Bipolar Roller.

So, I mentioned in a previous post that I am Bipolar, amongst other ‘disorders’.

Now, this post is not going to be entirely coherent in terms of what I actually want to do about this fact, so bear with me (I seem to ask this of you often).

I am a wildly esoteric person. I always have been- I remember thinking that I was in a fairy garden when I was 6; that there were mermaids in my pool when I was 9; and I started talking to celestial entities when I was 12. Please, don’t shrug esoterica off as hippie mumbo-jumbo. I am 6 exams away from a degree in Psychology, so I am not ignorant about the cognitive and subconscious layers of the mind. I also have a degree in Fashion (with majors in Buying, Business, and Media), thus I am not all about traveling on hills upon which mountain goats wander (although, this is a personal goal of mine). I am not irrational. In fact, I am extremely cynical about my belief system; it keeps me grounded whilst my soul wanders off into the cosmos.

How does this relate to my Bipolar? Directly.

An exquisite theory was explained to me by my wonderful psychologist: As a Bipolar person, the esoteric interpretation thereof is that I am in polarity to everything. This includes the Earth, and the Universe. I am stuck in limbo between the stars and the ground. So the highest point of the Universe (of which, as far as we know, is infinite), and the core point of the Earth (of which we know is finite), are the two places between which I am caught in a system of extremes.

If I am sad, I am extremely sad. In fact, I think the word ‘sad’ is of similar value to the word ‘nice’- it just doesn’t cut it as an appropriate adjective, and is jaded in its meaning. What I feel when I’m ‘sad’, is endless despair. Like I am stuck in a vortex of hopelessness; like the abyss couldn’t possibly get any bigger and deeper than it already is; like it couldn’t consume me any more than it already has. As though the light has been sucked out of everything and anything, and the world is playing a cruel joke on me. Hell, when I’m ‘sad’, is on Earth.

And then, there occurs the greatest juxtaposition possible: I experience euphoria (now isn’t that so much ‘nicer’ than ‘sad’? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink…). Euphoria is: Pure bliss that engulfs me like a cool wave on a boiling hot Summer’s day. It blankets me and shields me from feeling anything remotely negative. It makes me feel invincible; like I could be a prophet, or a magician, or an esteemed philosopher. Or perhaps even, as my greatest dream goes, a famous singer (albeit that fame scares the living daylights out of me). Ultimately, when I am manic, I can achieve anything (hypothetically).

Now, what scares me, is that I cannot trust either state of extremity. I cannot trust that either episode, be it depression or mania, will stay. I know that it will leave me. It’s almost as though I have abandonment issues with both of my episodes- as though they are a father figure to me, one that I know I cannot rely on to always be constant in my life; one whom I know will eventually leave me because there are more important people in his life (yes, I have daddy issues, but that is for another day). When I am manic, I don’t want it to go away. I am ecstatic when I am manic, as I know I will feel like I can conquer it all. When I am depressed, all I want for it is to go away. I feel like it detracts from my ‘true’ self; this ‘true’ self is best explained through my interpretation of who I actually believe this to be, and it is, quite simply, the person I am when I am manic. Happy, charming, the ‘life and soul’ of the party, effervescent, bubbly, and all-consuming of anyone and anything that journeys upon my path with me whilst I am in that state.

However- a psychiatrist explained to me that this is not who I really am: This is a state of being that contains characteristics of my disorder. This is not my personality; that my personality can only be established once the medication <immense amounts of> has stabilised me.

If there was ever a literal, yet metaphorical, feeling of an arrow to the heart, the aforementioned explanation was it.

I felt as though I had an existential crisis: Who I am at my best; who I am when I feel my best…this man was telling me it is not truly and authentically ME. Now, I had to ponder upon this notion for a while- after crying and having said crisis- but I have come to one steady conclusion: Who I am- the intrinsic ME- is who I am when I am at peace. The catch is, however, that I can be at peace when I am depressed, too. That I can be at peace when the agony takes over my soul; like a black, heavy, cloud has entered my body and I become nobody. This, shockingly, is a state of peace for me, as it is a zone of comfort; of familiarity.

I am who I am, when I am it. But I am not my thoughts, and I am not my emotions.

Perhaps this is an isolated experience; I would love to connect with more Bipolar people and find out if this applies to them, too.

My point is thus (apologies for the long and convoluted essay): Esoterica is saving me from the Western frame of mind that I am ‘incurable’; that there is no hope as far as my disorders are concerned; that I will have to rely on chemicals to just ‘be me’, for the rest of my life. Well, no. I refuse to accept that as an absolute truth. I refuse to let myself be defined by an academic’s limited definition of what MY personality is actually like. I know I am in limbo; I am well-aware and cognitive of the fact that I have a psychological problem, but I am more convinced by the notion that I am merely stuck between Heaven and Earth, as I experience both Heaven and Hell all the feckin’ time.

If you choose to be defined by someone else’s opinion of you, be prepared to truly lose your core self. If you choose, however, to be open to the levels that exist within a spiritual realm, you can be liberated from the mental ties that so emphatically keep you from reaching your true potential.

