tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182618917057808346.post288468611167642046..comments2023-09-12T05:40:21.212-05:00Comments on The Looney Bin: Analysis of Mental Health Issues © Megan Snider: Disorder and Outlook © Megan SniderAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17817029952891465820noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-182618917057808346.post-56388362887268507142009-05-26T18:19:11.280-05:002009-05-26T18:19:11.280-05:00Hi Megan. Thanks for your insightful comments on m...Hi Megan. Thanks for your insightful comments on my poetry. You're the first person to actually get it. I appreciated that you caught things that others missed. ("Damp Mourning" ... everyone enjoyed the punchline, but no one noticed the line you mentioned about daytime sleep and vision.)<br /><br />My son has been diagnosed with BPD, which I mentioned, but I believe that he and I have the same illness, which is almost exactly the same as your diagnosis: Clinical Depression with anxiety-related psychosis. He is medicated (Ability and, [gasp!] Paxil), but I am not. I find the meds affect my cognitive ability. As a single parent and freelance writer, I need efficiency. I would like it if he, too, could be off meds.<br /><br />I think his depression is partly due to genetics, but also the traumas that he's suffered in life--namely (but not exclusively) the early-onset kidney disease and subsequent abuses to his psyche via needles, forced meds., invasions of comfort, dignity, ability. <br /><br />I'm appreciating what you're teaching me here about other creative folk (Tennyson, Eliot). It seems funny to me that writers like those you reference, and Virginia Wolfe, and artists like Van Gogh - all so disturbed and brilliant. People love to look at their stuff, but do they really get it? I don't understand that. But it is really something specil to be awakened to other voices out there- past and present.<br /><br />Megan, people want and need to read the things you're writing about. I would like to think there's a movement afoot of people like us who believe we have things of beauty to share with the world, but are stalled and sometimes stopped by what we've been dealt. You write so poignantly about what it's like to be in this place. You say what we all feel about being diagnosed, about modifying dreams and hopes, and about dealing with public perception. Please, please keep writing. And keep these posts in a singular folder (backed up) as a compilation. <br /><br />You can gain more "followers" by visiting other blogs and leaving comments. (Google Liz Spikol and visit her blog, "The Trouble with Spikol." Then look at comments there and visit/join those commenter blogs.)<br /><br />Regarding life's dreams and their possibilities: Listen, Megan... when someone is diagnosed with cancer or heart failure or epilepsy or terminal hemorrhoids, they respond by revising, REVISING their dreams. What I have learned from my own battles and those of my son is this: SIMPLIFY as much as possible. Keep life as uncomplicated as you can. In North America we tend to lose sight of the basics; we get overwhelmed by choices and the largess of the world: "The world is your oyster." BS... The world is no one's oyster.<br /><br />But even prisoners of life sentences have routine, life, purpose, meaning. They, like us, operate in the confines of their circumstances. Prisoners earn college degrees, counsel their comrades, find meaning in their world, despite its smallness. We, too, are confined, but neither muted nor stationary.<br /><br />I have found that when I listen to my spirit guide, I can find my way though the "water's rush." When I ignore that voice -that gut feeling regarding relationships that give me pause or situations that don't feel right- I get into trouble. My poetry reflects some of the learning... reconciling abstractions.<br /><br />And I have found for my son that routine is everything. If he feels secure in that, he is secure in (most) everything else. <br /><br />Both, of course, are precarious. We can't simplify or control everything in life. Death happens, change occurs. But we do what we can, right? We do what we can... gloomy days and bright spots, incremental transitions, slow starts that pulsate and move forward however cautiously. Life and meaning still happen. We keep plugging along and the world will embrace us. <br /><br />Maybe the mentally ill are the new minority - who knows. Whatever... take care of you first. That's priority number one.<br /><br />Blessings, Megan.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com