Posted by coral on October 14, 2000, at 8:25:51
In reply to Pass on the CNP » Ted, posted by shar on October 13, 2000, at 21:20:36
What great thoughts, insights, and questions! I'll pass on the CNP, too. I say this on the healing side of my second "diagnosed" clinical depression. I don't believe I was truly depressed before these two episodes (6 years apart), but I certainly engaged in self-destructive behaviors. Admittedly, in darker moments, I've craved the life of the CNP who routinely goes to work every day at 9:00, home at 5:15, does grocery shopping on Thursdays, and has dental appointments every six months, right on schedule . . . but that desire passed rather quickly. In the darkest moments, all I wanted was peace. The only constant in my entire life of 49 years has been writing. Would I sacrifice that creative talent to be free of pain? No.
Of all the things about me that have varying degrees of truth, my writing is pure truth -- even though I primarily write fiction. For me, the struggle seems to be allowing myself to be who I really am, rather than who other people want me to be. I was intrigued by the "RM" me and "DM" me and confess that my core identity never separated that way. I am me, sometimes depressed, mostly not. In fact, I go to the opposite extreme and see depression as this beast who has crept into my house, intent on stealing my soul and see anxiety/panic attacks as vicious, little demons like a horde of hungry mosquitoes. Mosquitoes that pack the wallop of an F-14.
I'm being buffered right now w/meds (Zoloft, Librium, and Ambien) like a great, big inner tube in a roiling sea and am carefully monitoring how soon I can let the inner tube go and swim on my own. The driving force? My writing. I can't "get to that spot" to write while on these meds and that void is like breathing very thin oxygen, enough to stay alive, but not living. Who am I? Right now, a writer wearing mittens.
poster:coral
thread:990
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20001011/msgs/1051.html