This is a mere opinion, I am not advocating that medical help should be avoided. In no way I am saying that there is no relief from psychiatric solutions. What I AM suggesting, is that there are alternative options. That we need to stop limiting ourselves to the culture we have been conditioned to trust and give ourselves to, because how can we trust a system, when we struggle to even trust ourselves?

M

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Song Sung Blue.

Weekends are hard work.

Elaboration will naturally ensue, but I would like to place simple emphasis on how much work weekends are.

Social obligations. My gosh.

It is literally impossible to make everyone happy. With that said, however, why do we even take it upon ourselves to ‘make’ everyone happy, anyways? Who delegated the responsibility to us, when we were fresh and bloody babes, that we would be issued the task of making people happy for the rest of our lives? And note, momentarily please, the actual etymology of ‘make’: Old English macian, from a base meaning ‘fitting’; related to match.

‘Fitting’ implies to accommodate something into an existing situation. For example, I ‘fit’ my muffin top into my jeans. My jeans already exist; they have boundaries that have already been established. My muffin top, however, has the ability to expand or decrease (please, King Triton, for the love of mermaids, let it decrease!). This is a simple analogy of how we, as people, are a pair of jeans, that were made according to a pattern that would best suit our eventual figure. It’s getting a bit complicated, but bear with me.

So, the fact that we are tailored in a certain way, to suit our own body as best as possible, means that when we go out of our way to accommodate other people, we are compromising the original pattern of our jeans (I’m noticing a subconscious connotation of ‘genes’ here). By altering our jeans, we need to either add or subtract aspects, to or from them. For example, an elasticated waist- how far do you need to stretch your original pattern, in order to accommodate another person trying to fit into your pair of jeans? This equation is not isolated to you and only You. This equation applies to every(body).

The simplified version of above is thus: How far are we willing to go to alter ourselves to accommodate another person?

The party you’ve been dragged to by a friend that you don’t want to be at- do you simply not want to be there, or are there triggers within the environment that are making you uncomfortable? Will people judge you? Will they try make banal small talk? Will the hors d’oeuvres be as basic as the bitches?

Think about it: Do we really need to change who we intrinsically are, in order to satiate someone else’s need to be socially acceptable? So what if I have mermaid hair? So what if I’m 6ft1 (barefoot), and I’m a woman? Who cares? That very question is crucial to understanding your own need to adjust yourself ‘accordingly’. Why do we go out of our way to mould ourselves into what is socially desirable? There is no resolute definition of who a person should be. There are standards, yes, but more importantly, there are stigmas, and those are what one needs to be cautious of.

I am Bipolar, with co-morbid ADHD and OCD. These were initially ‘labels’ that I fought against with a vengeance- How dare these medical ‘professionals’ define me, my intrinsic being, as being a result of ‘disorders’? Are they thus implying that my nature is a disorder? Am I even who I think I am? These questions plagued me. They bore into my mind like a mole into a cave; I was seeking perfect answers. However, it was more of a case of when you look straight into the sun, and the more you stare at it, the blinder you become.

The key word is ‘stigma’, and perhaps- due to the above mentioned psychological aspects- I am a tad biased within this realm, but I have reached an important conclusion that sums up all the strange analogies that I have brain-farted out above: Experiencing the need to change to suit someone else’s life better as a necessity– well- it’s problematic. Firstly, why does that person require that you change? Is your behaviour or attitude causing harm? Is that person’s wellbeing compromised by your own necessitated state of wellbeing? It takes a pretty balanced person to reach the point of satisfying all party’s needs. But is this even necessary? If one has to go out of their way to comply with another person’s set beliefs and standards, is that really the type of person we should be fraternising with?

The answer, surprisingly (or un-), is yes.

Without challenges, we cannot change; without change, we cannot grow; and without growth, we will never reach an ultimate destination within our indubitably mortal lives.

Thus, as tedious as it may be to take your jeans back and forth to be tailored, it is a vital occurrence within our life paths. We cannot exist as sole entities. No man is an island. Without interaction; without challenging ourselves; without allowing ourselves to be open to learning from other people- we have nothing to work with.

Of course- we have ourselves. But unless you choose an existence of loneliness/purposeful solitude (subjective interpretation), then encounters with other humans are inevitable. Being stubborn and never swaying to reach a symbiosis with another person, is futile. We need to be aligned with people and their interests, in order to give true meaning to our own interests. Stigmas can only be broken through people understanding. Make them understand. Make them fit you.

M

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Innocence Lost.

Greetings,

As mentioned in my opening post, I have a vast array of passions that I would like to write about, and hopefully develop a symbiosis of reader and writer enjoyment.

Being a blog, the content is partial to being typically narcissistic. ‘I’ is a pronoun that will be extensively implemented within my writing, and thus I appreciate and take into consideration any thoughts or comments that you, as the reader, may have.

I seem to be laying down a foundation of disclaimers. It may be an attempt at helping you understand the processes within my mind- albeit perhaps futile. Our individual thought processes can be thoroughly explained and brilliantly articulated, but a subjective understanding of them from another being’s perspective, is inevitable.

This brings forth one of my favourite subjects in the world: Philosophy.

