I am sleepwalking. I am sleepwalking but I feel the need to take stock, to do Interim report at just over 5 months pseudo-quarantined during this very real pandemic, during which we also saw the mainstreaming of Black Lives Matter, a decentralized movement fighting for sustainable transformation - Freedom, Liberation and Justice - in our world. In both cases, there is evidence that perhaps we can think and act locally and globally. And yet, there is ample evidence that democracy is in retreat (U.S., Russia, China, Hungary, Libya, etc.). All of this is happening, but I am sleepwalking.
The soundtrack to my sleepwalking might be “Summertime Sadness” by Lana del Rey (https://open.spotify.com/track/2dBwB667LHQkLhdYlwLUZK…), but here’s the thing about music. For me, it’s the one thing that can consistently lift me from depression, sadness or just being down in the dumps. Even, or especially a sad song. A sad song when I’m sad. A happy 3 minute pop song takes me from sluggish to motivated. Beethoven’s 9th gives me purpose. Einstein on the Beach gives me great hope for humanity and the creative process. Other art forms can have an effect on my mood, but none as consistently as music. I’ve tested this out about a billion times over the past half-century.
I am benumbed. I am on psychiatric wonder drugs (primarily lithium carbonate) that keep me alive by eliminating the highs (mania) and the lows (depression) of my brain activity, but primarily the highs that would otherwise drive me to the brink, and be a menace to society. On a good day, that means I am chill: motivated but not fast and furious; happy enough, but not exuberant. I love people but sometimes I can’t connect, and I am somewhat indifferent. Flattened out. Like there’s a gauzy layer between me and the world. There are other strange side effects like a vastly slowed-down metabolism, and tremors in my hands. It feels like “Sorrow” (The National) sounds: https://open.spotify.com/track/5UXW4T4W80gThrchHR1Mgt…
Intellectually, I get it. The cycling mood states of yesteryear in combination with my alcoholism were done. It was Change or Die. So I’m basically happy with this state I live in, but I do sometimes wish I could occasionally be as passionate and spontaneous as I used to be. On the other hand, my current condition means that I’m indifferent to my indifference. And how do I know that what I took to be passion wasn’t just mania?
It’s funny that I have tears and fears, because this song seems perfect: https://open.spotify.com/track/0Qv7xi6uPSqH2k82tOkGSt…
I think sleepwalking is an apt metaphor. I’m functioning, productive, happy enough, sometimes even focussed, but it’s all happening within this sleepwalking state.
I have a whole other thing, a neurological disorder that is hard to describe briefly and, really, I don’t want to make this a catalogue of my symptoms. It’s an ongoing matter, however, and I have been treated for a number of years, but the treatment started to backfire. I tremble and I shake and I go insane. I can’t sleep and I need to sleep. It triggers mania sometimes, and I can’t afford for that to happen. I’m a basket case: https://open.spotify.com/track/6L89mwZXSOwYl76YXfX13s….
My mind and my body are already weird enough without the added weirdness of isolation, boarded up shops and restaurants, signage, masks, rules, and regulations, and uncertainty. Financial uncertainty. Employment uncertainty. The Smiths’ “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” comes to mind (https://open.spotify.com/track/1H5N26VqHR4JhuaRKY2I0u…).
I kind of like working at home, but that’s partly because I get to isolate, even if I have to pseudo-connect over Zoom. I can read, watch films, listen to music and podcasts, write, do all of my work, and even eat and drink, all from the (sick) comfort of one room. Isolation really does sound like Joy Division’s “Isolation” (https://open.spotify.com/track/1UWbBFaZNksb3AmgldkprR…) Something people don't always understand about mental health, is that some of us at least some of the time, like being in those depressive states (and of course manic states as well). We are comfortable in what appear to be uncomfortable states. I know that I am like this with depression. It can be a warm blanket, a way of shutting out everything but that crappy warm blanket. Alcoholism and drug addiction are like this too, but they are a bit more understandable given the whole oblivion factor.
I am stressed. It sounds like this “Girl Anachronism” by The Dresden Dolls: https://open.spotify.com/track/6Zbv79YWB0iZSXwIwEsIOP….
I am sad. I am lonely. I am fidgety. I am out of shape. I can’t sleep. I can’t get anything done. I am out of place. I can’t really describe this, so I can’t get help because maybe it doesn’t exist. I hate my meds. I’m in a daze. I am just old enough not to be young. I am boring. I eat too much. It’s a mad world, but after all, I sometimes find it beautiful, exquisite, irresistible. And I am not alone. Cue REM’s “Everybody Hurts”, https://open.spotify.com/track/6PypGyiu0Y2lCDBN1XZEnP….