Things taking shape

I'm rather enjoying blogging about writing a book, even though there has been a severe deficit in blogging about everything else.  Mark it up to pouring all of my writing energies into composing manuscript.  This is something that I have spent most of my waking hours doing, with varying degrees of activity, since May.  And now on the tail end of August I can look with some pride at more than 66,000 words of text composed for my little tome about having bipolar disorder.

I'm finally seeing the shape of it forming, coming together.  But there's still a lot of work to do.

My target is between 75,000 and 100,000 words.  And as I've been writing this the scope of it has shifted from my original intent.  There is now much more autobiographical information within it than I had initially thought would be included.  And I don't know if that's a good thing.  But friends I have shared that sentiment with have told me that anyone can read (or write) a textbook about manic-depressive illness, but only I can write about what bipolar has done to me personally.  I'm the only one who can convey the real pain and frustration that this disease brings with it.

So if you guys won't mind reading the life story of Robert Christopher Knight, I guess you will get to do that.

Things are still moving around though, and I don't know how much they will continue to do that.  There have been a lot of chapters that had false starts and wound up deleted.  Other chapters have been consolidated with each other.  There are a few that I'm considering tearing out completely.  I wouldn't be surprised if this book ended up radically different from how I first envisioned it to be.

I do have an ending for it, however.  It eluded me for the longest time but how to wrap it all up finally hit me earlier this week.  And the title has changed by one word.  Two if you count the subtitle.

And Lord willing, my first book will be completed by the end of this coming month.  And then we shall see what we will see...

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When God gives you what you want more than anything else...

I'm not the same man that I used to be.  Not since I was finally given that which I have wanted most of all.

For a very long time, and we are dealing with years, there is something that has been on my heart more than anything else.  Something I have longed for.  Something I have not actually wanted, but needed.

I needed it more than I needed any other element that could possibly lay within the boundaries of my life.  I needed it so much that it was no matter of satiation of desire for the sake of happiness, but rather something that I required to have, for since longer than I can readily remember, a sense of life itself.

It was the thing that I had prayed to God, more than anything else, that He would let it happen.

Two weeks ago I was experiencing a very deep bout of depression.  The medication wasn't working as well as it should have.  Neither was anything else.  In such times I turn often to prayer, to reading from my Bible (especially the Book of Job and the Psalms), to focusing on some shred of happy thoughts.  Anything that can give me something to grasp hold of and climb up and out with.

It wasn't just the clinical depression, however.  There was a certain situation that had come about, how I'm still not quite clear on how it happened.  But it brought me into contact with that which had been what I had endured a tremendous amount of suffering.  The thing that I had prayed to God about for so long.

Once again, I asked Him to bring whatever He would know best for it.  So that I might at last know how to go on living.

That was on Sunday and Monday.  On Tuesday I had an appointment with my counselor.  I shared with her everything that I had been going through, including my prayers to God.  Especially how it was that I didn't know if He was listening, because I had been praying for so long to Him and it was like He didn't care.

I came home at 1:30 that afternoon.

It was about 6 that night when I checked my messages and was startled to find something awaiting me.

And at long last, after needing it, after crying for it, after praying for it for so very long, I have that which I have wanted more than anything else.

I have closure.

I can move forward with my life with no regrets now.

Except that I've gone so long with needing this, it became the focus of my earthly life.  And now that need has been fulfilled.  I don't have my heart burdened by it.  I am finally free.  God set me loose from that bondage: the captivity of a desperate heart.

And now, I don't know what to do.  It's like the song says, "I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same."

The book is the biggest thing that I'm concentrating on right now, but I've no doubt that this is going to impact it.  It has to.  But, I think it will be in a good way.  The chapter that I had finished and was previously the most difficult (before I started working on the suicide one), I've let a longtime and trusted friend read it.  It has to do with an aspect of bipolar disorder that does not get a lot of discussion.  My friend read it and she gave it her hearty approval.  If I can write about something so intimate and it can pass muster with my friends, I think that the rest of what I'm working on will be more than okay.

Other than that, I don't know what the heck it is that I need to do, or even want to do.  Not even things that I've long been interested in seem to sparkle anymore.  I know there were some serious developments on the Star Wars front this past week but they don't faze me.  And I don't know why that is.

Maybe I'm growing up.  Or growing more.

I suppose I'll just have to now wait for God to present something new to me.

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Regarding Robin Williams...

