Balancing Mind Ogre Patterns

On Wednesdays, I get toothpaste in my eye. I’m not sure why this occurs every week without fail. It’s not intentional. Wednesdays are not good days for me in general.

There’s a pattern.

Sundays, I forget to do everything and wind up frantic at 10:00 at night, wondering how I’m going to do it all with no time.

Mondays are like New Years Day. I’m bright and shiny with intention and purpose. It will be a phenomenal day. I will exercise, plow through my pending work, clean the house, volunteer for a charity, and find a cure for the common cold. I wait until about 3:00 to admit none of that happened, but the dream has not yet died.

Tuesdays, I take another stab at it, but it’s like January 2nd. You can’t recapture the magic of that electric determination. By lunchtime, I stop even pretending to be a productive member of society.

Wednesdays are toothpaste. There’s often an afternoon nap involved, too.

Thursdays, I don’t give a damn about anything. I do what needs doing, but it takes effort. If someone asks me to participate in some event or activity on Thursday, it ain’t happening.

Fridays, it’s a toss-up whether I’m even going to get dressed.

On Saturdays, my resolutions come back, only this time I swear to go out and enjoy the world, see art, watch a play, and enjoy life. It’s a beautiful day. The sun is shining, the birds are singing… I’ll just finish this chapter in my book, and then I’ll get going. Yep.

Then I keep reading straight through to Sunday evening.

The pattern of my life is one I would love to change. My therapist would love for me to change it, too. If nothing else, I would get more work done, which would enable me to afford my therapy sessions. It’s a vicious circle.

Every night, I lie in bed and imagine worlds and adventures and people, forming them into stories in my head. Everyone tells me to write them down. I don’t.

When you talk to people about depression, this is not what they would imagine, I think. How it wears you down, dragging at you in whispers that hold you back with subtle force. I’m not sad. Like I said, it’s a beautiful day, the sun, the birds, etc. My mind is just not under my complete control. And yes, it’s frustrating as hell.

There are rare days when I am hypo-manic and can take on the world. Those are the days when work gets done, stuff gets cleaned, and I am the mistress of all I survey. Brimming with focus, burning to explore the world. It doesn’t last, though. I pay the price afterward with an unusual low. This is kind of like a kid on a sugar high passing out when they come back down.

So low is bad, high is bad, and I have to learn to ride the line between the two. My pattern allows this, but I need to change my pattern. How to stay balanced while doing this is a conundrum.

My friends and family want wonderful things for me. That’s great. I want wonderful things, too. And I understand it’s hard to watch from the outside while I continue with the same old behaviors and making the same old mistakes. It’s impressive these people stick around, really. I’m annoying.

There are these voices in my head. (No, not like that. I’m not schizophrenic.)The encouragement, faith, love, and admiration I receive from the people in my life is a quiet chorus, whispering at me over and over to remind me that there is something more, and that I can have it. These soothing voices join together against the loud clamor of my own inner voice telling me I suck in every possible way. It’s hard to hear past that barrage of negativity.

I hear everyone, though. I do. No one should ever think that their words have no effect on me. Often those words are the only weapons I have in the fight to do SOMETHING today, even if it’s brushing my teeth. Without those voices in my mind, it would be a fight I couldn’t win.

Mental illness is invisible. Sure, you can see someone flake out and do some weird shit. You can see cuts, scars, weight gained or lost, mood swings, seizures and meltdowns. It’s below the surface that the true symptoms do their damage, however. Each depressive person’s experience is unique to them, but there are many near-constant similarities. The biggest is that depression has the potential to tear apart everything they care about and want to build for themselves. It’s impossible to do your taxes, wash the dishes, or manage your workload when you’re fighting a sumo wrestler in your head. Your hands are already full.

I’m not sure where this is going, but here it is anyway.

In my case, depression is a fact of life. I’ve never been without it, even as a toddler. There is no “me” without depression. I’d be a completely different person. That means that there is no clear way to unravel its effects from the rest of who I am. It feeds my creativity, informs my decisions, and influences my relationships. So I have no frame of reference for what “normal” would mean for me. I don’t think I’d like it.

My imagination walks hand in hand with my illness, giving me words and images and characters to bring to life in my writing. The books I read come alive, dynamic and immersed in detail. That would be hard to give up.

Having been judged and marginalized all my life, I am much more accepting and accommodating in my interactions with others. I embrace the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. (Metaphorically. I’m not a hugger.)

It makes me want to help others, support those who are suffering, particularly when their circumstances are more heartbreaking or perilous than mine. I want to fix all the problems in the world, even though I can’t fix mine.

Depression gives me those gifts, but it keeps me from using them. And that’s a dilemma that makes me run around in mental circles day and night. I want to use the talents and strengths. I want to achieve my potential. I want to tap into the creative spring inside me. If only I manage to be strong enough to fight the ogre who lives in my thoughts and tears apart my confidence.

