Vancouver Sun, June 18, 2007
On a Personal Note
Thank you for visiting 10onWednesday! Where thrifting is entertainment. What does that mean you ask? Well, I enjoy many things, two of which are thrifting and watching movies. (That's where the popcorn comes from). 10onwednesday is the culmination of both of those. All, hopefully delivered through my sense of humour
I did want to add a personal note to give you more of an idea, of who I am, and how my site came about.
Bi-polar is a difficult mental illness to live with. It is like a benevolent dictator often silent, leaving me with a sense that it is gone and that everything is fine. Without warning or reason it will rear it's tenacious grip.
Where I am in my life and what I am doing, my hopes and dreams mean nothing to disease. The effects of either a manic high or a depressive swing are equally devastating. The base that my life is built upon shatters and crumbles as though it was made of sand.
Through many trials and errors and the help of wonderful friends and a gifted mental health team of professionals, I have been able to reach a point in my life that I would describe as a cautious alliance with bi-polar.
Several times I have had aspirations, good careers and a vision for my future. Then, a swing would happen, usually mania first. I could not focus on a single thought, I could only try to cope with the thousands brilliant, astonishing, thoughts that I would have in every second. Everything was suddenly possible. Consequence was a word that became irrelevant. It had no meaning. I could go days without sleep. Begin to implement huge plans of ambition, sometimes dozens at a time, but unable to finish any. Inevitably, I would begin to feel that I was invincible, and at these points, was often hospitalized for my own well being.
These were usually followed by a depressive swing. People have asked what's it like when that happens? What do you feel? In fact, I'm not sure I can answer that. There is no feeling, there is only the suffocating agony of existing. If you could someone get inside a huge lump of coal, it would not be as dark.
Eventually I have made my peace with the fact that this is something I will live with for the rest of my life, and that my medication is to me as necessary as insulin is to a diabetic.
I've lost careers, jobs, homes, friends, to the whims of bi-polar and every time an episode is over I must pick up the remaining pieces and put them together yet again. Each time 100% of the pieces is less than the time before that. I reached a point where I could not or would not dream or hope. To do so had become to expensive an exercise. Were I to do either, I would only have eventually pick up the shattered pieces.
That's not the end of my story thankfully. As I mentioned earlier, with the help of my mental health team, and a set of friends that are as gold, I've been able to maintain a plateau of normalcy.
The idea for 10 on Wednesday, came literally during the night. I had been selling some of my own items as I was moving from a house to an apartment, and downsizing was in order. Friends began to ask me to sell items for them, and then I began to be asked to look for specific items. I used Craigs List as well as eBay. I wondered many times how I could come up with an internet idea that would be my own.
Then I got the idea. I'll send out a weekly email with only ten items in it for sale. I try to have them be unique, interesting or at least practical. I love film, and have combined that with my enjoyment of thrifting and now operate this wonderful business.
Finally, I am doing something that when my bi-polar interrupts, it leaves far less of a footprint. If I'm manic I try to funnel it towards creativity on my web site. When I'm depressed, it is simply left until I am better.
When I wrote my first issue, November 22, 2006 I felt something. Physically my skin tingled and I had goose bumps. It was distinct, and I wondered what it was. What was this feeling, it seemed familiar, but it a few moment for me to recognize it.
What was it? It was a little bit of hope mixed with anticipation and excitement. I had begun something, something new, and for the first time in many years, my heart and my mind began to dream again.
I hope you will enjoy 10 on Wednesday as much as I do. It is a work in progress, where it will go, I don't know. What will it become? Again, unknown.
But I do know, that is is possible to live with bi-polar and still be able to hope, to dream and to contribute.