A Polytheist/Pagan Framework for Healing Mental Illness

Let’s talk about healing. But more specifically, healing as polytheists, as pagans, as wiccans.

I often see the ‘use nature’ way of healing promoted by these groups of people, as if nature alone can heal a soul/broken mind/damaged brain/whatever you want to call it. But, as someone who just moved back to the countryside and is in the middle of experiencing it’s effects upon myself, I’ve got some fresh arguments to post about that. In fact, I’ve had a flash of inspiration and have come up with ‘a thing’. Hopefully it’s the start of something positive. At worst it’s a flub.

Now here’s a thing I was told by a social worker. They told me that 30% of the work in healing comes from medication, and the rest is all therapy and self-work.

And that’s a balance I think we can all strive for. To take our medication as well as working on ourselves spiritually and enjoying nature.

Here I’m going to go out on a limb and propose a thing: a polytheist schema for healing mental health. I’m totally making this up and pulling it from my own experience and have Zero Sources for this. So take it with a bit of salt (and sage too haha).

I’m proposing that we, as a community, approach healing as necessitating 30% medication, 30% self work, 30% environmental help, and 10% divine intervention.

Let’s break this down.

30% medication

Well if you’ve been on this blog for a second or two, you’ll see that I am a huge advocate for medication. You’ll read that it’s really helped me, and that I have a sliver of trust in the doctors and social workers that treat me. Hence, I am following this, and sticking to their 30%.  For those who may be new to this blog: I believe that medication can be effective, wholesome, and positive if well done and properly supervised. Pro tip: not all doctors are wholesome and count as proper supervision. Sometimes they rush the process and don’t listen. Get one that you click with.

30% Self Work

Why such a big percentage for self work? Because I’ve found it to be exceedingly important. Or, as someone else I know was told by their doctor ‘you have to want to get better’. You have to be active in the process. Are you anxious? Work on it. Are you psychotic? Work on it.

How do I propose we ‘work on it’? I propose meditation (within reason), self-reflection, journaling, and basically anything that makes you conscious of yourself and helps you improve on that.

30% Environmental Help

Now here’s where my recent experiences come in. Yes, being in nature helps. But it’s not always all about nature. Sometimes it’s about the people who surround us, talk with us, and who are our therapists and doctors. These people and spirits (depending on how involved you are with your spirits) have a large influence on us. They can support us or tear us down. Having support around us is immensely important, so that’s why I’m boosting it up to an equal 30%

10% Divine Intervention

I’ve had divine intervention in my life, in my healing process. And I truly think that they have a part to do in it all. They are the door openers, door keepers, and opportunity presenters. But will they open the doors for us? Will they zap us better? Very rarely. It’s mainly us who has to do the work (up in that 30%). So that’s why I leave divine intervention at 10%. You can expect their help, but not too much, and not too often. You can expect to do the hard work yourself, because this is your path.

I’m not saying that spirituality need only play a 10% part of your life. I’m saying that’s the work your Deities will do with/for you. But the gods count as support and spiritual activities can count as self-care and self-work. Spirituality in itself overlaps in all the layers, even in our approach to our medication.

In conclusion? I honestly just came up with this, but it rings true to me (can we call it divine inspiration?) and more importantly, it gives a framework that, I find, encompasses my experiences. I will be writing more, hopefully coming up with more details and a healing system/process for pagans and polytheists out there. Details may change, I may recant and decide the whole ting is schmuck, but I’m trying to reach out and help.

I really  believe that, as a community, we need to come up with methods and techniques and frameworks within which to heal and help those with mental illnesses and mental health problems. I’d really love to hear your input on this, in order to help start a conversation. Each and every one of you has experiences that can help us, as a community, move towards more methods to heal.

Moving and Claiming my own Inner Power

I’ve moved!

No, not on the internet. Physically, IRL, I’ve moved!

Now I could rant about how tiring it was, how dramatic the day we moved ‘the big stuff’ was, but I have found something more interesting to talk about.

