The Positive Moment

Positive Psychology vs Toxic Positivity

I teach a class in positive psychology. However, I am very skeptical about it. Toxic positivity is often mistaken for positive psychology. It’s not positive psychology that possesses us to walk up to the depressed and say “Don’t feel so bad, it’s a beautiful day out!” or to the woman who has lost a child and say “You can have another one!” That is toxic positivity, and true to its name, it’s toxic to the well-being of the person who has every right to be angry or sad. The person spreading toxic positivity does so to not have feelings themselves, and they shut down the feelings of the sufferer as if they have no right to exist.

A Magic Conversation

I had something happen to me yesterday that was the opposite of toxic positivity, and I’ll describe it to answer why. As my readers know, I am in the middle of experiencing the 10-year anniversary of a time in my life where a psychiatrist diagnosed me with bipolar II and the emergency room referred me to inpatient. The behavioral health ward is a pretty quiet place, but the lack of autonomy — no cell phone, no computer, no shoelaces — accentuated the feeling that I was a pariah. (I don’t even want to talk about the worst bed I have ever slept on, and I have slept on the floor on an air mattress). I mourn my life before its complications, even knowing that I suffered from deep depression.

Photo by Christina Morillo on Pexels.com

Yesterday, I ran into a friend for the first time in a while (she stuck her head in my office) and we caught up. I told her I was in the middle of my 10-year anniversary of my hospitalization, and she paused for a moment to share that feeling with me, and then she said something that totally surprised me. She said, “You need to go out and celebrate.”

My first reaction was a moment of incomprehension. Celebrate? Celebrate what? I must have looked confused, because she said, “Most people (with bipolar) can’t say that.” A glee bubbled up in me. I was not a sufferer, I was a survivor! Suddenly, I knew where I wanted to celebrate and what item on the menu I wanted.

A Cause for Celebration

Why was her statement positive psychology and not toxic positivity? First, because she gave me space to feel. That’s important, because toxic positivity shuts down feelings. Second, because her suggestion to celebrate acknowledged my bipolar rather than demanding an escape from it. Third, because the positive related to my effort to stay out of the hospital instead of fatuous praise.

The conversation was an alchemical moment, and I now look at the hospitalization as the first step in living a stronger life.

Memories of the Dark Times

I haven’t written in almost a month. It’s been a rough month, a month of remembering, a month of irrational fear. It’s the ten-year anniversary of being diagnosed as bipolar. The tenth anniversary of being hospitalized. The tenth anniversary of not believing in myself.

It’s a harsh thing realizing that one’s invincibility is simply a state of hypomania. That one’s optimism is a mood swing. (Admittedly, it’s good to know that one’s suicidality is just a depression, but it’s hard to remember the lows when one is on a high like I was ten years ago).

Ten years later, I’m pretty stable, except for some depression in late winter and some giddiness early Spring. And superstitious worry that I will become unstable again every year at this time.

It’s a new normal for me, especially when writing, because I don’t feel overwhelmed by emotions when I write anymore. I wonder if my writing’s as flat as I feel compared to my amped-up days.

I am plagued with second-guessing my writing. I have strayed away from it. If you feel like sending good wishes, vibes, etc., please do!

Working toward writing

Looking at an outline

I have progressed as far as looking at my outline and making minor notes — mostly wrong names. I’m trying to figure out when Leah gets pregnant, because that’s a dramatic beat. Leah should get pregnant at a place where tension increases, because that’s how this is done.

I need to decide to build this story into a Save the Cat framework and move things as needed. By a Save the Cat format, I mean a story structure that walks the writer through a build-up, a tension state, the climax, and the aftermath. But I feel so much torpor, much dragging of feet. I need a good session with my husband and plenty of coffee or tea (or coffee and tea).

Camp NaNoWriMo

I hope to motivate myself to write through Camp NaNoWriMo in April. I won’t get the story done, but I will get it started. Maybe I’ll fall in love with my characters and find the energy to write the story. I hope.

Wish me luck!

A Little Discovery

An insight

I had two good things happen to me yesterday, neither of which had to do with writing. One was an invitation to a focus group that resulted from a leadership class I took nine years ago, and one was a request to do moulage for the city of Albany, MO’s high school docudrama (think staged car wreck with all the resultant carnage). Both requests made me feel wanted and worthwhile, and I marveled at how much better I felt at the meeting I ran for the Human Services committee for my department at school.

Being in demand vs being lauded

All this time, I thought that what I wanted was recognition, what I called “cookies” in my mind. But I realize I feel ambivalent about cookies, because they too often result from the rewarder’s motives rather than intrinsic work. I received a National Merit Scholarship Award from AT&T in 1981, and I realized quickly the banquet was more about AT&T than about my award. Several more situations like that make me feel ambivalent about cookies.

