Synchronicity
The Oxford dictionary describes “synchronicity” as “the simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection.”
Wikipedia has a longer definition: “Synchronicity (German: Synchronizität) is a concept first introduced by analytical psychologist Carl G. Jung “to describe circumstances that appear meaningfully related yet lack a causal connection.”[1] In contemporary research, synchronicity experiences refer to one’s subjective experience whereby coincidences between events in one’s mind and the outside world may be causally unrelated to each other yet have some other unknown connection.[2] Jung held that this was a healthy, even necessary, function of the human mind that can become harmful within psychosis.[3]“
As a Bipolar 1 woman who was not diagnosed, let alone medicated, until I was 28 years old, my life was full of synchronicity. I was working as a clerk in Columbia University libraries, cataloging art books. My family did not “believe” in psychiatry nor in mental illness. I kept everything secret from them until I could no longer, when I had my breakdown at age 28. At that point I went for emergency care to the Columbia Counseling Service and was told to stay with my family for a week or go to hospital. I was lucky enough to be able to go to my parents for a week . I had begun therapy with the psychiatrist I would wind up staying with until age 74. But at the time I was all alone. I had a best friend from grammar school who was living in France at this time. She and I corresponded every week. We remained close until she died at age 39. I had a few friends at work, but I lived alone and was isolated. And I became psychotic at times. Synchronicity ruled my life. Parts of a song on the radio, or a program on the TV, a man singing in the street… they all had special messages for me. I thought of people in the street as “teachers” for me to learn from and the people who worked with me, as “mystics,” who understood me, and who were trying to train me.
It was exhilarating when the teachers were happy with my progress but terribly depressing when I did wrong. There were “signs” for me to interpret all over the place. And at work, I regarded every book I catalogued as something that held secrets to help me get mentally well or learn truths about life. I would do my job faithfully, most of the time, but while doing it, I was on the constant look-out for special messages meant for me. I did what I called “readings”. I would find some lesson in each book. One book I was working on held a special secret about the womb and the egg and the sperm uniting and becoming a zygote. I pictured the uniting of the egg and the sperm as fireworks. (Thirty years later, saner and married and actively creating art, and, writing a newspaper column upstate on the side, I created an abstract photograph called “Conception”.) But in the library, I did what I called “time travels.” I didn’t talk to people much during this period. I listened to co-workers and street people, read extensively and deciphered messages. People would come up to me at work to actually talk to me sometimes, to be nice, I guess, and I would leave the world of the womb, and zygotes or some such thing, and talk to them normally as if I were in their world. I was not!!
In other words, to put it in professional terms, I was WACKO!
That is all behind me now and fortunately, though I have had some hard times, but they have occurred within the realm of a marriage, to be 35 years long this May. It has offered me the only stability and deep love in my life. Gone is the world of readings and messages. Gone is the synchronicity. Sometimes I miss it but not the craziness that went with it. Now I have more meaningful, everyday experiences of sanity. There are still some epiphanies, but not like the old days.
Before I close I must add, there was at least one incident that was truly synchronicity… that was not delusional… that felt distinctly like a message from God, the Universe. I was working at my desk and suddenly my scalp felt prickles all over it. I grew alarmed and so decided to go to the reference room for one of my “readings.” Clearly this warranted research. I went to the Reference Room of the library and found a one volume encyclopedia which I pulled off the shelf. In order for the reading to give answers impartially, I had to open it at random and then put my finger on the page. So that’s what I did whilst my scalp prickled. My finger pointed to a picture. It was a print of Christ with a crown of thorns. I was stunned. I felt like it was a message from God. And to this day I think it was. It was a message of hope and love.
Yesterday I wrote to a fellow blogger, Anneta Pinto-Young, at Devotionalinspirations.com, who is a Social Worker and a Christian Minister and recounted this story briefly in response to her post on coincidences in her series on “Hearing God Speak.” She told me something very wise. She said that religion and science have always clashed over these type of things. Sure, I was delusional for much of the time, but I did have occasional experiences like this one. And, she said, that was God sending me a message of his love and encouragement. I felt that then and I feel it today.