You see, I’ve been fortunate enough to move into the countryside. And lo and behold, I’m relaxing in a way, on a deeper level, than I have in recent times. It feels good on the soul, like I’m putting a balm on a wound. My night spasms have gotten better. I’m sleeping better. I feel like I can just sit and relax, without having to ‘do something’. My hypervigilance is at an all-time low.

Is living in nature the only solution? Well, no. I currently upped my anti-depressant,  have started seeing changes in my body due to the hormones I’m taking, and have moved next to a friend (with my lovely wife). But all this together? It seems to be doing me wonders.

But, to take a note from my last appointment with my psychiatrist, what am I doing to make things go well? You see, I tend to focus upon the negative, but when things go well (as they are now) I tend to place the power into my circumstances. In doing so, I give my situation all the power over myself and leave none for me.

So. What am I doing that is making me better? I feel like I am ‘individuating’ as Jung would say. I take the time to relax and ‘just be’. I sit outside and meditate next to my little pond (yes I have a mucky little pond haha). I spend time out of doors relaxing in nature and near trees. I seperate my will from that of others.

What about that last point?

You see, I tend to allow others to define me. If they disagree with my being trans, it throws me all into a kerfuffle to say the least. But lately, I visited a church as a way of meeting my local community (and met no locals, surprisingly). In said church, during the sermon, the pastor railed on about the ‘attack on the family structure’ and various other things. As a trans person sitting there, I knew that he was railing about people like me.

And, surprisingly, I didn’t let it bother me. I kept myself from giving a damn. I seperated myself, my desires and life and beliefs, from his.

I also decided to not go back to that church despite the social pressure to go back. Another step forward for me, choosing my own health over the desires of others. It was difficult, but I did it.

And that’s all for now, lovelies. I hope this has helped some of you, or at least shone a bit of light on how various factors can help our mental health. I’ll try and take some nice pictures of my new home for y’all!

More Ranger Thoughts

Life has been fairly up and down for me lately, I must admit. I’ve not been doing so well. Which is what this picture above is all about. Ranger, you see, is one of my oldest characters and perhaps one I resonate with the most. She suffers from mental illness but doesn’t let it get her down. She’s constantly rising above her symptoms and obstacles and finding ways to scurry around and do things her way, and on her own terms. Sometimes that means she does the strangest things – but always with lots of brain behind it. For me, she’s a character that’s truly free, truly doing what she wants. Of course we can’t really all be like that, but sometimes it’s nice to dream. Sometimes I wish that I wouldn’t get myself down so hard, that I wouldn’t compare myself so much to others, and that my brain wasn’t so treacherous a place to be. But then, in moments like that I tend to think of Ranger and her weirdness and freedom, and a little part of me feels free as well. Through her? With her? Who knows.

Who I am Vs My Mental Illness Vs Spiritual Crisis

Ah, our favourite topic returns. Mental illness! I saw this post topic floating around some time ago on the bipolar collective writing blog, and thought it was a fabulous idea. How do we understand ourselves vis a vis our illness, an illness that so often influences our mind and thoughts?

Well, to me it is simple. I am how I choose to react to my symptoms. It is not ‘me’ to have racing thoughts. It is ‘me’ to try and find a solution, panicking slightly along the way. It is not ‘me’ to have terrible mood swings. It is ‘me’ to isolate myself during them to try and minimize the pain I might cause those around me.

You see, people are still the same people they were before a mental illness struck. A mental illness is nothing but a list of symptoms affecting one’s brain chemistry, in turn affecting our mood, thoughts, etc.

Interestingly, though people LO-OVE to compare and conflate a mental illness with a spiritual experience, you don’t see people wondering who they are vs their spiritual experiences.

And yet, I found my spiritual crisis of late to have been quite distressing, out of the ordinary for me, and indeed, to be something that made me wonder about myself MORE than my normal symptoms do.