It was a grim irony that last night, when Dad told me that the news had just broke that Robin Williams was dead, I was working on my book and the chapter on suicide.

I haven't blogged very much lately.  It's because I've been devoting myself to writing my book about bipolar.  I'm going to take time to post some more fun stuff soon (we do have the return of Doctor Who coming up after all).  But this is something that put a lot on my heart and I was feeling led to get it out of me and into a blog post this morning.

Robin Williams was a huge part of my childhood and adolescence years and then on through early adulthood.  He may have had the widest spectrum of acting talent of our generation.  Good Morning Vietnam comes especially to mind: an amazing display of Williams' repertoire with comedy and drama.  Dead Poets Society and Awakenings solidified his dramatic presence.  Later on in his career he pulled off some astoundingly dark work, in such films as One Hour Photo and Insomnia.  But it was always his comedic work that will be remembered most.  Just as an aside, when our local theatre guild was mounting its production of Peter Pan earlier this summer, I had Steven Spielberg's Hook playing in the background often as I worked on my book and other projects.  If Peter Pan was going to be portrayed as a grown-up, there was virtually nobody else who could have pulled that off than Robin Williams.

The man was an engine of innovation and creativity.  And now it looks like the price to pay for that was only too high.

Depression is something that unless you have it, you can't understand it. And I have not met anyone with it who has wished depression on anybody else, for however brief a time, just so they can "get" what this is like.  I have also never met anyone with depression who seriously wanted to die.  I don't think Robin Williams wanted to die either.  He was just trying not to feel the absence of feeling.  I know that doesn't make sense to some, but those with depression will understand all too well.

1 out of 5 people - at least - with bipolar disorder will attempt suicide and too many will succeed.  I am one of those who has tried, though I didn't realize it at the time that it's what I meant to do.  I was just wanting there to be an end to the pain.  What caused me to fail in that attempt?  That's something I'm writing about in my book right now.  It's something that I'm still exploring, actually.  In a very horrible way I was trying to feel something, as opposed to wanting to escape life completely.

Winston Churchill had depression: he called it his "black dog". I have a name for my own depression: "the dark fountain". It erupts when I am manic. It erupts worse when I'm depressed.  It smothers and suffocates and leaves you desperate for the tiniest breath of hope.  And when there is no hope you become desperate to escape, and more often than not it's without any real understanding of what it is that you are doing.

I know.  I've been there.

This is something that can't be "switched off" and medication often BARELY keeps it in check.

With someone as creative and passionate as Robin Williams, I can only imagine the intensity of his depression.

Just some thoughts that I'm having this morning.

Thoughts and prayers going out to his family.

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I never want to have to do that again

I just finished writing the very most difficult chapter of the book yet.  No doubt it will be the hardest of the book when it's all finished.

Lord willing that this is published, you will know which chapter it is when you read it.

I am really opening myself up here.  With things that I would have never imagined I would be writing about, not in a million years.  But, there it is.

I've spent the better part of two months working on this one chapter, on and off.  Now it's done.  I'm going to go watch The LEGO Movie again now and distance my mind from this thing.

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I've fallen in love with Lindsey Stirling

No, not like that!  I mean her music!

I've come back from a week in the mountains, staying in the abode of my best friend/filmmaking partner and using the time away from things to work on my book.  I definitely needed it after being absorbed in work and projects and whatnot for... wow, the better part of a year now.  Sometimes you just need to break loose from your routine and find inspiration from new surroundings.  I got a lot of work done!

I was also introduced to a few neat surprises, courtesy of "Weird" Ed.  Because of him I've finally at long last watched The LEGO Movie, and it's now one of my favorite movies ever!  On my way through Asheville I just had to stop at the Target there and buy the cheapest LEGO set that's out which has Emmet and Wyldstyle minifigs.  They are now sitting next to my monitor as I work.  Can't beat LEGO minifigs for inspiration :-)  I also got caught up on Game of Thrones: we went through Season 3, now I just need to find Season 4.  I've read all of the books and Ed's watched all the seasons, it was odd to watch it like that with each of us knowing what was coming from different directions.  When it came time for "the Red Wedding", I knew it was getting close and when it finally happened, Ed said that my mouth was hanging wide open for a solid ten minutes!  Sheeesssh that was harsh to read about, but to see it happen on-screen...

