I have decided not to renew a Pet Purpose domain name, so will move a few blog posts to here before it goes. This post was originally published February, 2019.
Sometimes I paint with a knife. This could be a finished painting but I feel that I want to paint the patterns in it with blue (representing depression) and yellow (representing bipolar mania) over it.
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Created in New Zealand. Printed in the USA. I was in a mood crash with bipolar 1 disorder with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and had just quit one of my jobs as too overwhelmed. I opened the parcel on camera (while a mess). This is what I saw: Snowball peeking out of the box!
My brain is currently struggling to be organised enough to speak or write, so I will probably keep this short. Because I am exhausted and I have been getting breakthrough mania and mixed episode symptoms. And also because I am waiting for sedation to kick in enough for me to go back to sleep as emergency self-care.
Several times in my life, I have been told that I am 'too honest'. Lying makes me feel extremely uncomfortable. Over the past few years, I have been working on an semi-autobiographical fiction book called Pet Purpose. I see it as semi-autobiographical because it is telling my story in disguise.
Originally, when I chose the title around five years ago, I intended to write memoir about my bond with pets. But more of life happened and the story has evolved into a story of courage as a young girl suffers trauma and loss, is later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and with her determination to survive, finally starts a healing journey many years later in adulthood. The story loosely reflects my own journey, but I have changed the story-line to protect myself and others, even those who have hurt me. Changing names wasn't enough. I made the decision to write fiction, to 'lie to tell the truth', to help ease flashbacks of PTSD. So that I didn't have to remember it 'exactly' and keep re-traumatising myself. So that I minimise upsetting people. So people can't say 'that's not really what happened' (because they won't know what really happened) and minimise my message. So that I could have some distance while I still tell a personal story. So that I could express my truth in a creative way. |
Xanthe WyseI am no longer blogging or vlogging as a mental health and disability advocate. The politics of it is too toxic for me. Archives
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