Maybe I don’t need the secret messages any more. God’s word comes through friends now and most definitely through my long-suffering husband.
What can I say but look out for synchronicities and see what message there is for you.
Mandatory Two Week Break from Blogging… and Most Other Things… Doctor’s Orders…
So,,, being Bipolar means sometimes you are manic and sometimes you are depressed and sometimes you are both. And sometimes you need to stop the stimulation from so many things and get threatened with hospitalization. I am not the fun, spendthrift, creative, on-top-of-the-world-manic but the irritable, really-can’t-do-this-anymore, depressed manic who is just barely functioning. I no longer know what I am doing. For example, I have bought so many bottles of the same things, my husband pointed out, that both of us will be dead before they are used up.
And, so, I am not to blog (and other things) at all for two weeks. I might peek at your posts but can’t do any responding or posting. A post will appear Labor Day weekend because that was written a long time ago and scheduled to go live by itself. I will answer any comments when back. Will be very curious about you all and your posts. It is a truly good group of people… the WordPress Bloggers. And I will miss most of you very much.
Happy Labor Day weekend!
Overloaded Circuits
(Computer art by author)
I’m in somnia
with jackhammer brain
a buzzing mind
a humming with emotions
thoughts and pictures
memories of joys
lost to death
spirits close to my heart
seemingly worlds away
guilt, loss and happiness
sickness and death
as well as
breathtaking beauty
a bedfellow with
gnawing worries
and gnashing nerves
fleeting images from films and
music playing at high speed
in the library of my mind
voices of today, yesterday and
fears of tomorrow
vying for an ear
asking me to listen
to them all
all at once
a cacophony of sounds
in the humming silence
of the specter-filled
haunting darkness
with fearsome death dangling
its loathsome threats
before my darting eyes
afraid not for myself
but of losing him
as he lies beside me
breathing noises
breeding worry, sorry
dashing thoughts of love, passion, doubts
a scarily-still lump beside
insomniac-hyper-racing-mind
manic me
finally arising out of
maudlin months
of dismal darkness
and deep, dark despair
when death smelled sweet to me
*
I get out of bed
to lay my face
upon the windowsill
to gaze at the mystery sky
full of twinkling stars
glittering to the rhythms
of the pulsing universe
my only hope for some
semblance of somnolence
my only chance for peace.
For info on my Bipolar memoir, please see: http://www.independentauthornetwork.com/ellen-stockdale-wolfe.html
Messages from God
Sue at Silent Eye recently posted a discussion of bibliomancy on her blog…
As a former librarian, I had an experience of bibliomancy with an encyclopedia. It was at a time in my life when I was in a sort of parallel universe. In any case, I had the distinct feeling of a prickly scalp and I wanted to do what I called “readings” which meant basically opening a book randomly to anything looking for messages from God. So I did just that and opened to a page with a picture of Christ and His crown of thorns. I can’t remember how I interpreted it but I knew I was “connected” to something way bigger than my mind.
I had many such experiences and they are delineated in my book, Eye-locks and Other Fearsome Things.
Apology
To all of you who have “liked” my posts over the past week, a heartfelt apology and a mighty THANK YOU!!! I would have liked to have stopped by your blogs but am following WAY, WANY too many people and can’t keep up. I keep following more and more people when I am manic and then feel hopelessly unable to keep up when in the depressed cycle– which is where I am now. I am clean out of words, in a downward spiral, and on day 3 of a mighty migraine. Hope you’ll stop by again sometime in the future so I can visit your place.
Windows into Worlds: The Lighthouse
A night of mania with no sleep
the wee hours on the computer
running on empty and
bordering on irascibility
my stirrings awaken my husband
a pre-dawn breakfast and a visit to
The Saugerties Lighthouse at 7 A.M.
What drama plays out behind lace curtains?
