Virginia Woolf @ MindSay 
I may seem all friendly and normal online, heck, just like anyone online, but I'm here to tell ya I'm not always the happy, healthy, friendly kitty lover I want to be all the time -- we're all a series of faces and words inside a box of light and color -- we can't really know anyone completely from just what we read on the screen. But at least the screen serves as a window; we can look, observe, perhaps even learn, from what we read. That is, after all, one of the reasons why we log on, don't we? Yet there is the other reason; the desire to express who we are to the public. The screen before our eyes serves as our very own personal newspaper column, a place to record our experiences so that the experience of living our lives won't go unnoticed.
None of us want to live a life hidden in the shadows. We all have feelings and relationships that we long to have the world acknowledged. It seems like without a means to communicate to the world, there is no place for us to connect to reality. My way of connecting with people in a safe way is to establish relationships and correspondences online. The screen before my eyes is my filter; I don't have to walk into a room filled with strangers and feel like I'm being accessed by my appearance alone (not that I'm ugly!) -- here I can relax and let my fingers do the talking and sharing. Here I have an audience of people who are interested in what I have to share. The computer makes the problem of finding people of a like mind less of a hassle.
But unlike the average person, I suffer from a mood disorder that makes getting to know others and keeping relationships more difficult and frustrating than you can even imagine. I wish I had the abililty to relate to other people well, and I think sometimes I get online and talk about myself in efforts to reach out without feeling like, "Oh, great, at the first sign of me wigging out, this new friend of mine is gonna leave me cold!" Sometimes that fear of rejection leads me to remain reclusive. The last thing anyone wants to experience after they've invested so much time and energy in a friendship is to be told that they have too many problems to be worth knowing! Sadly, this has happened to me time and time again.
Usually I can comprehend why it's difficult to know me when my emotions tend to shift so crazy. As a child I was described by my kindergarten teacher as "overly sensitive" and was often punished for "over reacting" to situations and other children. I remember many times being spanked by my mother for "crying too much" and for not being able to stop crying. I remember my mother telling me, "Gonna keep crying? I'll give you something to cry about..." And I would try to understand why I was being punished, but all I could think about was that no matter what I did, anytime I would confess the feelings other people learn to hide, I was ridiculed for them.
When I became a teenager, the weeping fits of despair turned violent. I once stabbed a math teacher with a pencil when she humiliated me in front of the class for not getting an answer right. I got into fights with boys. I once broke a girl's wrist for tapping me on the shoulder. And then there were the numerous attempts at suicide. It seemed like everything I felt was too much. When I was happy, I was overly, excitedly, happy. When I was angry, I couldn't shut off the need to express it by destroying something, anything, to relieve that anger and get back to feeling normal. And when I was sad, I would weep for hours, sometimes until I lost my breath or consciousness. My family thought I was reacting this way to get attention. I can see why they would think this and my heart was broken whenever I was really seeking them to believe me when I told them I couldn't control what I was feeling.
It wasn't until I was an adult, after surviving a rape and a suicide attempt shortly after, that I was diagnosed with Manic Depression, or Bipolar Disorder. For nearly seventeen years I've been in and out of therapy, have been subjected to all sorts of medicinal cures, even tried to go the Shamanic healing route for relief. A little bit of everything helped, but the worst thing about this disorder is having to lose so many good friends... How could I have told them that it isn't my fault for the way I feel? I wish I could be normal, but who of us is? We all have problems we need to work out, except mine tends to rear it's ugly head when I least want it to.
But, I'm here to tell you that it's not something I will ever let beat me down. My name, "Valentina" means strength. I think that it's a name that fits me well. I have endured many hardships and my heart's been broken many times, yet somehow I still find the strength to carry on. Relationships may be difficult for me, but not impossible for me to keep. Once people realize that I'm gonna freak out every now and then, but for the most part it's not their fault and that they shouldn't feel responsible for taking care of me, they can relax. Many people with my disorder DO NOT get treated for it because it's difficult for them to admit they have a problem, heck, most don't even recognize that their extreme mood swings are a problem.
No one comes with a billboard describing all their differences and problems so that everyone who meets them on the street can know what to expect from them. Even if that were so, it still wouldn't be a perfect world because knowing such things upon first meeting someone can often deter you from becoming someone's friend! My disorder can be life threatening, and there is no cure, but at least treatment is available; a combination of medicine and behavioral therapy seems to provide enough of a buffer so living with a bipolar disorder can be somewhat painless, but it is still very much painful. All I know is that what makes the pain easier to bare is having the understanding and loving support of friends and family, and having faith and hope given to us by the Gods...
