Deciding to Accept My Illness

Daily writing prompt

Describe a decision you made in the past that helped you learn or grow.

Fourteen years ago, my mind was racing with thoughts I could barely keep up with. I felt elated and ennervated by turns, exhausted but sleepless. I got an almost superhuman amount of things done and felt highly competent. I made bold decisions like going out fishing at 2 AM. Hours later, my mood would crash and I would struggle to get out of bed.

I figured I had a sleep disorder — how otherwise would I not be able to sleep at night? A coworker of mine suggested I go to a psychiatrist for my sleep disorder, knowing something I didn’t. And when I went to the psychiatrist, I discovered that my sleep disorder was actually a mood disorder, something that had not occurred to me. I was diagnosed with bipolar II.

Bipolar II is a subtype of bipolar disorder with hypomania instead of full mania. This is why my thoughts raced, my sleep waned, why I made rash decisions at 2 AM that nonetheless did not totally disrupt my life. Hypomania, as the name implies, is not as strong as full-blown mania with its disruptive, life-changing decisions. The depression is just as deep in Bipolar II, and one cannot have the hypomania without depression.

I had a decision to make — do I admit to having this diagnosis? Do I take medications that will stabilize my moods? That sounds like an easy decision — why would I not? Because admitting one has a mental illness is a shock to the system. I am not normal, I am mentally ill. Admitting there is a problem changes one’s perception of oneself. Especially when, before, I thought that I was just an exceptional human being who could do many things well.

I accepted the diagnosis and have been on a long journey of understanding myself within the framework of mental illness. I have had great luck controlling the moods with medication, which requires honesty about my moods, and vigilance toward any trends that could presage an episode. I have had to be honest with myself about the hypomania, because hypomania is exhilarating and affirming and fun. The price I pay for hypomania is, however, depression, and my depressions run deep.

Who I am after my diagnosis is someone a lot more careful. I do not drink with my meds. I get eight hours or more of sleep a night, going to bed early. I reduce the stress in my life, knowing it can trigger an episode. I say ‘no’ to overwork and to late night events. I do not run with impulse, knowing that it could be a sign of a hypomanic episode. I live a calmer life now that I am treated for the mood swings.

I miss the hypomania at times. I feel like I was a more interesting person back then. The highs gave me a certain edgy charisma. I was self-assured, dynamic, accomplished — as long as I wasn’t too high, as long as I wasn’t brought low by depression. Those, however, were big “ifs”, as I often was brought low by depression.

Choosing to believe my diagnosis changed my life in ways I still have to deal with sometimes. But I feel like I am more of an adult for doing it. I take care of myself and I don’t burden others with my mood swings. I am more responsible for myself. And this has changed me for the better.

Writing Time Will Return

I still haven’t laid out my new story yet. It’s April, and that means it’s a busy time wrapping up the school year and the semester at the same time.

Summer won’t be so busy. I need to start a routine for summer so I can get things done. My work duties will be supervising interns, and that largely means scheduling site visits. The rest of the work can flow around my other work. It’s a very different time of year for me.

I need some time at coffee. Coffee and writing. I have been doing Saturdays at Haven, and that’s where my big brainstorming a new story day happened last week. But to write, I’m going to have to do more coffee time again. This summer, I promise myself.

It’s only about three weeks till summer break, and it’s going pretty fast. Two weeks till finals. Soon writing time will return.

Dallas, TX.

Daily writing prompt

What place in the world do you never want to visit? Why?

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Everything I’ve heard about Dallas, TX, makes me think I never want to visit.

First of all, it’s in Texas, where everything is purportedly bigger. I assume the egos are bigger there, too. I can’t think of too many places in Texas I would want to visit — well, I’ve been to San Antonio, and that’s nice. As a hippie born too late, I wouldn’t mind going to Austin. But Texas doesn’t appeal to me.

Dallas is full of oil money. I’m not a big one for money, and oil tycoons don’t appeal to me. I tend to associate that sort of money with excess and bad taste.

Dallas has a hot climate. I hate hot climates.

From what I’ve read on Reddit, Dallas is lacking in character. In its buildings, in the food scene, Dallas is lacking.

All in all, there are plenty of places I can go that are not Dallas.

