It's been a WHILE since I blogged...what on earth was I focusing on at that point? My fitness goals? Those went by the wayside for my artistic goals which then went by the wayside when I mentally couldn't handle any more than the basic daily tasks... In November I thought I'd found my miracle happy pill, which of course came with the caveat that I couldn't take them for long lest I develop some random "possibly permanent abnormal facial/tongue movements" (do I trade a facial tic for true bliss?!) but I find myself at the end of December once again feeling like I did prior to starting my miracle pill. Ah hah, so apparently there is no miracle pill, just temporary fixes of some sort or another. Which leads me to the ultimate goal of this post, since I neither have the time nor energy to pour out a giant typical Tiffany blog. One of the beauties of being diagnosed Bipolar II along with the prediagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder and being prescribed a lower dose of Zoloft along with a new low dose of (happy pill drum roll...) Abilify, is that I've suddenly had the mental clarity and physical energy to tackle more than the minimal requirements of the day and thus my art. I've completed more art in the last 4 weeks than the last year I think! Not that it's all great, but it's complete and it comes from that place inside me that needs release, that needs to create, that needs to grow via my art. But as the happy pill high is waning I'm in fear of losing my artistic burst and want to set myself a goal to hopefully keep me pushing through the tough days, as today was one. I happen to pick up a "magazine/book" called Artists' Café Best of Somerset Mixed Media and was, in a very low moment not just in the day but in the month, the year, even my life (if up to now I had to rank a dozen or so of them) I made my way through by creating a visual journal page. I am a journaler, I am a writer, I am an artist but up until now I have not been a visual journaler. The ideas were all over the magazine I picked up today and with the options of doing something not quite so productive or even I dare say harmful vs creating a visual journal page...well, the Tiffany that is the survivor picked the latter and here we have it. It's not pretty, it's not happy. I even wrote a "poem" to go with it which is not at all uplifting but I was none of those things as I created it. However, when it was finished there was a sense of relief, of the blister burst, of a pride and that's what I hope to keep aiming for with this new goal.
So going forward I'm going to try my hardest each day to create a visual journal page. It will be put together within an hour, not over thought, not over planned or over produced. It will be what it is, the good bad or ugly. I am going to post a picture of it here each day as a way to keep myself in check. We are planning on going away the next few days so both doing the page and posting it will be a challenge but I think I need those to keep me sane right now. Sanity is a good thing I think everyone can agree :)
I welcome and invite you on my journey here and of course am always open to comments, suggestions, thoughts, etc.
best,
tiffany
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