Re-inventing Yourself

There are many times that life creates situations where we have to change.  We cannot be the same, and we have to dig deep and find ourselves a new way going forward. 

Looking back, when I was first diagnosed with bi-polar in 1996, I didn't have a choice.  When I tried to handle life, a job, classes, and downtime, it was clear life on meds created a situation where my approach to life had to change.  And believe me this did not happen overnight.

Its may be obvious, but your brain just isn't the same on meds.  Your whole eat/sleep thing irrevocably disturbed and it takes weeks if not months to find your new routine.  That is exactly what was so shocking for me that after my first hospitalization I went directly back to the university.  To put it mildly, I could not cope.

In a nutshell, your threshold for stress and pain becomes very low especially after extreme emotional swings.  And Anxiety becomes a constant friend when the stressors come at you from every angle.  With so many things in flux inevitably you have to get to a place where you can control your variables, and limit your stressors so you can be more control of your environment.

For me it took two years after diagnosis to have a life that was similar to the one I had pre-college.  But in that time everything shifted.  I had a lot of mental "noise" that I had to sort through.  I had a lot of down time.  I had to slowly get back to reading, even stretching my attention span to watch t.v. was chore.

But I certainly found peace in writing.  What I wrote is immaterial, and the record of it doesn't exist to this day.  But it helped me to connect with my surroundings and it helped me sort out the endless chatter of my mind.  Eventually I took on the arts, and I found myself at home taking a Saturday morning drawing class at community college.  And artistic expression is something that helped me re-invent myself in those early years.

But it really doesn't matter the creative channel you use, it just takes sometime to find what works for you.  In the process you learn to channel your energy away from anxiety to a place where art becomes a new territory of self expression. In that sense art can become a way for you to re-invent yourself.

Another way is to re-invent yourself socially and we will look at that in the next blog.

Thank You Readers!