Category Archives: A Canvas of the Minds

09.17.12
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Clarity of Chaos

We sat together, alone on a Friday night.  What an atypical Friday night, without people hanging from our rafters and music blaring.  A couple of cans of beer and a pack of cigarettes were the only occupants of the old grainy table with red paint peeling.  I chipped at it a little carelessly while watching him intently.  It was him and me, peacefully alone, deep in light, airy conversation.

I was mildly distracted by the clarity of his voice.  No ambient noise of idle chatter engulfed his words.  They slipped from his full pink petal lips, with the crispness of mildly intoxicated honesty, confessions from a fortress of a man.  He explained his position, the station in which he found himself in within his own self.  My ears perked up at the heaviness of the content, and I felt the weight shifting from a crushing burden of existence onto him, sliding onto the table, begging for me to grasp it.

All I had desired, each last truth and beautiful, intimate moment sat before me, ready for my embrace.  However, I failed to understand the dimensions of it.  He began to clarify, “I need you.”

Befuddled, “Need me how?”

“I need to be with you.  I want more time with you.”

Those two sentences struck me with the force of a wrecking ball, crumbling every wall throughout each layer, penetrating me into a sweet surrender.  Simple words completely ravished me, turning my entire world on it’s ear.  And in this entire duration of the last six months, I had been none the wiser.

I wrote an article for A Canvas of the Mind entitled, “Disorder and Love: What We Do and Don’t Know”.  It went into a detailed analysis of relationships and how disorder can come to affect them.  I wrote:

Mental health disorders have a way of putting blinders on a person.  I have to say, there are a lot of things in this world that I miss.  Whether it’s because I’m wrapped up in my own head, or I have one of the different shades of the multiple pairs of glasses I don on, I know that my own perceptions are often distorted.  In short, I miss things.  Sometimes, I miss very important things.

I am not one to take a hint.  So, one of those subtle things, such as love, often slip past me or whiz over my head.

This admission was far beyond my own powers of perception, interpretation, and insight.  Riding a ten year roller coaster of various states and natures of friendships and romantic partnership, I came to expect that no further surprises existed.  He had seen me in the worst of lights, beyond any imagination of my own personal wreckage.  This is just as he had seen me in my greatest successes, radiantly reborn each time out of my own ashes.  And I witnessed him in his own pits, disheveled, yet hiding it well. With each crack beginning to show, every time pulling himself back into flight.  We ran our own cycles again and again.

People don’t change, they just become more so.  Murphy was sorely mistaken in this context.  And I had made some serious fallacious conclusions in this progression.

Have I folded into myself so tightly that I failed to see this?  Clearly, this desperate longing existed within him, stirring and quaking for eternities, extensively understated.  Had I walled myself into such complete introversion that existing within his own mind and heart was an impossibility?

It no longer mattered.  The blinders came off, and he had never been so radiantly focused though my own eyes.  We were unencumbered by the shackles of responsibilities and obligations.  In that moment, we were young lovers, engulfed in each other, professing each perfect droplet of affections in fine, caressing detail.  The purity of those exchange brought definition and order into our world of chaos and illusion.

That simple phrase was so multifaceted, in such a simple package with a little satin bow.  He had lost me, the pure, undistorted, unadulterated me before him now so many times.  He had lost me to our child, sacrificing so much time and energy that there was not much left to give.  Again, I disappeared into the abyss of postpartum psychosis, and dropped even further into the depths of bipolar disorder.  Each relapse must have been more inexplicably painful and confusing for him than it was for me.  A wild woman emerged in each episode of psychosis, severing him from me as reality slipped through my fingers and out of my grasp.  In the last six months, he had to have been suffering the same loneliness and mourning for the life and love we shared.

“I’m not going back there,” I assured him.  “I am better, and I will keep getting better.  We know what’s wrong with me.  And we can make me better together.  You don’t have to lose me again.”

“I just want it to be us.”

And it is.  And forever will be, us.

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09.16.12
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Garnets and Rubies

It’s been almost a whole year now!

As the Pendulum Swings

Today could not have been a more perfect day to meet her.

It was one of those days when everything was just so seamless. I climbed into T.D.’s new, twin, big-boy-bed to wake him for his last OT appointment. He was curled up in the center of the bed with books encircling him. I smiled and thought it was so like both C.S. and me. He opened his eyes, and he was all smiles too.

T.D. met most of his goals in his ISFP, and exceeded expectation in some. I showered and mentally picked out an outfit. White slouchy tunic and black and white floral skirt – with wooden and bronze jewelry, of course, for a more bohemian look. Wavy or straight? Easy, wavy. I was showered, dressed and out the door in less than an hour.

