Writing for the Journey

So I just saw my psychologist today. I’ve been having a pretty rough time, for around a month, starting with a fairly sudden drop in mood where I self harmed for the first time in about five years. Without going into a huge amount of detail because it’s a long story, I suffered for more than a decade with bipolar, enjoyed a near complete recovery for a year and a half and then fell ill with a separate illness, ended up with post viral fatigue and couldn’t work or do much of anything for a year and a half.

Sadly, but perhaps not unsurprisingly it has been upon my recovery from the fatigue that I have felt some of the greatest emotional upheaval. I guess I became used to the fugue-like state created by fatigue-induced brain fog, used to the 11.30 pm runs to the local pub’s gaming room for a six pack of Carlton mid, so that I wouldn’t be spending the long night alone (interrupted sleep patterns is a part of the condition).

Anyway I guess it was one of those things that the finish line seemed like the goal, whereas the truth was, once I’d done all the hard work (and cold showers) needed to recover from the fatigue the real work of rebuilding a twice-shattered life began. Obviously I didn’t quite go bounding into this new challenge with boundless hope and enthusiasm. In fact what I found myself prey to was an overwhelming sense of defeatism, only defeatism is the acceptance of the inevitability of defeat. What I felt was more than that, that the black hammer of defeat was hovering directly above my head, not just ready to strike me down, but wanting to strike me down. You try being struck down helpless twice by statistically unlikely illnesses, see how benevolent, or even neutral the universe seems then.

Anyway, what we discussed today, links back to a psychological breakthrough that helped me find a chink in the fatigue’s armour – namely that I feel I have something to prove. Having battled so hard to overcome the bipolar, I felt that I was, I know that I am, an amazing person. Between 10-15% of people with bipolar kill themselves. I don’t have the statistics, but I know that a great many of the 90% or so that remain are severely impacted – either institutionalised, living limited lives at home with parents, homeless. Then you have those that struggle on living the best sort of life they can, but not something you could call normal by any stretch.

I achieved normal, but that wasn’t enough for me. I felt was I did was amazing, a truly incredible feat of intelligence, effort, toughness and grit. But no-one can see that. There’s no flashy business, no instagram photos of bulging muscles with an elk rack across the shoulders, no youtube footage of a great gig. There’s just me, a 32 year old dude with a bunch of scars on his body, a rusted-out trailer and a rusted-out mowing business, and my family. Now I know my family is the real treasure, what it’s really about. But on an egoic level, for me, it’s not enough. I love and appreciate them, but I know in my heart of hearts that I am a truly amazing person, and that I am capable of great things. I’ve just never had a chance to really prove it.

Now the problem here is, I find myself in a position where I could start to do something amazing, and with the receding of the fog a sudden impetus to start doing something arises. (‘Look at me, I conquered bipolar and chronic fatigue, you can’t see how amazing I am, and I have all this untapped talent, I better do something amazing quick!’) But on the other hand I have this malignant sense of hyper-defeatism. So I throw up an idea, then crush it down, throw up an idea, invest a little love and hope in it, then smash it down mercilessly.

It’s no wonder I was fucking up. Anyway, the suggestion from my psychologist was to just write for the journey, for the process. Don’t get bound up in a whole dream/fantasy about this post being developed into something that will be published and oohed- and ahhed over by people. Just write to write. I did this once before in my last year of university. I wrote about 250,000 words total in that year, and I was a good writer because of it. So this is me trying – trying to push aside that hammer of defeatism, trying to make some space for hope and achievement in the future.