Being in demand, however, says “We called you because you’re the local expert.” (Or perhaps the cheapest, but I know my reputation for doing moulage). I enjoy sharing my expertise and getting praise for it. I enjoy showing my talent off.

It feels especially good that I get this attention when I’m worried about mood swings coming up on the 10th anniversary of my hospitalization. It reminds me that there’s more to me than the depression.

It feels fantastic.

Anniversary of the Worst Time of my Life

Ten years ago this season

I read a Facebook Time Hop today in which, ten years ago, I wrote about the last Family and Consumer Sciences banquet at Northwest Missouri State University. It was the last banquet because my department got axed that spring for reasons that never quite made sense. Our enrollment was healthy; what was not healthy was the scorn society heaped on our existence. For we were the very unsexy formerly known as home economics. That, I think, was enough to cause our demise.

It’s also ten years since the most horrible semester I’ve had here at Northwest, because as my department’s demise brought a very clear fear of being left in the unemployment line, I also had my definitely hypomanic moment. I was hardly sleeping, putting large amounts of work into a project that wasn’t supported by the leader. My gradebook was a mess. I was going fishing at 2 in the morning by myself. I was angry — at the university, at my coworkers, at Richard. This led to a Bipolar II diagnosis and a few days in inpatient care to level out my meds. My semester ended early, but I had become passive, inert from a medication that didn’t work for me, and which incapacitated me all summer before my new psychiatrist and I realized that the tiniest dose made me into a zombie. My husband and I bought a house somewhere between the end of the semester and the internships I would not be allowed to supervise; I was one thing we moved into the house.

I’m superstitious

I have been pretty stable with the meds for the past ten years, if “stable” means having periods of moderate depression (but no suicidality) or months of hopeless crushes (but no stupid midnight dates with catfish — real catfish — at Mozingo Lake). Sometimes I feel like a nut, sometimes I don’t, but I’m pretty stable. The gradebook is always neat in case I become unstable again.

But I’m superstitious. I have been stable for ten years, but this year’s an Anniversary. When I see the light through the curtains, I worry about my job falling apart. I smell Spring and remember growling at Richard until he let me go fishing before the sun came up. Beauty is suspect, because the greens of mania scintillate with colors brighter than life.

It’s been 10 years, and I still feel like that Spring long ago broke me. Who I am now seems diminished, and my writing was a way to transcend the mousy older woman I’d become. It hasn’t worked.

It seems like I’d have gotten used to the “New Normal” by now, but having spent 48 years in at least cyclothymic and bipolar 2 state, those highs and lows were my personality. Now I need to find the personality that remains when the highs and lows are taken away.

What is the Best Use of My Time?

At the end of Spring Break, I think it’s to rest.

Tomorrow is the last day of Spring Break, with six weeks left till Summer and the calmer time of my life. When I look at it that way, the best use of my time is to rest. I look at Monday and think, “I’m not ready for the grind again.”

I’ve rested this whole week except for the day I thought I lost 3/4 of a manuscript. Luckily I found a backup that even had the corrections I had made. But that day made me cry, and I have done little work since then. I’ve written a couple times in the blog and rejected one blog post because of TMI. (And if you’ve been following, you might have noticed that it takes a lot for something to be TMI.)

My cats beg to differ.

Chloe (otherwise known as Itty Bitty Bitty Bitty Baby Baby Girl) doesn’t want me to work. She wants to use me as a piece of furniture as she stares chirps at the double monitors in the office. Girly-Girl (known as Squirrely Girl) is arguing out in the hallway, probably because Itty Bitty Bitty etc. has taken over the office. Me-Me (otherwise known as Me-Merz) is sitting near Richard with that Overly Attached Girlfriend look on her face. I’m not in the bedroom; I just KNOW. 320pooooooooooo0222222llllllllllllllllll.kkk.kq (Chloe said hi)

Ideas on the next book.

I have a next book. It’s taking shape on the outline. It involves Luke Dunstan, a 6000-year-old immortal Archetype, who finds that The Maker has taken away the Archetypes’ sole reason for existence away from them. Leah, a seventeen-year-old woman, sees visions of the oncoming civil war, and feels called to stop it despite the odds of surviving are against her. Leah feels torn between Luke, who sees her as the Avatar of the Maker, and the father of her child, Baird, a Nephilim.

I guess I have been busy this week.

Editing

I edited yesterday!

I looked at the chapters so far for unknown title (formerly God’s Seeds) through ProWritingAid to acquaint myself with what I’d already written and to fix my idiosyncratic style before proceeding.

