Tag Archives: artist

007, Schizophrenia, and Writing

02 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by in mental illness, schizophrenia, Uncategorized

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I type out the last sentence, sit back, take a sip of my coffee and read the whole essay through one more time. “I think this is good,” I tell myself. I make sure to save it one more time. It is under the file on my computer that no one else sees, the one named after the James Bond film, “For Your Eyes Only.” I sing a few words from the theme song out loud and try not to think how my work, probably my best work, is in that file that only I will see.

I once tried to post one of the files from “For Your Eyes Only” on my blog, but I couldn’t stop the racing thoughts. The article was about a company that makes video games. I thought one of their games was demeaning to people with schizophrenia. I wanted to have my voice heard. I wanted to publish my views on the game so others could read it and decide for themselves. I wanted to express another side of their story. The article was up for approximately one hour before the thoughts about internet trolls and how they make death threats and harass writers they don’t agree with defeated my publishing attempt.

This past year is different from every year prior. I watch the news every day. I feel strongly about and am outraged by many things. There are essays and articles that I don’t see written about the hypocrisy of so many politicians. I am a Christian and the things some of the most vocal Christian are saying about politicians being “ordained by God,” make me feel like Christianity has fractured more than just Methodist and Lutheran – there are fundamental beliefs that some people hold that are in direct opposition to the ones other’s hold. At this point, it is clearly a separate religion. I have an essay about it, but I fear to take a stand against the Christian Right.

So many people romanticize being an artist and having a severe mental illness. I once did the same thing. I thought reading the poems of Anne Sexton, and Sylvia Plath made me dark and edgy. I thought artists needed to be dark and edgy, especially poets which is what my younger twenty-something-self desired to be. I used to tell people that I thought I could drive myself over the edge, make myself crazy  – like really crazy, like “Girl Interrupted,” crazy. That was all before I had my first psychotic episode. That was all before there was no more “acting” edgy, or “acting” dark. My mind was dark, and I wouldn’t call hallucinations, delusions, or suicidal tendencies “edgy.”

My first diagnosis was bipolar disorder. I still held on to some of the romance of mental illness – brilliance. I looked up every famous person with bipolar disorder. I read books about them. So much talent, so much intelligence. I might not be able to play at being edgy anymore, but I could show signs of intense creativity and intelligence. I wanted so hard to believe like so many people do, that mental illness is somehow a gift. Gift of the gods they say. I gave up all notion of romance when I ended up in a hospital room with doctor and nurses using paddles to start my heart. This illness, this disease of the mind, was trying its hardest to kill me and as far as I can tell there is no great evidence of creativity or genius after death.

I started taking my medication regularly, even though on the medication I no longer felt like writing poetry, or writing anything for that matter. I put the romance behind me to stay alive, and that included my desire to be a poet and identify with the ill geniuses, creative and otherwise. I married my boyfriend and lived a pretty quiet life for some years. My psychiatrist at the time said I was “too well” to be mentally ill and said that my previous psychotic episodes were caused by trauma. He took me off all medication. Within one year, I was having conversations with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. I believed the second coming was just days away and I spent six months believing I was a healer. I made cakes. I made more cakes. I made three cakes a day. I gave them to the mailman. I gave them to everyone living in our apartment building. I believed my cakes could cure anything from cancer to MS. I wanted everyone well. The hall of our building smelled like a bakery for months. I ended up in the E.R. with suicidal thoughts, and that led to a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.

It took almost twenty years to discover the root of my problem, but here we were, my husband and I, with a diagnosis that seemed bigger and scarier than either of us knew how to handle. The two words paranoid and schizophrenia even sound scary. Having them placed on me as an identifier as in, “I am someone with paranoid schizophrenia,” was almost more than I could take.  But as with any illness, you keep moving forward – a step here, a movement there, a jump, and then without realizing it you have been living with that illness for a month, six months, a year, ten years, and you go on.

Even though I had received my bachelor of arts long ago, I was never one to give up learning. I enrolled in several poetry classes at UCLA’s Online Extension and Gotham Writer’s Workshop, and I even joined a local poetry group. I was rusty, but I wasn’t dead. I started publishing again and getting support and feedback from poets I trusted and respected. I applied and was accepted to an MFA program.

