Being Nina Kaur

In my last blog entry I wrote about being Bipolar.   Have you ever seen "Being John Malcovich?"  The reason I bring it up is that the films is very much like Manic Depression, it makes no sense, but it's beautiful and in some ways mind bogglingly profound.

It was kind of hard for me to "come out" so to speak about having this disease, even though many people already knew.  I've slowly been telling people over the years.  The closet that I came out of was filled with a lot of nasty thoughts about not feeling like a worthy person, or normal or love-able.

Apparently though, almost everyone has these dirty thoughts of self loathing at times.  And normal is the new boring in our culture.

I guess I'm not like "Crazy and Proud" or something.  I'm OK with it though.  

There's this song by Seal that goes something like, "No we're never gonna survive, unless, we get a little crazy..."  I guess I live by that motto.

You wanna know what it's like to be crazy?  I bet you do.  I bet you might even know, even if you won't admit it.

Well let me try and put it into words.  They call it a "trip" or "tripping"  because truly you do go somewhere else, your mind visits another dimension.  In such a small space, and such a short life, I cannot explain or do justice to this dimension or place or feeling.

I have experienced both Mania and Depression.  Mania is a lot more fun and more dangerous.  The fun part is that you have this feeling of joy at times and feeling of ecstasy that is really out of this world.  You feel like you are a goddess, more than alive  The most dangerous part is that you can hurt yourself and other people.  I don't mean just physically.  I never did anything physically dangerous to myself or anyone else, but I sure as hell hated myself in a very hurtful way and was terrible to the people I loved the most.

The best part about being crazy is that I feel like there are other dimensions that you can reach, where love and joy exist beyond our imagination. You can reach them through like drugs like Crack, but I choose not to do Crack, and instead I think you can reach these places through meditation or music or like art, love, or maybe even sex.

The worst part about being crazy is that you will most likely hurt the people you care about the most.  You might even lose some of those people, I did.  The damage is often irreversible.  You want to say it was the Crack, but in the end you were the one doing the Crack and even if it wasn't really you and it wasn't really your fault, where do you end the illness begins ?  Was I me when I was crazy?  If I wasn't than who the hell was I?  My evil twin?  None of it makes any sense so don't try and think about it too much, I'd rather you do Crack than think too much about insanity since it is in fact a thought process that I think you can slip into.

Of course I like to think if you think too much or are some sort of genius you are prone to insanity.  Of course I would like to think that.  I like to think there is a fine line between insanity and enlightenment.  Again, in my fantasy world I romanticize my experience so that I can make it into a song.  Trust me you don't want to sing this song.  If you want to be a genius or a Zen master, I would highly recommend you avoid the route of reckless mental activity.  Instead, you know, just do the work.  

You may not be familiar with mania, but I bet you know a little about depression.  It's soul sucking...I told myself I would not use the word fuck in this blog, to make it child friendly (since everyone but me is having kids), but I'm sorry, depression fucking sucks.  That's all I have to say about that.

No actually, you know I have more to say.  It's mind numbing...you're dead while alive.  You become a zombie.  At it's worse, people become violent towards themselves or others.  Thank god, that never happened to me, yet.  Thank god for medication and meditation, equally they saved me.

You remember that song, "Say a prayer for you mother, say a prayer for your father, but most of all please say a prayer for me..."  Finally, if you are like me, it's not a question of believing in god or not, it's a matter of soul survival, my soul needed a god to pray to.

I thought I met God when I went crazy.  I still don't know if I did or not.

So I implore you, if you think you could go crazy, if you want to go crazy, know that there are other ways to get to those dimensions other than not taking your medication.  It took me ten years of being on and off of medicine to realize that.  Now I'm on it. I missed one day in four years and nearly went crazy that day.

And if you now and then say a prayer, say one for me, pray that I don't go back, because this time I may not come back.

nina