From: RICK, Submitted 12/24/07
Question (continued): … if you could get a word from him from where ever he is. He used to call me this name. If you can find that word among the stars, I would break down in tears. Whatever else you wrote would make sense. That’s not the question. The question is “who am I?” (….. what am I meant to do? Where can I find happiness?). In the fifth grade I took an IQ test because us kids were making trouble, acting like Romans vs. Trojans on the playground and such, bloody noses, clubs, make-shift spears, everything. Everybody saw the shrink. It was mass psychoanalysis in rural Missouri. I ranked in the top 5%, IQ-wise. In grade school, I was a boy with promise. I didn’t have to study. I didn’t have to work. Then one day I stopped. I lost interest in school and trying and grades didn’t matter. It’s been that way ever since. I got out of college and had about thirty jobs in 5 years, until I learned I had bi-polar disorder (I was engaged, the woman got pregnant, then I was person non-gratis). I am “disabled” by it now and am on, as the English say, the DOLE. Recently I chucked the pills down the commode because I wanted / want to try something else. What? I figure after 15 years with the pills not working, switching from pill to pill and back, the doctors had their chance. The side effects, yes, some withdrawl and anxiety, but I don’t have any thirst for beer. No need for pot. No need to spend down to zero. I almost feel grown up. It all happened after reading Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsh, by the way. Please don’t get distracted by all this silly history. Despite that, being intelligent, my life has been odd. It seems to have been a tribute to underachieving. My life has not been exactly hard, as one gets used to it. I can’t say what is not so. Sure, there’s been pain, but I always felt I had a mission, a path, that something beautiful was just around the next corner. 30 years, or 45 years later, nothing has happened. I feel useless. I like writing my crazy stories, as you can see at MYSPACE: the name is gnarledsheepsbladder. I enjoy writing and putting in all these gimmicks I feel I invented, but no one reads them. My brother deletes them. My mom won’t read past the first mention of beer or whatever, like everybody wants me to write Laura Ingells Wilder junk. Not me. I spend $86 one recent summer sending things out, 43 letters or more, packets, and I got 20 rejection notices. My idea now and has been except for that one time, is that I do the hard work. I write the stuff. Someone else can send it out or they can not send it out. I don’t care. I like the Beatles. I have an obsession with the UK that has been with me since I was a boy. I really want one of those British red coats in a big way. I like odd balls like Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd. I like Van Gogh. I like people who were creative, but misunderstood. Those people I identify with. My question: Who am I? What am I meant to do? Where would I find happiness? You can say: “Oh, writing…” But right now, since one day I woke up last week and had no interest in pot or beer, I also lost my will to write. I am hurt that for all those beautiful moments when I believe I learned a new and valid way to be creative, and I felt the touch of the seven muses, there’s someone on the other end hitting delete, like my family. Even I am confused by this note. Welcome to my world. I believe I have a gift. I believe I have a mission. I also believe I am way off track. I am unhappy. I am confused and afraid. I am not comfortable in my own skin. I feel little else but constant anxiety. The tipping point, or the snapping point, I can always push that away for another year. I am not going to self-destruct because it would be like the Twilight Zone. The next day someone comes by with a publiishing contract, or Jack Nicholson answers my note and has a cameo for me in his biggest movie ever. (I live in a world of what ifs. What if Paul McCartney liked the story I posted on his site? What if these guys here at this site know what I want, or need, even if I don’t?) I am tired of my foodstamps being cut by $10 every three weeks because who knows because why. I want to feel sturdy. I want to feel home. I want to feel I have fullfilled my promise to God and myself, made before I was born. I am so mixed up I can’t ask the question I most want to ask. I have to do the shotgun effect and hope I hit the mark. I do know that my path has something to do with giving. I love giving. If I won the lottery, you bet I would help the animal shelter and such! I want to help the animal shelter every time I see the commercial with Sarah McLaughlin’s song Arms of the Angels in the background. Sorry, this note is way off the mark. Where is the focus? Where is the question? This is my life. This is how my brain works every day, when all I want is to feel relaxed. Anyone got a natural cure for anxiety? All I want is to feel at home in my own skin. Is this not the exact thing you want to help people with? I don’t want lottery numbers. I don’t want the Beatles’ infamous BUTCHER cover. I just want to wake up with a smile. I want to like me. I want to feel as if my parents can move on to the next dealy bob and be proud of me. I want to be proud of me. What do the winds and the cards say about me? After all that above, I think I’ve already said too much about nothing. But…… If you can, can you send a good thought to my friend in the beyond, named Isadore S? I love him. He got my bacon out of the fire more than once. how will I know there’s an answer? Or when you post one, I mean?
Answer from Abbey Arachnid
To book a reading please visit: The Shadowed Realm
Hi Rick,
Let me start this answer off by stating the obvious: I am no doctor, never have claimed to be, never will be. However, I AM someone who has crossed paths with many bi-polar, schizophrenic, schizo-effective and other unique yet tormented souls. I have (and still) waged my own battles against anxiety and depression. The common theme I have seen with everyone is that getting off meds IS A MISTAKE. I know this isn’t the answer you wanted, Rick, but I gotta give it to you straight, that’s just the kinda bitch I am. Find a specialist, a psychiatrist, someone you can trust to do right by you. That’s the first step.
In all my associations, I have never met someone of this persuasion who wasn’t creative. Wildly creative, even. Keep that up. Have you ever heard of Process Art? It holds true to its name in that what you are creating is not about the end result, it’s about the process of creation being a vehicle for healing. Don’t stop writing.
Finally, you feel you are destined for great things, right? Wouldn’t finding happiness be a great accomplishment? Wouldn’t finding peace be the grandest thing you can do for yourself, and energetically, for the Universe? I know you’re fed up with feeling how you feel, but you have to be honest with yourself and admit you cannot do it alone.
Whether you accept it or not, that is your Spider wisdom for the day.
A wish to you for many blessings,
Abbey ^^O^^
Answer from Angelina Diabla