Here's a quote I like to pull up whenever friends ask questions about manic depression:
"Manic-depression distorts moods and thoughts, incites dreadful behaviors, destroys the basis of rational thought, and too often erodes the desire and will to live. It is an illness that is biological in its origins, yet one that feels psychological in the experience of it; an illness that is unique in conferring advantage and pleasure, yet one that brings in its wake almost unendurable suffering and, not infrequently, suicide. I am fortunate that I have not died from my illness, fortunate in having received the best medical care available, and fortunate in having the friends, colleagues, and family that I do." -- Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., (An Unquiet Mind, 1995, p. 6).
Often, like you, I ask, "What caused me to have and/or develop bipolar disorder?" Today, doctors are still discovering more about the problem than they did decades before, but there is still a bit of a mystery about it. It seems that many factors are involved; genetic predisposition (it's an inherited disorder, running in families, mostly in immediate relations; if your twin sister has bipolar disorder, you have greator chances of having it as well), yet it's not just one inherited gene but several working together, along with factors related to someone's environment, that leads to this illness. I've read recently that scientists, through new advents in brain-imaging have noticed that the brains of people with bipolar disorder may be different than those of healthy individuals, yet nailing down the genes and brain-parts that make somone more prone to have bipolar problems is still difficult to map out. So, basically, no one yet knows what makes individuals with bipolar disorder get sick! All we know are the symptoms and how to band-aid them at best.
Here is a list, from the National Institute of Mental Health, of Manic Depression symptoms:
- Increased energy, activity, and restlessness
- Excessively "high," overly good, euphoric mood
- Extreme irritability
- Racing thoughts and talking very fast, jumping from one idea to another
- Distractibility, can't concentrate well
- Little sleep needed
- Unrealistic beliefs in one's abilities and powers
- Poor judgment
- Spending sprees
- A lasting period of behavior that is different from usual
- Increased sexual drive
- Abuse of drugs, particularly cocaine, alcohol, and sleeping medications
- Provocative, intrusive, or aggressive behavior
- Denial that anything is wrong
Episodes of Manic Depression can last anywhere from most of a day, to nearly every day, for one week or longer. Not all the symptoms listed above are to be found visible in one person. When I have an episode, it's usually brought on by feelings that something or someone is intruding on my privacy, I feel threatened or humiliated, even possessive at times, and so I react accordingly by defending myself verbally or physically. Other episodes I have are ones where I feel the need to retreat from reality. My brother has it worse. Men with bipolar disorder tend to act out more than just react, leading them to get into fights and, as a result, earning them a reputation for getting into trouble with the law. One symptom isn't enough to fully bring on an episode; when my mood is perpetually irritiable, there's several symptoms ongoing with me, and I have to stay away from people, even unplug from the internet to keep myself from disrupting other people's peace. I think the worst thing about bipolar disorder are the depressive episodes. I'm thankful that I don't often experience the aggression ones, but when I'm down, I'm really deflated, and it takes a lot of effort to get out of bed, much less get out of the house! I often use the following list, once again from the National Institute of Mental Health, to help my friends recognize the danger signs of a depressive episode:
- Lasting sad, anxious, or empty mood
- Feelings of hopelessness or pessimism
- Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, or helplessness
- Loss of interest or pleasure in activities once enjoyed, including sex
- Decreased energy, a feeling of fatigue or of being "slowed down"
- Difficulty concentrating, remembering, making decisions
- Restlessness or irritability
- Sleeping too much, or can't sleep
- Change in appetite and/or unintended weight loss or gain
- Chronic pain or other persistent bodily symptoms that are not caused by physical illness or injury
- Thoughts of death or suicide, or suicide attempts
The reason why it's imortant to inform your family and friends about depressive episodes is so that they can help you find help for yourself. It's dangerous to leave me alone too much because without that little extra boost from a pal, I might waste an entire day not being able to function normally and this could lead to the loss of a job or keep me from experiencing something good, like a concert. Yet sometimes the depressive episode is too hard to get out of, that's when it can lead to a psychosis; this includes experiencing hallucinations and delusions. This can also lead to many people with bipolar disorder to be incorrectly diagnosed with schizophrenia and, as a result, recieving the wrong treatment.