I'm also caught up on the Marvel cinematic universe, having now seen Thor: The Dark World.  And 'course there was "Weird Al" Yankovic's new album Mandatory Fun.  Which the more I listen to it, the more I'm increasingly convinced that this may be his best album since Bad Hair Day.  There is one song on Mandatory Fun that I wasn't sure about at first, but even that is growing on me.  My favorite song/video from the album is probably "Foil": Weird Al's parody of "Royals" by Lorde.

If this really is Weird Al's last studio album, he is pulling out all the stops with Mandatory Fun, even releasing a new music video each day for eight days (the final one comes out tomorrow).

A new Weird Al anything is reason to rejoice.  But there is something else that I brought back with me from my trip, and I'm counting it as one of the most delightful discoveries I've ever made so far as music goes.

I had never heard of Lindsey Stirling until this past week, when Ed introduced me to her music.  Stirling had been a contestant on America's Got Talent and was told that she wasn't right for the show with her "dancing violinist" act.  I don't know what the heck they were smoking but Lindsey Stirling is unbelievably beautiful as a musician and dancer... and after watching some of her videos and listening to her while we were riding around the area I just had to have more.  So I bought both of her albums - her self-titled debut and Shatter Me, released three months ago - at the same Target as I was headed home.

I've been listening to them like crazy since.  And watching many more of her videos (Lindsey has like a billion subscribers on YouTube so I'm coming late to the party a bit :-) like this Star Wars medley.  I never thought I would have fallen so madly in love with violin music... but here I am, and I have!

So if you haven't already, you really should look up Lindsey Stirling on YouTube and check out her work and if you're like me you'll be enchanted into wanting more.  If you don't believe me, here is the video for "Beyond the Veil" from Shatter Me:


And then the in-every-possible-way beautiful video for "Shatter Me", also with Lzzy Hale:


So I came back refreshed, re-invigorated, a lot accomplished on my book, and with the most amazing new music that I can remember finding in a very long time. I'm feeling inspired and firing on all cylinders again!

I give Lindsey Stirling my highest recommendation.  If she ever comes to town for a concert I'm absolutely going to be there first day to buy tickets!

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"Weird Al" Yankovic's new album MANDATORY FUN is out today!

I've only been able to listen to two tracks from it so far (am waiting to listen to the rest with a friend later this evening) but Mandatory Fun is already down as one of my favorite "Weird Al" Yankovic albums of recent years!

"Tacky" ought to be a hit with anyone who's had  Pharrel Williams' "Happy" stuck in their head (which is too many of us), while "Word Crimes" - a spoof of "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke - is without a doubt going to get a lot of play in English classrooms from elementary school through college.

Looking forward to enjoying the rest of the album!

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A note to readers

Dear readers,

I am REALLY getting fed up with some technical issues that are keeping abusive comments from being deleted.

As of now I am making certain posts become drafts. This will hide them from public viewing until these issues are resolved and I can delete the comments again.

I hate to take such a drastic step but at this point there is no choice. I wish I had thought of it earlier.

The posts will return as soon as possible.

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Six months, if that.

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Iraq: I hate to say "I told you so", but...

I'm going to take time out from working on the book and professional obligations to say something that does not come out of any sense of pride or gloating.  There is nothing at all to crow about regarding this.

That said, it has been a long-time contention of this blogger that our getting involved with Iraq was a mistake of unimaginably severe proportions.  For as long as this blog has been active I have written on many, many occasions (like here and here and here and here) that the United States should never have set out to topple Saddam Hussein from power.  And why is that?

Because as evil as Saddam was, he was the only thing keeping Iraq from imploding and making the situation worse than it already was.  My line of thinking was that Iraq is (or was) like Yugoslavia under Tito: a strong ruler who keeps all those otherwise-warring factions in line, under penalty of death and destruction.  When Tito died it was just a matter of time before Yugoslavia came apart at the seams and began eating each other alive.

Iraq, divided between Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, as well as what used to be populations of Christians and Jews (before they had to flee) was like that.  It was held together by a strongman figure.  That strongman being Saddam Hussein.  Without that strongman, Iraq as a stable presence in the Middle East was not possible.

That is the biggest reason why the United States should never have become involved with Iraq, why we never should have made it our mission to remove Saddam Hussein.  History argued against such a thing.  No, worse: history raged against such a thing.

But at the time we had a president and an administration that wasn't very keen on history, were they?

And now we've got a president who, whether he wanted to or not, inherited the responsibilities that came with that mistake.