It went well. I got rid of all of those unusual dialog tags I excel at. The problem is, I don’t know where to do from there. It’s not like I’m pantsing, where I am making things up as I go along. No, I have an outline, but it’s so long since I’ve touched it I don’t know where to go with it.

I need my assistant (husband Richard) to help me sort this. But he’s sacked out on the bed.

Sigh.

On Vacation

Writing time

I’ve got all the time in the world (at least this week) and a nicely set up office. It’s time to write.

Except that I feel overwhelmed by the writing task ahead of me — start writing on a book I started and did not finish. That is less daunting than starting a new one right now.

My writing partner just showed up:

This is Chloe, by the way. Our youngest cat and my shadow. At the moment, she’s laying in a sunbeam in the office. Eventually, she will climb up into my lap, making typing all but impossible. Some writing partner, eh?

Another cat came to keep me company:

This is Girlie-Girl; she’s a fourteen-year-old, and she’s about as grouchy as you can imagine. Right now, both are rather sedate, but I don’t expect that to last long. Not much writing will get done when they fight.

But I need to write

I keep putting the writing off — I’ve put it off for three months, to be honest. But I have seriously mixed feelings about my writing these days. I have gotten little traction, which makes me wonder if there’s something wrong with my writing. It’s more likely that I haven’t done advertising too well, and that my topics are unusual (or, as agents like to say, “imaginative” and “unique” just as they reject me.) But I think too much and get myself in trouble.

I think I’ll put this off a little more because lunch is happening soon and I want to rest before writing. I’ll let you know tomorrow if I’m successful.

My New Office Setup

Let me tell you about my office

(I’m sorry I haven’t been here the past couple of days; I got clobbered by some nasty bug (not COVID) and I spent a lot of quality time in bed. Now I’m up again and enjoying my vacation.)

Because we couldn’t go anywhere for Spring Break, and I wanted a writing retreat, Richard cleaned the office for me. To give you an idea of what this entails, the “office” is the designation of the smallest bedroom of this 3-bedroom 1913 kit home.

The room itself seems too small for a bedroom at all, being about 10×12 total. It could be the kid’s room — that is kid, singular; it would be hard to fit another bed in this room unless they were bunk beds. As an office, it’s an ideal room. With peaches and cream walls, bookshelves, and a classic library table for a computer desk, it’s a comfortable space.

Except that we cluttered it the way middle-class Americans do: with old technology that failed to deliver its promise; with paperwork we haven’t yet filed; with half-used legal pads bought and forgotten over the years. There’s a celebratory poster from my first novel that I need to frame. And a box of cookbooks I got from my mom when she died we haven’t shelved yet. If we ever had to move, we’d have to rent a bevy of semis.

My desk (there is still clutter to the side of me that may never go away)

A present for me

My husband cleaned the office for me, as I stated above. This meant taking most of the boxes of detritus and stuffing them in the closet. That worked for me, as I didn’t open the closet door the last time it was full of detritus. That’s what happens when one cleans out a closet: other things take its place because we’re used to shoving things in closets.

Right now, Richard is dusting down the office. (Yes, he’s the sexiest man on earth when he does housework.) It’s feeling like a real writing retreat and we have designated it as mine unless I need to lend it out to Richard.

All the room is waiting for are my posters celebrating my book publication.

And for me to write already.

Feeling the Tug of Writing

It’s about time

I didn’t write yesterday, but I really wanted to. I was tired after a day of meetings and taking care of my husband (the stomach flu, not anything dangerous). But I felt the Spring in my bones, and I felt my muse over my shoulder and I wondered if I could get back into my story that needs writing.

Stories on the docket

I have, in fact, two stories that I could write. One of them is contemporary fantasy, taking place on my fictitious collective Barn Swallows Dance, and in the realm of the Archetypes, InterSpace. Changes happen such that the Archetypes are slowly being fired from their task carrying the essence of humanity and thus humans’ lives. The Archetypes explode at their sudden lack of purpose. The only person who can stop the bloodshed, if at all, is a pregnant eighteen-year-old girl who carries the gift of influencing history randomly. To do so, she faces the dangers of a human in InterSpace.

The other is fantasy romance, about a thirty-something librarian who encounters a charming neighbor who she falls for, to her friend’s surprise. When the man disappears, the librarian meets his goblin accomplice, and she embarks on a journey to rescue her man from a very possessive queen of Faerie.

So there are two stories that I could write — and a third option, which would be to come up with a new story. I don’t know that I have any knocking around my brain right now. I am inspired by the extrordinary relationships of ordinary people, the surprising things hidden in plain sight, and the unexpected consequences of seemingly ordinary things. And people, beautiful people who I can write fanciful things about.

All I need to do is write.