I’ve used this blog as a dream journal over the years, dating back to 2016. I created the blog in 2014 with the express desire to get back into art again. See my recent post Grieving what has been taken for background. I plan now to write a bit more about dreams, but right now I want to talk about creativity and my recovery.
As I mentioned before, it has generally been a grind to work on this blog, and I attribute it to my mental health and addiction history, including the trauma associated with hospitalizations, jail, and losing my sanity multiple times.
This year, I’ve now been admitted to inpatient psychiatric care (mental hospital) two times, for a total of 24 days. After the first stay I completed electroconvulsive treatments. I was doing much better for over a month as a result, but my meds needed to be adjusted and it did not happen in time. As a result I destabilized and needed to be hospitalized again. Part of my despair in the second round of this was the fact that it keeps happening even though I’ve maintained total sobriety for 12 years and have generally taken my meds without fail. I’ve been hospitalized 5 times in that span, and while bad decisions have sometimes played a part, it’s not always been my fault, or not my fault completely. Separating myself from the guilt and shame or having an illness has been a struggle all within itself.
The other component was despair over lack of success in romantic relationships since getting clean, and that prompted a pretty emo post I wrote on the day I got admitted to inpatient in October. I made it private after I got out because I do not, as a general rule, want to include anything that promotes giving up for good. But at that time I really felt defeated, and in clinical terms my mood was very unstable again, so back to the mental hospital!
When I’ve been in the hospital during this time frame, I’ve generally co-operated with treatment, attended groups, and conversed with other patients. I’d say on balance, it’s been a positive experience, despite some individually very challenging moments along the way. Overall, I’ve gotten better at managing my mental health, coping with symptoms, and accomplishing goals. Most importantly, I’ve developed much healthier relationships with families and friends, and made changes when necessary.
That said, being too goal oriented can be counterproductive. Being manic can spur hyperspending, completely crashing out on underserving people, crashing out and blocking deserving people, and many other symptoms, This year, as things started to escalate, I was able to build websites, a video game, and found an LLC. I also deleted 8 social media accounts across multiple platforms, and ended several friendships whose shelf-life had expired.
I’m trying to find the positives in this situation, and it’s necessary to do so to maintain motivation. I need reasons to keep going, friends and family always being my north star. That said, the more the better. For example, for my 5th hospitalization since getting sober in 2014, I have finally been creating some things. I used my notebook they give us to write in during inpatient to actually make some art and write; when I left it was nearly full. That’s the first time that has ever happened. My prior blog post was the first thing I wrote in 5 years or more on this platform. Now I’m writing this. I’ve also read 4 books this year, The Bhagavad Gita, The Dhammapada, The Way of Chuang Tzu, and The Tao Te Ching. The first I read before this all kicked off, the rest since hospitalizations started. I haven’t read like this for my own benefit in years.
I credit this to two things: nuking most of my social media from orbit and electroconvulsive treatments. I had never done a process like that before, and I’m not really sure how, but a lot of the resistance to create is gone now. I’m better able to approach creating things non-judgmentally. It feels really good to create again, this was a missing piece of the still-forming puzzle that is my recovery. I have a need to make things, to document my experience and be heard.
It’s important for me to reframe the year thus far as a success, and not a failure or a defeat. In spite of an extremely powerful existential and mental health crisis, I fought through it and I didn’t quit, and I have hopefully found an answer. My thinking is a bit wiser, a bit more rational, a bit less histrionic. I just want to keep going, to see what happens, to find out what else is out there, to see what else I can try and accomplish. Even though I have wanted to quit sometimes, I will try my hardest to never do that. I can’t quit on my family, my friends, and most importantly myself. I’ll do my best to keep getting stronger, to take care of myself and help others.
As an example of some of my experiences in the hospital this last time, I wrote in my notebook a lot of questions centered around who am I, what is my purpose, is it worth continuing, and so on. As the new meds took hold and I started to feel more rational, I was able to shift those thoughts with the help of some friends. I wanted to include some of what I wrote down after that started to shift:
- life is a struggle, embrace the struggle
- pain is the price of consciousness
- the energy we emit is returned to us
- giving up for good is not an option
- kindness costs nothing
- the world is better with you in it
- i don’t have to understand everything
- the only way out is through
- there are no shortcuts
If you’re struggling, I pray you can find a way through. Don’t give up.