This is an ageless question. Does one or can one choose? I suspect I will come back to this question frequently.
All I feel today is the overwhelm of being endlessly crummy most of the time, being brave and putting a smile on my face. Some days are better than others. The weather outside now is dreary and rainy but I was up at 5:30 AM and out the door at 6:05 to deliver my parents to the airport by 6:30 AM on their return trip to Florida. They'll be back in 2 1/2 weeks for Christmas. I'm envious of the fact they have more energy than me and they're in their 80's! Go figure!
At 6 AM it was mild with no rain. Despite how I feel, I finally make the trip to visit my girlfriend in Gloucester who's moving. We took a long walk along a magical trail linking the older mansions of the back shore. There were boulders of enormous size strewn about a winding solitary path someone blazed long ago. It was a peek into a magical pocket of nature left undeveloped after the glaciers retreated to the Atlantic. It was an unexpectedly healthy walk in a place I have never been before. The shushing sound of walking through dried leaves accompanied us at various points as we wound our way through a thicket of bare bushes, then a glen of trees, carefully side-stepping a patch of wetlands. Who doesn't love the sound of kicking piles of leaves?
By 10:30 we'd gone out to breakfast at a place called The Two Sisters and I was on my way back home. Normally this would be "calling it a day" for me. My body is not used to watching the sunrise and all this early morning activity.
My grandmother use to say "There is nothing in the world that a cup of tea can't solve."
This was as much her philosophy as a dialog approach to problem solving. A steaming teapot is to me a meaningful reminder to listen, to see through the human dilemma with kindness, compassion, generosity and wisdom.
I received a special ceramic teapot from my eldest nephew that he made himself when he was a young boy. It is among the most treasured gifts I've ever received. It was a soft pink, single serving teapot adorn with the child-like printing "TEA WITH DEE". For me, it was a functional and symbolic connection of our love.
Having tea is a ritual passed from one generation to another. I introduced my nieces and nephews to tea when they were very young. I served it to them Irish-style with milk and sugar. I can even recall adding sippy-cup tops after cooling the hot water down. Eventually they've each grown into adult-sized mugs. There are critics who may say tea is unhealthy for young children and not an acceptable beverage. Their parents, however, had no reason to object at the time.
Sharing a cup of tea makes for an interesting conversation between equals. I've never talked down to children feeling they understood more than adults ever give them credit for. I was never disappointed about the quality of our conversations. My job was to listen, letting them take the lead, ask questions or just be. Innocence was their hallmark. They had not learned to be guarded in their thoughts and opinions yet.
I carefully packed that teapot for transport to Sarasota wrapping it round and round with bubble wrap. When I moved, it arrived safely to my destination. However, when I safely returned to Massachusetts, I opened the UPS box and the teapot was broken beyond repair. I was devastated by its loss for it was a special reminder of the precious joy of giving and receiving the perfect gift. Some gifts are fragile.
These young children are now young adults either in college or rounding the corner of that destination. Any desire on my part for conversation with them exceeds their ability to create time for one of their greatest admirers. This is exactly the way it should be. They are after all busy young adults capable of making their own decisions and choosing how to spend their time.
When my siblings and I became the legal age to drink and vote, at the age of 18, it coincided with our attendance to college. Our grandmother sat us down with a cup of tea and had "the talk" with us. No this wasn't the sex talk. It was the talk about the demon alcohol. She was very forthright telling me (and the others) that "no good ever comes from alcohol". Alcoholism ran in our blood and it was a disease that destroyed individuals and families. She worried about us. She had every reason to be concerned.
So this blog is "my talk" to a new generation. Yes, alcoholism can be in the genes. This is a fact that cannot be ignored. However, I've learned that drinking or drugging is really a symptom. It's a behavior closely related and often times indicative of Depression and Mental Illness.
Everyone knows about self-medicating but so few educated people understand anything about mental illness. Some forms, like bipolar depression, run in families. So I know. I observe. I wait.
There is a 100% chance one or more of my beloved ones will develop this horrifying condition.
Someone may already know they are different or have hints that their inner world and outer world are at odds with each other. Someone may already be suffering in silence having learned to smile through the pain or distress. Someone may be identified as moody or temperamental. Someone lives in fear of discovery of their secret. Someone is spooked by sudden threats of suicide. Someone is developing courage that will sustain them for a lifetime.
I believe my purpose is to educate by sharing my stories and knowledge. It's my belief that early intervention and treatment may prevent someone from becoming permanently disabled because they were allowed to suffer for years (decades) with the unimaginable pain of depression, of Bipolar Disorder.
I know what I should be doing. It's 1 pm on the Saturday after Thanksgiving Day. It's sunny and on the milder side for a late November day in New England. I should get away from this computer, take a shower and go help a friend who's in the process of implementing a major move in her life. Her's is a life affirming transformational move to Edinburgh.
However, my emotional state verges on tears and I'm trained not to burden others. I feel like a dam about to burst in an explosion of tears and that my tears of grief will find no comforting arms. This is what it is like for me as a middle-aged single woman with a psychiatric disability. Yes, I'm an individual diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Often euphemistically called mood swings it is more accurately a medical condition more akin to a system of pulleys shifting its load of deep, sensitive emotions.
Today I feel overwhelmed by grief and unable to muster the energy required to do what needs to be done. Torn asunder, I am. I feel the ache of an opening heart, unsure whether I can heal another round of depression. It has been a very difficult and challenging year health-wise in every major domain; physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I'm in mourning. That's what is happening within me and I wonder if it will ever end.
I already know the answer. It will pass and then randomly it will return in spite of the medication. There are predictable triggers and then there are the unexpected ones.Why?What happened? How do you reach individuals who are unable or too stubborn to ask for help? Depression has it's own voice. The trick is to be able to separate and/or distinguish the voice of the disease from the real me or the real you. You do not need to believe this is true for it to be so.
Part of the resolution calls for authentic kindness and compassion. While some individuals delude themselves into believing they hold these values to be true and there are "the Others" who live and share these values with friends and strangers and families.
What do you do when a friend is sick or hospitalized or sent to rehab? You visit, bring food, send flowers or chocolates (always appreciated), buy them a new nightie or bathrobe. You email or Facebook them. You take them out for walks, go out for lunch or to the movies. You distract them by bringing them back into the community from which they've been separated. Slowly, gently without an personal agenda.
Naturally, as a sensitive, I have a distinct point of view culled from a myriad of experiences advocating, battling, and negotiating through an overburdened, impoverished psychiatric and social services system. It is now faced with a flood of new patients returning from war to a dysfunctional health-care system with it's own prejudices, an increasing number of disenfranchised, unemployed and the displaced, amid a Depression (not recession) since the Great Depression. Is an explosion or implosion possible?
The ever growing number of American-born families added to the poverty class is a major national mental health crisis as both health-care and social services funding are cut. The new wave of immigrants are better able to cope than the native-born of the United States. What is it really is like "Out Here" as an educated, middle-class, "high-functioning" individual who was initially unprepared to live alone with a disabling condition, in poverty, as a marginalized citizen, interacting with immigrants during the worse economic crisis? Who cares any way?
In the health-care, legal, media and social services systems the prejudice against the mentally-ill is pervasive. Changes in attitudes takes generations. So I'm drawn to the underdog because I am an underdog myself. It has always been this way for me. I, also, believe the pen or in this era, word processing software, is mightier than the sword. I write myself out of dilemmas. I am one of the Others. I give a damn.