A beacon of light from the Inside,
Someone stirs…
Rapid Cycling
Patterns of the microcosm
echoed in the macrocosm
vibrating thoughts
no meditation
lots of frustration
can’t calm down
do the Hong Sau
Yogananda method
the only hope
in this mind
doing 120 mph
in a 35 mph zone
time soon for sleep
frogs singing
a pre-dawn high
drained at noon
rapid cycling
twilight now
back to racing
raving
raging mind
need gentility
humility
quietude
to feel awe
to ponder
hit “Pause”
love in the afternoon
a natural anti-
depressant
sent sight soaring
in space
seeing patterns
everywhere
echoing symphonically
in noisy ears
the hum of quiet
seems too loud
flashing lights
status migrainous
with all over
crawling feeling
“not-theres”
stop I say
stop I pray
stop the way
the world spins
hurling in space
the race
the pace
exhaustion
please
take this body
in your arms
work your charms
on this alarm-
ing state
with alacrity
the paucity
of peace
needs mending
Oh evening
send hope
for ending
these frantic antics
quell the panic
break the day
and bring on
the dawn
of dreams
Overloaded Circuits
On circuit overload
can’t turn off the current
despite parallel despair
know a fuse will blow
but can do little to stop the flow
mania and depression
together = paranoia
Two Different Worlds
I am Bipolar. I used to think I was two different people. In the remarkable article below Bipolar Disorder is described as inhabiting two different worlds.
My Mind is Broken
It is 3 A.M. and it is another night I cannot sleep. I have taken two sleeping pills to no avail. When I am manic sleep does not come easily. I write. I eat. I check email. I pace the rooms back and forth, in and out of bed. Luckily my husband does not wake during my perambulations. The mania is not of the inflated ego variety, though I have had that at an earlier time in my life. Years ago I remember going by Harlem on a bus route home one night when I was flagrantly psychotic and proclaiming, “These are my people!” Why I said this I couldn’t tell you now– sparked most likely from some manic feeling of camaraderie. But, of course, it was beyond grandiosity and just plain crazy (yes, that is a psychiatric term). Perhaps the roots arose out of the closeness I had with my Sicilian grandfather who was not exactly white and who had much spirit– what an African-American might call “soul.” And from my father, a jazz trombonist, who spent his youth sleeping in bathtubs in Harlem when he would come to the city from white suburbia for jam sessions. He, too, like my grandfather, had “soul” hidden under white skin.
In any case, thanks to the anti-psychotic family of medicines I am not grandiose tonight. I did forget to take my meds the other night and, like Karma, that affects everything about my life. I am just raring for the day to start, for the morning to come. I see a drunk sitting outside on a stoop smoking. I want to see, not the people of the night, but the purposeful people of the morning, going to school, going to work, walking their dogs. Two hours and forty-five minutes to go. And then time to wake up, have coffee, pray, make plans for the work of the day. How can fifteen minutes seem like an hour? How can the cool night breeze masquerade as a morning zephyr? I will make one last attempt to go to bed and sleep. First, I will post a video of Jusuf’s, formerly known as Cat Stevens, of a beautiful hymn he sang, “Morning Has Broken.” I am also posting a photo I took of a marsh in the morning light. Enjoy! And Good morning!
This was written a year ago in a mild manic episode. Right now I am fighting depression triggered by Lyme disease and antibiotics. I have zero creativity so resort to rewrites. Hope to be back writing soon and commenting on fellow bloggers’ posts. Please excuse the silence but that is how it is being Bipolar. (Click http://www.independentauthornetwork.com/ellen-stockdale-wolfe.html for information on, and to purchase, my Bipolar/Asperger’s memoir.)
“Music Magic”
Today
a lightness of being
want to share
the scintillating spark
Cat Stevens
and his cohorts
see
the Light
music often mania makes
is this mania
or
is it the catepillar
coming out of the chrysalis of depression
being Bipolar bears
cacophonic confusion
even after 6 decades
who cares
Cat Stevens
a gift to me
from my brother
post mortem
his legacy to me
because he loved him
and because I missed him
I listened
too late to share the love
now
my gift to you
just listen and let
soul to soul transmission
effect
its music magic
culminating
in a crescendo
of
soul
Mania Free-flow
This is the mind in mania, a sampling of the free-flow of racing thoughts and rhyming words that occur. On first glance, the meaning may seem random but in the context of the memoir, themes of paranoia and the flip side of mania, depression, are apparent.