Maybe it’s because I’ve become used to my symptoms. Maybe it’s because spiritual crisises are made to be acute. But still, there is this all-pervasive notion that one is intrinsically ‘you’ and the other is a force acting upon you, and one is negative and the other positive.

Here’s a hint: they’re both forces acting upon you. Screwy brain chemistry vs spirit messing with you with neon signs, both are forces acting upon you.

My point? Surprisingly, they have something in common. It is our reactions that define us, not the actions hoisted upon us. And so I encourage people to think not only of their symptoms, but also of their spiritual experiences. After all, I am a hard polytheist and I believe the spirits to be exterior and independent to us. Because of this, I do not believe that having spirits contact you makes you special. Rather, it is how you choose to respond to them that makes you a shining star.

 

 

Don’t Blame the Whistleblower

Now I don’t want to name any fucking names or point any fingers but let me lay some shit out here for people to understand.

It is not the fault of the whistleblower that the shit happened.

It is not a dynamics of abuse and power-over when a healthy person points out a disabled person’s need for help.

It also is absolutely NOT normal to be unable to shower. CAN NOT shower is not equal to your desire to NOT WANT to shower. Capiche?

Normal exists. Functional exists. Being abnormal and dysfunctional is not criminal, but can be a sign of a need for help. Telling someone who is non-functional ‘well what is normal anyways?’ is a big kick in the metaphorical teeth.

You want to break down everything I’m ranting about? Let’s do that because I’m pissed enough to blow my energy on this.

It is not the fault of the whistleblower that the shit happened.

Let’s start with this one. It is not the fault of the whistleblower that the shit happened. Alright, let’s apply this in a mental illness context. Let’s just fuckin’ suppose that there’s someone out there who blows the whistle on someone’s mental health. In my case, my wife. She up and decided that I needed help because hey! It’s not normal to start crying when a fan blows on you. She realized I was in a state of crisis and blew the whistle. And what the fuck has happened since then? She’s been blamed for being the cause of my mental illness when all she’s done is trying to help. Because, point two!

It is not a dynamics of abuse and power-over when a healthy person points out a disabled person’s need for help.

Consider this: my wife constantly and tirelessly advocates for my needs and accommodations. She helps me set and respect my limits as well as try and make others respect them. But what do people think? That’s she’s trying to be an abusive person and gain power-over me in an abusive way. Now abusive relationships are no joke, but I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that the average abuser doesn’t combat daily to give resources to their abused partner. They won’t encourage them to visit with doctors, social workers, therapists, psychiatrists, and psychologists who, by the fuckin’ way, agree that this person needs help.

It also is absolutely NOT normal to be unable to shower. CAN NOT shower is not equal to your desire to NOT WANT to shower.

To paraphrase a doctor who gave me a stern speech, showering is the friggin’ basics. It’s called basic functioning. Being able to shower daily and do a normal care routine is the basics of functioning. Here’s a pro tip: if someone says they are struggling to cope with a daily shower routine, it means they’re on the very low end of functional. It does not mean they don’t WANT to shower, it means they mentally CAN’T. Not the same fucking thing, unless you fail at basic grammar and language. And if you try and downplay not being able to shower and basic self-care, I want to kick you. Just, so much.

Because here’s a thing. Normal exists. It’s a concept. Functional exists. It’s also a concept. And while we’re in concept-land, being a jerk also exists. It’s what I’m going to call you if you down-play someone’s difficulty at functioning. It’s what I’m going to call you if you try to philosophize away their need for help. Because really, that’s what this is all about.

Now, I know that I talk really big on my little blog soap-box. I know that in real person I’m rather timid and trying to practice having a voice and defending myself. So on behalf of all the other socially anxious people out there, just shut the fuck up and listen.

It’s not about you and your philosophical concepts of ‘normal’. It’s about mental illness existing in a concrete way, and requiring concrete help. And if you never shut up and listen, we won’t be able to communicate with you because it’s a two way street. For communication to happen, you have to actually listen.