I can ramble on for hours about morality/hypotheses/dilemmas… It’s as though each time I reach an epiphany through my methodical process of analysing a topic, there are tiny little doors that open in my mind and shed light on new passages. New passages to make me question more; to make me treat situations differently; to help me understand the delicate and disastrous intricacies that humans are compiled of.

The philosophy that my mind is conjuring up now – as I do believe that a philosophical principle can be a construct of our own thoughts –  is the dilemma of detaching from a social media identity.

Yesterday, I deleted Facebook and Instagram.

I cannot explain, in way that would not be overboard and verbose, how absolutely liberated I feel. It is as though every socially-acceptable mask that I had carefully curated, developed, and maintained, fell away and I became my authentic self.

I am crazy; I am wild; I am free.

The person/people we choose to be on social media, is a terrifying conglomeration of elements. Whilst we think we are being ‘brave’ by baring our vulnerability to the world, we are sitting back and frantically stroking our fragile egos. EGO. The destroyer of all that is pure. Narcissism reigns supreme as we scramble to make ourselves noticed; claw through the masses with a fervor – just so that someone will acknowledge our pained existence. So that someone will validate our purpose for being on earth. This ‘purpose’ is, of course, brutally twisted by the societal standards set by some invisible board of members that can’t even tell the difference between gouda and cheddar. “Tis important to know your cheeses.

Meanwhile, we sit wrought with anxiety about how many likes our selfie got… Questions fray the edges of what little is left of our sanity: am I pretty/funny/smart/caring enough? If I repost this meme, or this picture of me with ‘friends’, will I be the proverbial Cool Kid? Well, no. You will be an image of your image. A mirror that is so desperately distorted by its own tragic desire to reflect as something. Something REAL. Isn’t it ironic? We strive to be actual through a virtual construct. We strive to exist, through an invisible array of elements that are visually delivered upon our eager screens. The fact that our souls are dusty and dehydrated, is irrelevant. The fact that we dismiss our true purpose within life- of which I believe is relevant to all of mankind, and of which I will return to at another point- is completely dismissed, as long we feel that we are featuring in someone else’s mind. Of course, we get greedy, and we want to be on everyone’s minds. So we adapt; we play with the virtual construct of ourselves like a kid with putty. Moulding and shaping ourselves into the perfect vision we have of ourselves in our own mislead minds. And after all that’s said and shown within these realms of manufactured reality, we are left to shiver as shell-less, former versions of our true selves. Because at the end of the day, we are intrinsically alone.

And with good reason.

It’s innocence lost.

We were born into societal decree. Did we ask to be who we are? Or were we conditioned to be this way? Do we even know ‘what way’ we would truly like to be? Do we even fuckin’ know anything?

There is one prime notion of reality that always stands true: we know nothing about everything, and everything about nothing. That which matters; that which feeds our souls and fuels our metamorphosis process to transform into versions of ourselves that actually have gravity- those matters lie within a pool of our ignorance. The superficial BS that surrounds us and hogs and fogs our brains- we are absolute experts on that.

We cannot be productive human beings until we release ego. Until we surrender to the tribal principles that the cells in our DNA are comprised of. I’m not insinuating that we should nullify how much we have achieved as humans- medical advances, compassion for humanity, etc.- but I am suggesting that the weight of what’s more important, is more important.

That topic, however, is a passage that I will explore at some other point.

For now, it is imperative for me to have helped you grasp the essence of what I’m saying: Socially constructed masks deprive us of the elements that will serve to be beneficial in the course of following our ‘true path’. Yes, I do combine esoterica with philosophy, and so yes, some people may not agree with what I am saying (a case of: are you picking up what I’m putting down?). However, I appreciate and admire this ability to differentiate your own thoughts, from what might just be the cleverly worded manipulations of an anonymous person behind a screen.

But know this: What is true and real in my mind, is true and real in my reality. You can do the same. Manifest your actuality. But don’t let yourself be fooled by the ugly disguise that social media wears; a disguise of letting you be the ‘real you’, meanwhile, you are another leg of consumable mutton, caught up in a spiral of control and ownership.

Be young; be wild; be free.

M

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Clumpy Mascara.

I know.

Another blog. Another writer striving to be recognised, whilst the proverbial dangling carrot of worldwide acclamation taunts and teases a tired and old donkey. Ok, perhaps not that old – 27 years, to be exact. The Lucky 27’s Club. Imminence of mortality- too- dangles before me. Morbid? Nah. Superstitious? Quite likely. I do tend to touch a lot of wood.

Disclaimer:

I don’t claim to be an exceptional writer. But I can claim authenticity. I have a chameleon soul, and through this kaleidoscope of personalities, I have vast and varied passions. Too many, honestly. I am constantly torn into different directions, depending on what colour of mood I wake up in. This morning, particularly, I woke up in an orange frenzy, with an energy that is causing the nerves in my fingers to pulsate.

I am a writer: by nature; by intrinsic passion; by default.

Thus, I do hope that you, appreciated reader, enjoy whatever <oft convoluted> sentences sprout from this psychedelically-inclined mind of mine.

M

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