Having a Full and Robust Life

I’m not a fan of labels like psychiatric survivor. To me a survivor is merely someone who survived an experience. I’d rather be a winner: a person who got in the ring and fought the illness and was the last one standing.

In recovery as in life there are no guarantees. We have to treasure what we have because it could be gone tomorrow. That’s what I would tell anyone who doesn’t have a mental illness too.

I want others to focus on the humanitarian work I do not on what I’ve achieved for myself. I use my experiences to uplift and inspire others–true–yet my goal was not to claim that everyone can do what I’ve done or has to do what I’ve done to be given credit in society.

Since I first started blogging years ago I’ve championed that each of us figures out what makes us happy and goes and does that. Your blueprint for living your life is going to be different from mine.

My ulterior motive was to show how I rose up against the stigma the mental health staff tried to reinforce when I dared tell them I wanted to get a job and live independently. My contention has always been that a person diagnosed with schizophrenia should not settle for less than full participation in society on equal footing with everyone else.

Most people covet having a “normal” life or covet being “normal.”

The book flap for Kelly Cutrone’s Normal Gets You Nowhere defines normal as:

“according with, constituting, or not deviating from a norm, rule, or principle / conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern / of, relating to, or characterized by average intelligence or development.”

That doesn’t sound like something I ever wanted to be though at one point I wanted to be “free from mental defect” another definition of normal.

Like I said I consider myself to be an ordinary person. I simply wanted to do great things. That’s the difference: each of us has gifts we were born with to use to better ourselves and others in the world.

Everyone has God-given gifts and talents. No one is better than anyone else because in this regard we’re all equals: we have gifts and talents. Daring to use these strengths to create a better life for ourselves and others is the secret to success in recovery.

I make the case for striving to have a full and robust life not just surviving hell and living a life of anger and resentment.

A trend has come on to champion having an ordinary, average life in recovery. Yet I don’t think a person is ordinary or average even if they have a “normal” life. I think greatness lies in each of us regardless of whether a person has a masters degree or is a JD or MD.

That’s why shortly I’m going to feature other peer stories in here. I promised this a couple of months ago and I should be able to start this in September.

A lot of people still cling to using a label like psychiatric survivor. My goal is to showcase peers who have real lives apart from their illness and apart from their diagnosis.

Having a normal life doesn’t appeal to me: having a full and robust life does.

That’s what I intend to do: feature peers who have full and robust lives. Stay tuned.

Stunned is the Word

Stunned is the word for what happened to me when I did a good deed this weekend.

I was entering a market and a woman sitting outside belted out: “Spare a couple dollars for a sandwich.”

“Come inside and pick something,” I quickly ushered her in. Luckily the vegetable pannini was only five dollars. “Can I get a soda?” she asked.

“Okay,” I said and she came back with a San Pellegrino.

“How much?” I queried the cashier. “Seven dollars,” she said. I paid and started my own shopping.

“Thank you, thank you.” The woman hurried outside to her perch in front of the store.

As I exited with my own provisions I thought the woman might have a mental illness. She might collect SSI and not have money this far along in the month to buy food. She was not skeletal like a heroin addict and did not wear long sleeves. Her hair was immaculate and she wore a tee shirt and pants.

I have a good nature so I didn’t think the woman had money and was too cheap to want to buy her own food. She might have been on the cusp of becoming homeless.

Kelly Cutrone in her book Normal Gets You Nowhere excoriates Christians and other shoppers who go in and out of stores buying $19.99 junk gifts and step around homeless people in front of the stores. No one gives these subway grate fixtures money or offers to buy them a slice of pizza.

Today I was tested: I bought a woman begging for change a meal. My intuition tells me she might have had a mental illness and couldn’t afford food this far along in the month.

I do not like to think she was an ordinary woman too cheap to buy her own meals. A song title claims the singer “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” and this might have been talking about the scraps of love he wanted a woman to give him. Yet it would astound me if the woman had no pride and was too cheap to buy her own food.

