Am I Still Ill?

A little something about my vision for my future.

Am I cut out for a life of politicking? No. It does my brain in. Am I political? Of course. I’ve suffered all the socio-economic implications that long term ‘mental illness’ brings. I’m not just talking about a life restricted to disability benefits or the inability to fit in to the ‘workplace’ and normal family life. Factor in dealing with stigma, prejudice and often, a degree of isolation and loneliness as a result (this is partly why my friends are so overwhelmingly important to me).

OK. I can be a stubborn cuss. I can sound arrogant. Maybe even aggressive (certainly Equals Training found me so, though I would lace that particular opinion with a hefty pinch of salt given what I’ve come to know about them).

Human psychology time. Aggression is sometimes a life-saving quality to have. It enables you to stand up to a lot of knock-backs. It makes you cussed and determined enough to insist that your point of view is as valid as anyone else’s.

Artists in general have to have a touch of aggression in their make-up. This gives them the energy and drive to ‘put out there’ their own unique view of the world. The creative impulse has a touch of the ‘fuck you, world, this is how I think and feel’ about it. You cannot devote your life to people pleasing and getting pats on the head from authority figures, and be true to your creative drive. You have to choose.

I don’t ‘buy’ the medical model of mental ‘illness’. I have faith in my life, faith in the experiences which I would never have had if it weren’t for that ‘illness’. I KNOW that the dreams and visions of ‘psychosis’, as well as the appalling pain of depression have informed the person I have become. Once more, I do not feel that makes me ‘less than’ anyone.

I would go further. It has given me a different perspective on life. I am faithful to my dreams and visions, even to the soul-crushing depression that I so wish I had never had to experience. I have visited other dimensions of existence that the ‘average’ person cannot even dream about.

It goes without saying that there are many, many negative sides to life as a ‘manic depressive’, however beautiful some of those visions might be. I prefer not to go on alarming about those. Let’s take them as read!

I have found that a positive mind set is, for me, not even a choice. I simply cannot afford to fall prey to the view that unless I can turn myself into a passable imitation of a ‘normal’ person (via psych drugs, self-management, therapy or whatever) that my life has no worth at all. Being a positive person does not make me in any way superior to anyone else. However I have found that for me, it is essential.

One of the fascinating things about us humanoids is how different, how diverse we all are. One man’s meat really is another’s nut loaf. We all have our coping strategies.

I believe I have all the necessary skills to contribute something new to the world of thought about mental illness. What I don’t have is a crystal ball to let me know whether I will ever succeed in doing just that. It doesn’t even matter. My duty is to work toward that goal with every scrap of strength and determination I can muster.

I have a very useful ability to read and research widely and look in some places others may not have thought of, for inspiration and nuggets of wisdom. In other words, I am quite academic. I have a clear, lucid and sometimes elegant writing style. I put communication at a premium: I am not writing to mystify, but to elucidate.

I am independent-minded and have developed the ability to discriminate and discern the wheat from the chaff. I have some original thoughts, because I am a unique person, and a thinker.

My proposition, then is this. I forget about trying to slot into ‘the workplace’. It won’t work for me, and I can’t work for it. Whatever I work at in life, whatever my ‘calling’ is, it has to allow for a flexible schedule. I am not always well. Sometimes I am depleted in both mind and body. But when I am up and firing on all cylinders, I have much to give.

I aim to write the book I would have liked to read. Many others have done the same. I have read so many books, I know how powerfully helpful a book can be. But I have not read ‘the definitive text’. It remains unwritten. It’s my job to try and write it.

That’s creativity. You have to have self-belief, you have to be cussed, determined and a tad aggressive. You have to have the sheer ‘brass neck’ to stand up and say ‘ah, but have you thought of this?’

Yeah, I could be accused of being on an ego-trip. I can be accused of arrogance. But that’s not what it’s really about. My life and the meaning I can extract from it, is at stake. I’m not the chattering classes. I am the underclass. I’m hip hop.

As Eminem once wrote ‘success is my only motherfucking option – failure’s not’. And success for me lies along a particularly narrow, stony, treacherous mountain path. The stakes are high. But I’d be truly mad if I didn’t give it my best shot.

Lots of love folks. Z xxx