Tag Archives: Life

Mental Wellness, Decisions, and Living in the Moment

For those of you who’ve been following me for a while, you may be aware that I’m not … entirely well, mentally. Clinically, I suffer from bipolar type 2, meaning I am often depressed, but pass through phases of unusual energy, activity, and productivity. Internally, that feels like I can’t trust myself from day to day to know how I might feel at any given moment, and that’s given rise to a sense of despair in and of itself, only because I feel like I really don’t know myself very well at all.

In some ways, it’s easier to deal with my condition when I’m severely depressed, because it’s a familiar old feeling. Somehow there’s a comfort in despair, in misery and loneliness, in knowing that nothing will ever change. It’s difficult, of course; but comforting. During those depressive phases, I sleep too much, get nothing done, can’t clean the house or even take care of myself to a large degree. It’s a huge stressor on my personal and professional relationships, and the worst part is that it’s often triggered when I forget to take (or run out of) my meds, at which point I spiral into a downfall of self-pity in which I continue to not take my meds. It can take weeks, if not months, to emerge from these cycles of despair, and when I’m down in it – to quote Trent Reznor – there’s really nothing to be done to bring me out of it except the slow progression of time.

Because of the frequency of these depressive episodes, I’ve taught myself to try and take life not even one day at a time, but literally one moment at a time; where I might be laughing at a joke one moment, I could turn into a stone wall of misery the next. It’s a rollercoaster, to put it mildly, and the only way I know how to cope with it is to not think about it. I dissociate from my own internal sense of self, and simply allow myself to feel – whatever feelings those might be, in the moment, for the moment. What’s to come is unknown, and what’s happened is forgotten in the past; there is only the present, ticking away one second at a time.

While this works well enough as a coping mechanism for when I’m depressed, it becomes a hinderance to a functional adult life when I’m not. Most people (I guess), by the time they reach middle age, have some semblance of a sense of self; they know who they are, what they like and don’t like, and how they might react to any given situation. I … do not. Living life perpetually in the moment is not as liberating as it might sound, because I really, truly don’t know how I feel about anything. If something seems like a good idea in the moment, I’ll probably go for it – even if, in hindsight, it was a terrible decision. And I can’t remember how I felt about it after the moment’s gone, nor can I predict how I might feel about it in the future. It’s a hazy mist of indecisiveness that leads me to sometimes rash decisions, and sometimes a crippling inability to make a decision.

For example: I am trying to apply to graduate school to continue my education that I left behind almost twenty years ago. This is the longest-term, biggest decision I have ever made in my life, and I still don’t know how I feel about it. Some days I’m anxiously excited to hear about my application, to know if I’m going to get in to my chosen college and be able to pursue a new career. Other times, I feel terribly overwhelmed, and questioning whether I’m making the right choice at all. I worry that I made a decision in the heat of a manic episode, and now I’m going to be dealing with the fallout for the rest of my life.

This is what I deal with every single day. What I have energy for today, I will lack tomorrow. What I feel happy about today, I will regret tomorrow. And what I did yesterday is a mystery, unknown to me why I did it or how I felt about it.

It’s a difficult way to live, but now, almost four decades into my life, I really just don’t know how else to exist. I might splurge on an excessive expense because I feel like it, and pay it off on my credit card for the next two years. I once bought a car on a whim because I wanted a new one. As a teenager, I put my hand through a window because I was annoyed at something.

But, despite it all, I know I am capable. I have written books, albums and symphonies. I have completed projects that some people only dream of starting. I know I have a strong person within me; I just can’t find him most of the time. And when I do, it feels fraudulent, a kind of self-reflected imposter syndrome. Yet, I persevere, because – at the end of the day – I don’t know how else to live.

Just one single day at a time.

I Used to Have Things to Say

It’s funny; as I consider the history of my blogging – and its future – I think about all the things that used to occupy my mind. Every week, nearly, it seems there would be some newness to share: a novel idea, a thought, an opinion. There was no shortage of topics to write about, and no shortage of concerns to share about them.

As time wears on (or perhaps merely as I get older), the less these things seem to matter to me. What once was of grave concern to me (or at least of mild interest) now holds no sway. And I don’t know if that’s because the world has become duller, or because I have.

Every week as I fire up WordPress again to write, I struggle to think of something to say. Something worthwhile. Something interesting, or passionate, or educational. Or even just erroneously opinionated. But instead, all I can think of is how I can’t think of anything to write about.

What a conundrum.

