6 Years Later : How Everything Has Changed.

It wasn’t easy. But I’m here.

There are times in my current life where I get so wrapped up in what’s around me that I tend to forget where I came from, who I was and what I felt like back then. I feel an overwhelming tide of emotion sweep over me when I look back. I don’t even recognise who I am now as a result.

I used to write into the ungodly hours of the morning, mostly as a way to manage my insomnia. I would read in the day, write in the night. I don’t share everything I write, but blogging was very much in vogue back then, and I liked the fact that I could share and improve.

Every writer, or every artist, has to practice their craft. I got so wrapped in life itself for the last 6 years that I cannot honestly remember the last time I finished a novel. (!!) And as for personal/creative writing, that’s even longer. While I’ve done a fuck-ton of academic reading and research, the time is to bring it back to the roots. I did impulse buy 50 quid worth of novels, and I’m currently reading Jane Austen’s Persuasion, so we’re making progress.

Where to start?

I fell dangerously ill. I am “officially” diagnosed with schizo-affective bipolar disorder, but it took a long time to unearth that. While the tangible world may understand this quantification, mental health professionals are very aware to the fluid nature of mental illness in general, and diagnoses can change.

I like to think of it that my soul was sick. And it still is, but the damage is less. A colleague once described me as being “two steps away from Edgar Allen Poe” which was incredibly funny, but also very enlightening. When I read these old blog posts, it’s evident that I was excessively morbid, and very depressed. With good reason of course, but that doesn’t change its nature.

It’s in my nature to be intellectual. Right from the very start, I used to clutch history and physics books, and then I made the move to fiction and read voraciously. As a result, I led a very isolated, precocious life, and you might say the same is also true even now. I’ve found that I’ve had to limit my nature in its awkwardness; I naturally have no social skills, I’m naturally a petrovert (pervert+introvert) and so those things don’t really cross over well to reality.

It was also a case that I was incredibly lonely. I had no one to discuss Shakespeare or Jane Austen with, nobody to think deeply with. I was/am always intense, and while this is great for the purposes of intellectual advancement, it didn’t do me very well in the real world.

That’s why when I found this blog again, I felt like weeping tears of pure joy. I’ve always felt that I’ve had to hold back myself, in many different ways but especially intellectually.

Here, I am free.

-Two sides of the same coin –

When I try to explain bipolar disorder to people, I like to use the coin analogy. It’s not a strict relationship (How do you define what the coin is when it’s flipped in the air? Quantum coin.) Things started as a general dull ache, to sudden bouts of anger, euphoria, revelation, then back into the hellish descent. Sometimes I would switch multiple times in a week. I dropped out of school (multiple times), took poor care of my health and hygiene, and even tried to take my own life.

I had been taking very, very strong medication. 400mg of Seroquel XR, to be exact. As an extended release, it would release over 24 hours and therefore there wasn’t a day where I wasn’t fucked. I gained a lot of weight, slept for over 20 hours a day, but I was functional. I wasn’t going to die of my own hand anytime soon, and at the time that what was important.

When I look back into those times, I remember the shape of the memories, but never their contents.

I remember being told by many people to be very strategic about who I tell this story to. But I’ve realised that I no longer care. Such a huge part of my illness was felt like I was being forced to hide my identity; being told to simplify what I said and how I lived, being told that I had to get married and have kids…there was just so much.

While we do keep an internal locus that we never share with anyone (it keeps the illusion of a singular consciousness intact – necessary if you want to make any money.) I feel quite liberated that I can share this story as part of the natural trajectory of my life.

-Less Isn’t Always More –

I used to do this thing where I would show off all the fancy words that I knew, or if I had a particularly intense philosophical point, I would bring it up. I put it down to my inquisitive nature, but my ego also got massively in the way. I got a kick out of proving that I was clever, and that I could read massive books at such a young age, and while that was entertaining, ultimately I didn’t really get anywhere because nobody would want to stick around long enough to hear what I had to say.

I had a massive ego/image problem. After I came back from the hospital, I promised myself to become more humble and approachable, because in the end I had to change, otherwise I would end up in the same position again.

Fast forward and I feel like I’m pretty approachable. I’m into pop culture, I listen to a lot of hip-hop and every sentence I speak isn’t crammed with a huge word. I do these things genuinely because I’ve realised that not everything has to be deep. There’s no need to overcomplicate.

Having said that, I feel like I’ve gone too far in that direction, and the balance is lacking.

While it’s true now that I have a lot more friends now and that small talk isn’t a crazy herculean feat, I abandoned that space within me that was reserved for crazily deep discussions. My reading and writing ceased, though my thoughts continued. And while I have a great sense of relief of having people around me now, there’s something inside me that squirms for something richer, something more extended.

I get paid to simplify things for a living. As a writer, my pen is for rent. I am in no position to argue. Copywriting is all about cutting, cutting, cutting. Simplify. Make it punchy.

Snacks are great, but sometimes you need a 5 course meal.

-What’s next? –

I called this blog “The Center Space” because it was about where everything meets in the middle. I have a lot of sides to me, the geek, the philosopher, the poet, the teacher, the musician, the pervert, the cat lover, and so on and so forth. I will simply write, whenever I feel like it, about whatever I want, and more importantly :

I will say it however the fuck I want.