WillSpirit

Where Will meets Spirit
∞ A Blog Devoted to Balance, Peace, and Clarity ∞

A formerly depressed physician tells stories of trauma, grief and recovery, and offers suggestions for emerging from darkness, living with mood swings, and awakening to life.








  • Red_Exclamation_DotDisclaimer
    • Dear Visitors:
      Although I trained and practiced as a physician, my background does not include formal instruction in psychiatry beyond basic medical education. This journal presents ideas about treatment philosophy, but must not be considered therapeutic advice. Abrupt changes in one's psychiatric medications can trigger profound cognitive, emotional, and physical symptoms, including suicidal thoughts and actions. Consequently, pharmaceutical agents should not be increased or decreased without supervision by a mental health clinician.

    • ON THE OTHER HAND, your brain belongs to you, and your opinion counts. If you decide that changing your medication regimen will serve your best interest, then I believe your providers have an obligation to help you try to achieve your goals. I want everyone to be educated about their options, and do what will be most helpful for themselves. No one should feel pushed around by dogmatic and/or limited viewpoints, whether those of psychiatrists, anti-psychiatry advocates, or myself.




On Being Public

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After being called on the negativity in my recent posts, I’m questioning my philosophy. To date, I’ve committed to being open about my true spiritual and mental condition; when I’ve been excited and confident it has come through in my writing, and when I’ve been discouraged and pessimistic my words have reflected those feelings. Between May of 2009 and January of this year, my only public forum was this blog. Since I’ve looked at this site as an online journal, it has made sense to report the ups and downs of my mental condition. It seemed consistent with what I read in other mental health blogs, and it fit the pattern of all my personal interactions: throughout my entire adult life I’ve been very open about my problems and struggles.

More recently, I’ve started writing for the Bipolar Advantage blog on PsychCentral, and I also gave a public presentation about mental health and consciousness. I see now that presenting a message of growth and recovery to the world may mean accepting the burden of being a good example. Is it fair to write about how well one can do by attending to humility, acceptance, ego suppression, etc., and then spill out all my neurotic fears and insecurities? Am I undercutting the message by my own inability to live it perfectly? Until recently few people read this blog or knew my name. But one of my Bipolar Advantage posts went through a short run of being viewed over eight hundred times a day. Although that is a pittance compared with the kind of readership truly popular voices attract, it still makes me far more public than ever before. I’ve been getting comments and personal emails that show me people appreciate my message. Is my greatest obligation at this point to the elevated consciousness that I hope to maintain and help others reach? Or do I still have the luxury of admitting that I’m a flawed, insecure person who sometimes feels enlightened and sometimes doesn’t?

The most important question is: what will most help others? Do people get more out of believing in a teacher who never falters, or out of seeing that another struggling human manages to find moments of clarity? Am I on the road to becoming some kind of leader, of all things? In the past I looked at myself as a loner, a tormented soul who thinks a lot about life and then writes. Do I need to rethink my role in the world? Does the gift of speaking publicly about growth comes with a price tag?

These are all questions I am asking myself today. I don’t expect to answer them right now. My hope is to gradually gain enough emotional maturity that a state of insight will predominate, and I can write honestly about my feelings while sustaining a positive message. I appreciate those who have confronted me about my recent complaints (you know who you are), and set me thinking about what path to take from here. It may turn out that the best way for me to achieve the improved state of mind I aspire to is to edit out the negativity in my thoughts and writing. Maybe maintaining a positive message will help me maintain a positive direction. This is not to say I want to write only things that are sweet and light; it’s not a question of unvarying happiness. But it might be best for both me and my audience if I at least remained committed to looking at life as a worthwhile adventure, in spite of its pain and disappointments. Like I heard someone say recently, no matter how dark and cloudy the weather, the sun is always shining.

On Being Public was published on March 5th, 2010, with the tags , , . There are currently 6 comments on this article so far.

Once More

To anyone who has missed seeing entries here, if anyone has missed them, I apologize. The severe flu that has been going around this year, or something like it, finally struck me. It has been a long time since I was so sick, perhaps not since I contracted mononucleosis in high school. Not only was it impossible to sit at the computer for more than a few minutes, but my mood gradually deteriorated over the entire two weeks until my interest in all things, including the blog, utterly vanished.

