Charisma and It's Shadow

The gulf between the performer and her depressive selves

Yesterday a friend came to pick up her kid from a playdate at our house. It was the final hip hip hurrah for the gaggle of kids with their 3D-printed dragons and whittled collection of sticks before school started again. She and I stood in the doorway to chat while the kids wrangled their supplies into their bags and she said, “oh my gosh, I meant to tell you how amazing that show was in December. You guys are so charismatic!”

This statement stopped me in my tracks – tracks I have been down many times before. But I was particularly struck because I had been in bed the day before. In and out of bed, really, in a depressive stupor that started before I even woke up and lasted until my sorry head gave in to sleep. I could have used a rest day after a big push with three shows in a row on New Years Day and lights and costumes and hosting family. But a depressive day isn’t a rest day. It’s a total disappearance of the structure that holds up a day and a life. It’s a collapse of meaning and form and color and purpose and basics like food and connection, which lose their flavor entirely. That almost sounds nice, as I write about it now. To be in a fog all day sounds a bit mellow or soft. One could even argue after all the glitz and buzz of the performance, after the depth of meaning provided by the solstice showing our place in the spinning universe, after the holiday magic, the lights aglitter, it’s easy to say maybe a brain needs this nothingness as a balance to all that.

But I still, still, years into a life with a brain that experiences shutdown of this kind, I long for the ease of sleepiness not the utter pointlessness-to-the-point-of-painfulness of depression.

And now, as I move into a new story – an ADHD diagnosis – and have the incredible support of Adderall, I actually have been experiencing a huge reduction of depressive days. That said, low level depression still sweeps in and out of my days, a low-flying winged thing. And sometimes anger rides in on those mornings to clear the path, tearing down anything good to make room for depression to hover and sulk.

And on those days I am emptied of any memory of the silver stage that December night, the way the red curtains hung graciously around four musicians, partners and friends, seasoned by so many stages, years of traveling and standing proudly and humbly on a raised platform to sing to strangers, lit up by beams in dusty nightclubs. I was also one of them. That was me. I was on that stage. I was the charismatic one, so said my friend when she stopped by to pick up her child.

But this “I” we keep speaking of. Oh it is more slippery than ever as I move into new chapters of therapy, parts work, Internal Family Systems, attachment theory, trauma healing, and learning about my inner cadre of children and heart-sickened grieving teen and a beautiful 24-year old about to start her life and told she had one of the top tier mental illnesses to be medicated for life. Muting creativity and the chance to have babies as pregnancy and breastfeeding on lithium would be a risky choice, birth defects, brain damage. But that story didn’t quite come to pass.

It is 2026 now. I am 44. A number I haven’t had the chance to say much, but one I like. It’s so even. Even on even. Even divisible by 11. 44 is the last full year my grandmother Fronie had to live before she died at 45. 44 is 20 years since my original mania and depression that brought on that bipolar diagnosis. 44 is wholesome. It is half the keys on the piano. It is strong and it is simple. It is repetitive and free. Two little sails traveling in an open sea. Two flags beckoning. One for you, one for me. 44 is here with more beauty and more knowing than I’ve known before and I’m grateful for it.

I sat on the floor with the therapist looking at 100 cards and picking the images I resonated with. This is me. Well, this is me too. Oh gosh, and this. And these too. So many me’s. A fragmented kaleidoscope hoping for a true Me to pick it up and look through the little tunnel at the various forms of vibration that make up a self. Hoping this year will offer me a step back to the viewer who sees the patterns in the puzzle. Who twists the scope and sees the shards of color weaving in and out in perfect form. Snowflakes and spiderwebs. The habits of mind that are in my care now.

I am making a quilt of a mother and child. A bear and her cub strewn across the night sky. And words stitched in simple cream thread across the shimmery satin moon shining down on them saying: It is Safe to Relax and BE HEaLeD.

Wishing you all many arms to hug your many selves and to hold you up and to heal each other as we round our way into this year. Please let us hold you in songs on the next few Saturdays – in person or on the streaming live services – we’ll sing to you on January 10, 17 and 24. Tune in or come by if you can! Let’s move into a space we want to live in. An embrace of community and a deeper knowing of our selves and one another. Let’s let the blatant greed show us what we actually need: Kindness. Being seen. Taking time to sing and be sung to. Holding and being held.

Much love to you all! Happy New Year!

Love,

Suz

*Thank you Rob Dunnenberger for the sweet photo of the performer Me and her harp.