Bianca? Is that you?

i listened to a ‘writers on mental health’ discussion earlier this week between two poets who are diagnosed with bipolar disorder. one of them, Eugenia Leigh, wrote a whole book about Bianca, the name she gave her disease…or herself when she is experiencing her disease.1

this week i had a bad case of md (mega dread2 ). its intensity continues to knock me off my feet. under its spell, i feel smothered by futility, fatalistic, nihilistic, and very very discouraged; morose, if you will. “we are so often thrown off-balance in the living of our lives.”3 historically, i have tried to find a culprit for this feeling. blame does offer a sense of control but it does not soften the edge. the control is an illusion.

the moderator of the discussion asked the writers about their relationship with their mental illness and diagnoses. Leigh shared the origin story of Bianca, which she adopted after her friends got on this first name basis with her manic alter ego.

naming offers regard, it honors energies/difficulties/presences that are otherwise antagonistic. maybe naming can even open the possibility of affection. i wonder if pausing to name momentarily thwarts the all consuming power of these energies and in doing so offers a little bit of distance. a little bit of distance as in some spaciousness. maybe spaciousness can make way for acceptance as in, you again?

in the mean time, exasperation keeps giving over to humor. and i’ll tell you that it’s hard to tap dance to In the Air Tonight and feel morose at the same time.

name over blame……