Once in the MFA program, I was required to take classes beyond poetry. Having never thought of an idea for a novel in my life, I avoided the fiction classes and took a non-fiction class. I fell in love with the longer form. I fell in love with writing essays instead poems. I asked to change majors but found out I would have to start the program over. I wasn’t willing to do that. I kept taking writing classes online, but this time they were non-fiction classes instead of poetry classes. I started to publish some of those pieces. And the more I learned, the more I wanted to write about what I saw, how I felt, and responses to popular culture and the world around me. I thought my biggest obstacle would be going public with my new diagnosis, but that wasn’t it. My biggest obstacle was a symptom of the illness I had thus far been hiding.

I went public with my diagnosis in an essay posted to Facebook by a mentor and friend. The post was how all of my friends and my husband’s family found out about me having paranoid schizophrenia. My husband and I planned for a year before we agreed to the announcement date. We thought people would disappear. We thought people would be angry, confused, and we braced ourselves for people making an exodus from our lives. Well, people were far more graceful than we could have imagined and if those two words that make up my diagnosis scared anyone away, we haven’t missed them, but what all this writing and exposing of myself did was make me hyper-aware of my symptoms.

Paranoia means I can’t publish essays that devel into my feelings about this president or any other. I am terrified of openly criticizing corporations; I fear their reach and power is so much bigger than a person like me. I’m not currently suffering from delusions like that the government is wire taping me (I have believed this and feared it in the past), or that I am in contact with aliens or hearing the voice of God. I do not hear voices at all. But I do live in a fragile state where I am afraid of what people will do to me if I oppose them, challenge them, or offend them.

Living with paranoia is my biggest challenge as a writer/artist. Not being able to fully express myself because I fear being targeted by internet trolls, the government or large corporations can keep me silent, and it can kill creativity. I might not be able to speak up, but I’m grateful my creativity isn’t dead.  The proof of it is for my eyes only in a folder that sits on my hard drive where only me and James Bond, or someone posing as him, can gain access.

I Need to Drop the Comparisons and Just be Me.

22 Thursday Feb 2018

Posted by in bipolar, caregivers, heroes, hope, mental illness, schizophrenia, Uncategorized

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I watched a video today by a life coach who has spent twenty years working with what she called, “creatives.” Her message was about getting unblocked and doing the work you are meant to do. One of the things she said was that some people have all the tools and all the resources, but they don’t do the work. I thought to myself, “that’s me!”

I have a writing coach; I participate in many Facebook groups for writers, I go to writing conferences, I buy resource books about writing, I have a writing buddy, and on and on but I have a difficult time sitting down in my chair every day to write.

I feel like I am one of the best-prepared writers that I know of who isn’t producing essays, or articles, blog posts, or working on a book. Boy, do I have the tools, though. At this point, I could easily be a writing coach for someone else, and I make an excellent writing buddy that is good at sharing resources, but there is resistance on my part to putting words on the page.

When do you blame the lack of motivation which is a symptom of schizophrenia, and when do you accept that you have something else going on? That is the thing with schizophrenia; it is hard to determine if you are experiencing a symptom or a variety of symptoms or if there is something else holding you back, causing anxiety, keeping you at home, etc.

I don’t think anyone thinks it is easy to have a mental illness, but the things that are difficult about it aren’t always obvious.  I think everyone would recognize that psychosis, or hallucinations, or hearing voices, etc. are difficult to manage. But the other symptoms, like anxiety, depression, social isolation, lack of motivation, weight gain (from medications), health problems (also from medications) make creating a “normal” life challenging too.

I know that a lack of motivation is a common symptom of schizophrenia, but when I look back over my days where I haven’t accomplished much, I think to myself, “You are lazy.” When I compare myself to other writers, I tell myself, “You should be doing that too! Look at them; they are so much more accomplished than you.”

I think that self-talk is possibly the biggest hurdle of all because in that self-talk is the comparison of me to others. Most of the people I know on social media and in real life do not have schizophrenia (a few of them do), and yet, I find that I compare myself to them all the time. Comparing ourselves to others is never a healthy pass time, but it can be extremely detrimental when you have a giant obstacle to overcome that many people do not.

