Monday, June 11, 2007

Depression & poetry

Today is a harsh day; yesterday was a better day. This month, this early summer has been hard, and I am struck by personal poverty, surrounded by other people's plenty, their sufficiency, the approval of their lifestyles by the main mass. I wrote a prose poem for my weblog and called it "Dying Not." It is about marrying for money -- his idea of my choice -- marrying someone who is not diagnosed with depression or other mental illness but who shows signs of those, and who gets by with it due to his wealth. I am depressed over it. I would rather earn a decent living. I know bipolars who married for love & get along inside good lines. I would rather be among them. So, depressed for the duration of a sunny day, I wrote poetically, because anything else, any other form would be more depressing. Creativity, whether the poem is good or not, is a reply.

. . .

Today I wrote at my weblog in a fever of depression. Yesterday I was without symptoms and didn't write but talked happily with myself. The clinical term for this is cyclothymia. Supposedly, it's a milder form of bipolar -- no definite pattern of mood swing, just ups and downs in no sustained rhythm. I think it's worse, frankly, but people accept depression more easily -- especially in women (as if it's desirable in us to be depressed) than they accept hypomania (rapid happiness).

Other friends were discussing "dumb luck." My dumb luck is that someone wants to rescue me from my own stupid poverty, but he is a suffering duck. Pushing toward the creative today, I fledged a sparrow, a Mia Farrow.

. . .

It's good to have a long experience with remission, bec. it creates a sort of inner "bank" of strength. I could create in that atmosphere of health as well if not better than out of it, i.e., as now. Creating poetry while in and out of depression may help the depression but is a sort of resorting to creativity when -- as everyone has suggested ... there is a lot of volunteerism here. I love the seasons, especially spring. They drive one away.

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