Because I’ve been talking, and talking, and talking, to some people now for eight years and they still don’t accept that I’m disabled. They still refuse to accept that I have a real illness, despite all my diagnoses.  They blame my spouse. They blame me. They think it’s all made up.

I’m sick of it.  And you know what? I should do something about it. So tomorrow I’m going to talk with social workers at the local mental health clinic to come up with strategies to deal with these people in my life because out of self respect, I can’t let this keep happening.

And now I’m off to write fanfiction to blow some steam. Blessed be peoples. Take care.

Beauty Hurts When You’re Depressed

I sit here, blaring LOZ (Legend of Zelda, for all you non-geeks out there) music on my headphones. It’s beautiful music, but it’s making me depressed. Why? Because I am depressed, and the more I listen to beautiful music, the more I feel like my novels will never be as epic and music-worthy as others have been.

And that’s my point for this blog post. Depression doesn’t go away by just showering yourself with pretty things. Yesterday, I had a cute puppy around my ankles, desperately trying to get me to cheer up. I still put my head down and curled into a little ball. Why? Beauty hurts when you’re depressed.

Louder again for the people in the back!

BEAUTY HURTS WHEN YOU’RE DEPRESSED!

It is such a stark contrast with the pain and suffering we feel that, really, it just makes it all the worse. The best, the most wondrous, the most gorgeous, it all just hurts. It just makes me, anyways, feel my pain all the more.

So if you know someone who is depressed, don’t show them pretty things and expect it to help. It might just make it worse.

So there you have it, a little glimpse into the strangely painful yet wound-less world of depression.

 

Mental Illness and Creative Writing – A Side Note

This is going to be the maybe-last in this mini series. I just wanted to finish by saying something that I think I’ve already said but that bears repeating.

Mental illness makes writing more difficult.

It bears repeating again.  Mental illness makes writing more difficult. Sure, you can draw inspiration from your experiences of being mentally ill, but as for the actual act of writing, it gets more difficult with the grand ‘ol MI (mental illness).

How so? Well let’s break it down.

Depression! Lauded as the muse of artists and seen as making us all oh so inspired, does the actual opposite. It dulls the senses, sometimes even making us see less colors and experiencing less. Depression, for me, feels like being in a state of unfathomable, nebulous, pain. Can you write better in pain? I found that no, because depression made me not want to move, not want to start anything, not feel capable of doing anything. And the pain, that blinding inner pain, was enough to make me want to die. Nevermind writing, what I wanted was death. Did feeling this way make me a better writer? No, because I was so demotivated I simply couldn’t write. So strike one.

Anxiety! The modern plague, the “it’s all in your head”, the invisible ailment that so many suffer from yet no one seems to take seriously. How does anxiety affect my writing? Well, it certainly made me feel like I “HAD” to write so that I could “make money” and “Not be a BUM”. Was this conducive to good writing? Eh, it certainly motivates me to pick up the pen/keyboard. But when the time of writing came, I would delete half of what I wrote, too anxious to trust myself and just let it flow. I would double-check every word. It slowed down my writing, and not just that, it cheapened it. Being too anxious to ‘let it flow’ shows in the writing. It becomes stiff, startlingly keeled to the side and sort of robotic. So strike another one.

Finally, the seal of superiority that people want to give us if they like us, or the status they give us when we’re despicable: psychosis/dissociation from reality/breaks with reality. (Note, yes I’m lumping those all together but they may very well be different medically. For the sake of this article, I’m squishing them together.) Well! I feel this comes with a big ‘duh’, but I’m still going to break this down. If you can’t understand reality, sentences, or how to brush your teeth (happened to someone I know), you may not be able to even remember the physical act of writing. I’ve certainly been there. Then, forming sentences may be another really difficult task. Again, been there. And finally, if your thoughts aren’t cohesive, your ‘art’ might just not be either. In my humble experiences, art requires a certain amount of functionality. You need to be able to express yourself in a way that can be understood, a thing that for me wasn’t possible during my ‘episodes’.

