothing will be clean.

Moments dull, no light filters through these walls. I’ve been shaped, can I be reshaped?