There’s A Method To My Madness
OK, I’m just going to put this out there. I can imagine people may be talking amongst themselves about my latest outbursts on this very blog.
I’m not sure what the word on the street is.
It’s not that I don’t care; I’m afraid of all the possibilities, all the speculation.
Yesterday, I met someone in the wild who told me, “I read your stories every now and then when I have time.” That is the answer to all my fears.
So here’s a story of a lovely lady…
P.S. Some of you may be wondering why I post a selfie every godamn day; it’s so I can get the most readers. Apparently my blog is attracting a lot of men in India, and I’m here for it. Whoever you are, I want you to investigate my thoughts, even if I have to sell them by putting my face out there.
Some of you are wondering if I’m having a manic episode. I’m going to be straight-up honest with you: I’m having a hypomanic episode, which is a mild form of mania. I feel it is almost over now.
No worries, my shrink has adjusted my cocktail to help prevent a full-blown manic episode. I’m no longer in a danger zone.
So for the moment I’m overmedicated and underpaid. But this is not an Alanis Morsette song.
And don’t you worry, my close friends are checking my sanity on the regular. They are on the case.
Now, us bipolar people love our hypomania. It’s better than depression and mania. It’s this in-between state where you get shit done.
Look, I did not plan this. Literally, I wasn’t sitting around thinking, Maybe it’s time I shout from a mountaintop. No, no, I have no idea how or why this happened. I really mean that when I say that.
I mentioned the muse in a past post. I think she might be god. Or should I say the goddess?
Now that I know what I’m doing, I’m being more intentional. I’m not an idiot. I recognize that I have to present this material in a certain manner, or there could be consequences.
Why does god speak so loudly to me when I’m manic? I don’t know; you’ll have to ask him. I do know that when I am experiencing full-blown mania, I hear other voices that are most definitely not god as well.
It becomes very confusing.
But I am being very honest with you when I tell you I am not confused right now.
That might be hard to believe after considering everything I have shared.
Photo courtesy of Ankit Kumar Mourya via Scopio.
A lot of my audience is in India. I don’t know what the climate is there regarding mental illness. It scares me. I think if I had stayed there as a child, I would have ended up in an insane asylum for the rest of my life.
Maybe that’s a bit harsh.
I could've also ended up in an arranged marriage with a dude I didn’t know, with six kids, and maybe a couple of grandkids by now.
I’m going to be honest: I’m very maternal, but I would have fucked up a kid real bad. And there is also the risk that they would have inherited bipolar disorder. I wouldn’t want to do that to another human. Anyways, I’m still raising nina.
If one more person tells me I can still have kids because Janet Jackson or Hillary Swank did, I’m going to punch them in the face. I may have mentioned anger issues.
Maybe I have my own prejudice against Indian people in India.
There’s another possibility, though. This one fascinates me.
If I were in India 25 years ago and told people god was talking to me, they might have listened to me. I may not have had to go through hospitalizations.
I mean, I recognize there are times when hospitals are necessary, but if you have never stayed in a psych ward, you don’t know what you are missing.
It’s a zoo. I made friends and enemies. I was put in solitary confinement.
It’s crazy. Crazier than me, even. It makes you crazier than you were before you went in.
Twenty years ago, I started taking medication every single day of my life and had absolutely no mania. I did suffer from depression on and off. Which sucks too…but…
In 2022, my psychiatric nurse practitioner changed my medication, and I had a full-blown manic episode that resulted in hospitalization.
So what does all of this have to do with god talking to me?
I don’t fully understand the relationship between insanity and enlightenment.
I’ve spent my life trying to figure it out, and I still don’t know.
All I know is that if I want to talk to god now, I can, anytime I want to. I don’t do it as often as I could, as I probably should. I meditate to feel god’s presence inside me.
It’s like a peace or euphoria. Mania and even hypomania are euphoric as well.
The difference is that when I feel spiritually “high,” I don’t have anxiety and weird anger. Hypomania and mania come with side effects. That is why you have to medicate them away.
It’s a myth in the art world that you can’t do your art on your psychiatric medication. It’s a myth in the spiritual world that you don’t need allopathic psychiatric medication if you have a mental illness and you are seeking enlightenment.
Meditation may help with depression. But an illness like manic depression cannot be controlled with spiritual endeavors alone.
So what am I going to do now?
I’m trying to chill.
I’ve been writing a lot. A lot.
It’s good; I have a lot of material that will eventually become a book. And writing satisfies my soul in a way that is very unique.
I’m thinking of calling my collection of essays Nina of Troy. What do you think? Would you buy it?
I need money, people. This extravagant lifestyle I live doesn’t pay for itself.
nina
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