Ten Years from Now

Daily writing prompt

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

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The joke between me and my husband is that my life goals for 10 years from now will be to be “retired, published, and a cat.” If self-publication counts, I already have one of these down, and I will never be a cat, but in 10 years I will be retired.

I will be 72, old enough that a retirement job will also be in the past. I will not be able to retire for another five years, so by 10 years from now, I will have been retired for 5 years. I hope I am as healthy as (or healthier than) I am now, and that I will still be writing. I will have time for more hobbies and perhaps a bit of travel. I see myself enjoying my time off.

I will not miss work much. Not that I don’t love my work, but I have done it for long enough that I need a change. I could use a change right now, but as I said before, I can’t retire for another five years.

I’m pretty sure I’ll be happy in 10 years.

A Big Audacious Goal and a Positive Change

Daily writing prompt

Describe one positive change you have made in your life.

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I have a Big Audacious Goal I haven’t talked about much on here. My goal was to lose weight, and specifically to get down to a 25 BMI. My doctor chose that because, at my age, health outcomes are better with a bit of padding.

I am three pounds away from meeting that goal (and those three pounds will take forever). I have lost 88 pounds so far.

This weight loss has come with many non-scale triumphs. I have gone off of two of my meds, have cut down drastically on at least one more, and am working on getting myself in shape again. My liver is now normal, my kidneys are practically normal, and my blood pressure is a little on the low side. I wear a size 14 now (which is where I’ll stay; I’m not a small person) and I look better. I’m a bit saggy and lumpy, but that comes with a big weight loss and a life of being mostly heavy.

Life is not perfect. I need to get back into shape and start walking again. I could use some endurance and I have some muscle weakness from not lifting weights or anything. I have to figure out how to incorporate exercise in my life without detesting it. I’m afraid of gaining the weight back, especially as the goal is to get me off the Ozempic. The appetite return is daunting.

But I don’t want to gain the weight back, and I know how to eat to keep the weight from coming back. That is key. Now to keep my life in balance, juggle the weight with the exercise and the writing. Here’s to Big Audacious Goals!

Most Fun Exercise?

Daily writing prompt

What’s the most fun way to exercise?

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I don’t find most exercise fun. I was always the last one chosen for team sports in school for good reason; and I do not have the coordination to perform in individual sports. Running is likely to make me pass out, and jogging is just as bad. Lifting weights is like watching paint dry.

I like to walk. Not on a track, where one sees the same scenery over and over, but out in the nice weather, going someplace. Watching birds (although that’s slow walking). Walking in a 5K. Shopping.

I haven’t been walking in a long time due to health reasons. First, I was obese for the longest time, and now that I’m not, I want to get back into walking but am having lingering problems with weakness (from not exercising) and spells of lightheadedness. I’m trying to get to the bottom of the lightheadedness because I think I could tackle the weakness if I didn’t want to fall over all the time.

I want to walk right now, but I’m at work. I took a couple trips up and down the stairs. I guess that’s walking. Here’s hope that I can start walking, really walking, again.

I Have an Idea

Yesterday, my husband and I did some brainstorming on a new novel in the Hidden in Plain Sight world. I realized there is a ten-year gap between Avatar of the Maker and Carrying Light that would house at least one novel. I had one idea — there is a danger to the Garden.

Then I realized the Garden wouldn’t let anything happen to it, being the Garden and all. But what if someone were disrupting the collective? Not a preternatural matter, but human meddling? From there I got the idea of a conglomerate that wanted to buy the collective to harness its magic, not knowing what magic really meant. It didn’t take much to imagine underhanded methods on the part of a multinational health food corporation.

Somehow, I got the idea that the conglomerate would reach out using influencers, and the thought of corporate-sponsored influencers tickled my funny bone. My story idea turned into comedy, which I hadn’t counted on. What would the collective do to keep their home unspoiled by corporate America?

The collective would try to look normal, but things would slip. The cats would fly. The food forest would repel their guests. There would be strategic pauses as the Nephilim mindspoke each other. And the collective would gaslight their guests into thinking they imagined all that. Maybe Elaine would create illusions, or Allan would guest DJ and spin a mood-altering show. There’s nothing like nonstandard reality to plant doubt in someone’s mind.

I haven’t written a comedy for the Hidden in Plain Sight universe. Not to say I can’t write funny — I write funny for the Kringle Chronicles (the Christmas romance series). But this is a new twist for me. It’s going to take a lot of brainstorming before I can put the bones together on my outline.

