Chipbutty wants to know: what is the shape of madness?

[CharleyH]

Holy shit CharleyH

this gave me goosebumps
the last line hit the breaks and the rest of the poem came falling in all around it, just as it should

Should I say thank you? lol. Well, it could use a good bit of editing for sure (Kisses, Ang or SwirlieG (ps...thanks Chippy) if you wanna help me edit it out). I'm happy that I at least got across 'scary' because it is very frightening living with someone who is diagnosed with a mental disorder and doesn't know or want to admit it (oh no, not Lauren and long time ago for me).

In my own poem, I should have repeated exact phrases between love and hate, black and white. Each so elated or inflated without any in betweens. "leave your door open, keep it cricked" is most certainly the best line in the whole thing... now to form it... pantoum?

 

[CharleyH]

i do i do ...

the line in my sig is from this:

the shape of the thing

who can tell me
the shape of madness?
what varicose seas drive forth
in tension of the blood;
what sad, voluptuous dreams become
escape from inner voices
as they burn the heretics -
over and over

Really like this: what varicose seas drive forth
This line almost gives me a vision of two people (outer and inner) someone, or thing, trying to fight their way out of the flesh. Fascinating. Love it!

 

[butters]

Really like this: what varicose seas drive forth
This line almost gives me a vision of two people (outer and inner) someone, or thing, trying to fight their way out of the flesh. Fascinating. Love it!

thankyou

of course, the best phrase belongs to Byron his sad, voluptuous dreams .. ahhh

 

[UnderYourSpell]

oh great, now I am insane thinking about how to escape that thing

From wikipedia

A mathematician named Klein
Thought the Möbius band was divine.
Said he: "If you glue
The edges of two,
You'll get a weird bottle like mine."

must be just me then that thinks it looks like what they give to male patients that are bed ridden ......

 

[EroticOrogeny]

must be just me then that thinks it looks like what they give to male patients that are bed ridden ......

There is a resemblance, but be a bit of a problem in that it wouldn't hold anything.

 

[vrosej10]

I'm bipolar and when I'm manic and really over the edge, I think it would look like a sea urchin, all spikes and vibrating. When I am depressed, I think it would be like a cavity in you tooth, dark and carvernous with a horrible ache that's set of by everything.

 

[butters]

I'm bipolar and when I'm manic and really over the edge, I think it would look like a sea urchin, all spikes and vibrating. When I am depressed, I think it would be like a cavity in you tooth, dark and carvernous with a horrible ache that's set of by everything.

thankyou for these visuals, vrosej! very very 3-D

 

[Palba_Noruda]

PN's arm chair psychology

Thank you. I really struggled with it for a while, but then I met this amazing therapist who helped me start meditating again. He also practices something called Narrative Therapy, which was just perfect for me because basically you write your "story." And once it is written, you a) acknowledge and understand that it is fiction as are all "stories;" and b) you see where you can edit and change your story, not the facts but your way of dealing with them. That and meditation were a powerful combination for me. I can see how people succumb to depression and anxiety; they can overtake and overwhelm.

Oh and the best part is that my therapist became my best friend and he's even going to visit us after we move. Isn't life funny?

Wow, that Narrative Therapy is a neat concept. I'm doing a study of revision techniques among creative people, and I've been making a comparison between the kinds of revisions artists do to specific pieces compared to the kinds of revisions people make in the stories they tell conversationally and even the life stories people tell themselves.

I meditate, too!

Wow. That sounds like a wonderful process.

So. Riddle me this. What is the difference between a combination of anxiety/ depression and bipolar, cyclothemia and the lot?

I dunno. I've only ever experienced depression and anxiety. I don't know much about the other schtuff. I never understood how "bipolar" is different from them either, not really.

I've talked to many therapists over years (going back to a few years after my sister died when I was a teenager), and many tried to get me into cognitive therapy. The notion there is that there's something wrong with your thinking and you need to think differently. I never understand how you turn your thinking off and on like some damn faucet. But the narrative therapy where you get to write and edit stories made great sense to me. I really think mental health is all about finding the thing that works for you, so narrative therapy and meditation are just right for me.

C'mon you other poets. I know I'm not the only (occasionally) crazy one here. Oh far, far from it.

