the underachiever

This dog is named Hendrix. His namesake is often hailed as the best guitar player ever. But Hendrix the dog will not win comparable distinctions outside the home. Even within the
home, his skills with a Fender or a Gibson leave something to be desired. He does have a howl to rival the best, though, when there's a siren passing.

Like Hendrix, I am an underachiever. Some will ask: is that something to be proud of? When I was in college, I thought I'd become a hot shit academic, the kind who fire off ten articles a year and have five books published by age forty, along with tenure and a full professorship. But a funny thing happened on the way to my Bachelor's degree. It was a pebble in my path, which I tripped over. For those who don't know, it is called Bipolar Disorder, and it has not gone away.
It threatened to make me a statistic: those who never finish college, or if they do, finish in seven to ten years. I finished college in four years and went to graduate school in Chicago, where I discovered the Incomplete. My first year of grad school was essentially one big Incomplete, except for the three creative writing courses I took. I was indisposed while my colleagues were working on their Masters theses; when I recovered, I had ten days to research and write the 45-page essay and I did so, typed it on a manual typewriter, and I received the same grade 95% of my colleagues received: a B+. Offered admission but not funding for the PhD program, I decided I was a writer more than I was a scholar. I finshed my incompletes over the following months while working at a video store owned by the mafia.
There are times I look at the accomplishments of my current colleagues and peers and feel a tad restless and regretful, feeling that in some way I'm not in the same league, or not on the same fast track they're on, the fact being that I have not made any enormous ambitious effort to cause my writing career to take off. Related to the Bipolar is anxiety and fluctuating energy levels; I have developed phobias, too, which make me feel less mobile, less flexible. Can I assure a publisher that I would be willing to do a cross-country reading and signing tour, that I would be a face that would sell books? It's not that I won't fly; I've been to California twice in two years. But my fearlessness about hopping in a car and driving to any destination has disappeared. I know I'm not the only one, but in my case it's related to the flawed functioning of my brain.
There are plenty who think I make excuses for myself. I'm sorry they feel that way. There are those who think that every time my illness flares up, it's because I didn't take my medicine. The fact is that this happened only once. People who are upset with me will continue to hold me responsible, though. It seems inconceivable that a person would believe delusions as wholeheartedly as I do when I'm ill. 99% of people or more never would believe the things I believe at such times and they simply can't understand it. But whereas in the case of Einstein
people are willing to say "well he was capable of thinking in ways the rest of us aren't capable of," in my case people think something's wrong with my character.
I've been told, by way of explanation by friends who have decided they don't want to be my friend anymore, that my behavior doesn't achieve the high standard that they expect in their friends. OK, so this has been said in so many words only once. But I do suspect that there are many who would be more accepting if I kept myself on a shorter leash, and strove to attain the goals that someone on an academic fast track would strive for. Well, duh, people like to have things in common with their friends. So I can't fault anyone; high achievers are drawn to hig achievers.
Still, if I were to keep quiet about my mental illness and hope no one noticed it, and try to blend in, and hope to be judged in the same way as my peers, I would come up short. There would be questions raised like: how come she only teaches one class per semester, why doesn't she come out drinking with us after work, how come she has no money--etc. etc. I would be overjoyed if I could teach more without blowing a gasket, if I could drink socially, if I had any money to speak of. The fact is those things that set me apart from my peers are not accidental.
And I can only be me. No, I can't suddenly find the energy to apply for a tenure-track job, I won't be up for a drive to New Mexico next week, I'm not going to throw my dozens of poems about mental illness into the fire. I'm different, that's just a fact.
I'm an underachiever, if I'm compared to those my age who don't have mental illness. Oh, I have some goals, I do work very hard, but I resist responsibilities that carry too much stress.
Please don't accept my book for publication if I must fly to Australia to promote it. Of course you can drop me as a friend because I would rather travel surface roads to Shelbyville than take the expressway--it's your prerogative, obviously. But don't be thinking you are not hurting my feelings if you do that. Don't be thinking I love any less than anyone else; I probably love more than average, rather than less. I'd be more inclined to think of you as lacking compassion.
I recently made a new friend on the Internet who was also Bipolar, and she made a point of telling me not to tell a soul she has a mental illness, because she had built a whole persona and facade of stability and mental health. It is because of her that I'm writing this blog entry now. I could pretend but I can't pretend. I don't have the energy to pretend. And if I do pretend not to be mentally ill, I'm saying there's shame in mental illness. Maybe there is.