Folks —
I rarely write two days in a row, but I wanted all of you to know that I am releasing free copies of Gaia’s Hands for my blog readers. Gaia’s Hands is a romantic fantasy about an odd couple dealing with freakish talents and a plot to harm, and possibly kill, them.
Click here (Gaia’s Hands) for your copy
The only thing I ask is that, if you read it, you review it on Amazon.com. And maybe tell me that you’ve read it.
— Lauren
I’m listening to what some columnist called “Classical-Adjacent music”.On now is Ludovico Einaudi, with all the melancholy yearnings that his music evokes. I appreciate this music, even as outside, mud and sunshine replace the snowy afternoon it calls forth.
The playlist moves to Sakura by RIOPY. The mood is positive but introspective, hinting of inspirational. This is the feel of much of the music: introspective. I think I like this genre so much because it encourages thought and emotion without taking over my mood.
I listen to modern classical (another name, a little less sardonic) when I’m writing. It distracts me from my inner dialogue and from my surroundings and lets me pay attention to what I’m building in my head.
Who fits into modern classical? Start with its philosophical founders: Erik Satie and Brian Eno (my opinion), then include people like Johan Johannson, Ólafur Arnalds, Max Richter, Ludovico Einaudi, and others. On iTunes, you can find them in playlists like Classical Edge, Classical Concentration, and Contemporary Classical.
I end this blog note with Alexandra Streleski’s Elegia, which is as melancholy as one could get. I look out my window, which seems incongruously cheerful. That’s okay; melancholy is the mood I want to write.
I got the 5-year curricular review done! I am weeping happy tears!
To be honest, I was leading a team to get this document done. And there were questions to answer, so I didn’t have to draft it from scratch. But our best laid plans went awry (or gang aft agley if you’re Robbie Burns) when my dad died and I missed a meeting, so we got behind. But we finished it by the deadline, and I’m grateful.
If I had to do it again (which I probably will do in 5 years), I would do the following differently:
I’m not kidding about the last one. A colleague of mine used to bring mini chocolate bars into meetings, even meetings as big as Faculty Senate. I never think of these things in time because I’m all business in meetings. I could relax a bit on that, but with an hour and a half meeting, I can’t relax too much.
I can’t help but think life did not destine me to be a leader. I think I make a great follower, however.
But we have the document done.
I missed one of my medications for two weeks. I don’t know I did it, except it fell off of repeat refill, and I didn’t notice it was gone. It was my anti-depressant; I take a cocktail of meds to manage my bipolar disorder. Which means that without them, I progressively got depressed and anxious, curling up in a tiny ball, saying the grownup equivalent of “Nobody loves me” because the whirlwind in my abdomen felt that way. I still functioned at work, because I have a solid sense of duty that keeps me from calling off.
I just figured out on Saturday what happened, and by Sunday I got the prescription refilled. I am recovering.
It sobers me that one half of a teaspoon of chemicals daily keeps me from non-functionality, or at least less functionality. I admit the meds are miraculous, even with their side effects, which include benign tremor, dehydration, and maybe a bit of incoordination1. These meds keep me from despondency, from helplessness, from inertia, from self-flagellation, from a variety of self-deprecating and ultimately self-destructing exercises in my life. On the flip side, they also keep me from frightening elation, a feeling of invincibility, magical thinking2, and a touch of grandiosity.
I function well because of chemicals. Not even perfect chemicals — none of these efficiently target the difficulties in the brain, but work together to keep something (usually excitatory actions of the brain) from happening and make other things (retention of neurotransmitters and inhibitory processes) more likely to happen. My brain chemicals are tripping my body to be hyper, to be miserable, to be depressed, to be despondent when there are no stimuli backing up the feelings. The medicine keeps that from happening.
Very few people tell me to “go natural” and quit treating my bipolar. I think it’s because bipolar scares them and they don’t want to see me without my meds. I suspect they think I will become psychotic if I go off the meds. Probably not. But I appreciate their faith in my meds.
Again, it’s sobering that I function because of medications. but I’d rather function than not.
It doesn’t take the snow here much to disintegrate into oily puddles in the street, and muddy divots in my driveway. Even the snow on the lawns has taken on a grimy tinge where it has not melted completely.
But while the snow falls, while the trees accumulate a blanket on their shoulders, I live in a fairyland. I live in a place where the cardinals silhouette against the snow and Christmas has reappeared, just for a moment. Because the snow will only last for a minute, and then the gritty winter of Northwest Missouri appears again.
I used to live in a place that, when they had snowy winters, the snow would accumulate six inches at a time and consistently fall weekly through the winter. This wouldn’t happen every year, but in the years that it did, I stared at white lawns, wondering how anything could seem that pristine. Back then, I didn’t drive, so I had to walk and take buses through that weather. It was dangerous; I discovered this after a couple of falls and sliding down the hill. I marveled at the snow anyhow.
Right now we’re at the gritty and cold winter in Northwest Missouri. Fallen leaves and brown grasses stick up through the patchy snow, and I miss the comforting snow of the past couple of days. This, too, is winter; I can’t wait for Spring to start.
How do we talk about not being okay?
