If anyone deserves an Oscar for exceptional acting, it's a depressive. My guardian angel, Ann, told me the other day that she has spent more than half of her life pretending to be a happy person. "People have no idea I suffer like I do. When they learn about my manic depression, they shake their heads. Because I appear to be so content and jovial."
Ah yes. "Fake it 'til you make it." My epitaph.
For at least 18 months, forty-five of my fifty-minute therapy sessions went to acting lessons: how to feign a stable and functional person until I became one.
Two days out of the psych ward (the second time), I played the part of an author who was throwing a successful pub date party for the release of her book "The Imperfect Mom" (which had been compiled pre-breakdown). I wanted desperately to be this person, so I visualized myself with a few good months behind me, confidently discussing the stories I had gathered before an audience of prominent editors and respected writers.
With sweaty palms and a racing heart, I sent out close to 50 electronic invitations (evites) to the classy list of contributors--like journalist Judith Newman and Baby Einstein founder Julie Aigner-Clark--and to all my publishing friends in New York, most of whom were clueless about my previous year in hell.
Five days after I sent the evites, my literary agent's assistant e-mailed me a list of possible caterers, wineries, bar tenders, and places where I could rent coat racks and glasses.
As I read over his suggestions, I panicked.
"Oh God. Oh God. I can't do this," I said.
"What's the matter?" my sister asked. I was in her kitchen (in Cincinnati, Ohio), checking my e-mails from her computer.
"This New York trip. What am I thinking? I can barely get groceries. I still cry almost every hour. I can't organize a party for all the publishing people I want to impress. What if I break down in the middle of it? They'll find out I'm crazy. My career is toast."
"Don't worry. I'll go with you," she said. "I know wines (she was a sales rep for Ohio Valley Wine). And all we need are some cheeses, crackers, and stuff. Forget the rentals. I can put a party together. It'll be fine."
Next came the hard part: learning my lines.
"Pretend that I am an editor with Ladies' Home Journal," my therapist said. "I walk up to you and say, 'Hey Therese! Good to see you. What have you been up to?' What will you say?"
"Oh. Nothing much. Just hanging out in the community room of a psych ward with Allen, an 85-year-old who has slept with 96 women and wants to make it 97."
"Try again," she said. "You are still tutoring at the college, right?"
"Until the dean discovers a whackjob is teaching tomorrow's leaders."
"And you are writing your Catholic column, correct? There's another conversation. And your kids are always great small-talk subjects. Just stay away from the topic of depression."
On the three-hour Amtrak ride to New York, I memorized my lines, repeated them over and over again, like I was auditioning for an off-Broadway play.
I imagined the key players and rehearsed the dialog. "Naval Academy. Catholic column. Kids. No depression."
With my sister's help, I pulled it off! I don't think anyone suspected that just five weeks earlier I was rooming with an anorexic chick, getting my vitals taken every three hours.
In fact, so successful was the New York party that I repeated the act again a few weeks later, when I met a magazine editor at the Book Expo America in DC. She hugged me tightly and looked at me so sincerely as she asked me, "How are you?"
I immediately began sobbing, pig snorts and everything.
So I guess I have a bit more practicing to do before I'm Meryl Streep and become truly Oscar-worthy.
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Therese, Thankyou for the laugh, I needed it! You're so right about the acting. I doubt anyone ,except for those few close enough to really see what's troubling me, would have clue one! I was right there up front in drama class, did the high school plays and musicals and actually pursued it for a while after graduation. I'm sure I could and still do an excellent job at "stand up sanity". Don't we all" wear the mask" well? I should think however this is one of those occasions where honesty IS'NT the best policy. On the other hand think how much trouble we could get in IF we actually said what was really on our minds...Ally Mcbeal style?
this does follow what you are talking about...i hope.
i just started my journey off of my meds with which i've been such a good girl for over 10 years. once i really was "stabilized" on meds my life went horribly wrong. suddenly there were suicide attempts. long periods of isolating, fatigue, depression, pain. loss of my usual resilliance. believe me i was "tigger"! but all of that changed gradually, then drastically. i am so far away from the person i was. i thought i was doing all of the right things therapy and recovery-wise and for the first few years all looked great. but when i sat down and told my psych. that i wanted off the meds. i wanted to know my "baseline"...i just wanted to try. if things went horribly wrong i'd agree to go back on the meds. but, he dropped me as a patient and i'm floating without any medical support. i'd been with this doc and his predecessor for almost 10 years...never a problem in all of those years. yet i ask to get off the meds...take a drug holiday and he drops me. i've been held up at home for weeks now. depression and anxiety are through the roof. my memory is so shot that i hope i'm making sense. i feel like i'm in a long tunnel, sensory-wise.
