If I ever get a tattoo it will be the Joan Didion line ‘I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be’ from her essay On Keeping a Notebook. The full passage is something I turned to regularly when I was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder.
‘Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one’s self back in that kind of mood, but I do see it; I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise, they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door of a bad night and demand to know who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be; one of them, a seventeen-year-old, presents little threat, although it would be of some interest to me to know again what it feels like to sit on a river levee drinking vodka-and orange-juice and listening to Les Paul and Mary Ford and their echoes sing “How High the Moon” on the car radio. (You see I still have the scenes, but I no longer perceive myself among those present, no longer could even improvise the dialogue.) The other one, a twenty-three-year-old, bothers me more. She was always a good deal of trouble, and I suspect she will reappear when I least want to see her, skirts too long, shy to the point of aggravation, always the injured party, full of recriminations and little hurts and stories I do not want to hear again, at once saddening me and angering me with her vulnerability and ignorance, an apparition all the more insistent for being so long banished.’
I was grappling with the fact that while bipolar disorder was not an excuse for my actions, it was an explanation. Suddenly my life made much more sense, but I needed to learn to have compassion and understanding for my past self rather than guilt and shame.
There were four years between my worst bout of hypomania and my diagnosis, which complicated things. This isn’t uncommon because people seek medical help when experiencing depression, but they often do not realise that they are hypomanic. I was one of those people. I’ve written before about how I thought this was simply what not being depressed was like. When the psychiatrist who gave me my diagnosis described my actions as textbook hypomania I was like ‘oh, of course, that’s what that was!’ But at the time I had no clue.
I joke that I accidentally live-tweeted my mental breakdown because that’s what happened. Joking about it is also a coping mechanism because that time brings up questions around mental illness, alcohol use, agency, and consent that for a long time I was not ready to confront. Here’s the thing about the last two years of forced solitude: I’ve had nothing but time to interrogate my past and its impact on my present.
There is an episode of The Conversation with Amanda de Cadenet I’ve listened to multiple times since it first aired in January. De Cadenet and Holly Whitaker are discussing sobriety and the fact that 2021 was a difficult year for them. In many ways, it reminded them both of how messy and complicated the first few months of sobriety were. At one point de Cadenet wonders ‘Where the fuck is the floor?!’, which is an accurate summation of living through a global pandemic. It is also a question I have asked myself as I untangle the realisation that I am a mass of contradictions. Being a mass of contradictions is the reason this newsletter is called Learning and Unlearning. I am open to changing, growing and evolving as I interrogate why I believe the things that I do.
There is nothing quite like recovering from a mental illness making you question your self-identity, your beliefs, your values, and, well, everything. It’s impossible not to when you’re trying to figure out which version of yourself — being actively mentally ill versus being mentally stable — is who you really are. Spoiler alert: It’s all me, but every bout of depression and hypomania makes me question myself all over again.
I’ve been trying to write a review of Saving the State: Fine Gael from Collins to Varadkar by Stephen Collins and Ciara Meehan since I read it last year, but it has turned into an essay about my changing political beliefs rather than a book review so, for now, it sits unedited in my drafts folder. When I return to it, which I will, I’ll be writing about the disconnect between my values and my actions. Something Africa Brooke refers to as embodied values and desired values.
The question I’ve asked myself most is, do I still believe or value this? It surprises me when the answer is, ‘No, I don’t.’ However, I try to understand why I did and what has changed. Which I think is the same as keeping ‘on nodding terms’ with the person I used to be.
Read, Watch, Listen
Selling Trauma (Leftovers) - Lachrista Greco on the commodification of trauma in online spaces.
The Ladies Room (The Audacity) - Nancy Powaga’s essay on navigating bathrooms as a trans non-binary person and trans people’s fight for dignity.
What is an anniversary? (HEY BABE) - Vanessa Friedman wonders what an anniversary really is when the Jewish anniversary of her dad’s death falls on a different day than the date of his death on the Gregorian calendar.
The Art of the Confession (The Sewanee Review) - An essay from Melissa Febos’s stunning new collection Body Work on the radical power of personal narrative.
Have We Forgotten How to Read Critically? (DAME) - On essays, reading critically, and how social media has blurred the boundaries been writers and readers.
We are all PR agents for the end times (ItsRadishTime) - Taylor Behnke asks whether the Instagram carouselification of disaster helping anyone? I really like that she explores the role she played in this during her previous job.
Taylor Hawkins (Foo Fighters), Somebody To Love (Queen Cover) - I love how playful, yet obviously full of respect, the relationship between Taylor Hawkins and Dave Grohl is throughout this performance. The sheer joy on Taylor’s face at having Dave Grohl be his drummer!
Policing What Counts As ‘Queer Sex’ Limits Everyone (Refinery29) - Quinn Rhodes explores the nuances of queer sex and why defining sex solely as penis-in-vagina (PIV) does everyone a disservice.
The unique challenges and rewards of transitioning later in life (Xtra) - Jude Doyle writes about transitioning in his late 30s and the importance of trans elders in a community often focused, necessarily so in the face of anti-trans rhetoric, on youth.
Opinion: Invisible illness will unhinge your identity and splinter your world (TheJournal.ie) - Poet Trudie Gorman on chronic illness, poverty, and writing and creating art as a tool of resistance.