During a pandemic I would say there are two people you don't want to be - an extrovert working alone from his dark basement, or a bipolar dude whose drastic mood swings are barely in control on a good day. I am both.
Group therapy canceled. Gym canceled. Technical glitches during a Zoom psychiatric appointment. And that damn mask. It's like a straitjacket for my breath, my soul. I have to say, other than my meds, my tools had been taken from me.
But were they?
This week we are re-airing a show I produced a year ago on thinking outside of the mental illness box. I mean outside, outside. Like a woman who treats her anxiety with horror films and the idea of treating depression with psychedelics.
There's another woman in the show who wrote a book of poetry called "Odes to Lithium," who says naming is also in the toolkit. She told me we have power over the things we name. I was hiking in the Rocky Mountains recently and during a tough climb alone on the side of a mountain I named it: fear. Fear.
You don't have to be crazy to need a toolkit during this pandemic. You just have to overcome your fear and use what you have.
–Charles