A few times I've experienced psychosis with my bipolar symptoms, and usually it comes with a very scary male voice telling me I'm worthless -- I can literally hear this voice as if it is coming from someone standing right behind me. I will be experiencing what I think is a normal day, when that voice comes from behind me and says things like, "I hope you choke, You're going to die, I hate you, No one loves you, Everyone you love is dead," etc. Accompanying this were terrible migraines, it seemed like every time I heard the voice, my head would swell with real physical pain that would last for days. I used to do my best to ignore it, and I thought I was the only person in the world who experienced this sort of thing. I remember going to a tribal elder for help, hoping that perhaps this "voice" was perhaps a bad spirit haunting me and, could therefore, be exercised. He wasn't sure what to tell me, but he did read about a writer who had a similiar problem; Virginia Woolf.
Virginia Woolf suffered many emotional breakdowns throughout her life and some of her manic episodes came complete with a male voice who would abuse her, her dead mother would come back from the dead to put her down, and often she would verbally assault her husband and most trusted friends. Viriginia lived during a time when manic depression could not be easily treated, and the only drug that seemed to work for some manic depression sufferers was lithium; a drug with many adverse side effects that also served to worsen depressive bipolar episodes, especially since lithium only really worked to relieve acute symptoms. So she suffered greatly, often taking to bed, her head throbbing in pain and thoughts boiling, and often times her desire to express herself was a boon. "Virginia's need to write was, among other things, to make sense out of mental chaos and gain control of madness. Through her novels she made her inner world less frightening. Writing was often agony, but it provided the 'strongest pleasure' she knew," (The Marriage of Heave and Hell: Manic Depression and the Life of Virginia Woolf, by Peter Dally, St. Martin's Press, NY, 1999). Reading about Viriginia's experiences helped me to feel less alone, so I began a curious descent into discovering a connection with other artists and writers from history who suffered from my disorder.
The link between mental illness and creativity is very real. Virginia Woolf wasn't the only one to be cursed with an over adundance of mood swings. These artists weren't just touched with extreme passion, they were often consumed by their passions, and painting or writing were the only means at their disposal to release themselves from being imprisoned in silence by them. Other artists who suffered from manic depression were Picasso, van Gogh, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Edgar Allan Poe, Samuel Beckett, and Lord Byron, to name just a few. If you research their histories, you'll also come across information that traces the progression of their disease through family bloodlines. Many artists have been very upfront about having manic depression, some even attributed their abilities to their madness.
But it's not just artists who suffer from this disorder. Even the likes of Alexander the Great, Winston Churchill, Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, and Stephan Hawking, again, to name a few, were bipolar. It's not just me! Hell, even some famous people today also have to deal with the disorder: Drew Barrymore, Jim Carrey, Richard Dreyfus, Juliana Hatfield, Audrey Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins, Wynona Rider, and Axel Rose are just a few whose behavior can be explained by manic episodes brought about by manic depression.
Not everyone who suffers from manic depression is creative, however, but I can't help but be thankful that I have a creative release, even more, a profession that I can be productive at despite what I have to put up with emotionally from bipolar disorder. I'm also glad that the medication I'm on doesn't interfere with my ability to create, however there are times when it is difficult, painful even, to work up the energy and drive to create while I am suffering from a depressive episode.
Recently I heard from a former friend who proposed we'd do a book project together. His proposal appealed to me greatly because the subject was dear to my heart and soul, yet I could not do it with him. I last saw this friend two years ago while we were still in a sexual tryst, and a year ago he got married, and thus ended our relationship. Things would have been easier on me if I had seen him during the times apart, but instead the experience of the loss of that relationship is replayed now whenever I hear from him. For a bipolar disordered person like myself, it's nearly impossible for me to revive such a relationship. Dealing with the person who caused me pain unbalances me; he's no longer percieved as a friend, he's a threat to my peace of mind. I had to make the decision to protect myself, and that meant cancelling any collaboration with him. I didn't expect him to understand, but I did what I could to explain.
Explaining things here helps me to calm down and rationalize the things that cause me disorder. Just when I think I'll never have friends or be loved ever again, I have to remind myself, and you, my faithful Mindsay contacts, that being insane isn't the worst thing in the world. Like most things, it comes and goes, and the time in between episodes is longer as long as I keep creating!
