Have been reading so many texts, journal articles, memoirs and fiction including play scripts and screen adaptations, films etc. All in one area and one only and that is representations of mental illness. This is the last five months of my PhD and my novel must be finished to examinable standard and my 'interrogation' of expert commentary academically rigorous within an area where the research, theory and hypotheses are highly contested with no definitive or empirical answers to my growing list of research questions surrounding writing fiction or even creative non-fiction on the topic of Bipolar Disorder.
Finally the time has come when it is safe academically to write within the bloggersphere about my own experiences with this Affective Disorder. I am using the very words of 'normal' or 'average' bipolar rather than perform literary post mortems on the deceased creative geniuses.
We all have valid experiences most of which are not cushioned by financial stability and/or extended families and networks. The one thing my novel aims to do is tell these stories in a time when diagnoses were problematic or even under-diagnosed and the effect stigma and lack of knowledge or understanding impacted the characters lives, without resorting to memoir technique of complete first person narration
the time has arrived when I must accept that I am the expert in this narrowed focus for my academic writings and public presentations. I am now a full-time advocate for those living in a state of denial about being mentally ill.My blogging must be restarted. It is a journal of my academic and creative processes of this formidable journey in 2013.
l have valid life experiences that can empower and inform interested readers and hopefully Creative Writing professionals about those of us students who battle with liability of mood states.
by speaking at
International Conferences for clinicians, professional practitioners and researchers I can begin the most important work in my life to date.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
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