Will I Feel Less Weird (Mentally Ill) If I Take Medication?

“Don't die with the music still in you.”
―Wayne W. Dyer

My disability is invisible to me too.

I’m no better than the average joe at validating the totally-acceptable-and-okay differences my disability creates in my life.

I’m especially bad at validating how it makes me feel, which is that I'm weird and behind and everyone else can juggle five balls but I can only juggle with my feet.

I’ve had moments, even long stints of time, where this feels like a blessing. I made music; I wrote poetry and plays, then shared my weird to a rapturous audience.

My mental illness ensures I do a lot of living; that is, being and experiencing being.

I, on the other hand, do my fair share of dulling that intensity. Which is to say, I feel too damn much.

When maintaining structure for the benefit of (literally every single aspect of) my life, bipolar disorder is a mechanical bull and I’m the drunk fool who keeps jumping back on the ride.

It would be much easier to stop.

Which isn't something I overthink about...until I see someone moving through the world with consistency.

I used to think I was jealous of their success. But that’s not it — I'm jealous of the ease with which they exist.

My existence feels intentional, if not experimental.

Being mentally well means you have a lot of constants in your life, which makes introducing new and potentially hazardous ways of being okay for short sprints.

My mental state parkours. We live among the Parisian rooftops and that bitch is making ground constantly.

Which, again, can be beautiful.

Or exhausting and distracting, and wasn’t I trying to build a business and share my work on social media?

Why do I feel unable to look at my body today, much less film it, much less speak to others or share what I've created — and then I spiral.

(Though this, too, has shown me the wisdom of slowing down, taking a step back, and getting clear on why I am doing something and the outcome I want.)

Today, I have a life that respects the boundaries of my madness, which is to say a life that makes room for my humanness.

It's important to note that a crucial part of this balance is financial. My money ends are meeting for the first time in my independent adult life.

This empowerment provides stability, allowing my nervous system to juggle a lot more than was previously possible.

Yet it takes Jedi-level emotional processing and radical honesty with my brain ("Are you doing okay; if not, what can I do for you?") to regulate stress and maintain the peace of mind required for a 9-5 career while having mental illness.

It took me a lot of trial and error to realize that no amount of medication is going to make me suitable for the relentless pace of our modern, capitalistic, consumer culture.

It took me another decade to realize that none of us are built for it.

I'm not an alien. I'm a canary in the coal mine. I'm sensitive to the whispers of our interconnectedness. I’m not weird; I just can’t pretend.

I'm a boat rocker learning to stand up and dance — or jump in the water and swim.

Many of us have been conditioned to blend in and disappear, often facing serious consequences when we don't. Furthermore, many of us hold generational trauma in our genetics that doubles-down on this instinct to protect self at all costs.

But creativity is vulnerable. It's how you make your internal world visible to others.

Which is how we fall in love with each other. Which is how we learn we're not alone and that we never were.

So no — if I ever decide to take medication to manage my bipolar disorder, I do not expect it to make me feel any less strange.

But I no longer expect medication to solve the problem of my humanness. I no longer expect medication to make me functional under capitalism.

I figured out how to do that on my own by having a support system (people who can catch me) and with a whole lot fewer side effects.

No, it isn't easy. That's why I write about it.

However, I can tell you that I am alive (literally and emotionally).

I will not die with my music in me.

What I’m Working On This Month

School. Nothing more philosophical this month because I'm too overwhelmed for a step back. This is a, "you got this, sweetie" month.

Creative Goals Check-in

My creative goals were a bit of a wash this month. I didn’t get my sleep schedule back on track and I re-convinced myself that Substack is just the "hot new thing" giving me FOMO and to stay the course with my long-term strategy. (le sigh)

• Get Back to Waking Up by 6am ❌
• Research Substack and Decide Whether to Add New Channel ❌

It was bound to happen sooner or later — a month full of red X's! That's why I wanted to create this newsletter though: not every month is the same.

We all have seasons.

Our culture conditions us to feel lazy unless we are always producing. But in nature, that's called cancer. (*Not an original idea but I'm not sure where I heard it either).

Freedom is reclaiming myself without needing the culture to change.

This Month’s Goals

Take a chill pill
I’ve been burning the candle at both ends since moving to Portland. I got a week behind in school and worked my ass off to catch up…except now (literally right now) I’m on a work trip getting a week behind again 😅

C’est la vie, am I right?

So while I will attempt to get back to my sleep schedule once more, the main focus is to: get and stay caught up on school and take the pressure off myself to accomplish this so I relax when I'm supposed to be relaxing.

Relish in what I'm learning
I’m learning the fundamentals of Ableton Live in one class and music production analysis in another.

Music production analysis is like being handed a bible on making good records from someone with decades of industry experience. So I'm doing my best to open my cranium and scoop in the information.

Ableton Live fundamentals is my second music production course. The way a course is written can greatly affect how I'm able to absorb the material. For my brain, the course places too much emphasis on creating something and not enough on learning how to use the tool itself. This has been a challenge for me because I'm highly unsatisfied with making something I don't like in order to learn what I need to. But that's the attitude I want to take for the rest of this semester:

Just do it; don't worry 'bout whether it meets your taste requirements (le sigh).

*No pressure to share ever. But if you like the passive accountability, know that your email will join a private inbox for eternity. I will never share your reply.

Things I Love

• How the friendship between Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles led to the first all-Black Gymnastics Olympic podium.
• Foundations of a Joyful Business is an operating system for building a business around your craft that doesn't conform to algorithms. Start with the Manifesto.
• Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre. I thought this show was a fever dream from my childhood; my memories of checking the same VHS out from Blockbuster over and over are cemented so strongly. Blessings in your next incarnation, Shelly; thanks for all you brought to this one.

Thank you for reading. With love and badassery,

Conner Carey