By far my favorite thing that we’ve done so far, though, has been a trip to Hampton Court Palace. Originally we had wanted to take a day trip to Bath, but we balked at the four hour bus ride each way. Instead, we opted for the half an hour train ride that took us to the outskirts of London to Hampton Court Palace. The ride there was really pleasant. I love traveling by train, and after running around on the tube it was a relief to use a conveyance that moved above ground. You could look out the window and see the city turn into the suburbs, and finally into countryside. Laura, who is native to Oregon, was pleased with the sight of the country greenery, but if given the option I prefer cityscapes because I prefer people gazing to vistas
.
Hampton Court Palace was the end of the line, and we followed the steady stream of like minded tourists who walked from the station to the palace.
The sight of the palace itself is really breathtaking. Made from red brick, with dramatic curling chimneys and appropriately palatial statuary I really felt, as I walked through the gates onto the gravel courtyard, that I was stepping back in time, until I noticed the cars and lorries that were puttering around. There was also a distinctly modern feel to the tickets that we purchased (two for one with our train tickets!) and the brochures we received. Stepping out into the main courtyard (called the clock court because of the large clock that dominates it.), I tried to regain the feeling of stepping back in time, but I soon found that the problem with Hampton Court is that it belongs to no single period in history. It was first turned into a palace by Henry the VIII, after he seized the home of Cardinal Wolsey, who forfeited his property after objecting to the king’s divorce (he would have forfeited his head as well, but died conveniently before execution), but Henry’s improvements were knocked down by William the III and continued to be used until George III abandoned it. Hence there were different styles of furniture and architecture ranging from the Tudor to the Georgian. In truth, I don’t know enough about architecture to have really picked up on the distinctions between the three different styles, but they had guides in period costumes roaming around and I’d seen enough period dramas on BBC to distinguish the different costumes from one another.
Indeed, some of the highlights of the day were the guided tours that the costumed employees gave. We attended three while we were there—one of William III’s chambers, one of Henry VIII’s state chambers and one of the Queen’s chambers. Usually people in costume frighten me when a proscenium arch and a row of footlights do not divide us. I keep dreading the moment when they address you directly and then you have to decide whether or not to play along with them and answer as if you belong to the period. I can never think of anything clever enough to say, and the entire debacle usually results in me feeling awkward and embarrassed and having missed the amusing tidbit about Tudor bedposts that the entire exchange is meant to explain in the first place. Fortunately, the guides at Hampton Court were much more professional, and the worst it ever got was watching Henry VIII’s lady in waiting insist that the eight year old American girls who were on the tour must be princesses because they were wearing purple. The girls were more delighted than embarrassed, so it all worked out for the best.
Each tour had its particular charms, but there were some general rules that ran throughout the palace. To begin with, the larger and grander a room was the lower the class of people it was meant for. The idea was the big rooms were supposed to make you feel little in the prescence of the king. As we progressed through the chambers and got closer to the actual throne rooms the rooms became less grand and more inviting. William III, for example, chose to decorate the walls of his waiting room with elaborate displays of weaponry, which were particularly suited to rid you of any sort of warm or fuzzy feelings. My favorite take on the whole pomp and circumstance thing, though, was Henry VIII’s state hall, which featured carved heads in the rafters that were supposed to remind you that the King had men listening in. The heads in the eaves were known as “eaves droppers,” which I suppose is where the expression comes from. Henry’s hall also featured the Abraham tapestries, which he commissioned after the birth of his son. The whole hall was so massive and impressive that I didn’t really take a close look at the tapestries, and it wasn’t until I was on another tour of another part of the palace that the (non-costumed) guided informed me that the Abraham Tapestries were second only to the Crown Jewels when it came to national treasures. So now I can say I’ve seen them, but I feel as if I didn’t really experience them. Hate it when that happens.
In the end I came away with the conviction that I would not have liked to be a Queen or Princess at Hampton Court. The monarchs in the olden days had to perform the most useless functions in addition to running a country. For instance, it was part of the monarch’s duties to take their meals in public. People would pay to come and watch them eat. The purpose of this was to prove that the King or Queen had an appetite and was hence alive and kicking, but it meant that the ruler could never pass up a dish, or decide to skip a meal and just grab a sandwich. Also, people had to pay homage to them constantly. One of the guides took us through the ceremonies that Lords and Ladies would have to go through when presented to William III. You could never turn your back on the king, and it was fairly common for ladies to trip on their trains and fall flat on their bums while walking backwards and bowing to the king. Another story told of a courtier whose periwig was so tall it snagged on a chandelier when he was walking backwards from the king.