Everything was so fluid.

I stepped onto the sidewalk to a gorgeous day…

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09.13.12
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Showing Mad Love

When I was writing Pendulum, I was blessed with many people who presented me with many awards.  Now that I’m writing SWACA (Sunny with a Chance of Armageddon), I wanted to be the one to start passing out awards.

I have not accepted this award myself.  I’d rather present others with it.  So, here it is.  The I Love Your Blog award.

 

The Rules:

  1. Thank the person who nominated you:
  2. Tell your followers why you started a blog and why you keep doing it:
  3. Describe a usual day in your life:
  4. What was your best collaboration?
  5. What was your worst collaboration?


Nominate five other people for this award, and why:

  1. A Canvas of the Minds:  This is not a self-serving move.  In fact, I’ll be honest.  There was about a six month or greater period where it was just Ruby and the other authors (I won’t name names) that were keeping Canvas going.  Here’s the truth.  I couldn’t be more grateful.  Canvas has been like a child to me, and there was a very unfortunate time in my life where I had to put it in the care of others.  It was really all of the Canvas authors that made the blog so wildly successful.  Now, it stands as one of the best collaborative sites of mental health education, awareness, and help in our mental health blogging community.  Thank you.
  2. I Was Just Thinking:  Ruby, my pillar of strength.  She brings me joy through her blog, and brings me some much needed perspective.  It was her blog and her encouragement that kept me blogging.  She’s pulled me out of some of the worst times, and kept me here in the community.  Thank you, Ruby.  I love your blog, and I love you.
  3. Seasons Change, and So Have I:  Carla, I’ve decided that you need a nickname, because I don’t want to keep calling you C.  So, I’m going to start calling your LaLa.  It’s an honor to be nicknamed that.  A woman I worked with in the bakery was called that, and she was someone I really looked up to.  LaLa, you are someone I really look up to.  Your blog is informative, touching, and absolutely inspiring.  You’ve touched my own blog with your Confession Friday, and you’ve touched my life.  You, like Ruby, have pulled me out of the well so many times.  You’ve always stood by me, even in difference of opinion.  And I feel as if you treat me like I’m one of your own.  You’ve touched my life and my blog.  Thank you.
  4. The Mirth of Despair:  Angel, I love that I have a peer amongst myself that has encouraged me to pursue my goals.  You are breathtakingly honest, and you go the extra mile to really bare everything for your blog.  You are an incredibly writer, and you lead the way in soul searching.  Thank you for your insight and encouragement.
  5. The Quiet Borderline:  QB, you’ve been through so much.  But, you keep on going.  I love that about you.  You’ve inspired me to keep on going with my blog, even in times where I don’t know what to say.  But, especially in times when I didn’t want to say it.  You’ve offered me awards and encouragement along the way, which I couldn’t do without.  I am so glad to read your blog and to know you.  Thank you.
09.06.12
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Disorder and the Internet : The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

My newest Canvas post explores the positives and pitfalls of the internet when it is in the context of disorder.

08.31.12
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Disorder and Love: What We Do and Don’t Know

“Just because somebody doesn’t love you the way you want them to, doesn’t mean they don’t love you with everything they got” –Author Unknown

Mental health disorders have a way of putting blinders on a person. I have to say, there are a lot of things in this world that I miss. Whether it’s because I’m wrapped up in my own head, or I have one of the different shades of the multiple pairs of glasses I don on, I know that my own perceptions are often distorted. In short, I miss things. Sometimes, I miss very important things.

I am not one to take a hint. So, one of those subtle things, such as love, often slip past me or whiz over my head.

How do we love?

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08.29.12
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Not Your Usual Serving Of Canvas

As some of you might not be well aware, and you’d probably be correct at this point at any point in confusion, I am a co-founder with Ruby Tuesday and a writer for A Canvas of the Minds. The following is a post on Canvas that request every mental health bloggers help for Mental Health Awareness.

via Not Your Usual Serving Of Canvas.

Thank you for your support in advance.  I would guess that everyone who is involved with Blog for Mental Health 2012 would be interested in joining Canvas and participating with us in our time of need of your support!!!

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11.11.11
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A Canvas of the Minds

A Canvas of the Minds was the brain child of a group bloggers, who had an interest in creating a mental health community. This community blog consists of several writers and a broad subscription base that seeks to connect and learn about mental health topics. More than anything, we promote avocation, exploration, and education in a supportive environment.

For more information, visit A Canvas of the Minds About Page. It can provide you with all of the information about the community. Or, you could just poke around. You might see what you like!

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