The prince, the princess, and the dragon
PS: I’m just about to go and write up today’s adventures at http://twittertales.wordpress.com and YES we made it to the Great Wall at last.
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I’m reading, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” by Donald Miller (the guy who wrote, “Blue Like Jazz”, and who is sort of like the biological biproduct of Anne Lamott, Annie Dillard, and Adrian Plass).
It’s about the structure of a story (an interesting character with a serious problem, who fights to overcome their problem) and how to make your life a more interesting story, based on the idea that we’re hard-wired to enjoy stories with the above structure, because God made us that way. (This theory also explains suffering in a way that works for me better than any other – suffering ultimately makes the story better.)
At one point, the author said that the next level up from basic story structure is an epic story – when the problem is VERY difficult, and involves selfless sacrifice.
When I began to feel I wasn’t meant/able to be a full-time aid worker in Indonesia, it broke my heart. I’d lost the epic story of my life, and I knew it. My substitute story for my life is my writing, but it just doesn’t seem as hard OR as worthwhile to me. Plus, being mentally ill, I suddenly can’t do a lot of things that I used to be able to do.
You all know how the fairy tale goes – the dragon has the princess and the prince rescues her. I used to be the prince (rescuing others), I HATED being the princess (dependent on others; the least interesting and least active character of the three), and I felt that with my mental illness I was slowly turning into the dragon – someone who caused harm to the world instead of good.
I’ve always thought of myself in terms of story. Always. It’s wonderful to hear it set out by Donald Miller, because it gives me permission to look at the way my story is now, and see what I can do to be a hero I really admire.
Maybe 🙂
Five minutes until we head off for attempt #2 at the Great Wall. Should probably brush my teeth 🙂
Christmas Letter 2009
For those who want gratuitous cuteness at this time of year, go see http://twittertales.wordpress.com
For the rest of you. . . here’s MY Christmas letter:
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The year gasps for air. It shudders. It foams at the mouth. It bleeds from the ears.
It doesn’t have much time left.
January: Got married. It was nice. There were butterflies.
Developed severe phobia of weddings.
February: Sister got married. It was nice. I smashed a bouquet on a tree when she wasn’t looking. Evidently I am still mentally ill.
March: Had my sixtieth novel rejection. Concluded my novels are too literary, and began a book entitled, “Farting my ABCs”. The research was exciting (especially the experimental bit). Partner still shares my room. Clearly our marriage will last anything.
April: Car broke.
May: Other car broke. Twice.
June: Cold. Partner clearly thinks “Farting my ABCs” is my best book yet. Hm. Got first car serviced, and discovered it was broken.
July: Still cold. Wrote blog entry on experience of marriage after six months. (Left out the interesting bits, despite rule 34.) Husband clearly from the dollhouse ie he has been programmed to make me happy. Not sure who is paying for it. Second car broke again.
August: Winter is stupid. Started twitter stories at http://twitter.com/Louise_Curtis_ (Louise is my other, nicer personality). Tricked people into interviewing me on radio and for the Canberra Times.
September: Cold. Hot. Cold. Hot. Parents had their 25th wedding anniversary. It was nice. Bribed nephew with cheese so he’d behave. Bribed self with LOTS of chocolate. First car broke again.
October: Fifteen kilos heavier than I was. When did that happen?
November: Passed the 1000-followers mark (between twitter and facebook). My cult leader status is now upgraded to Upper Minion. Tricked a writing conference organiser into letting me be a guest author. Made up a “reading” since none of my books are published.
Brother married. It was nice. I developed an eye twitch and a brand new photo-specific phobia.
Wrote a full-length novel on a whim. Lots of action scenes. See? I’m not literary.
December: No immediate family members remaining to get married, thank goodness (now eyeing four-year old nephew with suspicion. . . you never know).
Both cars broke. Fixed first car. It broke again. Merry friggin Christmas.
Here’s me and the partner:
And, in lieu of children, here are our cats:
May you live in interesting times.
Felicity/Louise
Paranoia Girl lives up to her name
It’s Tuesday. I have one hour of work left this year.
On Thursday (Christmas Eve) we pass our house over to our housesitter and leave. We’re in Sydney with relatives for a bit, then we’re in China for about ten days, then Indonesia for a few days, then back again.
I’m almost paralysed with fear.