I did cognitive therapy for awhile. Actually, it worked quite well to the point where I swung from depression to mania very quickly and ended up dropping out of school cuz I figured I was way smarter than the professors LOL That happened a few times Ha

But the therapist I saw at that time recommended a book called Feeling Good, which is I guess the big cognitive therapy self-help book. I took it very seriously, did all the exercises. I think their ideas about cognitive distortions are interesting... For instance, they say that a lot of anxiety comes from our imagining we know what somebody else is thinking... Or that anxiety comes from imagining something that is going to happen in the future. They give these things names: mind reading, fortune telling, there's a few other ones. Then the idea is that once you've learned that this kind of cognitive distortion happens, the next time you are feeling anxiety, you observe what type of distortion is causing it, and try to reinterpret the situation... One of the big criticisms of this approach is that it doesn't get down to major issue or root problems... And that was certainly the case for me, because I could do those exercises all day long, but it would never get to the root cause of most of my problems for the last fifteen years, ever since puberty, I suppose, which have everything to do with sexual repression, confusion, etc (Those aren't the right words but will have to do)

The most lasting effect of that book for me is that I still follow the advice of not saying should or have to... Which lately has been running into conflict with my interest in needs-based approach to looking at things.

Thank you.

I agree about the walking thing, too. I should have added that to my personal list along with meditation and narrative therapy. Walking or (for me) working out makes such a difference in the way one feels. Physical activity is key to mental health.


ETA: On reflection the only time I've had that supercharged intellectual sort of high you describe is years (many years) ago when my doctor prescribed something called "mood elevators" for my menstrual cramps. The pills were basically "speed," and I liked the way it made me feel (well until I came down from it) way too much. It felt great and horrible at the same time. Whenever a drug has had that effect on me, I've generally run as far as I can in the opposite direction, but I can see why people get addicted.

I get this from smoking marijuana. It's basically speed to me. I will stay awake all night after smoking it, then wake up in the morning still feeling the energy from it. At times, I get whole-body trembles from it. Gross. I called it the crazy energy. The only cure was to get under a whole bunch of blankets and/or cuddle and/or dance.

Because of the supercharged intellectual sort of high, and because I'm a compulsive person, I would probably smoke marijuana all the time. Unfortunately, as I've discovered the hard way, a major side effect of this approach to living is that my life falls apart, I can't remember shit, and I stop talking to people who are important to me. Other than that, it's okay

Regarding exercise, I do tai chi and ride a bike.

One more mental health related anecdote. I once was having a very miserable weekend. I distracted myself with probably a million hours of naughty things on the Internet, then I watched the movie short cuts. I got into this really funky zone, and I went to take a shower. When I was in the shower, I hallucinated that I had all my clothes on, even though I didn't. This was at a time when I wasn't doing any drugs. It was a very powerful hallucination and it kinda freaked me out. Really only happened the one time...

I like this image. It reminds me of a take on madness. I believe there is a part of the self responsible for putting together all the stuff from outside, like the hands around the outside of the image. The feeling of madness can occur when that part of the self doesn't work, and when all of the stuff from the edges of daily life just don't come together in a way that makes sense. Kind of like presque vu, which I believe is the opposite of deja vu, where you are in a familiar place, like your home, but you have the sensation that you have never been there before, that it is a completely strange and foreign place. If that happens to you on a larger scale, that would be madness.

I heard this thing on public radio about a condition called Capgras Delusion. It is when you recognize a person close to you, mother or spouse for instance, but are convinced that person is an impostor. Here's one interpretation of the reason it happens:

Ramachandran thinks that Capgras can be better explained by a structural problem in the brain. According to Ramachandran, when we see someone we know, a part of our brain called the fusiform gyrus identifies the face: "That looks like mom!" That message is then sent to the amygdala, the part of our brains that activates the emotions we associate with that person. In patients experiencing Capgras, Ramachandran says, the connection between visual recognition and emotional recognition is severed. Thus the patient is left with a convincing face — "That looks like mom!" — but none of the accompanying feelings about his mother.

That's Not My Mother

Ramachandran holds that we are so dependent on our emotional reactions to the world around us, that the emotional feeling "that's not my mother" wins out over the visual perception that it is. The compromise worked out by the brain is that your mother was somehow replaced, and this impostor is part of a malevolent scheme.

Ramachandran thinks there's good evidence for this explanation of Capgras, in part because of an odd quirk in his patient's behavior. When his mother calls him on the phone and he hears her voice, he instantly recognizes her. Yet if she walks in the room after that call, he is again convinced that she is an impostor.

Why? Ramachandran says that our visual system and auditory system have different connections to the amygdala, so while the auditory recognition triggers an emotional response in his patient, visual recognition does not.