Now, fortunately, I am feeling better. A bit chagrined at having sunk so low after weeks of touting spiritual enlightenment, but whether you call my condition ‘bipolar disorder’, ‘chronic depression’, or just moodiness, it evidently far outstrips in vitality whatever transcendence I had attained. Given the opportunity of my feeling physically ill, the demons defeated the angels within days. So I’m back at the beginning, facing once again the task of reaching that point of consciousness where life makes complete sense. Whether I can get back there is not at all certain, but the alternative path—staying in a funk—is unacceptable.

The fact that I’m finally writing again, even if just briefly, is a good sign and an indication that I’m trying. I will try to get something longer posted soon.

Once More was published on March 3rd, 2010, with the tags , , . There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Try, Try Again

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Those visitors who expressed reservations about the finality of my spiritual enlightenment had just cause for concern. For two weeks after my supposed awakening, a newfound clarity made life easy and rewarding. Thoughts of helping seemed natural, and I enjoyed abundant energy for my mission of guiding others away from depression. But then reality intruded on my peace. My wife and I live adjacent to San Francisco Bay, very close to sea level. As rainy weather continued for weeks, I began to hate the damp cold. When the sun wasn’t obscured by rain clouds, it shone only dimly through a low shroud of mist, and the shadowy light began to get me down. Unwisely, I discontinued one of my medications after months of slow tapering. Prompted by someone else’s comment, which had little to do with my situation, I became obsessed with futile thoughts of reentering medicine. And then there was the lukewarm (at best) reception of my new ideas about how to alleviate depression; no one in either my day-to-day life or on the internet seemed particularly interested. It turned out to be more than my fragile psyche could bear.

The low feelings were tolerable for about a week. During that time my thinking remained balanced, and I patiently waited for the cycle to play itself out. I endeavored to meditate consistently and stay centered. But finally the downward pressure on my spirits overcame me. Yesterday it took all my strength just to drag myself to the gym for thirty minutes. As used to be routine, I found myself wondering, “what’s the point?” Having sunk to this level frustrated me all the more because I know better. What happened to my insights into the true nature of human life? Where went the new alignment of my priorities? Meditating on the unity and rightness of the cosmos brought only temporary wisdom and peace. By yesterday the depression had progressed into a suicidal realm. I simply could not let go of obsessions about my flawed personality, my lack of productivity, my chronic isolation, and my unpromising future. Self. Self. Self.

It would be nice to say everything feels fine today. I would love to announce that selflessness has returned with the same forceful clarity as before; certainly, I am closer that goal. But it’s an uphill battle. It makes me revisit my old conviction that a chemical imbalance contributes to my unhappiness. Perhaps there are depressed corners in my brain that ego suppression won’t always reach. I resist that conclusion for now, and continue to work on regaining that thrilling and heartfelt understanding of my true nature. I hope to reconnect with my recent, stirring awareness of the transience of my problems, and the importance of altruism. If intention is enough, I will get better. Things do seem a little lighter today.

Of course, today the sun also shines outside my window, and I enjoy a nice view of water, wetlands, and little Mt. Burdell in the distance. That alone helps alleviate the heaviness. (The picture heading this post was taken through my window just now, in late afternoon light.)

It’s a good sign that I’m here writing. For several days there seemed to be little point. Even with my posts occasionally appearing at PsychCentral, there has been scant evidence to suggest that my message is catching on. For several days before today, every session at the computer ended with the thought, “why bother?” I felt overwhelmed by the fact that blogs are inefficient at attracting readers, and the necessity of delivering my message on Facebook instead. That site doesn’t appeal to me, and the idea of aggressively finding ‘friends’ is unpleasant, to say the least. I’ve toyed with abandoning writing on the internet altogether.

But now I’m back. It helps to let go of all attachment to ‘carrying a message’. Soon after my transcendent experiences, it seemed absolutely vital for me to spread the word that depression can be lightened by escaping ego dominance. Today, I can accept that my role may simply be to enjoy the fruits of that truth. I am more able to accept that I may lack the personality, skills and energy needed to educate others. In fact, right now it feels like I’m under a spiritual mandate to experience exactly these limitations, without resistance. It is an important, though painful lesson.

It comes with an interesting twist. I see more than the mere acceptance of failure; I understand the need to keep trying in spite of it.

Try, Try Again was published on February 6th, 2010, with the tags , , , . There are currently 16 comments on this article so far.