I like to pass myself off as someone without a mental illness. I like to blend into a crowd or participate in everyday activities with others, but the truth is, I can’t always do that. I am not capable of planning out a day and anticipating what my symptoms will be. I have good days and bad days. I have days where I am overrun by symptoms and days where I am almost symptom-free. How then, with this reality can I compare me to someone else…apples to oranges.

I don’t know what it is like to work from home with small children or to work from home with chronic physical illness; I only know what it is like to be me; a person with schizophrenia who likes to imagine nothing is holding her back. Well, there is a hurdle I have to jump every day, most people have one, but if it isn’t the same height as mine, or the same width as mine and my legs are shorter, and I can’t run as fast, is it the same hurdle we are jumping? Nope. I need to learn to jump my hurdles and stop looking in the other lane at the runners who are faster or can jump higher than me.

Broadening the Narrative of Severe Mental Illness

30 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by in bipolar, caregivers, mental illness, schizophrenia, stigma, Uncategorized

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*I am not referring to the horrible and tragic stories where family members have tried again and again to get a loved one help and have been unsuccessful (those stories need to be told over and over until we can change the system).

It seems remarkable to me that there is still stigma and stereotypes that are so prevalent surrounding mental illness. I feel like everywhere I turn someone is writing a memoir, essay or novel with a mentally ill character. The most common stories involve a child of a mentally ill parent or a parent of a mentally ill child. The stories an adult child of a mentally ill parent can tell are very different than the stories someone can tell about themselves. The same is also true when parents write about their children.

I understand how scary a mentally ill parent’s episode of psychosis can be to a child. I also understand the grief associated with having a child go from one level of functioning to another, but somehow other stories need to be told as well. I’m not saying these stories aren’t important or true, only that they seem to be the most common narrative. Many of them lack originality and don’t further our understanding of the range of what people with a severe mental illness are capable of doing, being, contributing.

I know with mental illness comes pain, sorrow, suffering. I know that those things do not just visit the person with the illness. I know these stories can interest a reader, but I think we need to advocate for and support writers who have a severe mental illness and help them tell their stories whenever we can (if you love someone with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, please encourage them to write). Even with the surge of writers brought on by the Internet and digital culture, I feel like there still aren’t enough people who have a severe mental illness telling their stories, what their lives are like and their successes, dreams, etc.

It’s frustrating that editors seem to either love the “feel good story” or the “sensational story.” When I say a “feel good story,” I mean that I or someone else is an inspiration to others rather than just a common person doing their thing. When I say “sensational,” I mean that the editor wants me to include the details of hallucinations, delusions, etc. even though that isn’t always a huge part of having schizophrenia. It is the worst part, I will admit, but not always the most frequent symptoms especially if the person is on antipsychotics and isn’t medication resistant.

I will do my part to get more stories out there. If you have a unique story, or your loved one has a unique story, I will share resources with you to help get you/them published. We can either communicate via Skype or e-mail. Hit me up; I’ll help if I can. Let’s change this narrative and give a broader perspective of severe mental illness.

The Secret to Writing

26 Friday Aug 2016

Posted by in Uncategorized, writing

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For hours I read the descriptions for writing classes. I look at UCLA Extension classes. I look at Gotham Writing Workshop. I look at the offerings of the non-profit writing organization in my city. I spend hours searching for online writing classes and writing groups in my area. I attend as many writing workshops as I can afford. I am searching. I am looking for discipline. I am looking for a magic pill or bullet that will keep me in my chair every day writing essays, prose poems, blog posts, articles. There must be a trick to being productive. It doesn’t help that on Facebook I am friends with a wide network of writers. Those writers report their daily word count: 2500, 3000, sometimes more. I feel inadequate. I feel like a failure. I hire a writing coach.

I have to accept that I am looking for shortcuts. I am looking for a guru with the answers to being a writer, but no such guru exists. The only true guru would tell me this one word, “write.”  That’s it. I realize today as I am typing this that my problem is not that I need one more class, another critique, the input of one more teacher, assignments, encouragement, one more syllabus, or to participate in another workshop.

I need to sit down and do the work. I need to open a document and begin to type. I have been looking for something magical or mystical, some easy way out. There is no easy way out. It is just me, my thoughts, my hopes, my dreams, my words on a page that I either send into the world, or I don’t.

