Sqrl as Candide

"Truly, this is the best of all possible worlds!" So goes the enless refrain of Candide, the character in the short novel by Voltaire of the same name. Its so short, you can read it in a single sitting. Candide is a biting satire of a crazy world as applicable today as when it was written. You'll never regret reading it.

But I didn't really come here today to review centuries old novels, but to dare to share the nature of my cycles with all of you who have shared so much with me and thereby enriched me.

Candide is the ultimate optimist, and some aspect of that is a mile wide streak inside me. Weather it comes from my bipolar brain or is just in me, I can't say. But when my cycle shifts sharply upward, it seems to join hands with my inner Candide and race hell bent to the horizon of the wonderful possibilities of the human heart and conciousness. I see the divine nature and would split myself in two to share it with even one person.

As altruistic and pure and dripping with honey as this state is, it has it's trouble spots for me. It was tricky juggling the responsibility of enlightening the world with showing up to work for example. LOL. Then, the thrill of revelation edged out my need for sleep on the priority chart. I started going outside and sitting with a fire all night. Every night. For 8 months. Don't do that. LoL. I would take naps sort of spontaneously here and there and not every day. I comforted myself with the memory of learning that Albert Einstein rarely slept for more than a couple of hours at a time. He was too busy thinking about physics, I was too busy unraveling the mystery in my own way. Seemed like the same thing to me.

Needless to say, the break down precipitated by this hubris was exceedingly thorough. I sobbed my guts out for two weeks straight and was semi catatonic for almost an entire year. I could remember all of it, as though able to replay every single second of the episode in detail, but could no longer see the light of the sun.

This is getting sort of disjointed, but I'll try to bring it around.

This is the first time since that 8 month spree that I have been so high. But it's mixed this time, lots of panic and attention span trouble. In the past, this used to create a feeling in me that I had suddenly awakened in another person's life. Why do I work at this job? Who's idea was living with this partner? None of the things around me seem like they could have ever been my choice. Ironic isn't it? When i'm at my craziest, I accuse my saner life of being crazy. Everything begins to seem designed to hold me back, when I want to boogie down like James Brown.

For the five years since breaking down and getting dx'd, I've learned to guard my sleep and to do everything in my power to devolop a sense of awareness of myself as seperate from my state of mind. By doing that, and noticing the changes, and their lack of connection to any trigger, I see the changing part and the stable part. In the highest highs and lowest lows, there is someone inside wathing with dispassion. I have a hunch that we all have something like that in us. Developing my concious relationship with this inner unchanging self has made more difference in my quality of life than I have been able to attain with meds or therapy. Meds help, depending on a lot of things, and therapy is good, but nothing but my awareness of self as stable has made the difference that matters to me.

With that awareness i find i am able to resist fueling the manic when it comes around. I think the thoughts, feel the feelings, write them down, draw them, sing them, pour them through my hugs into someone I love. But in all of that resolve not to shatter my life, or change anything at all. The calmer I can remain as I go manic, the shallower the following depression. I wish more therapists pointed out this relationship between cycle polarities to their bipolar patients. They react to eachother. The manic isn't something you take advantage of to quickly conquer the world unless you are willing to sit in a hell of equal but opposite torment. The swings we are stuck with, the length of the swing's arc is something we can affect directly.

So, here we go. This swing is bigger than I've had yet to test my practice on. And frankly I'm a few days late on even catching it in progress. We'll see how it goes.

I want to say something else about it too. Some of you have touched me deeply. My heart surges like anything with some of the things we share. I've come from utter isolation except for my partner, to a sudden community of kindreds. The headiness of this tonic has quite taken me by surprise. I want to thank all of you.

Right this second I feel like someone might who has just accepted and executed a dare to prance naked past a large audience. As terrifying as it was, I begin to enjoy it. So, rather than treat you all to the delight it would be to watch me cartwheel and sommersault around in my birthday suit, I shall withdraw to my acorns.

wow, sqrl....
i am gonna definately re-read this when the knlonopin wears off.... my mind is too fuzzy to keep up with your poignant and deep writing at the moment, but i sympathize with your current state,,, uhg. i cant think rite now...

(((sqrl)))

Hey CCL, thanks. I'm worried. I talk too much. Posting scares the crap out of me, and then too, I turn into this giant wind bag, idunno. squirming on this one, what can i say?

Thats fantastic sqrl. I love the way you write, so that its long is just a bigger treat for me. Your insights about mental health have helped me so much and i doubt id be even close to the sanity i am without you around. Keep us posted about how the theory works out. I love this site cause of the diversity of people. So many different dx's and combos of dx's that your never bound to feel alone.