At the same time, each stage of the journey makes me feel a little better – and once we’re in China it’s quite likely I’ll be superhumanly intelligent and relaxed (that often happens after a lot of inadvertent and unpleasant psyching up). My younger cat is now at my parents’, so the older one can just chill with our housesitter (the older one is 13, and grumpy). One of our cars has been fixed after both of them suddenly died last week. Christmas is mostly over, since my family had an early Christmas, as usual.
I’ve written and edited two twitter tales for January, and have set up my parents to post the first one while I’m away (China isn’t fond of twitter or facebook).
The house is tidy. There’s food in the freezer for when we come back (I’m just assuming we’ll be hideously ill). We’re packed as much as we can be. There are all kinds of lists around, and I’m slowly getting through everything.
Time for another lie-down.
Salty and Nuts
My downward spiral into madness continues.
Much swearing.
Have survived numerous family events (including Christmas – we have it in early December now).
Things have got to get better at some point. Real soon.
Still waiting for that publisher to reply (I sent them the book in April).
Also my contraceptive meds probably aren’t helping.
Me Write Good
I wrote this on the 26th of November, but was apparently too addled to correctly publish it online. So, conveniently, I have some good news to balance the post I just wrote. (And the dieting – except for the uncontrollable rage – is going surprisingly well, thank you.)
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Last night, around midnight, I finished my National Novel Writing Month book (adding a completely useless conversation to fill in the last five hundred words. As you do).
This is the first time I’ve written a fifty-thousand word manuscript since 2005. (2005 was about the time when I noticed I was losing my mind, and that’s not very confidence-inducing.)
Finishing something (even a hideously flawed first draft) this big is VERY confidence-inducing. It also means that I have a better feel for what 50,000 words looks like when I rewrite the second and third books in my young adult trilogy (I’m still waiting for the publisher to reply on the first one – they’ve now made a new Australian record for Slowest Response Ever, further supporting my, “They’ll probably say yes” theory and sending me deeper into hope-induced madness). Incidentally, that first young adult book is also a NaNo book, which grew to over double its original size during the editing process.
I might not be very good at walking or talking but I am truly extraordinary at producing novels fast. During the process of writing, I noticed that I often wrote at a rate of two THOUSAND words an hour. That even boggles my mind. I really wish I could apply that kind of skill level to something a little more practical, but at least I can do something not everyone in the world can do.
Now seems as good a time as any to say that my friend’s sick baby is home and appears to be completely unharmed. Today I’ll also begin a new attempt at losing some of the fifteen kilos I’ve gained this year, utilising the post-NaNo high.
Some of you already know that I didn’t plan to do NaNo this year (mainly because the logical book to work on is book 2 of the young adult trilogy, which has large good chunks which I’ll cut and paste into the new version). So here is how it happened:
On Thursday 12th November I woke up from a dream which I thought had some moderately interesting elements – an empath community that had a large underground sanctuary made of stone, and that could track each other by thought. I also had two scenes in my head – one involving kidnapping, in which my hero rescued a child but wasn’t able to save his mother; and one in which the baddie shot at the hero and killed her closest ally. From that, I started writing. I have a bad habit of letting my characters sit around and chat, so I worked on making sure every chapter had some direct physical conflict (eg baddie fights hero, baddie fights hero in different location, hero is chased by police, heroes run away from fire set by baddie). One of the interesting side effects is that I did a little editing of another novel of mine at the same time, and REALLY noticed how much I need more action (something publishers have been telling me for years). Hopefully this is a handy epiphany that I can apply to all my work. And when I go back and edit the NaNo novel, I can cut the talky bits and expand the action.
One of the fabulous things about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month – which is actually international) is the truly apalling writing that spews forth unchecked. At one point I noticed that (of about 13 named characters including four cats) I had a Ginny, a Jenny, and a Johnny (Jenny and Johnny are students in the same class, and Ginny is a teacher). Hm.
Total body count: 8 (at the moment)
Personal favourite moment: In the climax, as the baddie is enacting a plan to turn the world into mindless automatons, a two-month old kitten saves the world by biting the Prime Minister at just the right time. (The kitten’s name is Fluffy.)
Worst plot point: a baby is left on the communal doorstep at one point, and performs no useful function whatsoever. (Because hey, it’s a baby.) I gotta either work on that or delete it.