There were lots of interesting things at the palace, including tales of Katherine Parr’s ghost which is said to haunt the Queen’s chambers, a beautiful chapel and an elaborate re-creation of the Tudor kitchens. The grounds are also something, but it was chilly and we were short on time, so we admired the gardens from the windows and didn’t attempt the hedge maze. My favorite part of the palace tour, however, was an exhibit called “Servants, Soldiers and Suffragettes.” I went because it had the word suffragettes in the title, and I love anything having to do with feminism and women’s lib, but the exhibit turned out to be about the “grace and favor apartments in the palace. Apparently, after George III quitted the palace it was used as lodgings for favorites of the ruling king or queen. Servants, soldiers and suffragettes were just three of the various types of people who took up residence there. The rooms themselves were small, bare, and cold. They presented a picture of shabby gentility that felt so much more real to me than the large banquet halls and manicured lawns. I imagined blue haired ladies serving tea there, complaining about the collapse of empire and how it was impossible to find good help. For some reason, this was the image that stuck with me most on the train ride back. The apartments are still in use, but after an elderly resident burned down half the palace only the ones on the ground floor are now in use. A few of them can even be rented out, so if you want to stay in Hampton Court Palace on your next visit to London I’d check it out.
.It's spring break, after all. Or, at least for me it is. Doesn't that mean I should be having numerous unprotected sexual encounters in a random country in latin america all while dancing to La Bamba in a shady hotel pool with a bar you can can swim up to? I think it does. But alas, it's too late for tickets to that train. So, I think I'll sit down for a little while.
.In the words of the amazing author, Virginia Woolf, "I was sitting around, moping as usual, when I came about a very specific epitome. 'Moping is boring!' I realized. 'I think I'll write a book instead!'"... Okay, Virginia Woolf never said that... The characters in her books are depressed and suffer mental illnesses, so it wouldn't have really helped much. But whoever did write that must be a genius, right? Right?
.My favorite author is Virginia Woolf. Not only was she a genius, but she wrote so beautifully. Her writing is also extremely believable because of the realism she portrays within each character. Stream-of-consciousness is one of the most difficult styles but one of the most intriguing to read.
.Charles Dickens is my least favorite classic author. Payed for being long-winded in his time, that's all he really is to me. Long-winded. His stories are actually often interesting. He just beats around the bush so long that I get tired of him. It's ridiculous. It's because his works were usually sold in pieces. He drew them out.
.One of the best modern books is The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chbosky. It portrays life for teens in 90's (and sort of today) in the most amazing way. In case you haven't read it, the book is a series of letters written by a boy named Charlie in his first year of high school. As he continues to write to his unknown listener, he becomes progressively better in his writing.
.My favorite non-fiction book so far has got to be Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. Even though it was partially about a murder case, it really makes me want to go to Savannah. Maybe I'll just visit my friend Ashley at SCAD.
I love it when I write things and then I have no idea what I mean when I read them later.
I talk to myself. In public. I need to stop that. Well, Nicole Kidman's character (Virginia Woolf) did in the hours and she had a successful writing career. I mean she only killed herself!
I find the idea of me having a baby weird. I mean . me. having a baby. there's just me, then someone else, then like some alien possession thing one starts growing inside of you and then 9 months later a baby is born. No, I'm not pregnant, I just find it hard to imagine that something like this could happen.
I want to find a new job, but even more so I want to take the month of November off. I changed my mind. No, I don't want to participate in Nanowrimo. I want to continue to write my book. I don't want to stop the pacing.
Stopping the pacing can be bad. Like at the Friday night performance of Isabelle Huppert's 4.48 Psychose. Okay fine, I won't do a review, but I will talk about this: Friday night was a very rude crowd and cell phone after cell phone went off. A cell phone went off and rang four times, maybe five! This person didn't even bother turning off their phone. Isa. stood there in silence, gazing at the crowd, like gimme the respect I deserve, fools! You could tell she was TICKED OFF.
This happened right before the part in the play where she was supposed to get angry. After thinking at first that I should have missed Friday's performance, I decided it was the best night after all. It was the night when she showed the most, real emotion. She really was angry.
Well there are a couple interesting things coming up in L.A. I am going to at least one showing of the AFI Fest. I'd do more or even volunteer, but I'm not sure. Also this Creative Screenwriting workshop thing is coming up in November also, the weekend the AFI Fest closes. I think it would be a neat experience since it's on a weekend, but we'll see. BTW I found out about the Creative Screenwriting workshop through their podcast! Ha, podcasts really are good for something.
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