I too get nervous about posting. Like saying something in chat is easier most times cause unless someone saves it there is no proof. Like if someone takes a picture, to me that is a crime against humanity. Im gonna somehow try to get the image in my head of a man doin cartwheels naked removed tho

Thanks Shay, you were the first friend i made here, and a good one. Yeah, maybe sometimes imagery can be a bad thing. lol

Again, all I can say is absolutely amazing.

Ryan

Hullo Sqrl,
You're obviously an extremely accomplished thinker and writer, so when you comment on my poems, it means a great deal. Bout time I returned the favor, mate (or luv -- not sure of your gender, to be honest. Not meant as an insult, just the fact that your observations tend to transcend gender stereotypes).

I understand all-too-well your sense of playing the role of Voltaire's character, though, truth to tell, when I go into an up cycle I usually fire the afterburners and don't think twice about the fact that eventually that dial with the F is going to roll over to E and I'll plunge to Earth with devastating violence (I had to take a two-month disability leave from work last year when Icarus flew too near the sun and the wax holding his wings together melted in a flash).

But seeing as you are such a talented writer, I was wondering if sometimes you're able to channel a lot of the mania into creative works. I know this happens with me. I'll have ideas for three poems and once and scarcely be able to get the key metaphors and turns of phrases out before they evaporate and are lost. Do you find creative pursuits like writing (or painting, drawing, or photography) to be at all helpful in harnessing the mania just a bit. I know it works for me on occasions and I was just curious if you turn to this outlet as well. Ta. Cheshire Cat

I'm surprised and delighted to hear from you Cheshire, surprised only because I envisioned your current state of disrepair as sufficient to keep you off the radar screen for some time to come, and delighted, because, well, you're so damn delightful.

Yes, indeed the manic fuels my creativity. I wonder if I would have any creativity absent that cyclic surge of brilliance. The exchange rate on manic units to creative units for me is not constant, however and as the mania increases, bizarreness and outright delusion can seem to diminish my return on the exchange. That last sentence is a perfect example, aargh. So hard to make a simple straightforward statement.

Before I was dx'd, this was the state I lived for. I accepted it without question as my divine birthright from which I had been inexplicably estranged for too long. I would soon erase all vestiges of my life that didn't match, and, as above, race for that brilliant horizon. But all in all, yes, I find that the creative is what is best suited to this high. Creating new expression and connecting the dots to the multitude of mysteries are where the energy wants to crackle alright.

Music has become my main art form in recent years, so I have my instruments out, and handy, writing projects spread out on the table, computer on, as many things as I can, out in the open. That way I can flit from one to the other and back as often as needed. I notice that while reading is something I love, and as insatiable as my appetite is for it, I'm a better reader when I'm depressed than when I'm this high. Maybe it's just too sedentary. But when I do read this high, lol, it's like reading what the author wrote, and what he/she was "thinking" at the time. Overpowering sense of insight.

I really have to apologize for the disjointed nature of my post here. I feel it slipping around on me, but I know that my inner editor has flown the coup for the time being, so I'll just have to live with it.

You mention Icharus, another with whom I identify so well. I love that painting called, The Fall Of Icharus, at least I think that's what it's called. His terrible fall from such a daring feat, and utterly unnoticed by the world. Sigh. I love beauty. And irony in particular.

As for firing the afterburners in this state, that idea is at the heart of my "practice," if you please, of living with this "disorder." This is the first huge manic swing I've had since my dx. During my shallower cycles in the interim, I have seen that the more I feed the high, the low derives a similar nourishment and follows with a vengeance magnified to the extent that I magnified the manic.

Something I puzzle over too is the idea that bipolar is a "progressive" disorder. I wonder if my manic highs progress to include aspects previously unknown, or if that sensation comes more from observing them with the knowledge of the dx. Either way, I have to admit, it's not as nice as I remember it. Could just be the fear of ruining everything one more time. I'm trying so hard to just stay here.

Btw, I'm a "mate" lol. Sure appreciate the cross geder observation you made though, what a nice thing to be told. Thank you. There are a couple pics of me and my two cats in the pic forums if you feel like adding a little visual discomfort to your host of currently debilitating conditions. LOL

Before I go, confession: I feel giddy with delight to be in conversation with you. Your compliments like no others, make me scuff at the floor and say, "aw shucks" while my heart soars. Thank you.

PS, we share a common inspiration in Bob Dylan.

