Thank You, Old Me

It's been about four years since I began the process of "waking up": the tumultuous experience of being given new eyes and ears with which to experience the world, and in doing so, having your entire life change. It's been wonderful in some ways, frightening in others, and very painful in yet other ways. Waking...

Looking Back to Move Forward

I got a coffee cup as a gift from my mother-in-law recently. It has the image of a long-necked bird facing backwards upon it called a sankofa, a word from Africa. It is meant to symbolize the fact that sometimes, in order to move forward in life, one must look backwards upon where one has...

Turn the Page

As has been the case since my initial manic episode/awakening in May 2018, I often think back on what I was doing a year ago or two years ago on any given day, and lately I'll go as far back as three years for comparison.  This is a useful exercise for someone who tends to...

The Body Keeps the Score

Over the last two years since I had a major breakdown in May '18, I've done extensive personal research on a wide variety of topics related to my mental health.  I was partially driven by a desire to find alternative treatments to harsh psychiatric drugs, as well as better explanations for precisely what was happening...

The Imagery of My Subconscious, part 3

After my hospitalizations, I did a lot of painting just to paint.  I also hate wasting paint, so I wound up doing a lot of texture exploration using paint that was still usable, but had thickened a little due to drying on the palette. An artist friend took note of what I was doing and...

The Imagery of My Subconscious, part 2

Not long before my manic episode in August '19, I started using watercolor paints in addition to sticks and pastels.  My drawing teacher in college told me one day, "You want to paint," upon observing the way I drew, and she was right: I was fascinated by the act of painting, though it would be...

The Imagery of My Subconscious, part 1

Sometime during the Zombie Years, around 2013, I attempted to begin art journaling as a way to not only get some artistic expression going in my life, but also for its therapeutic value.  I had seen numerous friends and other people on the internet producing beautiful art and essentially administering self-therapy in the process.  I...

Six Months

It's been about six months since my August '19 episode, and much like the one I had in May '18, I'm having a hard time not thinking about it.  Unlike the first one, though, which I felt a lot of positivity about, all I have are bad feelings about the second one.  I'm still having...

I Can’t Watch

It's another Presidential election year in America, and judging from what I've seen on the internet, this one's not going to be any easier than the last one.  In some ways, it feels like the last election never ended, and people seem more polarized than ever.  Only instead of there just being the usual single...

The Riot in My Soul

I talk about the difference between now and the previous year quite often.  This is something I do on an almost daily basis now, largely for the purposes of a daily confidence boost, because the difference is like night and day.  Everything in my life has changed, so much so that I wouldn't be able...

The Relativity of Suffering

I've been relying heavily on the digital version of the Osho Zen Tarot that is built into AstroMatrix for about a year and a half now. I wrote to my therapist one day about the cards that had been repeating for me at the time (about 4-6 months ago, I think): ice-olation, slowing down, and...

The Practice of Reading

I have been reading since I was three years old, which means that perhaps millions of words have passed through my eyes in the last 45 years.  Imagine my dismay upon discovering that I essentially had to relearn how to read after The Zombie Years, which is how now I refer to what I once...