Writing for Life

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I’ll get back to the ‘spiritual series,’ probably. But at the moment I’m unsure about blogging as a pastime. The other day, reading online about blogging splashed me with cold reality. One article: ‘10 Reasons Why Your Blog Sucks.’ My blog satisfies all ten. Other pieces discussed how AwStats overestimates traffic (a fact I’d already guessed, but somehow had deluded myself into ignoring until I saw it spelled out,) and how blogging is ’so yesterday.’ Today, the trendy use Twitter and FaceBook. It figures that I didn’t start until blogging was already dying. No matter. In the past few days I’ve changed my outlook. The need for income presses, so I’m looking for what will pay off. Blogging let me try out different types of writing with little risk, and see if anything caught on, or motivated me to keep going. Nothing did catch on. But the writing all feels good to me, and I know there has to be some way to make it pay. In searching online for jobs, I see work in medical writing. Although many ads seek freelance writers of all sorts, some firms advertise for full time medical writers. Not that I want, or could even tolerate, full time employment. But if there are corporations hiring, there must be more work in medical writing than in some other arenas. It’s not what I most want to do. I’d rather share what I’ve experienced and learned in life. Recovering from child abuse and adult disappointments. Psychiatric fiascos, spiritual breakthroughs, and a few therapies that actually helped. But the field of self-help, motivational writing is saturated. Who doesn’t have a story to tell? My education gives me an ‘in’ to medical writing. Although many doctors are jumping ship and trying out writing and other pursuits, the field looks less competitive than those that don’t require a specialized background. So for the time being I’m investigating this route, and not blogging as much. By the way, if any one reading (if anyone is reading,) has suggestions for how to proceed, I would dearly love to hear them.

Writing for Life was published on December 28th, 2009, with the tags , . There are currently 8 comments on this article so far.

Picking Up the Pieces

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When younger, I never worried about success. If I applied myself, my grades stayed high. Scholastic achievements translated into acceptance to the next stage of training. Through a series of steps, education led to good jobs. Nothing to it.

Times have changed. A decade of unemployment and mental illness has stripped me of possibilities and confidence. How can someone with a medical degree from a top university worry about work? Easily. It boils down to the stock Hollywood question, “what have you done, lately?” I’ve been out of work for most of ten years. And how many ophthalmic plastic surgery skills can be used in other jobs? Not many.

Better than before, I understand the plight of the poor. Childhood abuse convinced me I’m nothing special, so it’s not like I was an arrogant surgeon who thought lowly of those ‘beneath’ me. But it’s one thing to understand that underachievement is not a reflection on worth when you look at it from the outside, and another when you have to face it in yourself. I find it impossible to separate my unemployment from my self-esteem.

Neck problems ended my surgical career at age forty-two. As I’ve said elsewhere, losing my job, status, and pay landed me in psychiatric wards. Afterwards, an incompetent psychiatrist pushed me to accept ‘retirement.’ There are few things worse for a middle-aged man than to be told he is too mentally ill to work. That message undermined the attempts I made at employment. I now see that my doctor was wrong, but it is hard to reconstruct a working life after years of inactivity.

I’ve been driving myself (even more) crazy with this problem. How will I support my wife? What can I possibly do to earn an income? How will we survive? Creative writing will not feed us. Maybe technical writing? But can get into that field at this age, without experience? Do I even want to? Should I teach biology in high school instead? Could I stand it? Would I be any good? Where do I begin? What should I do? There are hundreds of demoralizing questions.

The confusion tires me so much I can hardly imagine doing anything productive. I feel fury at myself for wasting youthful time and energy learning medicine, when I knew it wasn’t right for me. Trying to build a career in my fifties, after ten years of failure and sickness, feels overwhelming and impossible.

It must be worse for those who’ve never achieved at a high level. Success must look like a pipe dream. For those burdened with depression, failure snowballs into despair all-too-easily. How many people out there feel hopeless and uncertain about what to do?

The solution must be to do a little at a time. For me, it meant starting this blog. I know my writing is too wordy, my topics inconsistent. I know my promotion skills are poor, and the product amateurish. But it keeps me writing. I remain busy while I work things out. It’s a small step, but it’s a step. If I can write 150,000 words in six months, then I should be able to make an income as a writer. Maybe not with a memoir or spiritual text, but perhaps writing science articles or even medical editing. Who knows? At least I’ve proven that I like to sit at the computer, and fashion language.

Picking Up the Pieces was published on December 27th, 2009, with the tags , , , . There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Grandiosity Extinguished

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When I returned from my Thanksgiving retreat, my spirits flew high. So much positive feedback had come my way during that weekend, it seemed to confirm my suspicion that my past has given me an outlook I should broadcast to the world. That grandiose intuition first ignited during my religious ‘visions’ ten years ago, and has waxed and waned ever since. Soon after the retreat I dove into a heartfelt poem, followed by a string of rambling essays about spirituality. In the throes of feeling ‘called’ to speak out, I envisioned myself becoming a bit of a celebrity, offering wisdom to the world. I did not see this coming notoriety as something my efforts had earned, or my ego devised, but as something handed to me by fate. Or ‘God’ if you want to look at things that way.