The time of reckoning is here: I either want to be a writer or I don’t. I either take this lonely step, or I give it up altogether. I think of all the money I have spent on advice. I think of all the time I have spent in classes. I think of how I was searching for someone to do the work for me. It doesn’t work that way. I need the determination. I need the motivation. I need to sit down and get down to business, the business of putting words on a page.

I have always believed that everyone has a book inside of them. I frequently meet people who tell me they are going to write theirs. I wish them well, I do, but this business of putting ideas on the page every day is not for everyone. It is both a pleasure and hard work. The words don’t always flow. The ideas don’t always make sense when you try to type them out. Not every piece is artistic or amazing.

I lost the ability to write for many years because I couldn’t focus while on my medication. I never want to lose that ability again. I don’t take this gift of time and the gift of desire for granted, but I have been looking for shortcuts and the path that has already been cleared for a few years now. It’s time to take out my machete, and start hacking away at the obstacles. No one can do it for me. I’m out in the jungle and the options are, move forward or stand still and perish without water.

I sat in my chair today, and I wrote. I wrote these words. I cleared the path a little bit. I took a step forward. Tomorrow, I hope I can make a little more progress, and after that, a few steps into the jungle each day.

It is work this writing, and although it is the best life I can imagine, I need to stop searching. If you want to write a book or make a living as a writer, you can pack your bags and begin to search for the best way to do that. But when you return home, you will find your computer waiting, and if you are lucky, there will be a sticky note on it that says that one word, “write.” And you will discover that you already had everything you needed before you left on your journey. That’s it. That’s all there is to it, “write.”

It’s so much harder than it sounds, you’ll break a sweat again and again, but that’s the secret, and it’s up to you to somehow find a way to turn it into magic one word at a time.

 

 

My Latest Essay on Drunken Boat

24 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by in articles I wrote, mental illness, schizophenia, Uncategorized

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I hope you will read my latest essay on Drunken Boat. It is about “Outsider Art.”  I think those of you who have any connection to mental illness will find the essay interesting. If you do read it, please let me know what you think of my opinion of “Outsider Art.”

Interview with the Artist, Richard McLean

22 Wednesday Jun 2016

Posted by in articles I wrote, mental illness, schizophrenia, Uncategorized, writing

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I have a new essay, Bright Lights and Dark Corners: Images and Words.  It is an interview with the artist, Richard McLean. Richard is a writer and visual artist. He also happens to suffer from schizophrenia. I think you will enjoy his work.

The Time For Love Is Now

01 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by in Uncategorized, writing

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When my husband and I turned forty, we sold most of our possessions, bought a van and toured around the country. We went to thirty-eight states. One morning we woke up in a campground in Nashville Tennessee. The campground provided a pancake breakfast for a few dollars. My husband and I both get up early, so there were only a few other people in line when we arrived.

We got our pancakes and made our way to a table. There was a man by himself, and we asked if we could join him. He said yes.

“Good morning,” we all said to each other.

“Are you staying at the campground?” My husband asked?

“Yes.” The man replied.

He told us that his name was Bill, and like us, he was touring the United States. He said he was doing it for his late wife.

“We always planned to retire and tour the country together. She got cancer, though. I retired last year. I promised her I would make the trip. You two are smart to do this while you are young. You never know what will happen. There are no guarantees about tomorrow.”

My husband and I tried not to cry openly in front of Bill. We were glad to be together living a dream that we had given up everything to make come true. We knew we had done the right thing. Bill’s story proved it.

My husband and I have lots of plans for retirement. The truth is that both of us may not make it to that date. We have to live our lives here, and now. We have to find what we love and make it happen today, because like Bill said, “There are no guarantees about tomorrow.”

It is February, and it is considered the month of love.

I want to suggest seeking out not only who you love, but what you love – photography, painting, architecture, cooking, sculpture, music, acting, writing, poetry, computers, design, robots, gaming, golf, tennis, yoga, etc. and when you find what you love to make sure you do it every day.

We had a wind storm in Southern California yesterday, and a driver was killed by a tree that fell. Life can go out in a flash. Death can visit us at any time.

Tie your dreams up in love and begin to unravel them today. February is the best time to start because it is here and now and none of us should put off our heart for a day that may never come.

