Overcoming Mental Illness

If you had told me 14 days ago that I would be sitting in an internet cafe in Alice Springs, pretty much in the dead red heart of Australia about to commence a new job and a whole new life - I would probably have guffawed one of those huge belly laughs in your face and hoped not to get any spittle on you.

But yet here I am, in the middle of a town in the middle of a desert surrounded by thousands upon thousands of kilometres of red dust, camels and backpacking tourists eager to take trips out to the Rock (which is 500km away by the way).

So yeah.

Absolutely insane crazy day at the end of an absolutely insane crazy week at the end of an absolutely insane crazy month at the end of an insane crazy eighteen months! Is it any wonder I’m completely and utterly insane on every level? I mean who ups and moves to the middle of the desert without ever having gone there before - potentially for the rest of his life.

Someone who runs from social contact, that would be who!

Alice Springs, however, is a far nicer place than Sydney. I’ll be honest, I seriously didn’t like Sydney. As a city there was nothing wrong with it - but unlike other cities (Vancouver, Montreal, Quebec, Brussels, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Melbourne, Adelaide…as examples) that I’ve been to, there was just no spark in any way throughout the entire time that I was there. It was just - yep, that’s a skyscraper, yep that’s a shop, yep that’s a bus, yep that’s a somewhat arrogant yuppified moron who doesn’t care about anyone but himself.

This wee town in the middle of nowhere positively bristles with activity. Tourists buzzing around checking out art and planning their tours and trips and camping excursions before throwing themselves into their swimwear and basking by the pool for a few hours. Not a bad sight I should tell you. Locals buzzing around in a slightly less frenzied state than the tourists, but then locals always do.

So yeah.

All this insane shenanigans, flying thousands of miles, uprooting myself (again), generally not having any time to check the interent, visit my support network sites or just be “normal” (which let’s be honest I hardly am anyway) is taking it’s toll on the state of my mind somewhat but I am (a) too exhausted (b) too confused and (c) too much in an internal mixed state to even begin to explain the ramifications of such activity on the state of a bipolar mind right now.

When the mood has settled down a little, when the mania has subsided a little, I’m sure it will come. Until then I will watch the stars and try and actually stop for two seconds to take in what is currently happening; something I have yet to do at any point in time over the last 14 days.