Literally, when I have my episodes, I can’t write. It’s just too hard, and what I do write comes out like trash compared to how I ‘normally’ write.

So there peoples. Mental illness in itself is not conducive to writing. Like any other difficult experience, it can give us experiences that we can draw inspiration from. But in and of itself it’s something really difficult to cope with, and that hinders the art of writing.

Psychosis and Meditation

So I’m not sure how to write this. Part of me wants to retell you my story, about how I used to meditate so much. Part of me wants to just dive in with my revelation of the morning.

Let’s start with my history then. I used to meditate a LOT. In my teens, I used to do (unsupervised) meditations where I could push myself into ecstasy, could feel the chemistry changing in my brain, could push myself into euphoria, and generally felt enlightened. Then, around age 18, I had what I refer to as my first psychotic break. While lying in bed and doing nothing particular, I was suddenly euphoric, on pink and blue fluffy clouds. In the following few days I became convinced my best friend was possessed by a demon, and got lost in familiar places.

Well, in the ensuing shit-storm that was my life for the next few years, I kept trying to meditate. It often inexplicably made things worse. Like just a few months ago, I tried meditating five times a day and inexplicably started having what I believe are psychotic symptoms again (feeling oneness with the divine, seeing ‘patterns’ everywhere, illogical thoughts, etc).

Now here’s the thing -> Meditation can cause brief psychotic episodes.

WHAT?!

I know, right? But after speaking with my psychiatrist who told me that meditation seemed to be a trigger for my derealization and recently wanting to meditate again, I did a little bit of googling this morning.

“Meditation can act as a stressor in vulnerable patients who may develop a transient psychosis with polymorphic symptomatology.”

“In fact, unguided meditation practices can be harmful for people with a diagnosis of a psychotic disorder and have indeed been documented as worsening the psychotic symptoms of some individuals.”

And here I was, trying to ‘meditate my way’ out of it, believing that meditation could only help. Well no!

I’ve linked the articles in my quotes above, but the jist is that unsupervised meditation can cause temporay psychotic symptoms in people who’ve had the symptoms before.

The key things here seem to be ‘unguided’ meditation, wherein the person goes into deep trances unsupervised. I’m guessing that these states can be triggers for the derealization and other symptoms. At least that’s how I experienced it.

Furthermore, the good news is that these symptoms are temporary. My psychotic symptoms after intense meditation went away on their own. They were short term. So the good news is that if you get fresh symptoms after meditating, chances are they will go away.

The bad news is that my long-term symptoms never went away in my periods of low meditation. They still need medication, but are very well controlled.

Anyways, I’m not a doctor nor am I trying to frighten anyone. But please, please, be cautious about meditating if you already have experienced psychotic symptoms. It may bring them back, and even if you don’t have psychotic symptoms, I still urge caution!

Islam and I… A Polytheist’s Experience

Well WhAAAAAAAT? Islam? Me? I know, right?

Let me get into storyteller mode here. Ahem…

It was a bleak morning. The crescent moon had just been covered by a shivering cloud. Gusts of icy wind rustled through dead leaves.

I honestly think it was inspired from a dream. It sort of just came to me, this compulsion to cover my head, especially before the shrine. It happened so recently after a particularly stressful day of attending a street festival. My wife had just congratulated me on holding up well to the stress.

And now, boom. I wanted to cover my head. With a scarf, particularly.

I did research on shrines and head covering and pagans and headscarves. It seemed to be a uniquely female thing, and so I begged to be let into Facebook groups. I was steered towards one that accepted all genders.

I met some fabulous people there. They happened to be muslim – and suddenly I was compelled to do like them, and pray five times a day. After all, I was trying to meditate more, so why not pray AND meditate five times a day?! At this point I was trying to meditate five times a day, ten minutes a piece.

