Often I use this as an outlet to express my thoughts and feelings when I’m going through a depressed cycle so I don’t share them under my actual identity. But today (also being in a semi-manic cycle the last week, the one upside to bipolar lol) I wanted to share some positive things.
I have really began adhering to the philosophy that you can only control what you can control. When you give your best effort and a positive approach to what you can control, the things that you can’t control seem to have more favorable outcomes. A lot of things I did this week re-enforced that this is a healthy and productive approach to life. Things aren’t exactly ideal, but there are steps in place based on my actions that will lead to a better future. I’m not espousing some “law of attraction” pseudoscience bullshit- I do think good things happen to you when you have a positive outlook. But you also have to take responsibility to act, speak and put in the hard work. Good things aren’t just going to come to you because you’re thinking good thoughts. Put in the work and control what you can control. The rest is out of your hands.
Another thing- I have a friend who seems to be internalizing some very negative left-wing perspectives and even, to my shock, mentioned how right wing I was. I don’t have a label for my political views as I base my views primarily on logic and science and neither side of the spectrum would encompass that. But as a generalization, I’m quite liberal- I am extremely thankful that I am a Canadian born citizen so, despite having some serious mental and physical health issues and coming from a working poor family, my healthcare is free and I had the opportunity to do post-secondary education I likely wouldn’t have had as an American citizen. I’m thrilled Canada is legalizing marijuana, not that we were ever really strict about it up here anyway, but as both a medical and recreational user of marijuana, it’s nice to be able to walk into a dispensary and get the right strain for my needs. I believe in affordable education, diversity and respect for others. I am very much a straight, cis hetero female (like talking 0 on the Kinsey scale, I’ve never even had a single sexual fantasy or dream about a woman and I’m 30) But I have LGBT friends, a couple who are trying to change the politics and treatment of LGBT people that I try to help with my skills of writing and rhetoric to achieve their goals. I’ll admit, I don’t fully understand transgenderism (I can’t conceive in my mind how one would feel born with the wrong biological gender) but that’s obviously my confusion because of my experience as a 100% straight cis person. I still treat transgender people with respect, use their preferred pronouns and ask appropriate questions to try to develop my understanding better.
My friend seems to be buying into the “two sides” division I think is a bigger problem in society than some see. When you say that you wish someone would hit Jordan Peterson with a truck, you’re engaging in the same rhetoric as the “alt-right” you denounce- hypocrisy, for me, is one of the most maddening qualities I see in society today. One side criticizes the other using inflammatory, divisive rhetoric, and the other side does the same thing without seeing the hypocrisy of their behavior. I will not participate in that. I will admit, I do say some things on Trump’s Twitter- but they are written using a rhetoric very similar to what I’m using writing this, so despite some of my comments getting 100+ likes, even the few negative comments I’ve gotten are either clearly a bot account, or, when I respond, they have nothing else to say. I’ve never been called a bitch or any derogatory name and I strongly feel it’s because of the language I use. One of the few extremely right-wing friends of mine even said recently, “getting into a debate with you is like Superman trying to face kryptonite”. I don’t say anything under my public identity that I can’t stand by and explain. Even here, while I’d rather people not know about the depths of my mental health struggles or that I write some R-rated Rick Sanchez fanfiction, I can stand by that too. I’d just prefer not to have to, hence why I have this account. In these discussions with him, I’ve been just trying to shape my rhetoric as I do in all my social media accounts now and point out the hypocrisies in his speech, like the Jordan Peterson remark, in a way that doesn’t make him defensive. We’ve been friends for more than 15 years now and he is usually well-spoken aside from the emotional rhetoric politics seems to be bringing out in him, so the discussions are productive for both of us, to help each other see the other person’s point of view without going on the defensive. We live in different cities so I can’t say for sure, but I suspect either his coworkers or circle of friends is shaping his current views and I hope he can eventually see that none of us go through this journey of life alone, so rather than getting angry and insulting those who disagree with you, find a way to work with them. We achieve more together than we do divided.
Based on both how much I excelled in the graduate program I just recently completed and re-reading my own words on a variety of topics and platforms, I’m starting to see that, if my goal is to help as many people as possible, that I should take the time now and continue to work on myself and my goals, but that in the future, at least ten years from now, running for political office is a realistic goal for me. I have grown immensely as a human being between the ages of 20-30, so I know that while I’m trying to be my “best self” now, my best self is going to keep getting better and better. When I talk about my “vision”, I can actually articulate what that means instead of using catchphrases and platitudes. I’m an excellent writer and public speaker and I can connect with a variety of different people. Especially since I presume the political climate will be much different in 10+ years, public office is a realistic goal for me. For now, I have to put more work in to make that a reality for my future.
Going through my various writings this morning, I re-read the Rick Sanchez fanfictions I write, as I mentioned under a pseudonym, and I was actually struck by how well-written they were. The commenters on AO3 seemed to agree haha, but from my point of view, I am absolutely a writer. No grammatical errors, the narrative flowed and even Rick’s dialogue sounded like it could have came from the show. It’s kind of funny that some of my quality writing that’s been read by ~3000 people already will never be known to have been written by the “real” me.
Well, I had a very positive and productive week so I am taking the thunderstorms as a sign that I can relax today and have a lazy day around the house watching baseball or doing some writing or whatever I want. I hope to keep having weeks like this in the future- I understand the reality of bipolar is that I will always “cycle” but back to the mantra of “you can only control what you can control”- I can take care of my body and mind, take my medication properly (it’s an off-label bipolar med because a lot of traditional bipolar meds have weight gain as a side effect and one I tried had me gain 30+ lbs in 3 months when I was a very skinny person before that, hence why I still have manic cycles) and control my words and message on all social media platforms. This has helped immensely in reducing the length and severity of my depressed cycles. I have come to terms with the fact that bipolar is a reality for me- and applying my life philosophy to make the best of that reality.
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