What responsibilities?  Only the ones that came with removing Saddam Hussein from the equation.  Nature abhors a vacuum.  Worldly politics far more so.

The United States removed Saddam Hussein from being the strongman in Iraq.  And when it did, it was the United States itself that became the strongman.  We bought it.  We owned it.  We paid for it with the blood of thousands of soldiers, marines and other service personnel.  We committed ourselves to Iraq.  When we took out Saddam Hussein, we effectively became the power that Saddam Hussein was.  Albeit we saw ourselves as the more benevolent.

We thought that same benevolence would transform Iraq into a bastion of democracy in the Mid-East.  We thought that doing so would absolve ourselves of any future responsibility.  We thought that all of our sacrifices had been worth it.

The past several days have proven that they were not.  And that in all likelihood they will not.

We should have never gone into Iraq to begin with.  We should have not left Iraq, ever.

The two most recent Presidents of the United States have together perpetrated the most massive affront to wisdom, to humanitarianism, and to responsibility in the entire history of this country.

What we are seeing now in Iraq, with the takeover of that country by ISIS and now the threat of civil war, would in every likelihood not be happening had the United States veered completely away from involving itself more than eleven years ago.

We are witnessing what could only be described as the beginning of a caliphate which may stretch from Syria through Iraq into Iran and beyond.  A stable Iraq was the bulwark against that happening.  The United States these past several years was the bulwark against it.

We never should have gone into Iraq.  But we did.  And when we did, we could not afford to leave Iraq.

This is a call that I made more than ten years ago.  I have no reason to celebrate it.  This is an instance where I absolutely hate it that I was right.

What we are seeing in Iraq today is going to only get worse.  A lot of people are going to die.  People who don't have to.

If anyone wonders why I don't write as much about politics as I used to, I can only say this: that I'm thoroughly disgusted with the ways and means of this world, if this is the best that our "wisdom" can accomplish.

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Chris Knight... Musician?

So today I began taking dulcimer lessons.

How it came to be that I'm learning to play dulcimer, is a long story. But I think that I'm going to enjoy this.

And if y'all are good, I might eventually post video of me playing it.

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Dear God:

Are You hearing me?

Do You care at all about us, about any of us?

I think about people who believe in You worldwide, who are even today being persecuted and tortured and killed because of their belief in You. What has it gotten them? Have You heard their cries?

If You aren't listening to them, why should I expect You to listen to me?

Why is it that every time You have blessed me with something, You yank it away like a cruel bully? That's what I'm starting to see You as: a cruel bully like the kind who used to torment me on the playground.

Do my prayers ever move You at all?

How can I believe You to hear my prayers about my needs? Scripture tells us to bring everything to you. I have done what I can to do that in a thankful and believing spirit... so where is Your listening ear?

How can I trust You, period?

Are we just playthings to You?

Are there some people You favor over others? If so then I just happen to be one of those on your %$*@ list. That's what it feels like to me.

How can I know anymore that You are good?

How can I trust You?

How can I know that my faith in You hasn't been wasted?

How can I know You are really there? Because more and more, I'm beginning to doubt and I really don't want to go there. But if You are there, You are giving me precious little to go on so far as Your being good goes.

Why should anyone here on this Earth believe in You when all they get are frustration, broken prayers, and answers from a book which they otherwise have no reason to believe in?

What are we to You?

How are we to know that you hear our prayers for salvation?

Do they matter to You at all?

Please talk to me.  Answer my questions.  Show me how to trust in You again.  Show me how to not to ever question my faith, for as long as I live.

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I finally watched Season 4 of THE WALKING DEAD

From the very beginning of its fourth season this past October, The Walking Dead has been sitting unplayed on my DVR, taking up a sizable amount of real estate.  I've been wondering what to do about it: either finally sit down and go through the season, or delete it altogether.

This past weekend I decided it was time to face some things, and let The Walking Dead stop haunting me (I know that won't make sense to most readers, just trust me).  I suppose I should admit at least a little curiosity at how this season would go, after Season 3 ended with the survivors of Woodbury coming to the prison and the Governor going Lord-knew-where into the Georgia wilderness.

I'm glad that I did choose to watch, because The Walking Dead's fourth season turned out to be some of the most powerful storytelling that I've ever seen from the television medium.