I catch the Number Four bus. The bus is crowded. The motor in my head starts racing again.
IT’S PANIC. AND THEY’RE PUSHING. PUSHING AND SHOVING. AND THE STREET LIGHTS ARE FLASHING— GREEN VENOM/BLOODY TEARS ALTERNATELY ON THE RAINDROP WINDOWS OF THE BUS. AND THAT WOMAN OVER THERE IS STARING, DAMNED BITCH! AND THAT HAIRY MAN— THE EYES ARE PROBING AND LOCKING. IT’S SHOCKING. THE MIND MOTOR’S GOING FASTER AND FASTER STILL. NERVE ENDINGS FIRING. AXONS AND DENDRITES SYNAPSING ALL OVER THE GODDAMNED PLACE. AND THE STREETS CRAWL BY. FLIP FLOP. THE CAMERA SHOP. GOTTA MOP THE CAMERA SHOP. FLIP FLOP. THE BUTCHER SHOP. CHOP. CHOP. RAW MEAT DROPS AT THE FEET OF FAT FLESH. TICK TOCK. THE ROUND, WHITE INSTITUTIONAL CLOCK TICK-TOCKS TO THE CHOP CHOP OF THE BUTCHER SHOP. A SEAT. SIT DOWN. CLOSE THE EYES. YEAH. THAT’S BETTER. NICE AND EASY DOES IT. TRANQUILITY. SENILITY. DEBILITY. THE MIND MOTOR’S RACING. THE HANDS ARE SHAKING. GRAB HOLD OF THE BAR. YOU’LL GO FAR IF YOU GRAB HOLD OF THE BAR. KEEP THE EYES CLOSED AND GRAB HOLD OF THE BAR. THE BLACK HOLES IN SPACE TAKE THE PLACE OF THE RAY OF HOPE WHICH LIES LIKE A DOPE BURIED UNDER THE FALLEN STARS. A MURKY MIASMA AT THE BOTTOM OF THE UNIVERSE. REHEARSE THE HEARSE. ANOTHER STAR IS DYING AND TRYING TO REST AT BEST IN THE BOTTOM OF FOREVER. AND PEOPLE ARE LEAVING. AND THERE’S MORE SPACE. AND I’M DOWN IN THE VALLEY OF THE DESPAIRING DAMSELS, SITTING WITH THE DOTTED, SPOTTED DALMATIANS, IN THE PURPLE PANTRY PUDDLES OF THEIR PISS.
From Chapter 2 of my Bipolar/Asperger’s Memoir. For more information see:
Also available on Barnes & Nobles Nook, iBooks and Smashwords
Descent of Night
8×12 Watercolor for sale
The descent into darkness
after the blinding bliss of mania
is as inevitable as the fall of night
after the blissful bright of day.
“Never, Never”
“It won’t happen again. Never. Never. Never. It’ll never happen again. No. No. No.”
The words to a song by Yusuf, better known as Cat Stevens, about a love affair gone awry. The words reverberate in my head repeatedly in true Bipolar style, as in true Aspie style, I listen to the song over and over and over and over again. My perseveration on the song fashions the words into a mantra, sending me full throttle into another state of consciousness, like the whirling dervishes of Istanbul who spin until they enter a mystical state. Since I no longer alter my consciousness with alcohol, cigarettes or recreational drugs (was too crazy to go that route), and since I am on anti-psychotic medications which keep me in reality, I have to use music, meditate and take refuge in nature to venture into my much-missed mystical states of being. The states today are washed out versions of the vibrant intensity I was accustomed to earlier in my life. But then, at age 28, my mind, never too strong to begin with, broke down and reality shattered into so many smithereens of glass. “It’s always a trade-off,” the experts say. But (and a “but” with a capital “B”) the psych meds hold me together and, most importantly of all, they allow me to love.