This is a great mystery to me right now.

The trains were running late and it took me two hours to get home. By then my broccoli rabe was wilted. The delice soft cheese was melted.

It was another hot night in a cool city.

Zadie Smith on Writing and Writers

Thursday I was unable to write a blog entry so I’m going to post one today. I’ll focus on the writing life again and back track in the coming week to other topics.

Zadie Smith is famous for writing the first novel White Teeth. While I did not read that novel I read 50 pages of her novel The Autograph Man. The book bored me and I didn’t find it to be exceptional so I quit reading it. Also: the main character had no redeeming features that would’ve allowed me to like him even though he was repulsive in his behavior.

Though this has been my experience I can say that Zadie Smith redeems herself by talking about the craft of writing on the Internet and by giving readers her 10 rules of writing. She defines writers as Macro Planners or Micro Managers.

I’m in the macro planner camp. Yet more than this I can see the scenes of novels in my head like I’m a director filming a movie. I can visualize the action of a novel in my head clear as real events.

It also helps to cut out photos from magazines that can give you a visual cue as to how a character looks or what a room looks like or of other images in a book.

I have also gone to bed at night and in my sleep I’ve dreamed of the plots of novels. Ideas for plots of novels have come to me in my sleep. Like any macro manager I don’t write a book from beginning to middle to end: I write the scenes that resonate with me at that particular moment.

I also find that dialogue pops into my head at random moments during the day or night, on weekdays or on the weekend.

To be fair I most likely have to read White Teeth or NW to see if I can adjust my view of Zadie Smith’s writing.

Read Zadie Smith’s views on two types of writers. Her style of crafting a novel might be different. Each style is rightfully useful on its own. One style is not any better than another.

Christina Bruni’s Future TED Talk

Giving an 18-minute TED Talk has become a phenomenon in recent years. I would talk about something specific if I had the opportunity to give a TED Talk.

Here goes:

What I write springs from my premise that people can recover from mental illnesses. So I write things as if recovery is possible. I’m confident my readers have the capability of trying to create a better life for themselves. This blueprint for living is going to be different for each of us.

I have strong views because I’m stubborn: I refused to believe I couldn’t achieve my goals. I knew that as long as I took action I would achieve what I set out to.

How come I was able to think I could do these things? I didn’t know whether I could: I decided I had to try, because as long as I tried my best, there would be no shame if I failed.

You have to fail: failure is often necessary in order to arrive at a better place in your life. A person should not be afraid to fail big and fail often.

Perfection isn’t the goal. Being certain you’ve done the right things all the time is a false security–and being certain at all times is not the goal either.

Taking action is the goal. Have you heard the 1980s term “paralysis by analysis?” Taking risks is the goal. The more risks you take, the more confidence you get.

You don’t get confident doing nothing. You don’t get confident watching TV all the time. You get confident by taking action even when you don’t have the faith that things will work out. The Zen saying tells us: “Leap, and the net will appear.”

A university professor told his class: “Everyone has an agenda.” Your purpose for being here on earth in this lifetime is your agenda. What is your vision for what you want to do in your life? What is it you want to champion for yourself and others?

Find that purpose–the spark that gives you energy to wake up in the morning. Go do and advance that and you won’t need to be certain of anything. You’ll take action regardless of the result because you believe in your vision.

You won’t always win. It might take you years and years to be successful. That’s okay.

Do what you believe in. Passion is the goal.

Beautiful Things Are Never Perfect

I bought an ocean-blue tee shirt with white letters that proclaim: Beautiful Things Are Never Perfect.

This seems to apply to life more than anything. Living your life and living in recovery is not ever perfect. You keep on walking even when the road is long.

A female singer titled her song “I’ll Take the Long Road.” Sometimes: the long road is the only road you have to go down to arrive at a better place in your life. The hardest-won victory is the sweetest.

This is ultimately why I champion getting the right help right away: as hard as life is living with schizophrenia for most people, it should not have to be exponentially harder because treatment was delayed or is non-existent.