Hullo again, sqrl,
Glad you were glad to hear from me. I had a feeling you were a fellow mania-driven artist. There's an intensity woven into your language and compressed yet energetic cadences that struck me as potentially indicative of a manic creator. And I was really struck by one particular observation in post: the difficulty you have reading while skimming the planet's azure shell at Mach 10. I have the same problem. I can't watch TV, a movie or do anything else "passive" while in this state. There's a sense of "Do something, Make something, now make something else" driving me forward like an old-fashioned spring-driven toy that's been over-wound. I look at movies and books and think, "That's been made. Of what interest could it be to me?" My only caveat: I listen to Dylan and other great lyricists immediately prior to writing poetry, unless the words are already gushing from my fingertips like water from a broken tap. It sometimes gives me a bar to leap for. Doesn't matter if I don't come close -- the goal is to aim for it. Ta. Cheshire

Spotting the manic creator in the wrought language and cadence is a brilliant observation Cheshire, salute. If it weren't for the drive of desperation like ugency to communicate, to contact, to be part of more than my own life, I'm sure I wouldn't bother to write as the labour it is to keep thoughts seperate from eachother feels so overwhelming and, in the end, futile.

Yes this state makes passivity problematic alright. Sleeping is passive, and I practiacally lose all use for it. That is a big one for me to watch. So far, I'm doin ok with staying put and sleeping. I'm getting about six hours of sleep after knocking my self out with Kava and Sleepy Time tea. But as soon as my eyes flutter from sleep, it's like I'm waiting right there for my self, all happy to see me. lol

I'm finding performing to hold some fantastic keys for me artistically. My goal in art is to get someone to stop everything for a moment and simply 'be' with me, and however many people may be present. By using music, I do that with out logic, without persuasion, convincing, selling the idea, arguing, etc. What surprised about the transaction is the transcendance that happens. I'm a shy person. I get a curious tremble or tremor that is very visible whenever i'm even talking about something that matters to my heart. And initially, anytime I would try to play and sing a song for someone, it would anihilate me. Then one day, I "became" the character in the song, I disappeared, no shaking, the song was magic, and the room stopped. Instant addiction.

Ramble ramble rambe

It's what I love about your poems, you create that full stop i'm talking about. To begin one of your poems, is to surrender myself into your care. You consistently reward that surrender with a most intoxicating round trip through some slice of the world thru your eyes. It's like being lifted into the air by a kite, but trusting utterly to be set back down gently.

So true how it doesn't matter as far as clearing the bar. It's the process itself in the end. It's a special thrill to share an AHA moment with another human being though isn't it? Maybe that's the drive.

I've always admired your posts and your ability and desire to control your different states. Enjoy this one while it lasts. Now you have given me visions of you doing cartwheels and sommersaults in your birthday suit.

Apologies for the excessive imagery. lol And thank you for the compliments.

As for controlling my swings, I hope I haven't really suggested that I can do that. I try like anything to do all the little things i find that make ANY difference hoping that all together, they might make ENOUGH difference to matter. If nothing else, maybe it keeps me in touch with that part of me that remains through both ends of the swing. Sometimes, when it's so crazy, it's all I can do to remember I am not my symptoms. Seems like such a small thing when I say it, even to my own eyes, but when the chips are down, it matters a lot.

It's like an AHA moment practically everytime I read one of your posts, Sqrl. They contain an insight I rarely encounter. You illuminate your sebject with great intensity.

I count myself among you as a person whose creative fire burns with manic fuel. Alas, at the moment, I barely have enough initiative to get out of bed each day. I certainly understand what you meant in your earlier post about how, "Before I was dx'd, this was the state I lived for." It beats hell outta depression any day, doesn't it? Inevitably, however, there's always that price to pay afterwards. Entropy's revenge I guess. I'm wishing I could get back up there from this foul state I'm mired in now. It doesn't prevent me from understanding the situation you face, however. I hope you're able to manage it.

It's funny you both mention Icarus. I mention him in a poem I posted in the creative corner a while back. It's a story we manics can identify with, isn't it?

Hey there Reb, so good to "see" you. Thank you so much for the compliments.

I'm sure sorry to hear how long you've been on the low side of the swing. What a pain in the arse it can be.

"Entropy's revenge" is a positively brilliant phrase, and I promise you I will steal it. lol Love that. And Icarus was probably in my head because of the poem you posted. He really could be the patron saint of bipolars! At least he illustrates the predicament so precisely. Trapped, soaring, falling. Yep.

I hope the fog is lifting soon for you, would love to have you around more. I miss you a lot when you aren't around. Take care. I'll be watching for you.

Thanks. I'll try to keep in touch.