My ability to feel any self-worth is significantly impaired. I can’t accept that it’s not my fault, because I’d get past it if I didn’t suck. I can’t defend myself against criticism, because it’s true that I suck. It’s hard to believe that anyone really loves me because I suck. There’s no point in working to become healthier, since I’d suck regardless. Every time I meet someone new, they can tell right away that I suck. No one will ever read my books because they suck. I will never, ever be good enough, because I’m not good at all.

This is the ogre that lives in my head. This is the voice that I hear ALL the time. It’s constant. It’s there right now, telling me to stop typing and just go back to bed with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and a spoon to mourn the loss of my dignity.

I may not be dignified, but I did write this. The quiet voices of hope helped me write this, and so even this small step is an accomplishment.

Suck it, mind ogre.

Is It My Mid-Life Crisis Yet?

How do you know you are in the throes of a mid-life crisis? Age can be something of an indicator, but it’s not as though you can really gauge your midway point. Is it thirty? Thirty-five? Forty?

Being the proactive sort of gal I am, I began really putting some thought into how my mid-life crisis was going to go when I turned thirty. I mean, how often are you handed a big, fat excuse to act completely irrationally while you are an adult? If you squander this one, you have to wait until your dotage for another opportunity, and by that time, you may not give a damn anymore. Best to strike while the iron is hot.

I didn’t plan the event, but I was on the lookout. Periodically, I checked myself for unexplained impulses to purchase sports cars. There was a twinge or two, I’ll admit; those new Dodge Chargers are pretty hot. But for the most part, my irrational urges were fleeting and resistible, so I just kept waiting. Yes, I left my job, but that had more to do with my children’s special needs than any overwhelming need to cling to my fading youth. The years came and went, until I found myself at forty without any sports cars or other signs of temporary insanity.

In my line of work, I talk to a lot of writers. Authors are essentially storytellers, and so over the course of swapping tales with my colleagues, I discovered something that surprised me. Despite my diligent self-awareness, I seem to have missed my mid-life crisis. Looking back, it’s an obvious thing. Frankly, it is embarrassing that my powers of discernment and observation are so weak that I could overlook the signs.

All hell was breaking loose and my kids needed me and I was always one cup of coffee shy of a total nervous breakdown when I decided to be a stay-at-home mom. Maybe that is a good enough excuse for my oversight. In any case, the facts speak for themselves. I left my paralegal job. Not long afterwards, I found myself working as personal assistant to a professional medium/clairvoyant/life coach. It was through this work that I experienced ghost tours, séances, house cleansings, grief counseling, and missing person searches and was exposed to a variety of spiritual paths and ideas. I even picked up some pointers and practical tools for small business owners and entrepreneurs. I was writing, as well. Then I found myself meeting other writers in a Skype-based writing circle. Some of the women I met founded their own publishing house, and I edited their first novel as a favor. This turned into my current “day job” as their lead editor. I started blogging. My doctor helped me quit smoking for good, and I had my first really spectacular car accident. I buried my last grandparent and my mother-in-law. I got my first tattoo on my fortieth birthday and finally found the courage to tell my parents that I couldn’t follow the religion in which they’d raised me. I was published for the first time. I began speaking out against injustice instead of keeping silent, and I became an advocate for myself, too. I rediscovered old loves and rekindled my interest in the arts and began to learn again. I remembered how to live again.

All of this happened between 2010 and 2013. Three years. Was it my mid-life crisis? I’ll admit that “crisis” would have been an apt description at certain moments over that period of time. Change is never easy, and some of the challenges I had to confront were serious and painful.

One of the thoughts that shook me out of my stupor back in 2010 was an upsetting one: every time I described myself, I used the past tense. How could someone still in her thirties have so little in her life that every sentence began “I used to…”? I used to sing. I used to dance. I used to write. I used to paint. I used to explore. I used to go to concerts. I used to go to the theatre. I used to. But not anymore.

One of the things you’re supposed to learn from your mid-life crisis is how to let go of youth and embrace your future. It’s a tough transition. What I discovered about myself was that in letting go of my youth, I’d let go of who I was, leaving myself nothing with which to build a future. So I didn’t buy a sports car or run off with a pool boy named Rico. Instead, I became myself again. If I needed “permission” to make these changes, chalking it up to my mid-life crisis was as good an excuse as any. Whether it was legitimate or not, I’m certainly not going to apologize for it now.

I don’t know if this is really my mid-life crisis, but it’s been an interesting ride so far.

Raising the White Flag

Well, NaNoWriMo, you beat me this time. There were too many distractions, too many bizarre injuries, too many hurricanes, and too many other obligations. I am attempting to accept my defeat gracefully. There are many other WriMos out there in the same boat as me. NaNo is a real challenge every year, and even the most prolific writers encounter periods when their time is not their own.

 I knew fairly early on that this was not going to be a winning year for me, but I didn’t surrender until the last day. Why? Simply put, every word you write for NaNo is a word that you wouldn’t have otherwise written. Despite my relentless distractions, I managed to write 25,000 words this month, and that’s nothing to sneeze at.