well, this is what i wrote...maybe it's out of place for this topic...maybe there's something in there someone can relate to. maybe you can let me know i'm just detoxing and not loosing my mind!
art interrupted
reclaiming artistic creativity
do you know of resources for the physical and psychological rehabilitation of fine artists: painters, illustrators, designers, etc. artists who've experienced an interference in their career due to physical and or psychological trauma?
eight years ago i walked away from a life long career as an artist/designer. something, physical, psychological and work related happened(another story). with not twenty minutes notice, i picked-up and ran.
after that, i just carried on. i found things i thought i could be passionate about, and settled in to accept my "lot in life”. First i checked out seminary; then tried graduate studies in counseling; then medical technology assisting; then phlebotomy and even tried to start a small business. but, the internal discomfort and constant "disconnects" became too great and frequent. one morning i was reading a daily meditation and it jarred me to the core:
"imagine living in your head, untrue to your heart.
the pain of separation.
imagine the depth of the longing
for peace."
--unknown
that day I began "coming out" to the people around me who only knew the “post art-life me". i got honest...real honest...to my doctors, therapists, friends, co-workers...everyone involved in my life. i told them who i really was and what i'd been doing for the last eight years. the fake smiles, lying, false positive attitude. saying that all was well and that i was "ok".
all was not well, and i was not ok.
gradually, a couple of years back i began coming to a dramatic personal discovery. i was observing that everything i'd tried since leaving my last job and artistic career, well...i just wasn't thriving nor did i possess the necessary drive and follow-through…essentially i was not succeeding at anything. I was slowly dying inside. I’m 44 as I write this, and I won’t live the rest of my life as I had been for over eight years. (with 20 years lost to drinking and my last 10 years in and out of recovery that leaves the first 14 and believe me those weren’t good. So, I’m motivated) i had to be honest with myself and the others trying to help me. my heart was somewhere else. i was walking around absent, vacant, empty. i did so with a positive attitude, putting on a smile and believing that if i behave a certain way the rest would follow. what a bunch of crap! (in this instance.) you can't behave yourself into something you're not...not really.
yes, as adults we do a lot of things we don't "like" doing. but should we live a life we don't "love"? if we are keenly aware and can become committed to making a change, we seek out and make a life we can love. we can't live a lie once we know the truth.
one of my many uncompleted efforts was my masters program in counseling. I was a dual major and i completed my courses in vocational rehabilitation counseling. based on personal experience, what i studied and the work i'd done, i designed an informal program of "creative, artistic recovery" for myself. i try working the various components, but often find that my motivation can be challenged. the "coming back" part is often routine, repetitive, unrewarding, exhausting...results are rarely very exciting or noteworthy...especially if you try to "share" with people not involved...which is really everyone i know. If I try to explain what I’m doing, I get so many screwed up responses…”what “rehab” could you possibly need to do to get back into design and art?”
"rehabilitating the artist in yourself?” “what's with that?” ”just sit down and do it.” “that's the kind of thing you never loose.” “It’s always inside you, just find it.” “just use discipline!"
i want to scream!
Here’s the shortlist of issues I need to address: my hand muscles have atrophied. my strength/stamina both in my hands and in general is very poor. my eye-hand coordination is off. my color, depth, shape...perception is horrible. my vision has deteriorated (ok I’m not twenty anymore.). lack of exposure and lack of the constant doing has dulled me beyond just dull. kindergarteners have better artistic, verbal and visual vocabularies. the list goes on.
i am "broken".
just how relevant or important is all of this? why should i be so upset? well only another artist, and preferably someone who's shared my experience, could probably answer that question.
where are the others like me?
well, most of my friends, after i “came out”, said i never looked quite right in suits and scrubs. i was somehow awkward or something was "off", but they couldn't put their finger on it.
Now what I’m about to reveal may seem like an aside but it may be useful for illustrating my plight: i am a recovering alcoholic. I began that journey in '97...the people making these comments are mostly fellow recovering people. A majority of us are a bit "off" so it’s easy to overlook or just put aside that "uncomfortable, misfit" look. we all have it some or all of the time, because we're drunks living sober! many of us are "displaced" because of our disease.
our comfortable state of being vs our necessary state of being.
many recovering alcoholics adapt because they've moved to a place that is healthier for them.
the alcoholic's "necessary" (sobriety) become comfortable,
because our "comfortable" (drunk) was not necessary.
Most alcoholics are not career artists though, so this juggling of words can't be made true for an artist who leaves their art (terminally unique me).
an artist's "necessary" (creativity) is comfortable
because our "comfortable" (creativity) is necessary.