If a person experienced a lot of this kind of thing, I think that would feel very much like madness...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124745692

NOTE: Ramble Ramble Ramble

 

[UnderYourSpell]

It's amazing how many people in this group have themselves or have relatives that have some sort of what is termed 'mental illness' ........ were we brought together for a reason?

 

[Angeline]

Wow, that Narrative Therapy is a neat concept. I'm doing a study of revision techniques among creative people, and I've been making a comparison between the kinds of revisions artists do to specific pieces compared to the kinds of revisions people make in the stories they tell conversationally and even the life stories people tell themselves.

I meditate, too!


I did cognitive therapy for awhile. Actually, it worked quite well to the point where I swung from depression to mania very quickly and ended up dropping out of school cuz I figured I was way smarter than the professors LOL That happened a few times Ha

But the therapist I saw at that time recommended a book called Feeling Good, which is I guess the big cognitive therapy self-help book. I took it very seriously, did all the exercises. I think their ideas about cognitive distortions are interesting... For instance, they say that a lot of anxiety comes from our imagining we know what somebody else is thinking... Or that anxiety comes from imagining something that is going to happen in the future. They give these things names: mind reading, fortune telling, there's a few other ones. Then the idea is that once you've learned that this kind of cognitive distortion happens, the next time you are feeling anxiety, you observe what type of distortion is causing it, and try to reinterpret the situation... One of the big criticisms of this approach is that it doesn't get down to major issue or root problems... And that was certainly the case for me, because I could do those exercises all day long, but it would never get to the root cause of most of my problems for the last fifteen years, ever since puberty, I suppose, which have everything to do with sexual repression, confusion, etc (Those aren't the right words but will have to do)

The most lasting effect of that book for me is that I still follow the advice of not saying should or have to... Which lately has been running into conflict with my interest in needs-based approach to looking at things.



I get this from smoking marijuana. It's basically speed to me. I will stay awake all night after smoking it, then wake up in the morning still feeling the energy from it. At times, I get whole-body trembles from it. Gross. I called it the crazy energy. The only cure was to get under a whole bunch of blankets and/or cuddle and/or dance.

Because of the supercharged intellectual sort of high, and because I'm a compulsive person, I would probably smoke marijuana all the time. Unfortunately, as I've discovered the hard way, a major side effect of this approach to living is that my life falls apart, I can't remember shit, and I stop talking to people who are important to me. Other than that, it's okay

Regarding exercise, I do tai chi and ride a bike.

One more mental health related anecdote. I once was having a very miserable weekend. I distracted myself with probably a million hours of naughty things on the Internet, then I watched the movie short cuts. I got into this really funky zone, and I went to take a shower. When I was in the shower, I hallucinated that I had all my clothes on, even though I didn't. This was at a time when I wasn't doing any drugs. It was a very powerful hallucination and it kinda freaked me out. Really only happened the one time...




I like this image. It reminds me of a take on madness. I believe there is a part of the self responsible for putting together all the stuff from outside, like the hands around the outside of the image. The feeling of madness can occur when that part of the self doesn't work, and when all of the stuff from the edges of daily life just don't come together in a way that makes sense. Kind of like presque vu, which I believe is the opposite of deja vu, where you are in a familiar place, like your home, but you have the sensation that you have never been there before, that it is a completely strange and foreign place. If that happens to you on a larger scale, that would be madness.

I heard this thing on public radio about a condition called Capgras Delusion. It is when you recognize a person close to you, mother or spouse for instance, but are convinced that person is an impostor. Here's one interpretation of the reason it happens:

Ramachandran thinks that Capgras can be better explained by a structural problem in the brain. According to Ramachandran, when we see someone we know, a part of our brain called the fusiform gyrus identifies the face: "That looks like mom!" That message is then sent to the amygdala, the part of our brains that activates the emotions we associate with that person. In patients experiencing Capgras, Ramachandran says, the connection between visual recognition and emotional recognition is severed. Thus the patient is left with a convincing face — "That looks like mom!" — but none of the accompanying feelings about his mother.

That's Not My Mother

Ramachandran holds that we are so dependent on our emotional reactions to the world around us, that the emotional feeling "that's not my mother" wins out over the visual perception that it is. The compromise worked out by the brain is that your mother was somehow replaced, and this impostor is part of a malevolent scheme.

Ramachandran thinks there's good evidence for this explanation of Capgras, in part because of an odd quirk in his patient's behavior. When his mother calls him on the phone and he hears her voice, he instantly recognizes her. Yet if she walks in the room after that call, he is again convinced that she is an impostor.

