The mad ones!!

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"



Jack Kerouac would have loved me!!



As for my sister, she doesn't quite feel that way. My sister quit smoking and she has found the goddess within her or her inner bitch or something. Not that this is bad, my sister has always been a little too accomodating, she's one of those people that you always wish would stick up for themselves. So I think it's great....(as long as it isn't directed towards me). But alas...she finally informed me that I have been totally manic and I have been getting on her freaking nerves! Oops!!



I still have a lot to learn about being bipolar. From my own perspective, I've always been the way that I am, so it's hard for me to know what is me and what is a symptom of my disease which is a very uncomfortable way to feel, by the way. I have had to deconstruct myself once or twice and I guess I need to do it again, and probably again. But I talked to my doctor about it and he said that, "Yes, what I describe is indeed manic behavior." He introduced me to a new term called rapid cycling, which is apparently what I've been doing. And no, I don't mean I've been entering bike races..I mean that I experience symptoms that are less severe than a classic BP but occur much more often.



So, lets see. I've gotten interested in Belly dancing and dropped that. Started writing and dropped it. Started embroidery...even decided I would sell things that I made, I was even going to open a shop...pretty fantastic for someone who was only working on their first piece, huh! I thought that my brilliant creativity would make up for my lack of know how. People would be so dazzled by my wonderful designs you see, I even thought about whether or not I would need to hire people after my shop got started and how I would keep the books!



I've decided to be a sign language interpreter, a courtroom reporter, a nurse, become a licenced daycare provider....that was another great one. I spent hours online. I made up curriculums, I checked into insurance, I had a kit sent to me about how to be licensed, I planned menus....And this all took place in a bout 5 days. Then I came down and realized like I have over and over again, that what you are looking at is utterly ridiculous, I don't live in the right kind of home bo have a daycare. Besides, I couldn't deal with that many kids. Everytime this happens, it always leaves me wondering why I did it......again.....even though I know I've already done it a Thousand times, every time is like the first time because I'm so happy.



Even if my ideas would stick around long enough for me to actually accomplish anything, I am not organized enough to do it anyway. I was going to write a novel, wrote out plots, synopsis, started developing my characters, then it seemed like it all got so complicated that I ccouldn't cut it down to size and do anything with it. It's just sort of floated up there in my head, amorphous, waiting for me to do something with it and I couldn't because I was too scattered.



I've tried learning Spanish I have pages of vocabulary lists. I have became totally immersed in Wiccan. That lasted for about about 3 weeks but in the meantime, I bought candles, incense, crystals, started growing herbs. Gosh...lets see...what else....I've decided to become a therapist and a gerontologist. I've also began studying literature from the turn of the century, became interested in the medicinal use of herbs and blah blah blah



People who don't know me well find my enthusiasms infectious and my dis-ingenuousness refreshing and charming. Those who live with me at best view me with bemusement, at worst find me annoying. And lets face it. I am annoying.



I'll be totally fired up about something, reading everything that I can get my hands on, buying supplies for my new 'hobby' or interest, going to the library walking around with this beatific, grin on my face and a glazed look in my eyes because I stayed up until 3am. Then, it's like I have the flu. I feel like crap! It's hard for me to get out of bed. Everything tastes awful. My head hurts etc...etc.. I can't even hardly think, it feels like wasps are in my head.



Every once in awhile I amuse myself by going through my old notebooks, I have about 15 and I'm always finding new ones in the basement or somewhere. Sometimes I find them in very odd places, like with my cookbooks or something. It seems that every time I get manic, I buy a notebook to write down my ideas. During these phases, I just love the way that notebook looks, so filled with promise. It always feels like I am finally ready to start something like I am on a new road that is leading in the right direction and then I get sick and it gets thrown to the side.

So, I go through my notebooks once in awhile with mixed feelings of awe, amusement, and horror because sometimes I don't even remember writing it, it seems like I am reading something one of my ancestors wrote instead of something that I wrote.



Here is an excerpt from a notebook that I found the other night, though I have edited it somewhat because otherwise it is too hard to make sense of

Ahem!! "Is our mind the same as the Medieval one? I mean in terms of structure, of areas of the brain developed by use, of synaptic pathways worn into the brain by habit of thought. I would speculate that our brains are much different.



In a society without the distractions that we have, without televisions or computers or...indeed without most people even being able to read, they would have been much more concrete than us, much more connected to REALITY.



Death, birth and the brutality of nature were woven into the dailiness of life. You have a very concrete mind connected to nature and the cycles of life and death but without the ability to communicate abstractly. A mind that could only speak through symbols and symbology of the deeper more abstract things.



Being illiterate would create a vocabulary with less words but more nuance in each word, more meanings and uses. Being surrounded by people no better off than you the ability to verbalize abstract thoughts would be limited and would only be expressed in the concrete fashion from the limited vocabulary that you had available to you. "



I wrote this during my Wiccan 'kick'. I'm not sure why I wrote it, I think that I was speculating on why the pre-modern mind would have been more in touch with the inviisible world than ours is. It's so cool but so pretentious somehow, it's sort of embarassing. I was really off and running on this one. I bookmarked about 70 websites. I actually wrote out a curriculum, I saw it in the notebook.



It makes me sad when I read these things. If I was reading some of the things I wrote, only someone else besides me wrote it. I would think that the person writing these things was so cool or wierd, I'm not sure. Except it's me. It's like I get lost over and over, then I come up for awhile and get lost again. Sometimes I think I could be even be half-way brilliant if I wasn't like this and it makes me sad.



I had a dream that I was walking across a frozen lake and there was someone trapped under the ice and I looked to see who it was and it was me. It's hard to deal with. I burst into tears last night and I'm not even sure why. I picked up my cat and hugged him while I was crying and he was very shocked. He kept twisting his hear around and staring at me with a bewildered look on his face. Then he immediately gave himself a bath after I let him go. Then I thought that was so funny that I started laughing like a goon or maybe a water loon.



But actually, I think I'm better than I've been in a long time because I'm finally back on earth. I don't think that my feelings are feelings of depression, it is genuine grieving. Which is nothing to worry about real feelings not induced by randomly firing neurons are always welcome by me, I love feeling like I'm all in one piece whether it's good or bad.