Would anyone be surprised to learn that the response to my spirituality posts has been underwhelming? Or that my rosy optimism has been replaced by a more jaded perspective?

The cold waters of reality have doused the flames of grandiosity. For one thing, I read the book ‘How to Write a Book Proposal’ by Michael Larsen. Browsing in the library, I wanted input about how to deliver my message to a large audience. The book offered lots of advice in that regard. Problem is, much of it sounds like it’s beyond my grasp. If one wants to be a messenger in today’s world, it takes more than sitting at a computer and writing. You start by joining Toastmasters, work to build your presentation skills, scramble for every opportunity to speak, network widely, join societies, offer workshops, etc. I have a friend who is doing all these things, and has done so for years. It is finally paying off, but it has been a mammoth effort, and in my most sober moments I have to admit it does not look like something I could accomplish.

To start, the basic necessity of hard work daunts me. Back when I slogged through medical school and residency, strenuous labor and long hours were second nature. But that was long ago. Nowadays a productive day sees me writing for four hours. Even that can’t be done all at once, or my neck pain builds to breathtaking extremes. If I manage four such days in one week, I am doing well. I’m just being honest here. I know it’s whining to complain of my inability to work. At least I have the luxury of living without a job, thanks to a good disability policy that kicked in as soon as I lost a surgeon’s earning potential. I am fortunate that my physical limitations and psychological vulnerability have not driven me into poverty. With that acknowledged, it is also true that becoming a person people flock to for insight requires a level of effort that I have not achieved in a very long time. Not to mention the professional socializing and cold introductions I’d have to master. I’m an introvert both by innate personality and as a result of an upbringing that taught me the safest approach to life is to hide under a bush.

The spiritual series will continue, though today is a break from all that. What I’m setting aside is the dream of widely dispersing my method for moderns to feel spiritual. Instead, this project will bolster my sense that life means something, but will only provide a bit of amusement for a few others. I hope to intrigue those who find my blog and are persistent enough to wend their way through my prose. But I fear that will be the extent of my voice. Not that this would be insignificant. I believe it to be a worthy pursuit, but it will not improve many lives. I have not completely discarded the ambition of building a larger audience, but right now that seems unlikely.

This dose of reality leaves me free to ask what it is I most enjoy writing. Is it memoir? Is it philosophy? Is it ranting against pharmaceutical malfeasance? If the audience will remain small no matter what I choose to say, then why not say what gives my heart wings? And that, of course, is what I’ve done with this site all along.

Did my bout of grandiosity rise to the level of clinical mania? My sleep suffered, and I’d have gotten almost none without Ambien. The pace of my speech accelerated. My grip on the reality of my limitations relaxed. I opened to others in unprecedented ways, and if I had not been married might have pursued a fling. On the other hand, I did nothing impulsive. Did not spend unwisely, did not have an affair, did not gamble, did not drink. My behavior remained more or less acceptable, though I displayed more emotion at the retreat than normal for a fifty-year-old man. But isn’t that one of the points of retreats, to open up?

Why am I tempted to make a mood swing into an illness? Probably because it would make me feel less uncertain of ‘me.’ If I could ascribe my recent excitement to a disease separate from my core person, I would not be left asking what’s wrong with me. I would not have to puzzle over who this person is that can be silent, withdrawn, and discouraged one day, and voluble, intimate, and excited the next. But cutting myself off from the loopy side of my personality would be a copout. Better to embrace my occasional quirky behavior and soaring ambitions. Even if I fail to rescue the world from its rigidity and insistence on limiting the human mind, I can at least be me. I can be a person with turbulent emotions, passionate dreams, and creative visions. I can continue my efforts to combine logic with lyricism. It may be that others will see me as odd. Or maybe it’s only me that does. Either way, I can love myself, be happy I differ from the norm, and speak up. Isn’t that one of the goals of life, after all? To be ourselves, to be proud, and to give voice to our most heartfelt values?

Grandiosity Extinguished was published on December 12th, 2009, with the tags , , . There are currently 8 comments on this article so far.