I wonder if this is an aspect of getting older. I started blogging twelve years ago, when I was twelve years younger. Life was more engaging, more thrilling, more devastating … more stuff was happening to me emotionally. Now, of course, I fear that I’m getting boring, or too cynical to care about anything in any real depth. Especially as, even when a topic does come up that reignites some latent interest in me, it fizzles out before I can cohesively string a sentence about it together.

Or is it just me? Am I just becoming less interesting? Am I becoming a boring old git, whose interests are waning and in whom others’ interest is equally declining? Age, one would think, comes with experience and experiences, and with the both of those one would reasonably assume that there would be more to discuss, not less.

It just seems that there’s so little left to say about the world that hasn’t been said by others already, or in a better way, or with greater reach. After all, who am I? Who cares what I have to say? What does my voice matter?

It’s not that I’ve lost interest in my own passions; quite the contrary. In a few weeks I have an interview for grad school to study music composition – a return to a major that I had thought I’d abandoned nearly twenty years ago. I’ve been writing books, writing music, recording and composing; I just can’t think of the same idle, random thoughts to put up on the internet that I used to.

That being said, I suppose I never was very prolific at the whole “random thought” thing; I was never successful at Twitter, because I couldn’t think of enough witty 140-character remarks to fill a feed. Medium- to long-form blogging was the closest I could achieve, largely because I’m too wordy and not witty enough for sound bites.

I could, of course, update you all on the ins and outs of my mundane life and existence; I had Cheerios for breakfast, and drove too fast on the way home to pick up Chinese takeout because I was hungry. But I suspect that would be just as dull as anything else I could think of to write about.

Perhaps I should return to where this blog started; a way to publish and promote my fantasy writing. But in order to do that, I’d have to actually, you know, write some more fantasy. Which I’ve been dreadfully stagnant at. (Although I do honestly have an intention to return to The Redemption of Erâth.)

In any case, I will continue to try and write here, even if I am waffling with nothing to say, because writing keeps the muscles limber, and ultimately I need to exercise those dormant muscles from time to time.

Keep Your Loved Ones Close

I was talking to a colleague at work the other day, and we were discussing how I never feel able to get enough exercise in a day (my Apple Watch is always telling me to take a ‘brisk 20-minute walk’ at ten o’clock at night). He suggested I go for a walk on my lunch breaks, and I confessed that I used to to that almost daily, some years ago, and that I used to go on these walks with a good friend who passed away a few years ago.

It reminded me that, despite having moved on in my life, past daily sadness and grief, there are still those things that bring back old memories – for better or for worse. In fairness, if I were to go for walks on my lunch again, I would probably feel both glad and sad; sad that he’s no longer with us, and glad because it reminds me of the good times we used to have. We would talk, share feelings, and laugh and joke each time, and it always felt satisfying to share that time with someone close.

In this instance, I’m glad I was able to have this time with a close friend before they died. I think I have very few regrets about him, because I didn’t lose contact, I didn’t forget, and I didn’t walk away, even unintentionally, from that relationship.

There are others I feel worse about.

A while ago, I tried reaching out to an old friend and mentor from my youth, and received a strange auto-reply implying they would be unlikely to respond. It worried me, and for a time afterwards I fretted, wondering what might have been going on.

More recently, I discovered that this friend had undergone brain surgery, and that during the course of the operation something had gone wrong, leaving them almost completely incapacitated. For over 18 months, they’ve been struggling with recovery, their only communication being via family members posting on Twitter on their behalf.

Just today, I received a response to a message I had left back in September, sharing that they were, astonishingly, on the mend – albeit slowly. I wrote them a lengthy email – perhaps overlong, but I have trouble with conciseness – sharing some of my life, and wishing them well.

I can’t overstate how glad I am for this person to still be alive, considering not only what they meant to me, but also what they’ve been through over the last few years. And in the same way I was glad of my contact with my friend who passed away, I know I would have deeply, deeply regretted not staying in touch with this person had things gone worse than they did.

I’m a very out-of-sight-out-of-mind kind of person, and it’s to my detriment, because it means that the people who I care most about – the people I cherish above all others – tend to be forgotten about as soon as I’m not around them every day. I also don’t generally make friends easily, which leaves me wondering if, as I get older, I might not feel terribly alone.

So the lesson for myself, here, is to not lose that contact. Don’t forget about the people who matter to you. Don’t leave those emails unanswered, and if you don’t hear from someone for a few months, reach back out. I say this because I think regret is one of the most difficult things there is to live with, and although life will always carry on regardless, a life filled with regrets is hardly a life at all.

You’ll never regret keeping in contact. You’ll only regret the chances you missed, and only when it’s too late.