Meaningful coincidences and Bipolar

I originally wrote this blog post in January 2019 on another blog. Moved to here after deciding not to renew the domain name. I completed my first novel, Pet Purpose: Your Unspoken Voice in 2021, which took a long time as it involved weaving in meaningful coincidences.

This kind of thing happens to me frequently - meaningful coincidences aka synchronicities. I find them fascinating. But them my analytical mind starts wondering if I'm getting manic again because they happened A LOT when I was in a mania episode - think something or hear it in a song then something would happen at the EXACT same time that fit it. So then I believed I could see the future. It felt very spiritual. ​

When my psychiatrist said 'it's all coincidences' - I said 'it's an awful lot of coincidences - hundreds of things!' My therapist said it's because I observe patterns and associations even if I forget everything else. I enjoy that it still happens even on the meds and when I have been relatively stable. Just without the extreme intensity of emotion as when I'm manic. And I've tried not to 'read too much into it'.

Some sketches in my journals in mania episodes, trying to make sense of connections

My healing journey this past year and a bit has been overriding my intellect with my intuition. That's what I do when I do my process paintings - use music to override my thinking and just 'do it'. Writing my semi-autobiographical novel Pet Purpose is challenging, because I want to incorporate 'patterns' yet I need to simplify things to make them understood by others. I need to find a balancing act between my intuition (which has helped me survive) and trying to communicate. When I'm manic, everything 'makes sense' to me, but I am 'disorganised' in my thinking and unable to communicate to others in a way others can understand me. My last painting, still on the canvas says 'Your unspoken VOICE will be heard'.

This evening, I thought of a young woman who had lost who leg to cancer and I remembered that she had done some modelling. Then within an hour, I saw her interviewed on TV talking about how she was against how images of models are retouched digitally. This is after not seeing anything about her for a few years. Several times I've thought of a police car then saw one just seconds later. This kind of thing but it can feel quite freaky when things happen just seconds after I thought of it and no-one else is aware of it. Some rather unusual things which I want to include in my book.

The guy who wrote this post about synchronicities below was talking about the Queen of Hearts. I was telling someone close to me about a 'bipolar' Queen chess piece with hearts as a lighthouse I frantically sketched when manic. Intending to do a painting of it later (not sure if with acrylics or digital - thinking perhaps acrylics as it's more 'raw' and not 'touched up' if I take into account the only thing I remember from watching a bit of TV tonight - the young woman talking about retouched images). To me, a Queen had the freedom to go in any direction she pleased but I placed the 'bipolar' Queen on solid rock. She had a heart with a keyhole lock on her and radiated colour and wanted to stop others from crashing on the rocks. 

But I need to constantly monitor myself from crashing on the rocks yet again. I am very tired from after a bigger and more stressful week at work than usual.

I saw a newspaper headline about Princess Diana on a meme today - about her accident. I remembered she was called the Queen of People's Hearts. In a very complex way, it was the upcoming 20th anniversary of her death that let me know I was 'crashing' when I had been off meds after rejecting my bipolar diagnosis. It was too complex to tell the psychiatrist but he was amazed and so was my therapist that I asked for help when I was in full-blown mania.

Not sure if I'm making sense, but it was dozens of meaningful co-incidences such as my computer 'crashing' letting me know that I was too. Plus all the disturbing 'visions' I had that I was going to crash and die. But it's not my time to die yet. The song Ordinary World by Duran Duran has been playing as I write and I've become aware of the lyrics 'I will learn to survive.'

I think I will paint my Queen in the near future - painting helps me 'process' when are words are hard to express. Need to choose a canvas so I can get started. Was taking photos of my mania Queen sketches and another 'meaningful coincidence' happened. Alone by Heart was selected on You Tube without me ever selecting it before. While I was looking at the locked heart. Edit: I painted Pawn Queen and explained some of what it meant to me (I rarely tell people what my paintings mean).

I think what happens is that my subconscious is revealed to me in my paintings and the symbolism I observe. It's more likely to happen when I'm in a 'heightened' state - either manic and/or processing trauma. ​

​