The season unfolded across three arcs, each well-contained without feeling especially episodic.  The sickness brought the first serious trial to face Rick and his community, and also some of the show's most gruesome moments in its entire run.  And then the Governor returned: psychotic as ever.  If there is one thing that could have been better with this season, I would have much enjoyed it if the Governor received an extra episode or two: let him really build up his army and get re-established as the biggest villain of the series so far.  But when at last he launched his assault on the prison, you just know that AMC nearly busted its budget to make that scene happen.  It was stuff you'd expect from a high-dollar Hollywood blockbuster, not network television.

And then came the road to Terminus.  Watching the survivors, now split up, keep going and trying to fight the odds against the dead and the living.  And struggling against their own inner turmoils.

You know what I'm talking about, if you've watched this season.  I posted on Facebook as I let the series unspool and some friends told me that there was worse... much heartbreaking worse... that was still to come after the prison assault.  That I had not seen how bad it gets and that one episode especially was going to bring the tears.

Yeah, you know it all right.  It was the episode titled "The Grove".  I watched it last night.  And I had to stop right there, because nothing I had seen on television ever before left me so numbstruck with horror and shock and disbelief.

It got to "that scene" and all I could think of was, "No, they aren't going there.  AMC is NOT going to do this.  Carol is NOT about to do Of Mice and Men on that little girl."

Was she right?  A friend and I were discussing it today.  He asked me what I would have done in that situation.  I had actually thought about that after watching "The Grove".  And I think... I think... that if it were me, I would have waited until Lizzie was asleep, and then leave with the baby and everyone else.  Let Lizzie wake up the next morning to find everyone gone but be left with a pistol and several rounds of ammo.  Give her at least a chance to live!  And that way she would not be a threat to the group anymore.  I thought that would be the best for everyone.

Except that Scott (my friend) raised a very valid point: that how were we to know that Lizzie wouldn't join up with another group of survivors, and be a threat to them?

I can see that.  And one also must be reminded that Lizzie was very, very far gone.  It went way more than simple denial about the walkers, about how the world had become.  There was going to be no reaching her.  No therapy for her.  No medication.  She was pitiful, she was helpless.  But she was also too weak in all of the wrong ways.  And after she killed her sister (and was poised to murder Judith), her weakness crossed the line into a very dark place in terms of what was right for the group.  Because how could the group possibly trust Lizzie?  How could anyone?

There was no clean way out of it.  I think Carol knew it.  And she knew that every day for the rest of her life it was going to haunt her.

I wish now that I had watched this season during its first run, because the discussion of "The Grove" alone was no doubt fascinating reading.  How many other television series leave the viewer questioning his or her sense of morality?  Too few, in this  blogger's opinion.

Looking forward to catching Season 5 when it airs.

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Review of GODZILLA (2014)

The last time I saw a movie called Godzilla on a big screen it was 1998, the evening before its official release date.  Two hours later I asked Chuck Buckley, my fellow columnist at Elon's newspaper The Pendulum, what he thought of it.

"I thought it sucked!", Chuck replied.

I had to concur.  That night sticks out in memory as one of the worst experiences I've had at a movie theater (though incredibly I didn't walk out: Star Trek Nemesis would be the first to get that dubious honor... and the nice ladies at the theater had let me watch that one for free!).  Godzilla 1998 was a travesty of celluloid: bad plot, bad dialogue, bad direction, bad best boying, bad catering...

...and the worst Godzilla ever.  No, nevermind.  That wasn't Godzilla.  I don't know what that was.  It was G.I.N.O: Godzilla In Name Only.  That slithering sacrilege bore no resemblance whatsoever to the classic Toho's Toast of Tokyo.  If only Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich (who had previously given us Independence Day) had called their creature something other than Godzilla, I would have probably been forgiving and accepted it for what it was: a giant monster movie.  But noooooooo... they promised us Godzilla, and instead we got a Fraud-zilla.

I'm a huge fan of the original Godzilla, the original 1954 movie initially released as Gojira (absent the scenes with Raymond Burr) in Japan.  To me Godzilla was never a giant monster movie.  The original movie was meant to be a dead-serious film about nuclear warfare in the aftermath of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Godzilla was the result of man's incapacity to grasp the darker science he had unleashed upon the world.  He was never meant to be "cute" or "cuddly" and he certainly isn't supposed to be an anthropomorphic "father figure" type (yeah I'm looking at you Minilla).  Godzilla, to me, is not a character.  He is a force of nature: the biblical Leviathan, fury personified.  An entity beyond the means and devices of man.  Godzilla, when he is best handled, simply is.  And to date only two movies have given Godzilla the treatment he deserves: 1954's Godzilla and Godzilla 1985 (a film rife with problems but otherwise a fitting proper sequel to the original).  And for as long as I can remember I've wondered if an American studio could produce a Godzilla motion picture that went back to the roots of what Godzilla is, and tap into that and give the King of the Monsters the appreciation and respect he demands.