The Power of “No”

How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?

I say “No” all the time. At work, there are many opportunities to do service for the University. I do some of these things, because service is part of my goals for the year. But I carefully choose my service to fit my goals.

For example, I do a couple Academic Showcases a year, where we talk to incoming students about the department’s majors and classes. These are not directly part of my goals, but they are service. To say “No” to things, I have to say “Yes” to things not quite fitting my goals to balance the work in my department.

On the other hand, I spend days in Hope exercises, where I do moulage (casualty simulation, turning volunteers into victims using makeup). I teach CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) classes in Disaster Psych. I do moulage for the annual Docudrama (drinking and driving simulation for high school students). These fit my goals.

There are other times I say “No”. Events that happen after my bedtime are “No” situations, because one of my goals is to get enough sleep. That goal is necessary for my mental health, so it’s high priority. I say “No” during certain busy times of the year. I don’t feel guilty saying “No” because I know my time is limited.

I think the ability to say “No” comes with age. I know that when I was younger, I said “No” a lot less often. I didn’t know my goals back then, and what goals I had were scattered. Strangely, I didn’t do as much for others when I was younger and said “Yes” all the time.

I think saying “No” is a very healthy thing and not at all selfish. It is more selfish resenting things and people outside oneself for asking for time.

Hidden in Plain Sight

I think I’m at the end of the Hidden in Plain Sight series, and that’s part of the reason I am facing writer’s block. I have been with that series for over ten years, and my involvement in that world has been extensive.

My books involve an ecocollective in the middle of Illinois, an experiment in living with a small carbon footprint, on a working farm, with principles of pacifism. But the place has secrets. A fight for humanity on its grounds. Two trees that give people inexplicable talents. Immortal beings and their long-lived offspring. Flying cats. Barn Swallows’ Dance is, necessarily, hidden in plain sight.

I have written seven books about the world. Gaia’s Hands introduces us to the collective and its miracle food forest, which grew up literally overnight with Jeanne Beaumont’s talent. Apocalypse pits the pacifists of Barn Swallows’ Dance against three immortals who want to end humanity. Reclaiming the Balance visits justice, as even the utopian collective falls into prejudice and discrimination. Avatar of the Maker involves a young adult who is called to stop a battle among immortals that could decimate the world. Carrying Light takes the reader to the edge of the riots that will ultimately bring down the United States, while Whose Hearts are Mountains explores the world on the other side of those battles. Finally, Hiding in Plain Sight features an early glimpse of the immortals as one of them falls in love with a human.

One of the important themes of the books is relationships. Not only the romantic ones, of which there are many — the 6000 year old linkage of Adam and Lilith, the odd couple Jeanne and Josh, the star-crossed lovers Alice and William — but the everyday relationships of the members of Barn Swallows’ Dance. The characters, and how they relate to each other, are important.

Barn Swallows’ Dance is almost itself a character. Part utopia, part cauldron of preternatural turmoil, it serves as a uniting principle of the stories. (Only the prequel, Hiding in Plain Sight, does not feature the collective).

This is the world I am leaving behind. It hurts, but I don’t know what else I can write in the series. Nothing is speaking to me. I feel like I have explored everyone’s stories.

What can I do to top this?

Trying to Get Back Into Writing

I’ve been gone for a little while. I am struggling with getting myself back into writing. Motivation is not there — I haven’t been writing on any books, either.

Part of it is lack of faith in my writing. That’s pretty normal for me. I go through that a lot of the time.

Part of it is a lack of ideas. I think I have written all I can in the Hidden in Plain Sight series, and I don’t write on the Christmas romances until it’s Christmas season. I have a novel and at least one short story sitting on my computer, but I don’t have any ideas for either. They’re all at an awkward place where I know where they have to go, I know how to get there, but there’s more spaces on the template that I don’t know how to fill. It’s like the novel should be a short story, and the short story should be a shorter story. But I know that wouldn’t do them justice. Like I said, a lack of ideas.

I still promote my writing on various channels. I have my Loomly (social media software) programmed through September. I don’t have much faith in their success, but I do have inertia.

The part of me that writes for the love of it is at a loss. The part of me that writes for recognition is burned out. Maybe it really is time for a break now.