Mere Imagination

Vison and what it means

I have this vision that one day I’ll type up and publish my personal journals. As some sort of love letter memoir to myself that annotates a specific period in my life, diving headfirst into the trials and tribulations as I reach for a goal that once felt impossible. This, of course, is the sort of imagination that inspires me to write, so it can’t be a bad thing. Words are magic, and written language is a gift of grand technology. By listening and reading, we dive into the minds of others. How else is such mind-reading possible? That is when I’m not extra MANIC and feeling the vibrations of astral projection, good times. What voice do you hear as you consume these words? I wonder what your voice and my voice have in common.

Now I imagine that my bipolar 1 disorder has been well managed for the past few years, and I imagine that is because my medication is working properly. The depression I feel is temporary as I work toward my goal with a graduation date to become a therapist in mind, set for August of this year. Already into the new year, this date seems both tenious and grand as for what it means and for what it means I have to accomplish by that date. By September, I should be licensed as an APC, Associate Professional Counselor. The red tape I have to climb over in order for my counsel to be worth financial compensation.

I imagine what having a backlog of my writing published here on Substack will do for me one day. Hopefully, it will be a boon to my practice by giving my clients a wealth of information that informs them of who it is they are speaking with. Hopefully, I have not said or written anything here that compromises the value I feel necessitates the practice I imagine accomplishing in the relatively near future.

I imagine having my own practice that focuses on those with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. I imagine partnering with a psychiatrist who can prescribe the necessary medication to my clientele as needed. These are the two psychiatric conditions for which my current medication (Invega) is prescribed to help neutralize. I imagine intervening at the point of psychosis and making a tangible difference in the trajectory of lives these conditions affect.

I understand psychosis, and I understand what it takes to make it back from the euphoric terror it projects. I know what crazy looks like, and I know it’s possible for the mind to gravitate back to reality. I got a chance to speak on this topic recently at a DBSA meeting where one of my friends was currently experiencing auditory hallucinations. Here’s the thing: they feel real. The smarter you are, the more work your mind can do to justify the realness of the effect. I was able to both empathize and share a bit of my story on the topic. I was able to share what helps me and how I chose not to turn down the darkest of paths that would have made the life I now stide for impossible.

Psychosis is the weaponization of imagination. The right medication shouldn’t take away one’s imagination but prompt one so afflicted with the necessary forethought of understanding. A healthy belief that these thoughts come from within. We traced the call to inside the house. Our imaginations tell us much about ourselves, how we see our place among others, and how we look to accomplish personal inspiration. The voices tell us what we are worried about and how said anxiety can harm us. The self-inflicted voice telling us we are unworthy and unloved.

Intrusive thoughts are nothing short of spiritual warfare as narrated in C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters. Even a secular understanding can imagine how we must constantly battle the voice that appears under the horizon and between productive thought.

For now, I’m in between school semesters, gearing up for another week of my internship as I pray to impact my five-person case load battling addiction. I’m reading Mere Christianity, and hearing Lewis’s voice inspires me to write. Something of worth, I hope and imagine.