At long last I found a therapist. In the 1990s I read that people who enter therapy go on to increase their income. I told a guy this back then. Two years later he saw me on a subway platform and told me: “You were right Chris. I had therapy sessions, and I got a higher-paying job.”

Entering therapy can help a person set and achieve goals. Talking to a therapist can help a person live through a hard time they’re experiencing.

Remember: Beautiful Things Are Never Perfect. Life isn’t perfect and neither are human beings.

It’s not a mark of shame to enter therapy. U2 titled a song: “Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own.”

And hey, it’s true that you can increase your income by going into therapy.

Be Determined. Never Quit.

I was fortunate to use the services of a trainer at the gym for close to five years until he departed.

The guy now opened his own gym with the motto: “Bring strength to life.” His website tells us: Be determined. Never quit.

This is so true. You might be tempted to lose hope and you might have no faith that things can change for the better. That’s OK. Simply continuing to take action in the direction of your goals is all that matters.

If you can’t achieve what you wanted see if there’s something else you can do instead. Abandoning a goal when it turns out not to be the one that’s right for you is a sign of strength and courage.

I’m grateful I had the trainer in my life for as long as I did. I respected and admired that he had a ton of ambition and I’m glad he was able to move on to do better things.

It is possible for a person diagnosed with schizophrenia bipolar or another MI to set goals and achieve them. We’re not doomed to failure for the rest of our lives.

In this regard of not quitting I can tell you it’s possible to find a therapist after a five-month search

Be determined. Never quit is an apt motto when it comes to the life-changing goals a person has.

You can certainly quit when things turn out not to be the right thing for you to do. I learned this early in life when I had the courage to go back to school to get a job in a career that I liked and would be good at.

My self-help book I expect to publish within three years. I’ll talk about this closer to the publication date.

Bringing strength to life? I’m all for this.

Passion

I checked a book out of the library that defines Entrepreneurial Passion (EP) thus:

“A positive, intense feeling that you experience for something that is profoundly meaningful for you as an individual.”

Buy this Carmine Gallo book Talk Like Ted to be inspired to live your dream(s).

Melissa Cardon is quoted as saying that:

“Passion is something that is core to a person’s self-identity. It defines a person. They simply can’t separate their pursuit from who they are, It’s core to their being.”

Indeed. I published a blog entry just now at the Flourish blog about Colin Powell’s inspiring TED Talk 2012 that I found in Talk Like TED.

Cardon goes further:

“Passion is aroused not because some entrepreneurs are inherently disposed to such feelings but, rather, because they are engaged in something that relates to a meaningful and salient self-identity for them.”

EXIT: gray flannel insurance field. ENTER: living life Left of the Dial.

That’s the core message of my memoir Left of the Dial: acting false to yourself creates ill health. Living your passions and doing what gives you joy liberates you.

My mantra in life is now: embrace your difference. Celebrate the things that make you the one and only you in this lifetime. Be not afraid to dare to do your own thing.

Dare. Risk acting true to yourself in a world of fakes and copycats.

Each of us will only be happy if what we do meshes with and reinforces who we are.

Entrepreneurial Passion?

I’m all for it.

Normal’s Overrated

A great friend of mine gave me his tee shirt because he didn’t want it. M. chose a size S and mailed it to me about seven years ago. It’s a black short-sleeve tee with silver letters that proclaim: “Normal’s Overrated.” It was a NAMI promotion tee shirt with the TV show House.

The one time I wore it outside in the Village in New York City people zoomed up to my chest to read it. “Rock on! So true!” everyone responded.

Wearing the tee shirt caused me to create a little earthquake in and around Washington Square Park where the art festival was going on.

I write about this because it’s a tendency for individuals newly diagnosed with schizophrenia to internalize shame about having this illness. The actions we take to avoid stigma often wind up having the opposite effect: we become ill.