 

Dust Off Your Dreams And Take The First Step

15 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by in hope, mental illness, schizophrenia, writing

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I bought a pair of boots on Etsy as one of my Christmas presents. I think they are fabulous. They are black cowboy boots and the artist who made them glued a purple lace flower on the tip of each boot. They have carnation pink lace, and one boot has a pink felt belt looped around it. They both have black, pink and white flower fabric on them.

The boots are on a shelf in the hallway by my front door. Every time I go out, I see them. I have only worn them once. They are gathering dust.

My boots are like dreams.

What colorful, creative, dreams do you have tucked on a shelf in your life? What passion, hope, joy is gathering dust in your life?

I started this blog ten months ago. I have written on it all but thirteen days. It hasn’t always been easy to come up with an idea, but I have worked hard and loved the process. Many times I told myself, “Just keep going.”

Yesterday, I was offered a job writing articles about schizophrenia for a mental health site. It is a part time job. It won’t pay the rent, but it will buy my coffee and help pay for my Internet and phone bills.

When I started ten months ago, I knew I wanted to be a writer. I knew there were certain magazines that I dreamed of having  publish my work. I knew I needed a paycheck. Since that time, I am 1/3 of the way through school. I have posted over 250 short essays on A Journey with You. I have posted 26 essays on Psych Central. I have had 8-10 essays published by The Mighty. I have three essays published in Role Reboot. I have one essay published in Manifest Station. I had three writers interview me for magazine articles (on Christmas Eve, my story was in People). I have written guest blogs, and essays for other mental health sites. I have had poetry and tributes published.

And then yesterday, I was offered money in exchange for articles.

Money isn’t the only reason I write. I write to bring understanding and hope to people who are touched by mental illness particularly schizophrenia. I write because I like to think of ideas and put them into sentences and try to form a coherent essay. I write because it heals me. I write because it helps me figure out who I am and my place in the world. I write to reach out to people and not feel so alone in this world. I write because it is a dream of mine to be a writer.

So, please go to the hallway of your heart and mind, pick out those colorful dream boots, dust them off and put those babies on. It has been said a million times, “If I can do it, you can too.” I have my boots on while I type this. And I am waiting for you. Your dreams are waiting too.

Come on, put your socks on and put your feet in and start walking toward your destiny. I’ll walk with you if you don’t mind me wearing the most colorful boots you’ve ever seen.

Stereotyping: We All Do It

03 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by in hope, mental illness, schizophrenia, stigma, writing

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There are a lot of young and beautiful women who have a mental illness and keep up a blog. I have read on some of those women’s sites that people have often said to them, “You can’t have a mental illness. You don’t look like you have a mental illness.” That statement bothers all of the women I have seen write about it, and it bothers me. What does someone with a mental illness look like? We all know we come in every shape, size, gender and color.

Although having an idea in your head of what people with mental illnesses look like bothers me, I was reminded this weekend that I do a similar thing to other people.

I am afraid of men who I think look like gang bangers. If a young man has tattoos on his neck and face, a shaved head, and wears long, baggy, hanging off the butt pants, my first inclination is to not catch his eyes and to move away from him. Why? Because of the stories I have heard from the media and from movies about what gang bangers do.

Do I know any gang members? I do not. Do I know any young men with tattoos on their faces and necks and that wear that type of clothing I described? I don’t.

This weekend at the resort casino my husband took me to we were sitting by the pool having a discussion about racism, discrimination, mentalism, and psychophobia. We were talking about the words and their meanings and how writers (who I call culture changers like all other artists) can change the words we use, and change how we see and perceive certain things – one thing we were talking about was how popular Pope Francis is but I know a writer who continually writes articles about his stance on gay marriage and women. While most of my social media is lit up with images of the Pope laughing with President Obama, this writer is taking swings at him because she doesn’t want us to forget that no matter how liberal and lovable the current Pope is, he still doesn’t completely include everyone as equals.

We also talked about book banning in our public schools and how sensitive kids are today with the fact that they need trigger warnings for almost all difficult topics – topics we read about in the classics we studied in school without any protection or warning. The classics were simply a part of our education. While we were talking my husband looked at two men sitting next to us, and asked one of the men, “Hey, are you an artist?”