Well folks, I just came back from seeing Godzilla, the 2014 film and good googely moogely, they did it.  They nailed it.  This is at long last the modern take on Godzilla that I've wanted to behold for way too long.  This is how you do Godzilla, people!  By making him a force of nature as unstoppable as an earthquake or a hurricane.  And the more I think about it, the more I'm growing in the opinion that this Godzilla movie is in many ways better than the very first Gojira (a film that will forever be among my favorites).  It occurred to me that in the original movie Godzilla very nearly destroys Tokyo completely... but we're never given an explanation why he's doing it.

That is not the case with Godzilla 2014.  In this movie Godzilla destroys a lot more real estate, stretching all the way across the Pacific basin.  And there is a very plausible and believable purpose behind his rampaging.  It has to do with the MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms) which have come out of hibernation, and which themselves are some of the gnarliest designs for giant monsters ever put on film.

But you don't want to know about them as much as you do about the star of the show.  This is Godzilla folks, in every conceivable aspect.  But along with much of the rest of the movie, you shouldn't hear it all from me.  Better to go in cold and behold Godzilla with your own eyes and take in what can only be described as the magnificence of this colossal beast.

Effects wise, this could be described as practically a perfect movie.  The effects blend in seamlessly with the characters and the story, without ever being overwhelming.  The battles between Godzilla and the MUTOs are perhaps the biggest and most destructive ever depicted in a motion picture (and you thought that the fight between Superman and Zod in Man of Steel last year was something.  Ooh-bruddah...).  And just wait'll you see the HALO jump into the city.  If you think you could jump from 30,000 feet into the midst of a ruined city being thrashed to pieces by monsters the size of ten city blocks, you are a better person than I.

But all of this is for naught without a very human tale being told, as we watch all of these people caught up in the wrath of the titan.  Ken Watanabe, always a great actor to watch, has a prominent part as a Japanese scientist named Serizawa (a nice homage to the 1954 original film).  The main story focuses on Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a U.S. Navy ordnance disposal officer trying to return to his family and see them to safety.  But for me the standout performance belongs to Bryan Cranston as Joe Brody, Ford's father.  In flashback we watch Joe lose his wife in a horrific accident: something which sends him into an obsessive spiral, incapable of moving forward with life.  Cranston pours a heap of passion into the role and it makes a significant contribution to one of Godzilla 2014's biggest strengths: these are people, and we genuinely come to care for them.

As I was entering the theater a man was exiting, talking on his cell phone and I overheard him say "it was the best Godzilla ever and I've been a Godzilla fan all my life".  Leaving Godzilla 2014, I would have to say the very same thing.  It is absolutely the best Godzilla film yet brought to the screen in the entire sixty years of the franchise, and director Gareth Edwards and his crew deserve the highest accolades for giving the big green guy the respect due him.  I'm looking forward to seeing it again with friends this coming week: not just to enjoy it once more but to see the looks of awe, shock and delight on their faces.

Godzilla 2014 gets this blogger's highest recommendation.  It's absolutely worth catching in first run (and I'm looking forward to watching it in IMAX soon).

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Happy Birthday to George Lucas

The Knight Shift wishes George Lucas all the best - and a lot of appreciation - on this, the occasion of his 70th birthday!

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Lithium, Part 3

I need to write more.

Let me restate that.  I need to write more here, on this blog.  Because if I write more here, maybe it will help me as I write more elsewhere.

First, an update on the lithium.  I visited my psychiatrist a few days ago (funny how I can say the word "psychiatrist" in reference to my own situation and not feel ashamed or embarrassed about it, when once upon a time I could not possibly do such a thing) and it was the first time I've been back since going on the lithium carbonate.  We agreed to the lesser dosage that I've been on the past two or so weeks.  The original - taken three times per day - was giving me a seriously funky comprehension of the world around me.  Downright overwhelming, even.  I had to lower it in order to function and be able to concentrate on my writing, both for my book and my work.

But now I'm in another bout with severe depression.  And despite doing my best to work through it, well... yesterday and today have especially been hell.

