Milligrams

This post – http://www.milligramsblog.com/2009/11/23/the-best-street-sweeper/
- plus a few remarks you’ve made about your colleagues at work and
feeling embarrassed in public tell me that your paranoia is more
pronounced than it was in October.

(Oh, if only you and the doc hadn’t decreased the Abilify dosage.)

When the meds aren’t working right you gradually lose touch with the
distinction between events that you do cause and those you do not
(“ideas of reference”). Two months ago, this faded entirely for the
first time ever. At your worst, you were almost unable to go outside
at all, for fear the people in the street were thinking negative
things about you.

Our mantra: ideas of reference. The truth is that almost no one in NYC
pays much attention to anyone but themselves. There’s too much noise,
too many people. They really don’t care who you are, what your job
is, or how you look. It doesn’t even register. There is no one who
passed us in the street today who is now thinking about you, or even
remembers your face. At work, it’s true there’s a pecking order but
your perception of your place in it varies a lot, depending on how the
BP is affecting you that way. So your understanding is often
distorted.

Your fears of not being a great writer, and worries about the pecking
order at work, and also those moments of self-consciousness on the
street are all rooted in the persistent BP feeling of shame. That
emotion and the thoughts that spring from it are entirely due to your
illness; you’re not the center of the world, but neither are you an
embarrassment. You’re equal. You’re my Mr. X, living out his life as
best he knows how. Do that.

Push the shame aside. Trust me. It’s not rooted in reality. You can
discount it.

I thought that post was a very important first step away from the
shame emotion and the patterns associated with it. So, yes, you’re a
shrub. But the point is that every writer starts this way. The
acclaim, the storied title of “great writer,” etc. – these accolades
don’t necessarily fall to the people who have earned them. It’s
better to look for the satisfaction in being the best shrub you can be
– the route to happiness is this way, darling. Please keep going.