Why? Ramachandran says that our visual system and auditory system have different connections to the amygdala, so while the auditory recognition triggers an emotional response in his patient, visual recognition does not.


If a person experienced a lot of this kind of thing, I think that would feel very much like madness...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124745692

NOTE: Ramble Ramble Ramble

Narrative therapy is really not different from cognitive therapy in that they both aim to correct thinking that can result in harm to self or others. What I like about narrative therapy though is the notion that my thinking isn't "wrong" per se, but the particular fiction my mind has invented to deal with whatever trauma I've had (like my sister's death, for example) is faulty and I need to invent another story that works better for me.

My therapist (who is also a descendent of a famous 19th-century American poet lol really--we were made for each other!) believes that Carl Rogers is the natural father of narrative therapy, but he (my therapist) has shaped his therapy to meet his interests in meditation. And it's really a winning combination because meditating teaches how to shut off the endless rattle of one's thinking and narrative therapy helps you see thinking for the fiction it mostly is. After all the enlightened state, that one tries to achieve when meditating, is awareness that is not thinking-focused. It may not make sense for someone else, but it works great for me.

I bet you are doing research in reading comprehension. I worked in educational research for years. My area was really writing ability but my boss did a seminal study on the "think-aloud" process. which sounds similar to what you describe. And isn't it true that people who can self-correct are, on average, stronger readers and writers?

Ramble on.

It's amazing how many people in this group have themselves or have relatives that have some sort of what is termed 'mental illness' ........ were we brought together for a reason?

Yeah but otoh I bet most people have at least one person in their family who is/was odd or eccentric if not out and out nutty. I know of an uncle who had what they used to call a nervous breakdown because he believed he was experiencing horrible anti-Semitism in his workplace (and given the time and place, he probably was). And my mother has always been kinda daffy. And I'm absolutely looney at times.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Oh well I must be the nutty one then but I like to the think it's nice nuttiness one of my sisters is down right nasty. I often wonder how much is nature and how much is nurture, something I will never know. Would I still be this somewhat odd person if I didn't still hurt inside from the lack of nurture indeed did the oddness cause the lack of nurture? As in my mother (who was a simple person and I mean that as a country woman with not much schooling) not knowing how to cope with someone who craved books and learning and questioned everything she stood for. Soooooo perhaps I was 'odd' anyway as I know i certainly never fitted in with anybody around me.
BTW do most Americans have therapists? I don't know anybody over here that has and the only one I ever saw screwed me up even more

 

[Angeline]

Oh well I must be the nutty one then but I like to the think it's nice nuttiness one of my sisters is down right nasty. I often wonder how much is nature and how much is nurture, something I will never know. Would I still be this somewhat odd person if I didn't still hurt inside from the lack of nurture indeed did the oddness cause the lack of nurture? As in my mother (who was a simple person and I mean that as a country woman with not much schooling) not knowing how to cope with someone who craved books and learning and questioned everything she stood for. Soooooo perhaps I was 'odd' anyway as I know i certainly never fitted in with anybody around me.
BTW do most Americans have therapists? I don't know anybody over here that has and the only one I ever saw screwed me up even more

I can only speak for myself but I know many people here in the USA who either are in therapy or were at some point. I think even more people take whatever psychotropic drugs they take (Prozac, Xanax, whatever it is) because their primary care physician has prescribed it.

I'm pretty lucky because the person who started out as my therapist some years ago ended up as my friend. So now I can just hang out with him, and still get his opnion if something is bothering me. I'm also lucky to have found someone who advocates mental health without needing drugs of any kind. I don't know about Europe or elsewhere, but in America there seems to be quite the predilection for prescribing psychotropic medication. Every other ad on television (seems like to me) is for medication to treat depression or anxiety, bipolar, and on and on ad nauseum.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

...
I heard this thing on public radio about a condition called Capgras Delusion. It is when you recognize a person close to you, mother or spouse for instance, but are convinced that person is an impostor. Here's one interpretation of the reason it happens:

Ramachandran thinks that Capgras can be better explained by a structural problem in the brain. According to Ramachandran, when we see someone we know, a part of our brain called the fusiform gyrus identifies the face: "That looks like mom!" That message is then sent to the amygdala, the part of our brains that activates the emotions we associate with that person. In patients experiencing Capgras, Ramachandran says, the connection between visual recognition and emotional recognition is severed. Thus the patient is left with a convincing face — "That looks like mom!" — but none of the accompanying feelings about his mother.