I also wrote this beautiful sentence (and many others like it):
In her place, I didn’t think I’d still be thanking the person who had unsuccessfully tried to protect me from someone who wouldn’t have attacked them if I wasn’t there.
What Edward and I have in common
I know what it’s like to snap slowly and I know what it’s like to snap quickly.
Snapping slowly is what happens when you’re living on a few dollars a week, and eating nothing but a single meal (of rice fried with sugar and an egg) each day, and then suddenly you buy $3 worth of chips. That $3 was meant to last a week, and you know you’ll regret spending it even as you do so (walking to the cash register, ordering, and paying).
Snapping quickly is when you bring a glass into the kitchen, meaning to put it on the bench, then you see the dishes (his job that night) aren’t even started, and you suddenly hurl the glass into the sink and watch it shatter – surprising yourself more than him. (This happens last night, and since I threw my laptop at him in September, it’s no longer a one-off incident.)
Both types of snapping have similar thought patterns, “Don’t do it. This is stupid. You don’t want to do it, stop! Arg!” The main difference is that when I snap slowly, I get to pick HOW I snap. It feels like it’s me doing it.
When I snap quickly, I am literally unable to stop myself. It’s like a reflex. I can modify my actions (eg throwing more slowly, aiming for the sink instead of somewhere messier, throwing an innocent glass instead of punching an innocent man – who was, of course, already wearing dish gloves and clearly doing exactly what he said he’d do). That’s all. I hardly believe it myself, especially since I spend so much time controlling similar urges successfully.
After a slow snap there are consequences – such as having no food at all for a day or two. But there’s also a certain joy in doing something a bit dumb (which is why I will often, now I’m not in danger of going hungry, spend my last $10 on chocolate). After a slow snap there are consequences too, but the most important aftertaste is fear. Because I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do next. Will I hit my husband? Will I drive my car into a light post? Would this other version of me ever hit a child? I don’t know the answers any more.
There’s also a light of pleasurable relief, because it’s moments like these I can feel at peace – yes I really am insane, not lazy (as I’ve been told by various people who are really, really selfish and dumb – and close to me).
This kind of abusive behaviour (being violent toward objects; it’s a classic) is what I have in common with Edward Cullen. (On the up side, I might be mental but I’m not nearly as emo as he is. And I’m pretty sure I have better hair).
I don’t THINK I’m a danger to anyone (not even myself, definitely the most annoying individual around). Otherwise I’d be morally bound to apply some anti-depressants, stat. I do notice that every time I take happy pills I immediately (faster than medical testing would suggest is genuinely medication-related) feel more rational, and wonder why I don’t take pills all the time. Bingeing daily on chocolate also helps. But both ‘medications’ also cause me to gain weight. Which sounds pretty mild compared to potentially harming someone, but my forgiving metabolism is the only thing that keeps me eating (more or less) properly, and exercising regularly, and venturing out into public places. Those are all really difficult things to do, and with medication screwing up my metabolism I just don’t have enough mojo to bother. So I’m prioritising physical health and social/working ability over mental health.
It might be the wrong choice. I’m not sure.
Sick and Wrong
My brother’s wedding was lovely (except for a certain Felicity sitting stiff and skulking in a corner since that is, apparently, all the manners I am capable of). My writing weekend at the Sydney FreeCon was great and went swimmingly. I am eating better, and beginning to lose weight (lack of chocolate results in headaches and ANGER but is important nonetheless).
Yesterday, my internet broke. This is NOT good. After many hours chatting to Indian people (who couldn’t actually understand ME, let alone vice versa), I was advised that my USB modem was broken, and told to go get a new one. This conversation cost me around $70, since I don’t have a landline.
I went to the shop, and naturally my warranty has expired – a few weeks ago. I had $74 credit remaining (to put that in perspective, I usually aim to spend around $20-$40 per month).
The nice man at the shop said it’d be cheaper for me to buy a new one. (Mine cost $150.)
In a shocking twist, I won’t be buying from that company again.
And yes, it was Telstra.
By sheer good luck I had just one hour of work today. I just called in sick, and went to my parents’ internet connection instead.
That’s not a crazy person, THIS is a crazy person
Regular vieweres will be aware that I recently predicted a shiny new mental breakdown for myself.
I think I broke myself last Thursday, roughly halfway through my work day. I did the smart thing and finished up with the student I was with, then went home (calling in sick to the other families, of course).