The lithium makes bearing through it easier.  And I can go up on it if I need to.  If I need to.  But it comes at a cost: lithium, I have found, takes a toll on my creativity.

I can either be stable (more or less) and lose touch with much of my imagination, or I can be operating on all cylinders and tempt the edge of madness.

There is a demonstrable correlation between extreme creativity and mental illness.  This is what that looks like in my own personal case.  I am bipolar and bifurcated.  Regardless of which side the coin lands upon, I am both blessed and cursed.

My depression is compounded with regret.  There were too many yesterday.  Mom has been gone for more than two years and... I'm trying, I'm really trying, to move past not just her passing but also things left unsaid between us.  I have tried avoiding them as best I can these past few years but now they hit hard, harder than ever.

Dear readers, please take away this if you take nothing else from me writing right now: don't leave things unsaid between you and the people you care about.  Leave no stone unturned.  If there is something between you and someone else, go to them and make things right.  Don't let pride come in the way of that.  Pride is the destroyer of relationships.  It works like a cancer to eat away at all love, and joy, and hope.  Pride keeps us from doing that which we know is right.  Pride shuts our hearts and stops our minds from comprehending things we do which we will... we will... come to regret, if not now then certainly years down the road.  And by then it will be too late.

At least once in my life, I have been shut out and away because of pride.  More times than that, I have been the one who has shut others aside because of my own pride.  And every single one of those times, I have come away with hurt that I will carry for the rest of my life.

I've hurt others because of my pride.  And I've also been hurt because of the pride of others.

There is no hurt like there is to have mental illness, and to be ignored and shunned and put aside by people you care about.  It means to be exiled from the community of friends and family you have built around you.  To be made to know in no uncertain terms "you aren't good enough.  You aren't worthy.  You don't belong with us."

It's not all because of mental illness, I know.  Losing the genetic lottery isn't the entire reason.  There are also the behaviors themselves stemming from mental illness.  It's a funny thing though: those behaviors are much the same as those of someone who acts irrationally because of drink or drugs.

I don't drink.  I don't do drugs.  And neither do a lot of people who have mental illness, be it bipolar disorder or whatever.

Maybe having a condition like that makes it easier to not forgive a person than it would if someone didn't have bipolar disorder.  No matter how much sincere regret, how much we beg forgiveness for the pain and grief we cause... the pain and grief that I have caused... by merit of having such a condition we are to be disregarded.

To long for, to cry out even for forgiveness and yet to never know it.

There is a word for that: "Hell".

I have written before that mental illness is Hell.  And that is the worst part of it.  It seriously, truly does feel at times like utter abandonment, with nothing but regret surrounding me.  Being abandoned by everyone, and at times that means sensing the vacuous absence of God Himself.

Mental illness has taught me a lot about pride.  It has taught me how pride has led me to hurt, and it has taught me how pride has led to being hurt by others.

I wish there had been no pride, on either Mom's part or my own.  And now that's all gone.  There is no hope for clearing away everything between us on this side of Heaven.

Did she have mental illness?  In retrospect... I think so.  She did some very horrible things.  Things that no loving mother should ever put her children through.  And I struggle with forgiving her for them.  I struggle because if she had mental illness, I need to forgive her just as I long for forgiveness.  From people who I have known and loved, and many of them are no longer in my life.

I long for forgiveness from others, though I wrestle to forgive one of the closest people in my life.

You can call me a hypocrite.  I know that's what I am.

Don't let the sun go down on your anger.  Don't let pride destroy the most precious thing we have in this world:

Love for one another.

So, I'm wrestling with deep depression, and still trying to achieve balance between the black dog (as Winston Churchill called his) of bipolar and the roaring engine of creativity.  Work on my book stalled out during the past several days because of the depression: it is a horrible thing to want to engage one's mind when it refuses to be interested in anything whatsoever.  However I am praying that passion will persist, and that perseverance will prevail and perceptively percolate as some profound product.

Incidentally, I have begun to take up painting.  And I am soon to start taking dulcimer lessons.  Maybe the lithium is having a more beneficial impact on my mind than I had anticipated.

Even so, I need to write more.  For my personal reflection and sharing what it is like to go through an especially rough period of bipolar depression (and a tad bit of mania) and also to keep my skills sharp.  If I can write here and elsewhere, then perhaps that will lend itself to writing my book.  Which has 14 chapters planned out so far, including one that will raise everybody's eyebrows.

