Tag Archives: mentor

A Tiny Tale of Wonder

07 Wednesday Sep 2016

Posted by in Uncategorized, writing

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So many people say they have magic or synchronicity or coincidence in their life. Maybe they mention fairy dust or mermaids. I call it all God. All those wonderful moments when you know the currents of electricity or the moon or tides or whatever have aligned in your favor and everything works out. It’s a mystery; those moments, those miracles are God for me, magic for you, amazing for all.

I had a writing mentor, but he passed away a year ago last April. I was heartbroken by the loss. He was a very successful writer and poet and extremely well loved. He was the first writer that I had met that believed in my work since I had returned to writing after a twenty-year hiatus. (The story of why I didn’t write all those years is sad, and I think I have shared it here on more than one occasion).

Steve not only told me what he didn’t like about my work; he told me what he thought was good about it. He wrote essays for me to get into graduate school to study poetry (and I got into both of the schools that received his essays). I knew that he was serious about what he said about my writing because he published some of my poetry in two different publications where he worked as an editor.

Sometime after Steve’s death, I hired a writing coach to help me write my memoir. I worked with the coach for many months before deciding I wasn’t ready or didn’t want to write my memoir. I have a serious problem with motivation which is a symptom of schizophrenia that gets harder to live with over the years. I stopped scheduling appointments with my coach.

I missed having the support of a mentor, an editor, a cheerleader and a friend.

On the one year anniversary of Steve’s death, I was at AWP16, the largest writing conference in the United States. Before attending the conference, I found out that a writer who I had traveled to Flagstaff Arizona to see (at another writer’s conference), was auctioning off a package of her writing services for a year. I looked at the schedule, and there were two other things I wanted to attend (actually, I needed to attend) booked at the same time as the party where the auction was scheduled. I was devastated, but then I discovered that I could bid in advance and not be required to attend the party.

My husband and I talked about how much we could afford to pay for me to work with this writer for a year. We decided to put the absolute highest amount we thought we could afford so that I would have a better chance at winning the auction. (At that time, I didn’t know that I could contact this writer and work with her. I thought the auction was my only chance).

The day of the auction I ran into a poetry professor who knew Steve and knew how much he meant to me. I told this professor that I had tried but been unable to find someone who filled those holes and gave direction to my writing life. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I felt the tremendous loss of such an advocate, teacher, mentor, and friend.

It was the day after the anniversary of Steve’s death when I was sitting in a disability panel as a representative of writers with a mental illness when I got the text. Mine was the winning bid at the auction. I nearly screamed out my excitement in that auditorium. I let my hands go over my head and pumped the air above.

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote a book, Big Magic; the book is about living a creative life. She writes a lot about those moments, those incidents when everything in the universe seems to be working toward a single goal that manifests itself before you, or in you, or around you.

I still miss Steve every time I write a new essay, or have an article published, but I believe in an afterlife and the continuation of spirit and energy. And I think he would have delighted in the fact that Anna and I connected. In fact, I think he arranged it.

 

A Tough day in the Life: Living with Schizophrenia

20 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by in bipolar, mental illness, schizophrenia, stigma

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Yesterday I was exhausted. I was so tired and beat.

I wrote a letter to Cosmopolitan about this article. 

The article is about a woman who has bipolar disorder and she has a psychotic episode and walks herself and her niece and nephew into on-coming traffic. They all die. The mother of the two children that died was the mentally ill woman’s twin sister. The article says the mother of the children has forgiven her sister and has started an advocacy organization to raise awareness about mental illness. The article uses a sensational headline, and of course, the mentally ill woman in the story committed a murder/suicide.

I pointed out the stereotypes in the article, the sensational title, and asked Cosmo if they really wanted to contribute to the stigma already surrounding mental illness. I also asked them to do a fair and balanced story of someone living successfully with a severe mental illness.  Who knows who will read my letter, and if they consider what I wrote.

I also heard from that writing organization I wrote about a couple of weeks ago that I said discriminated against me (I had to take the post down due to paranoia, otherwise I would link to it here). The woman who called was very sweet and sincere and told me all of the people she works with felt awful about what had transpired with me and my application for a mentor. She told me the program was set up to reach people who normally are under-represented and don’t have a voice. Of course I explained that people with a severe mental illness are one of the most marginalized groups in the country.  We spoke for a long time. She listened to me. She heard me, and I told her she was brave and courageous to call me not knowing what kind of response she was going to receive from me.  I really appreciated the call. I felt validated. I felt included. I felt I had spoken my truth and been heard. I was weepy on the call and all day long. I am still a little bit weepy.

Then I had to take care of a household situation. I may not be good at housework, and I may not be good at cooking, but in my house if something comes up with a medical bill, insurance, credit card fraud (it has happened to us five or six times in the past two to three years), or anything like that, I am the one who handles it.

Well, the car we just bought had a rattle. We took it to a Honda dealer and they said it had been in an accident. This wasn’t disclosed to us when we purchased it. I spent most of the day on the phone with people trying to figure out how to handle this situation. I called attorneys, I called the corporate office of Honda, and I called the dealership where we bought it. Because of the possibility of severe paranoia, I did not want to hire an attorney. I finally found a way to resolve the issue directly with the dealership. They said they will inspect the car again and if they made an error, they will make it right with us. The calls and fact gathering took a good part of my day. It was draining to be continually weighing the consequences of a deep and long lasting bout of paranoia if the situation got confrontational or hostile.  Thankfully, I think it is going to be resolved in the most positive way possible – directly between the two parties involved – us and the dealership.

Lastly, over a week ago we had a heat wave and moved a mattress from the spare room into the living room so we could sleep near the air conditioner. The weather has cooled down, but I am having so much fun sleeping in the living room. It is like a camping trip. Last night, after all that had gone on during my day, my husband didn’t have the heart to move us back into the bedroom.

I slept in the living room again last night and my husband made me popcorn to eat while I was curled up in front of the television. Then he told me, “There are times when I think you are twelve.” And we both laughed, because the child in me is so alive and so present even after one of the toughest days I have had in my recent memory.

It is hard to know your limitations when you are mentally ill – the limits that keep you from crossing the line in your mind and losing touch with reality, but it is essential to try and find them, honor them, respect them, and live inside them.  And when you are successful at it, allow yourself to sleep in the living room and eat popcorn. Who cares if people think you act like a twelve year old? I can’t have my armor of protection on all the time – I need to be allowed to play so I have the energy for the next round.

I hope we sleep in the living room through the weekend.