That's Not My Mother

Ramachandran holds that we are so dependent on our emotional reactions to the world around us, that the emotional feeling "that's not my mother" wins out over the visual perception that it is. The compromise worked out by the brain is that your mother was somehow replaced, and this impostor is part of a malevolent scheme.

Ramachandran thinks there's good evidence for this explanation of Capgras, in part because of an odd quirk in his patient's behavior. When his mother calls him on the phone and he hears her voice, he instantly recognizes her. Yet if she walks in the room after that call, he is again convinced that she is an impostor.

Why? Ramachandran says that our visual system and auditory system have different connections to the amygdala, so while the auditory recognition triggers an emotional response in his patient, visual recognition does not.


If a person experienced a lot of this kind of thing, I think that would feel very much like madness...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124745692

NOTE: Ramble Ramble Ramble

That's an interesting condition. I've fortunately never felt anything like that (well, perhaps on drugs, a long time ago). I'll bet that many of us come across people who strongly remind us of someone we know. A little while back there was a woman whose face and figure strongly reminded me of a girlfriend from long ago, who hadn't really been in my thoughts other than as a historical note (others from the past hold a stronger sway over me).

Narrative therapy is really not different from cognitive therapy in that they both aim to correct thinking that can result in harm to self or others. What I like about narrative therapy though is the notion that my thinking isn't "wrong" per se, but the particular fiction my mind has invented to deal with whatever trauma I've had (like my sister's death, for example) is faulty and I need to invent another story that works better for me.

My therapist (who is also a descendent of a famous 19th-century American poet lol really--we were made for each other!) believes that Carl Rogers is the natural father of narrative therapy, but he (my therapist) has shaped his therapy to meet his interests in meditation. And it's really a winning combination because meditating teaches how to shut off the endless rattle of one's thinking and narrative therapy helps you see thinking for the fiction it mostly is. After all the enlightened state, that one tries to achieve when meditating, is awareness that is not thinking-focused. It may not make sense for someone else, but it works great for me.
...

That's an interesting concept/approach. Gets me to ask the question - what is thinking and how does it differ from feelings? There are some pars of my past which my rational mind can dismiss and argue is no longer relevant, the the feeling thoughts remain and often are triggered by a variety of external stimuli.
I've never had any long sessions of therapy (had some when I went in for 'dry cleaning' - sobering up). In a sense my AA meetings and especially talks with my sponsor are therapy - they certainly help with my day to day living.

 

[annaswirls]

you have something here, perhaps

But the question is not if their madness was "worth it" to us, because of the outcome... but if it was worth it to them.

Would they have traded their creations for sanity?


just a thought


and yes
most moments I would agree with your assessment

so what is the positive shape of madness?


I think that inside out mobius strip bottle thing was pretty fucking cool.

I'm disappointed no one really mentioned madness in a positive way. Tesla was a genuine mad scientist, couldn't have done what he did without his madness. Goya was painting all over his walls, totally out of his mind, the best stuff. Nietzsche wrote his most imaginative, confrontational philosophy a year away from complete mental breakdown brought on by syphilitic madness. The band Madness was okay, this is Madness in their best shape: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwIe_sjKeAY

 

[annaswirls]

a HA! I get it now!!!!

The shape of purple is preferred
having none of the straight lines of green.
forcing white to shatter into smithereens
and black to concave polygon in fright.
Orange cowers wrapping it's trapezium
tightly into pinks isosceles triangle
and red gives up all hope
prostrating his tomahawk frantically,
in an attempt to divert purple
from penetrating with it's cuisinaire rods.

 

[annaswirls]

oh good night, why edit? The poem is the experience of writing it, and that is so often better captured in the moment, editor's knife carves the imperfection like Nathanial Hawthornes birthmark.

I prefer it raw.

and pantoum? might as well give the thing a full frontal lobotomy.

Should I say thank you? lol. Well, it could use a good bit of editing for sure (Kisses, Ang or SwirlieG (ps...thanks Chippy) if you wanna help me edit it out). I'm happy that I at least got across 'scary' because it is very frightening living with someone who is diagnosed with a mental disorder and doesn't know or want to admit it (oh no, not Lauren and long time ago for me).

In my own poem, I should have repeated exact phrases between love and hate, black and white. Each so elated or inflated without any in betweens. "leave your door open, keep it cricked" is most certainly the best line in the whole thing... now to form it... pantoum?