(It's the chapter on sex.  Consider yourself warned.)

Two books which I have read recently which I must highly recommend to those with bipolar and/or depression, and to those people such as these in their lives: An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison (who is herself a person with manic-depression disorder, aka bipolar) and Depression: Looking Up from the Stubborn Darkness by Edward T. Welch.  The latter was recommended to me by a dear friend, who I cannot thank enough for pointing me to this resource. Welch writes from a Christian perspective and his book has become a tremendous encouragement in regard to depression.

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Lithium, Part 2

Am now at the start of my third week on lithium carbonate, better known in the common vernacular as plain old "lithium".

Lithium has been a funny drug for me.  On one hand it has worked wonders with the depression: something which I've had to endure a particularly excruciating bout with during the past month.  The thoughts of wanting to be dead - really the thoughts of not wanting to "be here" anymore as opposed to seriously wanting to be dead - are no longer actively present.  Not "gone", but not impacting my daily life right now.  I don't want those thoughts to ever be truly gone.  If they were, I wouldn't remember what that depth of depression is like.  If I don't remember, there is nothing of the pain from which to learn and to grow from.

On the other hand lithium has accelerated my awareness of the world around me, and in some ways to almost as debilitating a degree as I was without it.  I'm unclear as to whether it's because I'm still getting used to the medication or because it's been longer than I can remember since I had this clear a perception of the world absent either the mania or the depression.  (AUTHOR'S NOTE:  Do NOT go off lithium cold-turkey if you have the same experience with this drug.  Talk to your doctor before making any changes to your drug schedule.)

I want to believe that one of the reasons God has made me have bipolar and especially the depression part of it is so I can help those who are also suffering from this.  Perhaps that's not really for me to ascribe purpose to, but it's one of the things which I cling to.  I have to believe that there is some meaning behind this.  That God doesn't let things happen for no reason, and this especially.

Anyway, I'm now well into my regimen of lithium.  I'm due for bloodwork soon, because lithium is something which needs consistent monitoring: making sure that it's being absorbed in the proper amount, both for its effects and also so that its more deleterious effects are avoided (namely with the liver).  As for how it's been working...

Like I said, the suicidal thoughts are being readily suppressed.  The depression isn't gone completely but neither am I curled up on the sofa with numbed thoughts racing through my head and making me unable to work... and I do need my work.  But to work I have to overcome the paralyzing thoughts of nullility (I made that word up).  Some might think it's ridiculous to hear that one is unable to compel his own mind to think.  For me it's not ridiculous, it's only too real.  I'm regaining an ability to think and to write.

It's time which I'm putting to good use, because I am writing a book about my life with bipolar disorder.  Lord only knows if it will ever be published.  If nothing else I'll be able to honestly say that I've written a book.  It's going to be about everything pertaining to being bipolar: the manic phases and what they drove me to do, the depression, the costs of bipolar in terms of friendships and marriage and career opportunities, the drugs, and also some surprisingly positive aspects of bipolar.  Along with a few other... well, things not normally associated with mental illness.  I think it will all make sense though.  It will also be as brutally honest as anything posted on this blog.  More so, even.

To write that we've had to adjust my medication slightly, including the lithium, because it's worked well.  It's worked too well!  My awareness has been drastically heightened.  So much so that even going outside to walk Tammy (my miniature dachshund) became overwhelming in terms of sight and sound.  The "easy" choices are to either be manic and have my creativity run rampant, or to be in depression and then my thoughts be empty, vacuous, numb to all stimuli.  It hearkens back to the hell curve which I wrote about a few years ago.

Other effects of my personal usage of lithium have included a change in taste perception and a lessened appetite.  My taste buds seem to have adjusted in recent days: at least the pizza from Papa John's seemed perfectly normal.  In regard to appetite, I've lost a number of pounds already.  Maybe that's compensation for the craziness I went through with Seroquel.  Friends and family have told me in the past few weeks that I'm already looking the best I have in a number of years.  Maybe it'll keep up... but not too much!

So, lithium has me closer to that mark of perfect equilibrium.  I doubt I will ever hit the mark right on target, and if I do I know it won't be long staying there.  And it will always be a struggle to some degree to hover around that sweet spot between mania and depression.  But for now, I'm enjoying a measure of peace.  Like an island in the eye of a hurricane.

That's all for now.  Back to writing this book.

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Forget not in the light what has been learned in the darkness.

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