Topic: Lost - Super Short Entry

Of all the things that I have lost, I miss my creativity the most.

It’s a side-effect of the drugs that help me function. On the one hand, I miss it terribly. On the other, I jealously guard my functionality.

I haven’t completely lost my creativity. I can still come up with ideas, but I can’t run with them the way that I used to.

I think that the part of my brain that would jump to the worst possible conclusion, and then LIVE THERE for days on end, is the same part of my brain that’s prone to flights of fancy. So, when I turned off one, I turned off the other.

What I really need to do is find a way to tap into other types of creativity. I used to be a pretty good amateur photographer. I still have my eye, I could still take photos.

I’m also a pretty decent cook, and can still get creative in the kitchen.

But words. I’ve lost my words, and all of the wonderful little movies that used to play in my brain 24/7.

Everything is so concrete. So REAL. I used to daydream and now my imagination is a barren wasteland.

I’ll zone out and Chris will ask me what I’m thinking about. The answer is nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Seriously.

It’s all static.

All that clearing of the mind that people try to achieve with meditation and ascetic diets, I have achieved with one 40mg pill every night at bedtime.

I have to PPPUUUULLLL words out of my brain.

I hate that it’s gone, but not as much as you’d think.

Maybe it’s another side-effect of the meds, but I am mostly ok with it.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t love it. But it’s not the heartbreaking loss that it should be.

I’m… chill about it.

Like, intellectually, I understand what I have lost. But, emotionally, it’s not that deep.

I do wish that I could somehow have the best of both worlds, and I envy those who can create without being clinically insane. I wish I could.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get back what I’ve lost to the meds. The only way to know is to stop taking them, and therein madness lies.

I feel like the meds have made me intellectually smarter, but emotionally dumber.

But I do miss the days when characters would tell me their stories all day. It was like having my own personal cinema in my brain.

I’d find the blank spots in my thought unnerving, if I was easily unnerved anymore.

Let’s face it, there’s a part of me that’s dead inside, and the rest of me is walking around the corpse pretending that it doesn’t exist.

That’s not cool.

But I’m not really sure what to do about it. I tried to do things to stimulate that part of my brain, but they didn’t really work. It’s like trying to tie my shoe one-handed.

I got these coloring books and paint by number sets, thinking that if I stimulated my brain with color it would do the trick. It was fun, at first, but I hit a wall.

I lie in bed at night and try to think about old stories that captured my imagination, but the images jump and slip around in my brain like hyperactive fish.

The one thing I do have is my dreams. They are still interesting and creative. They give me hope that that part of my brain isn’t completely cut off. That, maybe, there is some way to tap into the good parts without triggering the bad.

But I have mostly resigned myself to living without that part of my brain.

I am much calmer now. I am much more functional. I’m not so exhausted with the mere act of existing. I don’t want to give that up.

So I put up with the loss. Because I don’t know if I could handle the alternative.