It’s very difficult to articulate what it felt/feels like. I thought at the time I had heatstroke – confusion, lack of coordination, inability to concentrate, irritability (if you count wanting to punch and kick strangers), and. . . something else I can’t remember right now.
Quite a few bad things have happened lately, including but not limited to the death of a close friend’s family member. Another close friend’s 2-week old son is now in hospital with a 30% chance of dying (and a strong chance of being deaf and/or retarded if he survives).
Reading over that paragraph, I realise I’m not doing so bad. It’d be nice if I had the mental strength to actually talk to either of those friends and/or help them, but that’s just not going to happen. I also really wish I could stop running into things, falling down the stairs, and slurring my words.
The thing to do before, during and after a mental breakdown is to run away from everything you possibly can. My friends are emotionally competent and both have husbands, family and other friends who can look after them. No action required.
My family is also competent to deal with their own lives – including my brother’s wedding next week. No action required, other than showing up on the day (and cancelling every other family event until then). The day will be difficult – weddings always are – but the ceremony part is not negotiable. On the up side, I won’t have to drive that day (which significantly reduces the likelihood of me accidentally killing someone).
Work is a dark grey area. If I don’t go to work, I don’t get paid. My partner and I currently have $6 in the bank, despite my rather desperate efforts to save up lately (including walking around in broken shoes and putting off fixing the heater in our car, which is currently permanently on). When I get stressed enough, I find eating difficult. Eating out is the best solution – but not currently an option.
More importantly, there are my students. None of them are in especially dire straights, but the idea of cancelling even one lesson sickens me. They’re my kids, and I am responsible for them.
Still, we’ll see. The priority here is to avoid physically or emotionally injuring anyone. If I snap, I could – in theory – yell at one of my students. Or crash my car (again). If I ever hurt anyone by going to work, I’d lose trust in myself, and have to quit.
I was watching “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” the other day – season 6, when she has to go to work at the double-meat palace (even less appetising than it sounds). I was so jealous that she was able to put in a full day’s work. It occurred to me that my jealousy show something. . . I just can’t remember what.
PS Don’t panic. I’ve been here before. It gets better eventually, and I’ll be VERY careful in the meantime.
Happy Pills
My happy pills seem to be kicking in (that, and the fact I have no serious work today). I still have a headache (it’s been about 48 hours now) but it’s fading, and I’ve spent the last two hours doing “real writing” (as opposed to “research” or “thinking” or reading). I’m doing a final read-through of “The Monster Apprentice” (first book in my children’s trilogy) before sending it to the publisher who’s currently deciding about “Stormhunter”. I like to think that sending them a second book will remind them I’m still waiting for the first. So it feels like I’m actually doing something.
And I decided to ask my husband to do my weekend chore today 🙂 That’s ALWAYS fun. He’s already done two loads of washing, and now he’s vacuuming. There’s nothing hotter.
Falling
I’m beginning to think having a breakdown is an annual event for me. As the weeks and days and hours pass, I can feel myself getting crazier. I’m less coordinated, more frightened, more angry, less rational – and I don’t know how long I’ll keep getting worse. More importantly, I don’t know where my personal rock bottom is. Or who I’ll take with me. I do know that I snap fast and violently when I snap.
I’ve just started taking my happy pills again, and I’m changing my contraceptive pill. Who knows? Maybe something will make things better.
My bedroom window, by a quirk of architecture, faces our nearest neighbour’s driveway. A young family lives there, and I see the mum a lot during the day, though I’ve never actually spoken to any of them. The other day I was lying down with the curtains and the window open. I clearly heard one of the children telling a visitor, “That lady lies down a lot.”
It’s true. I sleep a lot during the day (a classic mentally ill thing to do, but in my case I am fortunate to also sleep at night), and when I get overwhelmed – too overwhelmed to read, or listen to music, or watch TV – I lie in bed and look at the sky. Sometimes for hours.
The up side of my current mental breakdown is that not only can I see it coming (and prepare for it to a certain extent), but I know exactly what is causing it: waiting for a publisher to reply to a book (I already know they really like it – but that’s never yet been enough).
I watched “The Shawshank Redemption” last night. I disagree with the main character (and theme). In my opinion, hope is bad. It’s deadly poison to the powerless, and it’s killing me now.
It’s not the publisher’s fault –Â nor is it mine. I just hope I get a reply soon.
Felicity Banks 