Nicola Vincent-Abnett

Nicola Vincent-Abnett
"Savant" for Solaris, Wild's End, Further Associates of Sherlock Holms, more Wild's End

Wednesday 3 April 2013

All Things Are Possible


If all things are possible I wonder if it’s possible for anything to be special?

And yet, as a bi-polar child, I knew, above everything else, that I wasn’t just different... and I knew from the very beginning that I was different... I knew that I was special.

As far as the bi-polar is concerned, I’ve had the most God-awful year. 

I cannot remember a year as bad as this since 1986. This year, the bi-polar has kicked my arse!

By which I mean that I have been coping with the depression.

I am a more depressed bi-polar person than I am a manic bi-polar person. I also have a long cycle, so that I can be depressed for years at a time. The mania tends to be on a short cycle of days or weeks.

Different people will tell you different things, but I think that everyone will tell you that it’s all worth it for the mania. Mania is fun, and if you’re a control freak, and most of the mania has got very little to do with things that will cause bankruptcy or real danger, then, trust me, mania can be a whole lot of fun.

The special is really special, though.

It’s hard to explain what the special is or how it works, but I believe it’s something to do with the bi-polar and I know it’s something to do with creativity. When I try to explain it, I’m reminded of this story from my childhood.

On July 20th 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped out of Apollo 11 and onto the surface of the Moon. He was the first man ever to do so. 

I was a little girl watching on the telly at home with my family. I knew what was going on, because it was a very big deal, but I was remarkably sanguine about it. Everyone was jumping up and down as if it was a very, VERY big deal, and I was sitting on the rug watching. 

I turned to my parents, and I asked, “So... Where else are they going?”

It was one of those moments in my childhood, and there were an awful lot of them. Those moments happen when you are special.

Since I was a tiny child, a baby, I suppose, I had been told that there was a man in the moon. OK... So now there were a couple more... No big deal, right? Wrong!

It wasn’t even as if I didn’t know that Neil Armstrong going to the Moon was special. I knew... Of course I knew. I knew that a human from Earth going to the Moon was special. It’s just that I also knew that, in my head, at least, anything was possible.

I also knew that other people didn’t believe that. I also knew that other people weren’t like me. I knew that almost no body was like me. I used to test that theory by asking questions like the question I asked that day.

I knew that my brothers and sisters had been told the same thing that I’d been told, that there was a man in the Moon. I also knew that, somehow, they didn’t believe it, and that they had never believed it. I already knew, as a small child, long before Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon, that my brothers and sisters lived in a smaller World than I did where lots of things really weren’t possible... Not even in their minds. 

I didn’t have those limitations.

I was special.

That couldn’t be bad, right?

2 comments:

  1. The ability to move beyond common "sense" and accepted wisdom is sadly rare. I am glad I have managed to keep my belief that there are more possibilities than most people ever see through adulthood.

    I have never been diagnosed with a mental health condition - although I have had some darker patches in my life - so I do not know if my open-mindedness and creativity are in part due to a condition that mostly manifests in a socially acceptable way. I have wondered though.

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    1. I have always 'known' I was other, and have had several GP diagnoses over the years; bi-polar is the latest, and, I think most likely diagnosis, but it didn't come until my 40s.

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