I continue to learn more about my own writing process, as well. This is hugely important. I consider writing to be a form of art, and like any artist, I must continually work to improve and stretch and challenge myself. The life of an artist is a journey, and the public’s perception that an individual is either talented or not, full stop, is erroneous. The Stephen Kings, J.K. Rowlings, and Neil Gaimans out there aren’t born writing well – it’s a learned skill. Events such as NaNoWriMo are wonderful vehicles for writers to learn and grow and develop their abilities, and so no attempt could ever be seen as a failure.

Another consideration that keeps me from spiraling into a vortex of self-loathing and chocolate binging is that many of the obligations that kept me from working on my novel were tied to my work for Renaissance Romance Publishing. This is a good thing, because it reminds me that I finally have a career that I can enjoy and find fulfillment in. I’m lucky to have been given such an opportunity after so many years of patent specifications and embassy certifications and demanding clients and mysteriously disappearing (yet critical) case files. It’s hard to get depressed over having a full and rewarding life.

I still love the NaNoWriMo experience, and I’m looking forward to giving it another shot next year. Perhaps this time I’ll try advance preparation and a smidge of organization… maybe.

The Novelist at 40

I’m turning forty this month, and I can’t say I’m particularly happy about it. I mean, I’m nowhere near mature enough to be middle-aged. I’m certainly not ready to start acting like a productive member of society. How can I be turning forty?

Oh, wait. That’s right. I’m a professional writer.

My profession is one of my absolute favorite things about my life, because it’s like belonging to an exclusive club: The Pedantically Insane Club for the Compulsively Verbose, if you will. This club’s membership stretches back to the dawn of time and includes such pillars of the community as Charlie Dickens, Willy Shakespeare, Dorothy Parker, Hunter S. Thompson, and Virginia Wolfe.

By pillars of the community, of course what I really mean is brilliant lunatics who made it socially acceptable to be an eccentric misanthrope with permanently ink-stained fingers, a complete lack of tact, and a dodgy sense of fashion.

If you think about the writers whose works have endured – particularly if you are a writer yourself – you will notice a pattern. Each of them is described by contemporaries with words such as “socially inept,” “caustic,” and “completely batshit crazy.” While we accept this as the natural order of the universe when studying long-dead masters of the written word, we still seem to be surprised when we encounter the same qualities in contemporary wordsmiths. Generation after generation of writers has been confronted with society’s clearly unrealistic hope that they will behave like normal, rational human beings. All this accomplishes is to guarantee that modern writers are just as misunderstood and ostracized as their long-dead counterparts.

Our world has manufactured a criterion for socially-acceptable insanity: brilliance. Once you have been labeled “genius,” you can be as rude and unhygienic as you please. Unfortunately, it is rare that such a distinction is awarded prior to the death of the weirdo in question.

However, it is possible for modern writers to take comfort in the history of censure that those who have gone before us have endured. As writers, we are traditionally expected, and in many respects are obligated, to behave in a socially inappropriate and often blatantly disrespectful manner. Crazy is simply just one part of the job description. Hence my self-proclaimed status as “professional oddity.” It’s not just an arbitrary title – it is a sacred trust.

So it’s okay that I’m turning forty, because I’m a writer. No matter how old I get, I’ll never be old. I shall wear my immaturity and irreverence like a badge of office until I draw my last breath. And if I’m very, very lucky, my writing will still speak for me after my own voice falls silent.

Until then, I’ve still got stories to write!

The Real Life of a Freelance Author

So a lot of my friends and family (and random people on the street) have told me they envy me because I get to work from home. I get to write all day – just spend countless carefree hours imagining different people and places and bringing those dreams to life. Yes, I get to spend oodles of quality time with my children, be my own boss, and slack off whenever I damn well please. A life of personal fulfillment and freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want.

Yeah, about that…

Here’s the reality. Today I woke up at 6:00 a.m. (ish), pried my teenager out of bed, threw clothes at the teenager, peeled 2^nd grader off the floor (don’t ask), threw clothes at the 2^nd grader, made coffee, made lunches, kissed hubs and teenager goodbye, threw clothes at myself, fed 2^nd grader and cats breakfast, entered missing advancement information into Scout online advancement system, tallied awards needed, created spreadsheet for Pinewood Derby kit distribution, checked my email, and dropped off 2^nd grader at school. AND THEN I drove downtown to the Scout Shop, spent half an hour registering new Scouts, picking up Pinewood Derby kits, and pulling the various awards that the online advancement system said I needed. AND THEN I drove to the Cub Scout pack’s bank to make a deposit. AND THEN I drove home, drafted a contract, emailed various Scout leaders and parents with questions and clarifications, emailed all Scout leaders about meeting agenda items, discussed leadership continuity with the Cubmaster, and discussed contract matters with a publishing house. AND THEN I picked up the teenager, ordered trophies for Pinewood Derby, sent my zillionth text to my committee, came home, did homework with the 2^nd grader, waded through all the awards I’d purchased and divided them by den and Scout, texted missing awards for my husband to pick up on his way home, ordered a pizza, and fed the cats.

In a few minutes, I’ll have to inhale some food, change into my leader uniform, and run to the Scout meeting.

See any writing in there? No? Hmm…

Oh, thank heaven the pizza just showed up!