Posted by headachequeen on November 15, 2004, at 13:21:02
In reply to Re: adverse effects, posted by bridgey1128 on November 14, 2004, at 20:16:20
> My problem, and I guess this is why I am bipolar II and not whatever your psych pinned whatever you have, is that I get psyched about doing something and then burn out. I can start something but not finish. I think that is the problem with bipolar II. We get excited about doing something and get our spoons in too many pots and then quickly get burned out and lose interest. The excitement is more about being a part of something rather than finishing it I think sometimes. I have no doubt of your creativity. I am very creative too, but like I said, my interest wanes in something that I once was on fire for. Now, being on meds, it's much better. Theatre isn't like that though. I guess because it's a general interest. I guess I am a lot like you though. I don't do something unless I think I will be the best at it. ;) I don't like NOT being. I am quite competitive.
>> Oh, Bridgey I never realised how competitive I was until a few years ago and it suddenly dawned on me that I could not stand to be second to anyone in anything...
I just do not do anything that I do not think I will be better at than the majority of the people doing it...
so maybe I miss out on some of life's experiences but at least I am not disappointed in my performance... <g>I find that burn out is a constant threat and I also find that there is a risk of a new idea becoming all consuming before the present idea reaches completion...
I need someone to keep me on task...
I am a master of multi-tasking as long as the interest remains high...
as soon as it becomes ordinary and the interest lags, then it is difficult for me to maintain the doing...
when I was teaching and the students were not a challenge it became difficult to get up in the morning and get to work...
why should I bother, there was nothing there to interest me...
when I had students with personality problems or children with extremely high abilities who were easily bored and had to be constantly challenged, then I couldn't wait to be at school and hated to leave as I was constantly planning ways to reach these ones...
one year I had an entire class of brilliant students, in the days when they still 'streamed' students... it was wonderful... I lived and breathed my work...
then when I found my way into open-line radio and talk and information, I hated week-ends... couldn't wait for Monday morning to roll around...
week-ends were a loss to me because I was not at work...
put in eighteen hour days with the greatest of joy because I was so alive in what was I doing...
my identity became what I was doing... and I lost myself in it...
my whole life was this artificial high... and when a particular show went really well I was so high up that I was talking to the man in the moon as I flew past...
I mean, think of it, I was paid to tell people what I thought... got a raise one day for asking a person if she was born stupid or had to work hard to get that way... another caller the same day drove me to ask her if it hurt to be so dense or was it a painless process, probably because her father and mother were fraternal twins...
we were talking about a severely handicapped child whose only reaction was to pain, one whose parents were fighting the provincial govt in an effort to prevent yet another surgical procedure that would prolong his agony... he was mentally handicapped, physically handicapped, blind, deaf, and I forget what else... had a limited time to live and someone thought a shunt of some sort would lengthen his life by a few weeks...
there would be a great deal of pain involved in the surgery and the aftermath and pain was the only sensation to which he reacted...
these two women called in to talk about their nephew in one case and neice in another who were mentally handicapped
The one kept talking about 'it' -- she is the one I asked if she were born stupid...
the other stated that this child was born this way to punish his parents for something they had done and they had to suffer the pain so he had to have the surgery... actually I said a lot more and expected the network owner to strangle me.
Instead he gave me another five an hour on top of the first raise...
apparently the switchboard was lighting up like the milky way with people in support of me...
those days were wonderful...
then the network was sold and sold again and the live people replaced by wire feeds...
all of a sudden I had no identity at all until I found a new gig...
it took me a couple of years to discover me again...
that was the down part and it was so black...
the black hole of Calcutta had nothing on the black hole of me...
it had to be something I had done to cause this and there was no rationalising with me...
I would not go out of the house for months...
try getting a job without leaving your bedroom...
even in radio where they do not have to see you, it is hard to do...Hey, I never said I was rational...
have to be more than a little irrational, totally off the wall and extremely bizarre to get by in that business....and ooooohhhhh soooooo competitive.
and that goes for the music field too...
if one does not have that drive there is no way one can get up and sing a role and put it across...
that drive has to be there or one cannot become Thais or Buttercup or Marian the Librarian or anyone else... for that matter, not even one's self I learned eventuallyNow if I could just find me these days...
kat
poster:headachequeen
thread:5053
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041113/msgs/416261.html