 

[annaswirls]

well nature nurture or a snowball of both, you are a really nice nut

like a sugar coated pecan with a dash of jalapeno.

mmmmm


:snip:

Oh well I must be the nutty one then but I like to the think it's nice nuttiness one of my sisters is down right nasty. I often wonder how much is nature and how much is nurture, something I will never know. Would I still be this somewhat odd person if I didn't still hurt inside from the lack of nurture indeed did the oddness cause the lack of nurture? As in my mother (who was a simple person and I mean that as a country woman with not much schooling) not knowing how to cope with someone who craved books and learning and questioned everything she stood for. Soooooo perhaps I was 'odd' anyway as I know i certainly never fitted in with anybody around me.
BTW do most Americans have therapists? I don't know anybody over here that has and the only one I ever saw screwed me up even more

 

[EroticOrogeny]

Sometimes I say: "I'm insane. Next question?"

 

[butters]

do any of you guys (i do believe UYS mentioned something about this before) consider you write better in one of your manic or odd phases than when swinging through that point of equilibrium? i've italicised all the words that are used as blankets here instead of plasters.

 

[EroticOrogeny]

I think it depends. Sometimes when I'm down over regrets over the past by verbalization of it is garbage. Its definitely easier to write erotic poems when I'm horny, and my audience of 1 always appreciates them, along with their realization. On the other hand, if I'm just in a go to work mode sometimes my poetry muse has a limited presence (but my programming muse may well be up and running).

 

[Angeline]

<snip>

That's an interesting concept/approach. Gets me to ask the question - what is thinking and how does it differ from feelings? There are some pars of my past which my rational mind can dismiss and argue is no longer relevant, the the feeling thoughts remain and often are triggered by a variety of external stimuli.
I've never had any long sessions of therapy (had some when I went in for 'dry cleaning' - sobering up). In a sense my AA meetings and especially talks with my sponsor are therapy - they certainly help with my day to day living.

I believe that what we experience in the present moment, which may or may not include thinking and feeling (and physical feelings, too) comprises "awareness." For example, at 8 pm I ate a plum. I had that experience, tasted it and felt it was cold when I swallowed. That was my experience at that moment. Now at 9 pm I may be writing about having eaten the plum, but it is something I'm only thinking about. My experience now is thinking and tapping the keyboard to say what I'm thinking. I've noticed that people often think they are "experiencing" when they are just (or mainly) thinking.

At least that's what I think.

 

[annaswirls]

do any of you guys (i do believe UYS mentioned something about this before) consider you write better in one of your manic or odd phases than when swinging through that point of equilibrium? i've italicised all the words that are used as blankets here instead of plasters.

for sure many people feel they write better, some think they do then read their stuff when they are feeling more stable and um... disagree with themselves.


My question remains: how many would trade in their better work for a sense of stability? I am not sure. Of course it is not really a choice.

Look at Townes VanZandt. Fucking genius. Electro-shock treatment. Suffering. What would he have have chosen? I have no idea. I am just glad something good came out of his struggle.

we all got holes to fill
and sometimes them holes are all that's real

would he have filled in the holes if it meant never writing that song?

 

[butters]

for sure many people feel they write better, some think they do then read their stuff when they are feeling more stable and um... disagree with themselves.


My question remains: how many would trade in their better work for a sense of stability? I am not sure. Of course it is not really a choice.

Look at Townes VanZandt. Fucking genius. Electro-shock treatment. Suffering. What would he have have chosen? I have no idea. I am just glad something good came out of his struggle.

we all got holes to fill
and sometimes them holes are all that's real

would he have filled in the holes if it meant never writing that song?

having been incredibly fortunate enough to have never experienced mental ill health, i am in no position to attempt to try an answer that with any authority. as an outsider looking in, i'd guess there would be those who'd willingly swap their 'curse' for 'normality', whereas others who have learned to live with the fractures and who've made wonderful things happen despite or because of them ... who knows? perhaps not.

that's a powerful quotation there, anna. very thought-provoking

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Mine isn't an illness either it's a memory and I'd give up one hell of a lot not to have it

 

[butters]

Mine isn't an illness either it's a memory and I'd give up one hell of a lot not to have it

morning i must go write my fool poem in a minute but i'd like to ask you something, if i may?

has anyone ever suggested/have you asked/have you tried hypnotherapy before?

is it possible to erase those memories?

is it possible to distance you from them so they no longer cause direct pain and suffering?

is it something offered on the NHS at all, or would it all be private?