Photo by Du01b0u01a1ng Nhu00e2n on Pexels.com
Being vulnerable is that scary, that human. It’s scary to risk rejection because we have been a sloppy mess in front of someone. It’s scary for society to witness the breakdown.
The alternative, however, is that we stuff our feelings until we explode. Or we manipulate others so we don’t have to feel. Or we try to control everything until we cannot function anymore. None of these are good ways to deal with feeling like a mess, but ironically, those methods can seem more functional in the short run. They give an illusion of power — power over oneself, power over other people, power over situations.
I have very raw moments in my life. Although it’s kept well under control, I have a mental disorder. I have breakthrough times in February and October. During those times, I have sleep disturbances that keep me exhausted, severe anxiety, and a general feeling of being overwhelmed. I have to talk about it because it’s an overwhelming bad feeling and, at the time I have it, I feel like it’s always been there and will always be.
I’ve come up with some rules for myself on how to talk about not being okay:
If you are dealing with depression, anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia, or other mental health issues, your best support system is not a substitute for therapy, whether that be psychotropic prescriptions, talk therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, or others. Reach out to your health care providers or get yourself some providers on your side.
I hope this has been helpful. I feel like I’ve clarified some things for me, and I hope that I’ve helped others think about this, because all of us have heavy times.
Last night I had the worst dream, which combined all my worst fears: illness, incompetence, rejection, loss of control, judgment. I will not tell the dream, because I should not burden you with it. Trust me, it was bad. It would be like watching Tar, but instead of sexual abuse, the protagonist was accused of insanity.
I carried the dream with me today, throughout the meeting of two deadlines and preparation for another, 600 words to add to the novel, and an idea of what I will work on at work next year. It took away a lot of the joy I would get in these activities.
I wasted my time here — not that I didn’t get stuff done, but I wasted time where I could have been joyful. I didn’t need to hang onto the nightmare. And I could have let it go by doing some cognitive journaling.
Let’s try some:
Instigating event: Horrible nightmare, and the fear it could come true
I feel: Scared (80%), upset (60%)
Cognitive distortions: (link)
Fortune telling (I know this is going to happen?)
Awfulizing (Looking at the absolute, cartoonishly worst outcome)
How do I feel now? Both scared and upset are now down to 20%
What do I do now? Relax and take care of myself because I still have mood issues to deal with
We’re officially past Christmas and New Year’s, and I’m officially done with the first draft of my next October release, and the skies are relentlessly gray. For someone with bipolar (II) disorder who uses the holiday season to hide from the darkening days, I am officially in the dreary months, or those months where I’m at risk for depression.
I’m tired all the time right now, and I’m weepy. I feel bogged down by a pretty normal workload. The answer to the question “What am I looking forward to?” is “A nap”, but there seems to be no time for that. I might nap on Wednesday. I have meetings all afternoon this week. On Friday I have an appointment in large letters: “NATHAN”. I do not remember who Nathan is or why I’m meeting with him. Since it’s in all caps, it must be important.
What I need to do is get some strategies in place to help boost my mood:
More coffee and booze are not on this list, as these will make my mood worse.
I’ll keep you posted.
Today we finally have a Winter day — three inches of snow on the ground and 31 degrees, so we’ll have the snow through tomorrow. That’s been the status of our snow. Barely enough to cover the ground, barely long enough to call a snow cover. No snow days in my future.
All our snow, strangely, gets forwarded to Kirksville, some 150 miles away. Or malingers just north of Omaha. We keep acting as if the big one is coming in any minute, but then we get barely enough to cover the ground. One doesn’t even have to shovel it, just look cross-eyed at the sidewalk.
Oh, do I long for the eight inches of snow weekly I got back in Oneonta! Now that was Winter! We still didn’t have snow days because New Yorkers are hardy! (They’re also talented complainers, at least the downstate variety are.) To be honest, it was a pain in the ass parking up the side of a hill with an inch of ice at the curb. But it was a camaraderie, hoping our cars were still there when we left the party.
So I’m going to look out the window watching the snow slowly melt. By tomorrow, we will have marshy ground again and it will freeze when we have no snow on the ground. And so it will cycle till Spring, which will come with a sudden fluffy snowstorm just to irk us here in Maryville.
I can’t believe it! I should be finished with the first draft of Kringle on Fire today! I thought I’d never get here!
I’ve been suffering through the worst case of writer’s block since I started writing. It started with me trying to write a steamier romance, Walk Through Green Fire, and then stalling out in the first chapters because I was getting antsy about writing sex scenes. It continued through Avatar of the Maker, which stalled out because I couldn’t figure out whether the female main character was pregnant (yes, she is, I finally decided.) Then I failed NaNo for Kringle on Fire because of my dad’s dying.
I’ll be done with Kringle on Fire today — sort of. There’s going to be a lot of editing. There’s not enough description, there’s refinement of language that needs to happen, there’s seeing if everyone is in character (but that’s one of my strong points), there’s making sure continuing characters and places from the previous book are correct. I’m thinking another month of editing ahead of me.
I have plenty of time. This book will go live in October as part of the Kringle Chronicles series. Look for it on my Kindle bookshelf,
Words Like Me 