The problem of prolixity

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I just wrote an awful post. So I’m not going to put it on the site. As I reviewed the essay, it seemed so wordy, dense, and dry, that I felt like writing it had been a waste of time. I don’t want ‘dry.’ I would rather find my writing to be ‘organic,’ ‘warm,’ ‘vital,’ and ‘passionate.’ Sometimes, however, the muse takes a break. My analytical machinery is in control today, and my little heart, with its moist and throbbing voice, sits quietly. The post I spent thirty minutes on, the one I’m not posting, talked about why doctors overmedicate psychiatry ‘patients.’ After several paragraphs of drivel, the conclusion was: they don’t encourage conversation. Case closed.

My vision for a book becomes more clear each passing day. I am reading a text about ‘how to write a book proposal’ (that’s actually the title.) It helps me see what might work commercially, versus what might just be an exercise in writing without broader appeal. Naturally, I want my book to be read. One key to that success, however, will be to minimize dry analysis. Others write with concise clarity, and can give factual information in an engaging way. To date, my own analytical writing sounds too dense to appeal to a broad audience. My better writing, the kind that spurs the most engaged commentary, possesses more fire. The trick will be to write something filled with feeling that also gets across some important information. My project will probably use memoir vignettes to introduce points I will follow-up with more clinically-based discussion. But even the writing based on objective data needs to sound heartfelt, or people will get bored.

My time is up. I set aside 60-90 minutes, from about 5:00 to 6:30 am (PST,) to write my posts. I spent much of today’s time on the essay I’m discarding. So all that’s left is this musing on what works in my writing, and what doesn’t. This blog gives me a chance to try out different directions, and I appreciate that some take time to read my posts in their busy days. There are so many excellent web journals out there, it humbles me to think anyone would stop and read mine.

The problem of prolixity was published on December 4th, 2009, with the tags , . There are currently 4 comments on this article so far.

Decisions, Decisions.

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How do other people make big decisions? I am trying something new: to look at what matters to me rather than what I ‘want’ or ‘need’. Art and beauty and creativity have long been fundamental forces in my emotional universe. But when I’ve thought about what to ‘do with my life’ it always comes down to practicality. How do I make sure of an income? How do I salvage something useful from my old career? How do I avoid looking unrealistic, or selfish, or immature?

But if I ask what really matters to me, it is my writing. If I ask what gives me satisfaction, it is my writing. If I ask what I would like my life to be about it is (you guessed it.)

This is another short post, to keep up my connection with this little web site. I owe the topic and approach to ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.) Right or wrong, I’m using ACT ideas to guide my next step in life. Any suggestions others have for how to make decisions would be quite welcome.

Decisions, Decisions. was published on October 30th, 2009, with the tags , , . There are currently 2 comments on this article so far.

Hello. Redux.

Before long, I may get back to posting more regularly. My memoir class finishes soon. No other big projects loom. So it will make sense to come back here. But I feel different. Stronger, perhaps. The break restored me after my marathon writing about the sexual abuse, etc. That took much of my energy, and left me feeling like there was little left to tell.

There is much to tell, of course. As long as there remain sentences which have never been written, there is more to write. To pen my thoughts has become such a vital part of my life, in fact, that I am thinking of going to graduate school to learn to write better. I’m exploring programs, preparing applications. The best schools are out of state, and probably out of my reach anyway. The ‘low-residency’ schools, where you only spend two weeks at the place once or twice a year, are more in line with what I want, anyway. Moving at this stage seems unlikely. And even the constraint of traveling to class several times a week would prevent us from coming here to Yosemite as often as we like. The low residency are expensive (the best full-time programs provide funding,) and I don’t know my chances of acceptance. So whether this happens or not is still a very open question. But that’s my current aspiration, in case anyone is reading, and in case you are interested.

This little post is just a warm-up. It breaks the barrier between not working on this blog, versus starting in again. So now I’ve written something. Now, I hope, it will be easier to open the site and post. It is high time I went around to everyone else’s site, even if I don’t get going here again. I’ve missed you.

Hello. Redux. was published on October 24th, 2009, with the tags , , . There are currently 4 comments on this article so far.

A memoir fragment.

mustang-adThis time away from blogging provides opportunity for some other writing projects, one being work on an online memoir-writing class. I’ve put off most of the assignments until now, and have only a month left to complete the course. Today I finished revision on an earlier assignment. I’m posting it on the memoir section of my site. If anyone is just dying for some of my writing (lol), they can check it out. Cheers to all.

A memoir fragment. was published on October 11th, 2009, with the tags , , , . There are currently no comments on this article so far.