But, prayer? Because it’s related to the sun, right? And so it can be pagan! And then one by one, tick after tock, I began seeing Islamic practices popping up before me. I realized Allah must be calling me. I felt a pull to worship that deity. I began reading more and more about Islam, even going to the library and taking out books on it.

I noticed patterns Islam seemed everywhere around me, even in shoes at the thrift store. I grew ecstatic during prayer and meditation. My moods became terrible. I resisted any questioning of my new path. Within a matter of three days, I went from being completely uninterested in Islam and viewing it as a curious thing to which I’ve often been pulled to, to praying 6 times a day, one of which I had to wake up in the middle of the night for.

Once or twice, my wife pointed out that this wasn’t like me. But I ignored her.

I questioned my gender. I compulsively shopped, shaking from anxiety but unable to stop myself. My anxiety and logic was so bad I had difficulty expressing myself and speaking.

After about two weeks of this, a friend pointed out the warning signs. She anxiously suggested I speak to someone.

At first, I was all ‘yeah, I know’, for I had sensed something ‘off’ ever since this conversion process began. It felt like a radiating spot of light, a strange before and after wherein i entered into a new zone. Also, I now felt like whatever I prayed for, Allah would give me. It felt like it. I was given ‘signs’ and once even wondered if I was going to become a prophet or something. It just felt like I was being carried on this wave of transformation – and somehow I knew it was wrong.

After my friend talked to me about it, I noticed the telltale signs. I grew worried, catastrophically so. I called a health  hotline and inquired what to do. Luckily, I already had an appointment scheduled with my psychiatrist.

Then, wiping away my tears, I went to bed. That’s it!, I decided. It’s just another mental episode. I know how to cope with this.

Or do I?

I’ve spent the last three days covered in blankets, tears, and unable to get off the couch. Yesterday I celebrated when I was able to brush my hair. Today, relatives are arriving to help by bringing me food and help with the dishes I haven’t been able to keep up with. My apartment is a mess and my sick wife has been having to pick up all the pieces.

Because, you see, I wasn’t ready for the crush and fall of realizing that it might have all been fueled by mental illness. It had just been so real. So incredible. And now I’m questioning not only all of it, but the motives of Allah for appearing during a mental breakout. I just… it’s a mess. Trying to draw the line between what was real, what I might have imagined/hallucinated, and what ever else was going on… it’s incredibly exhausting and disheartening. It just makes me miserable.

So that’s it folks. That’s all that’s happened to me. Some fabulous friends are going to talk to their therapists about me so that I can maybe get some tips and perspective in the meantime of waiting for my psychiatrist. But until I see my psychiatrist, I’m just coping I guess. And even then, I’ll still have to scope  out what’s real.

I’ll also have to get a corner of the house to stop telling me to cover my head. Shrines don’t do that, do they? I think I’ll take that shrine down. It bothers me now. It faces Mecca (another sign! Gasp!) and it reminds me of everything that happened. I just can’t stand it any more.

Until next time, take care y’all.

 

Creativity and Mental Illness

Hi everyone! Recently, a fellow blogger published a wonderful piece entitled ‘psychological changes due to medication’. It can be found here → https://encodey.wordpress.com/2018/02/24/psychological-changes-due-to-medication/

This piece was very interesting for me, and is the inspiration behind today’s blog post. So please give their post a read first!

Now, onwards! Today I would like to discuss (drumroll) creativity and mental illness! Hark! A fascinating topic, really!

So, how has my mental illness influenced my artistic abilities? Well! At first my answer would be ‘derp? No it hasn’t?’ because on the surface everything appears to be the same. I still draw. I still write. But, aha, ladies and gentlefolk – is the result still the same?

Ahhhhh- nope. Not at all.