“It will never happen again. No. No. No.”
I can’t say that. My first major manic episode was ignited by a flaming crush at work that catapulted me into the fractionated world of psychosis for a very long time. Some thirty years later I am unsure just how far away that world is. It is not unusual for love to trigger the first manic episode in Bipolars, and I had another when I met the man who was to become my husband. This time the psychosis lost the war– because the love was reciprocated and nurturing– the most stable thing I had ever experienced. And (big “and”) because I was medicated. Though it felt like another break with reality was encroaching on my psyche, it never materialized and has not since.
But there have been close calls now and then. Writing my memoir of madness while working part-time, I would go to my job with all the raw feelings I was writing about whirling around inside me and, seemingly, outside me as well, as though stamped on my forehead. The memories and flashbacks bubbled up from deep inside like a lava flow of feelings. But no breakdown.
Mania is not the only state that flirts with psychosis. So, too, does the underbelly of the beast, depression. Loss of loved ones and caring for my dying mother brought me perilously close to the precipice again but extra medication kept me on the sane side of psychosis.
Even now any highly emotional experience (and being bipolar there are many) can shake the foundations of the self. Beholding great beauty in ecstatic encounters with nature, profound connections between thoughts and ideas, connecting deeply to another person—all these can send me reeling into space wondering if I can make it back to earth. These are all dangers I engage in somewhat recklessly for they make up the majestic magic and mystery of life. Friends and family I have helped keep my feet on the ground, but my husband is my real anchor to reality. Should something happen to Tom, well…
No. Unlike a dead love affair, I can’t say the descent into madness “will never happen again.” As I drift in and out of tantalizing trips into mania and try to flee the inevitable free fall into depression, I hang on for dear life and will not let go.
Enjoy the song sung soulfully by Cat Stevens, “MaybeYou’re Right…”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUnxkW4zeM4&feature=youtube_gdata_player
(Click http://www.independentauthornetwork.com/ellen-stockdale-wolfe.html for information on, and to purchase my Bipolar/Asperger’s memoir.)
Bipolar Opposites
I see the fire in you
igniting your thoughts,
flickering and flaming
all of the time,
filling you with images
that you paint into words.
Your eyes are strong,
you can stare at the light
and be filled with the fire
without getting blinded.
The fire for me,
if I look too long,
leaves me on my knees,
groping in darkness,
until like a fog, lifting,
I can see again.
(Click http://www.independentauthornetwork.com/ellen-stockdale-wolfe.html for information on, and to purchase my Bipolar/Asperger’s memoir.)
WELCOME!!
Welcome to samples of my writing showcasing “Eye-locks and Other Fearsome Things.” “Eye-locks” is a Bipolar/Asperger’s memoir in narrative form that describes the triumph of love over mental illness. While not a lesson plan it documents my therapeutic journey to finding love against all odds. Useful for therapists, and for patients with Bipolar Disorder and/or Asperger’s Syndrome. A scholarly, autobiographical case history of my story was the showcase article in vopl. 13 no. 1 of Psychoanalytic Inquiry in 1993.
For the full length narrative non-fictional account click http://www.independentauthornetwork.com/ellen-stockdale-wolfe.html for a short bio, a full description, and to purchase my book.
About MOONSIDE…
Learning to love is an ongoing process and I am writing posts on new lessons learned.
All the original abstract painting is posted to advocate for Bipolar Disorder and Asperger’s Syndrome– for it is those very handicaps that feed my art. The more realistic nature art is dedicated to raising consciousness for animals and the environment. All other art work is purely for your enjoyment.
Finally I have also posted selections from my nature writing and poetry. My nature essays were published in a small paper in upstate New York for a year and a half. The poems have appeared throughout my life, coming and going as they please.
This is an award free blog.
All work on this blog is under copyright and may not be used by anyone, for any purpose, without permission.
MOONSIDE 
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