He said, “Yes, and I have been listening to your conversation. I agree with you about artists changing culture.”

Then he proceeded to tell us about his life as a gang member in the 90’s in Los Angeles. He was a street artist and he told us the history of tagging streets and creating real pieces of art in public spaces (he said the only spaces you could paint on without getting beat up were abandoned buildings, trains, freeway overpasses, and a few others – it was a code you lived by, or possibly died by. Private property was off limits).

He was a lovely man, and we exchanged business cards. He got out of the gang world some years ago and became a manager at Home Depot and raised his girlfriend’s kids. Now that the kids are in college, he is back to doing art. He does tattoo work, and people commission him to do portraits of their loved ones and pets. He was an interesting, smart, talented, and nice person.

He used to be a gang banger, and I never would have known that unless he told me.

I need to take my own irritation at people for the stereotypes they have about people with mental illnesses and check that irritation at the door, because I have stereotypes floating around in my world about people too – stereotypes I picked up from the media and movies just like people do about schizophrenia.

Next time I see a young man with tattoos, a bald head, and baggy pants hanging off his butt, I’ll think about Luis, the artist, who was interested in our conversation about artists changing and influencing culture.

We can change and influence culture too. Write and speak your truth, it just may change the stereotypes someone is hanging on to, and that can change the world, one mind at a time.

We All Need to Find Meaning in Life

26 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by in bipolar, hope, mental illness, schizophrenia, writing

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I think it is important for those of us with a mental illness to feel useful, to feel as if our lives are meaningful, and that we are contributing. I know this is important for other people too, but when you are battling a mental illness, and a full time job is not likely or possible, and social situations can be too much, etc. finding something to do where you feel valuable is not always easy.

I think this is why many of us blog. Blogging is valuable and it is a connection to the world that is much easier than maneuvering through a party while you are feeling paranoid, or overcome by social anxiety, or maybe you isolate socially like me.

I know it isn’t easy to find things that make you feel productive, creative, and full of life, but it is possible if you search, look at your skills (what you are realistically capable of), and look at your hobbies and passions. If you do these things, and take inventory, you may be able to come up with just the right thing to make you feel great about yourself.

I watched a short documentary the other day on a young man who recently became a professional photographer by shooting the pictures he loved and putting them on social media. His pictures were picked up on Twitter by a lot of people and then noticed by Time Magazine. One of his photos, made the cover. If photography is your thing, why can’t your story be like that young man’s story? If it happened to him, it could happen to you.

I think I have found something where I can succeed despite the symptoms of schizophrenia that manifest during the day.

I started a program to get a certificate in Creative Nonfiction from UCLA. I started the program on August 5th and I should be completed with it in one year. On my first assignment, my teacher wrote that the story was good and the couple I wrote about in my story was interesting, and it left her wanting to know more. On the second assignment, she wrote some notes and at the end she wrote, “REALLY good writing.” I turned in my third assignment on Friday and the teacher made some minor corrections and she said the essay was so good she wanted me to enter it in a competition (I did).

So for me, I want my job to be writing. I am working toward it now, and I plan to keep working toward it as long as my mind is able.  I feel like I need the discipline and the feedback of teachers in order to move ahead and be better at the craft.  That is why I am in school, and online school works perfectly for me. I hope when I am finished with school to launch a full time freelance writing career.

There are many online certificate programs available through universities now, and of course you can get college degrees (both undergraduate and graduate) online too.

It is never too late to chase your dream or to fill your life with meaning and purpose. With the Internet and social media it is easier than ever to work around a mental illness or the time constraints of having a job, or children to look after.

I am a firm believer that if a dream can come true for one person, it can also come true for you.

There are plenty of ways to be successful on your own terms. You just need to find the way for you and then clear the path. I’m guessing that a lack of belief in yourself is the only thing standing between you and your purpose/dream. Get out of your own way and get busy! I want to sign up to be your first fan!

Here are examples of people who have made their own way despite mental illness:

John Cadigan – has schizophrenia. Made a documentary about his life and is a successful artist.

Brian Charnley – artist who had schizophrenia.

Sohrab Hura – photographer and writer whose mother suffers from schizophrenia.

If you need more examples, Google famous people with bipolar disorder, or famous people with schizophrenia.  There is inspiration all over.