Crazy Creatives Cheerleading Camp: January 2016

The rules for participation are simple:

If you write a post, please share the URL of your post in the comments.

Please visit other participants

PLEASE BE SUPPORTIVE OF ONE ANOTHER

I created the CCCC as a support tool for creative people living with mental illness, as we are often misunderstood and made to feel foolish in blog hops for "normal" people. This can trigger depression and suicide ideation, and who the hell needs that? Personally, that happens for me quite enough as it is.

Today is the birthday of one of the people who inspired me to stay on the creative path when the forces around me (family, school) were telling me that this was foolish and impractical. Unfortunately I was never lucky enough to meet him in person, but he still means the world to me.

Most people wouldn't give him a second look. He's no GQ hunk or "Alpha Male." He's tiny and not conventionally attractive, but I think he's beautiful. When I say "beautiful," I mostly refer to his soul. However, I do admit to finding him physically appealing as well.

I would like to wish him a happy birthday, but he does not have happy birthdays, because this has happened to his brain.

He has gone from this:

To this:

To this:

He is 63 years old. His brother has said of him that "he isn't in there at all any more." He does not remember what he did. He does not remember the people to whom he was closest, including his brother and his daughter, who was standing beside him in the second photo.

He inspired me not only to be creative in spite of the fact that I was being told it was foolish and impractical, but to continue living in spite of the fact that I was being told I was worthless. I was twelve years old and contemplating suicide.

I was badly bullied. I didn't know it then, but my bipolar disorder was fully awakened with puberty. I was sad all the time. I felt like a major disappointment to my family. I felt like a freak. I was physically unattractive and painfully shy.

The fact that this painfully shy little man half a world away managed to create powerful music that reached out not to the "cool kids," AKA the bullies, but instead to freaks like me made me want to keep living, if for no other reason than to piss off the assholes who were bullying me. Whenever I held one of his band's records (Initially cassette tapes made for me by one of my few friends' older brothers) I felt like shouting out "see this? This was made for people like me, not for you assholes!"

I felt like I mattered to someone, even though he didn't know me. I thought that if he met me, he might want to be my friend. Sure, he was twice my age, but I would have behaved in a mature fashion, which would have made him treat me like an adult in most ways. I would happily have been his assistant.

He wasn't one of those perverts who would have taken advantage of a naïve kid. (Looking at you, Ted Nugent. Sadly, also looking at Steven Tyler, Iggy Pop, and Jimmy Page.) He might have enjoyed certain substances, sometimes a little too much, but he always had a strong sense of ethics. I loved that about him.

I was a bit of a dichotomy at twelve. In some ways, I was extremely naïve. In others I was old beyond my years. I was drinking and getting high. I knew almost nothing about sex, in spite of the fact that the kids at my school saw fit to spread rumors that I was easy. I wasn't. I wanted nothing to do with most of the boys at my school, and the one I was interested in saw me as a little sister.

I never made good on my creative dreams. Improperly diagnosed mental illness (I wasn't diagnosed with bipolar disorder until I was nearly 40) had something to do with this. I know now that I never will be anything but desperate and destitute. It's probably stupid for me to continue writing. I am a dismal failure. I let my hero down, although he will never know it, at least not in this life.

I continue writing although it is rare for me to receive any sort of response, just in case I actually reach someone who really needs it. Also because if I don't let the words out, they come out in the form of increased self-loathing. So I continue to write.

It is also why I created this group, which may never have a single other participant. I keep doing it, because you play even if you only have one person in the audience. You play even if that person is the bartender, who has to be there anyway. Because the music wants to be heard. Or, in the case of someone like me, the words want to be read. Even if the only person reading them is the one who wrote them.

The fact that I rarely receive acknowledgement hurts sometimes. I have, however, learned that seeking approval is no reason to do anything. I will never get approval.

My hero went unnoticed by most people. Granted, he was much more successful than I've ever been. However, his contributions to music are overlooked by the general public. He never let the fact that his younger brother received all the attention turn him jealous or hateful, and I admire that about him too.

Never seem to be in front
Or part of the exciting times
Destined for a life of second best
The blackmail not the bribe
Together now whatever work has gone unsung
He'll be forever Malcolm Young
Always gnocchi not linguine
Never Hitler you're Mussolini
Often the sideshow but not the circus
Always Malcolm never Angus
End up Carlton you wanted to be Negus
Single pluggers never sneakers
Always headphones never the speakers
Shouldn't have a complex cause
He wrote Highway To fucking Hell
Together now whatever work has gone unsung
He'll be forever Malcolm Young
Don't be too cocky cause he wrote Stiff Upper Lip as well

For what it's worth, I always knew he was special. The ones who get overlooked often are.

~Cie~