do not metaphor me

There is a link, although be it a small one, between bipolar disorder and creativity.  It is suggested the reason is because of hypomania and one’s openness to experiences that comes with being bipolar.  Therefore, it is the greatest fear of a person with bipolar disorder that when their medication takes away these attributes their creativity will also go with it.  Psychiatrists say it won’t happen or doesn’t happen if you voice your concerns about it.  But I am here to tell you that it does… sort of, maybe.

I know how vague that sounds, how open ended.  But the truth is I don’t know if the medicine took my poetry writing away or if I did.  Maybe it was because I moved on from my unhealthy obsession.  Not just that, it didn’t take away my creativity all together as much as it shifted it.  I like to think I can still write a pretty good essay and maybe a short story every now and then.  Or that I can crochet something beautiful.  However, the rhythm and beat in my mind that once came out of me as poetry is gone.  Nothing but silence. 

But at the time, when I was knee deep in writing poetry, it felt like a flying dream.  There was this feeling of unbridled freedom.  And I felt like that feeling was who I was.  That without it I would no longer exist.  It didn’t matter how chaotic my writing was or if it were, let’s say, less than.  I couldn’t see that.  What I saw was something that would change the world.  Something that would inspire the masses.  Something that would make me unforgettable.  True, maybe my poems really are all of those things.  And that natural rush and high was intoxicating, as I said freeing.

I have saved three hundred and six poems.  The bulk of them being between the years 2005-2007.  More than double of the saved three hundred and six met a fiery end, because they were too terrible to see the light of day.  And in my medicated opinion, less than half of what was left are worth something.  Those poems I am proud to say, “I wrote that.”  The rest are nothing but nonsense and ramblings.  I couldn’t find the rhythm or purpose of them if you paid me.

Poetry was my talent.  I haven’t written poetry since I began taking medication.  At one point, for a year, I went off my medication.  However, the poems still eluded me.  Although, the funny thing is, I don’t really miss it all that much.  In fact, I had been taking my medication for several months before I even realized I wasn’t writing.  I was too busy spending time with my children and enjoying the lack of embarrassment on their faces to notice my poetry was gone. 

There are still times when I long to write a poem.  Usually when I am having a slight breakthrough of baby mania.  But, as I said, for the most part I miss writing poetry like I miss the pack a day of cigarettes I used to smoke.  I barely ever think about it.

But on the occasions that I do, I pull them up and read all three hundred and six.  And when I come across one I deem is worth something I feel a loneliness inside.  I have a longing to write something worthwhile.  To once again, believe I could change the world.  But alas, the rhythm I found in words is silent.  And hearing nothing, well, that’s when that lonely feeling takes root for just a moment and I feel emptiness.  But then I think about the relationships I have in poetry’s place.  And when that feeling creeps in, I crochet something.  Something I didn’t do before I started taking medication.  And it feels completely worth it and not like a loss at all.

The way I feel about it is this.  I didn’t lose my creativity.  It more or less slid sideways into something new.  And that is good enough for me.