In my twenties I was a creative quirky gal who ran n the opposite direction to work in the insurance field.

I do wish I could help others be spared the fate of making themselves miserable trying to conform to what other people in society have designated as “normal” or “not normal.”

The link between creativity and mental illness has been proven in research studies. It should come as no surprise that not a lot of us covet becoming tax accountants or trial lawyers. Most of us ARE writers and artists and dancers and photographers and other creatives.

In recognizing this and having self-acceptance the battle is won over the diagnosis.

It’s true that normal’s overrated.

The goal is to take part in your own life by acting true to yourself.

You might not earn millions at a job yet that’s not the point.

The point is to be happy.

Last of the Independents

In the 1980s disc jockeys played the music of bands signed to indie record labels instead of major record labels.

I liken this to self-publishing a book circa 2015 today. Major publishers aren’t willing to take a chance on a great work of literature so they routinely turn down books they think won’t make millions of dollars for the house. James Patterson and other writers of so-called formula fiction do get book contracts with Random House and other publishers.

I say: take a chance on the last of the independents. Be not afraid to read a self-published book that is well-written not cobbled together with poor grammar and dangling sentences or run-on streams of paragraphs.

My other two books are self-help books I hope to publish within five years. I have a fourth non-fiction book I’d like to bring out too.

Today: mainstream publishers aren’t willing to take a chance on first-time authors. I urge readers of books to take this chance on first-time authors.

I’m most taken by Kim Gordon’s traditionally published memoir, Girl in a Band, because she limned the downtown New York City music scene that paralleled my own stint as a disc jockey on the FM radio.

It comes down to making beautiful music on your own. Self-publishing a book is like producing an album with an indie record label.

Most people would rather read a book Nicole Richie or Kim Kardashian wrote.

I say: give your hard-earned money to ordinary writers not celebrities who make millions just by rolling out of bed.

The whole indie do-it-yourself ethic is alive and well and thriving.

Why not join in?

Fifty is the New Funny

I want to do a comedy routine about recovery at mid life.

A reporter for Yahoo Health interviewed me for an article on dating with a mental condition.

A lot of so-called normal guys are a few bricks shy of a house if you get my drift.

I’d rather date a person with a mental illness who’s normal than an allegedly normal person who’s effed up.

This might be why as I continue into my fiftieth year I’m suddenly interested in the inner beauty of a person.

At the same time I see the beauty of getting dolled up to go outside. I learned some tricks this weekend about making up your mind as well as your face. The inner core of our belief and our outer beauty should be in synch.

My joke is that a bathroom mirror should come with the instructions like a fire scene: Stand Back 500 Feet.

Try this and see if as I did it does the trick. Deborah Harry of Blondie fame was quoted in a book that women view ourselves microscopically. Yet at 50 we can’t afford neither emotionally nor financially to obsess about every line, wrinkle, and pore.

The simple solution is to stand back from the bathroom mirror at least two feet. This does the trick nicely when you’re looking at yourself. Like any work of art (and every human being is one) we need to view ourselves from a distance. This is for most of our day how other people view us. I doubt a lot of people enter or invade what’s called our personal bubble closer than two feet to our bodies every day.

Yes: the simple solution is to stand back from the bathroom mirror at least two feet. This works wonders in changing how we view ourselves. Like I reported in here before a makeover is also a special effect when a woman turns 50.

Other simple strategies come easy too:

Cleanse your face at night and apply moisturizer at night. Now is the time at 50 when a woman benefits from using moisturizer and broad-spectrum sunscreen in the morning and moisturizer at night.

The makeup artists who wrote The Makeup Wakeup also championed applying moisturizer. It can instantly wake up our faces.

What I find funny and with pun intended is that often the solution(s) are right in front of our face.

I so will not do expensive lasers, injections, and other treatments. I think it’s egregious of magazine editors to fuel the flames of their readers’ worries about getting older by showcasing anti-aging products in features.

Step Away. From the Mirror. I guarantee you’ll like the results.