You see, before my art felt stunted. I had difficulty experiencing color and expressing myself with it. I couldn’t ‘finish’ a picture, always leaving them as raw sketches. To put this in concept, my wifey bought me coloring books to relax with and I had a hard time coloring them in because that’s how stunted I was.

Here’s the thing though. When I was ‘normal’ I used to draw mathematically. Everything was straight lines and the odd curves. I would start with the eyes, finish them, then draw the nose incrimentally. Yet when I was in an ‘episode’ I didn’t draw mathematically. I drew shapes and curves and motion – but it would have none of the details that my mathematical side would have. It was as if my brain was divided and constantly popping from one skill set to another.

Now that I am medicated and balanced on that medication (so just popping pills didn’t do it – I had to get the right cocktail going on) I have noticed a great difference in my art. I use color now. I am actually able to draw so easily that I am illustrating one of my novels with (gasp!) completely finished pictures! It’s like the two sides have merged and made me even more functional than ever before. Furthermore, I am able to do greyscale drawings in ink relatively swiftly that are adorable.

And my writing? Well my writing is actually more explosive of a change!

Before taking medication I struggled to write a thousand words a day. Writing felt like pulling teeth. I loved it, but couldn’t write a sequence. I would write a scene here from, say, the beginning of a novel, then a scene from later, and then a scene from the ending. I would just write a package of floating scenes and could barely tie them all together. It was terribly messy and disjointed. There would be plot holes, hanging threads, the whole deal.

Now? Now?! The first week I started my antipsychotics it was like a booming revelation. For a week straight I wrote 5,000 words a fucking day. I just felt that good, that inspired. And yes, it was all written in sequence.

Since being on medication, I’ve been writing sequentially. I’ve completely finished two novels and am halfway through 4 others that I’ve been working on the side. There are no more floating scenes, just completed books and so much plot work.

What’s more (oh yea, there’s more!)? I’ve started having stories come to me in dreams. It’s like my medication has allowed a sort of communication to happen, and I’m halfway through one novel based entirely off a dream and have started two others as well as received tips and conclusions to others in dreams. WHAAAAT? This is epic! It’s like now that I’m functional spirits are coming to me like ‘hey, here’s a writer, write my story for me!’ and I’m like ‘yeah sure, hand me that!’… and now I’ve literally got over a dozen novels going. I shit you not. I’m not working on them all right now, there’s just a lot on the back burner. But damn, I got so many tips and revelations for my stories from my dreams, I really really love it!

What’s else? My stories are lighter. My stories are brilliantly, genuinely, funny and light-hearted. I’ve found my tone, my voice, in a fantasy world that I came up with when I started medication. Since its conception it’s been a respite, a ‘happy place’ that I go to. It’s become a bursting series of joy and creativity.

Have I lost my touch for writing dark stuff however? Well, I’ve always had difficulty writing serious series. I can hardly make it a quarter way into a novel that’s all ‘dark and serious’ without losing interest and calling it ‘the most boring shit i’ve ever written’. I just don’t do serious. I just don’t do dark. I do complex, I do epic, I do funny and dork.

And what else what else what else? Y’all, this is the final foot-stomper! I have finally, Finally, FINALLY started working on my theology book about Wicca and Mental Illness.

Ya heard that right! I’m writing a book on mental illness! A theological analysis of mental illness through various aspects and I am just SO PROUD of myself for getting there.

Because it’s not easy to write, ya know. It’s difficult, thick, and I have to think theologically and in a straight line to be able to do it. But I’m proud to say that it’s getting there. It might be short, but it Is HAPPENING!

So that’s that y’all! My medication has really affected me a ton! By helping get me on my feet, it has helped me grow as an artist and writer and I am so so proud of the progress that I have made! 🙂 I know it’s maybe an unusual story and that I am very lucky to have found medication that works so well for me. Not everyone is as lucky as I am and not everyone has found the right medication yet. But for me, this is my story.

Have you felt any changes in your art since starting medication? Has your mental illness crippled your art in any way? Do share!