The lows…
I don’t know about you, but being creative isn’t always the glamorous life it’s painted to be. I have real up’s and down’s, high’s and low’s.
I’m sensitive and I feel too deeply. I get hurt a lot, I worry too much and I change frequently. I self medicate. I don’t always get that right.
I get to know people and then regret it afterwards. People tell me I’m ‘too much’, meaning my personality is exhausting, but really I just don’t think they’re enough for me. I crave big personalities.
Sometimes I have this sinking feeling. Like the world is dragging me down. I feel unsure, unhappy and insecure. I begin to doubt people. I begin to analyse myself. My actions. My relationships with people. I shift the focus to all of my flaws.
Sometimes I feel like the whole world around me is in a constant state of change. I feel out of control and I begin to neglect myself. I stop listening to what my body wants and I find away to block it out.
I stop eating. I feel lonely and disconnected. I am unable to make connections with people or unable to see why I should. I get irritable and angry. I tell people the cold truth about who I think they really are.
When I’m at my absolute worst, I’m just too much for the majority of people to handle.
Sometimes when I hit a low, it’s accompanied by an uncomfortable friendship discard. I guess it’s because my character is so flawed that they can’t accept it and they choose to walk away.
Don’t get me wrong, if someone wants to walk away from my life I will hold the fucking door wide open for them, but it still hurts.
Except really when you think about it, isn’t it really them that are kind of flawed?
They’re the ones who take, take, take and aren’t there for you when the tables have turned. They’re the ones who make you feel shame for being who you are. They’re the ones who are unable to deal with your complexity.
And the highs…
On the flip side, when I’m happy, I’m friendly, excitable and caring. I can entertain people, I can make them laugh. I can feel really deeply, in a positive way. I can create freely without judgement or self criticism. I can make people feel better than they have ever felt.
I can light up a room. I can comfort people and heal their sadness. I can really listen to people and make them feel like a somebody. I have boundless amounts of energy and pure talent.
My eyes are ablaze with sparkles and haze…
I often make friends and with ease. I enjoy people’s company.
What I struggle with is maintaining them. They want me at my best but not at my worst. They want me to give them my best, all of the time and my worst, well that isn’t acceptable.
Ultimately I get hurt, because I can’t understand why they don’t want all of me. So many times I’ve become intoxicated by friendships only to realise months later that they were just there for the good stuff.
It got me thinking this morning though about how many creative people I’ve met over the years. The artists, poets, writers and visionaries out there. The kind of people who have too much much-ness about them.
What do I mean by this? Well, I’m talking about people who are complex. People with the ability to create things others can not and possibly look at something in a way others do not.
They feel deeply and they wear their heart on their sleeve and with complexity there comes an unfathomable mysteriousness.
The way I like to look at it is this, my darkness is my balance. To others I might seem unstable but really my darkness balances the light.
The side of me that people don’t tend to like is a necessary part of my character. If it wasn’t there I wouldn’t know what I wanted from this life.
I wouldn’t know that I was exhausted from entertaining, for example. Or, I wouldn’t get angry when someone crossed my boundaries.
It certainly helps me to asses someones character. Like Marilyn Monroe used to say…
“If you can’t handle me at my worst, you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”
Marilyn Monroe
Maybe what I’m really sad about when someone walks away from me at my worst is that I finally see the true person behind the mask.
What I’m really mourning is that they’ve shown me just who I feared they’d turn out to be. I have wasted my time and energy on someone that didn’t deserve it.
They are ordinary people and they’re not enough for me.
You see I’ve come to love my darkness. It’s like having a built in bullshit detector.
Occasionally I’ll admit, I get lonely. I begin to forget that my uniqueness is a gift. I start to dislike that I am too much for most people. But then I am reminded by who I am, that I am wonderfully complex for a reason. So that I can create.
With that star quality you often get people who are attracted like magnets, not necessarily in a good way and when you’re talented, people are bound to envy you, even if it’s secretly.
This can manifest itself in many ways, subconsciously. They may begin to sabotage things around you because they want to see you fail.
They might just enjoy the social recognition that comes from being associated with you and fail to accept that you have needs and mental health issues.
Or they might just straight up, envy you. Sometimes the things I do are made to look like I’m a bad person, but they just want to make you seem like a bad person to other people to make themselves feel better. I can’t help being who I am…
If you’re the type of person who ends up on your own a lot like me, I bet it’s because you’re one of a kind, with talent and vision.
And I bet you do have friends, really good ones.
Don’t let the bad ones win and crush your beautiful spirit.
You aren’t too much, you are more than enough. Be sure to surround yourself with good people.
Good people like yourself are the people who deserve your much-ness.
Have an amazing weekend everyone,

Soph.
Dream while you’re awake, with visions and songs. <3
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