“artist” is not a disease you can cure. “artist” is not a career you can walk away from, because it is not simply a career as most people understand a career. art isn’t merely a calling. art drives you. art permeates every aspect of our life's story...from birth. So, being an artist, to live a life with out art, is hardly living or living at a great disadvantage.
how we, as artists, navigate, interpret and communicate with the world is through our artistic lenses, filters and canvases. without them...
…well…try this: put on a blindfold, earplugs, a gag, maybe gloves...plug your nose and numb your taste buds, remove the ability to sense temperature, wind or touch grazing your skin...eliminate all emotions. try this and you come close to living a life with out being you...an artist without their art. sure...this experiment would suck for anyone. but rarely does a change in careers or majors effect someone this way. (symptoms/experiences such as these result from damage or disease and are treated. as a society, we do not expect another human or animal for that, to live at such a deficit, if it can be helped.)
in the eight years since i've left my art, all of those symptoms have haunted me nearly all of my waking hours. and, if I’ve slept well, i’ve rarely had a dream. i became a fairly good actress and a miserable person. I’ve helped a lot of people but couldn't help myself.
but you know, the saddest truth i discovered was that, eight years ago i really left "a bad work situation" (an intolerable one, that gave me a nervous breakdown). in spite of finding spirituality, recovery, a great psychiatrist, a wonderful psychologist and numerous good friends we all missed the key ingredient to my truly becoming well. i associated my work as an artist with the bad office environment i was in. i thought being an artist was unhealthy for me when in fact it was my work environment that was unhealthy.
this little twist of logic was never questioned.
i literally threw the baby out with the bath water! for the first time i really get that stupid saying!
I walked away from my art claiming post traumatic stress disorder, equating creativity with the trauma my work situation had caused. nothing more was said or done about the situation. I was given more drugs, offered vocational rehabilitation. God was creativity and art that dangerous? was being artistic a disease or disorder that needed to be treated? mainstream me so I’m easier to manage. If I’m no longer creative I can’t create waves, question or challenge the status quo. Sound angry? I am. Not at any one person, institution or myself. There’s no fault here. Not for lost time. Nothing was really lost. Just angry. Ok sarcastic maybe?
so what do i do for rehab? it's a long, but very intentional list of exercises that i set out to practice so I might be able to create again, work and maybe show my art. i even took a job at a pet store because elements of that are part of my rehab plan. I took that job for reasons above and beyond saying “i'll do this for an income to support what i'm doing”. this job is below my abilities, but i took this job because i will do anything to get back "to me". (not "where i was"...that's not an option...that's a deadly perceptual trap.)
i don't believe anyone can succeed at any rehab alone. i've learned this too many different ways! sure spirituality is great, and it’s nice to have a few cheerleaders. but like i told a friend in a wheelchair who never stops harping that "you don't know what it's like"...”i don't, and can't know what it's like”…for her...
understand, the bottom line of having shared experiences in recovery is, that we need someone who, we can trust knows, what it's like!
i would like to find existing programs and support...in my field of recovery: recovery in fine art...i’d like to meet other painters, illustrators, potterists, sculptors needing recovery like me. i already have recovery support for my other issues and the tools do translate, but the language and intimacy does not.
do you know what is available out there for us...for me?
thank you,
suzanne
Listen to your doctor. Go back on your meds for everybody's sake. The romantic notion of creativity and madness does not apply to you. Stop trying so hard to make yourself "cool" and "deep" and get some help!
Suzanne - your psychiatrist was right in letting you go if you were non compliant with meds. The first thing you learn about the mentally ill is that they go off their meds as soon as they think they're better. Stop trying to be "cool and deep" with your artistic identity. Stop deluding youself and get some help.
There is nothing shameful or wrong about treating an illness... Go back on your MEDS!
To Suzanne:
Sorry for sounding so harsh in previous post, but the romantic ideal of "being an artist" is simple: make art. However, the trick is to navigate your way through the gauntlet of the personality and mental disorders that we call an "artistic temperment". One thing true of almost any artist making genuine work is that they are intensely sensitive people. So sensitive that sometimes normal emotions can feel like impending nervous breakdown. Like Coils, we're tightly sprung. That's what make work genuine, when a person creates something tangible from the experience they are channelling just by being alive. But please, go back on your meds. Of course you didn't feel like tigger anymore after your mania was addressed. Mania: four career tracts in what? 5 years? Super fundamentalist christian to liberal christian, Super sober, not sober at all. Extremes. All of this sounds like Mania. So say goodbye to Tigger and hello to Piglett or whatever. He seems more balanced, though a little fear based.
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