Upgrading the (Shrink) Rap ™ on Mental Illness: The Challenge of Criticality…The Criticality of Being Challenged

Once again I’m reminded that when writing something "really good," it’s vital to get feedback from an objective-critical source.  And this time, I even managed to take full bore feedback from my toughest critic:  my 91 y.o. mother (who still manages to do the Sunday NY Times Magazine Crossword.  Living with my brother and his wife, I typically make a monthly family visit.)  I showed her my most recent rap:  A “Passion for Change”:  The (Shrink) Rap ™ on Mental Illness.  This Resiliency Rap ™ was written for “Passion for Change.”  PfC is a non-profit, 501c organization that educates and encourages the media to provide a more balanced/objective depiction of mental health and mental illness.

During the feedback session, perhaps the clearest sign of “comfortable in my own skin” evolution was being able to consider her heated protest (she was “getting sick” of all the “Passion, oh Passion” choruses) without losing my cool.  In the past, I would likely have channeled my anger and defensiveness by affirming within myself, or attempting to “show her,” the value of my position.  Hey, she could be a daunting adversary.  As a procrastinating teen and young adult, she would pointedly pull from her brainy quiver words of the ancient Roman poet Horace:  To begin is to be half done; dare to know…start!  (And you wonder why I’m such an expert on stress, guilt, and neurosis.)

Today, I could accept her being “convinced” of her rightness without losing my own conviction, trusting my gut as to what “felt right” without the need for justifying, defending, and winning (or winning her over).

She did like most of the creative wordplay sandwiched in between the choruses.  I reduced the number of “Passion” refrains; however I consolidated but did not eliminate them, keeping the best and tossing the rest.  (Actually, I did have to “let go” of a pearl:  The passion in compassion.)

In addition, she enjoyed hearing a tangential musing often shared with speaking audiences, my uncommon take on the “s”-word for “passion."  (It’s neither “sex,” nor “soap opera,” nor the Washington DC-related favorite…”Senator.”  Alas the latter is a bit passé after Mr. Clinton’s memorable performance.  Actually, with a good dictionary, the “s”-word for “passion” is “suffering,” as in “The Passion Play”:  specifically, the sufferings of Jesus or, more generically, the sufferings of a martyr.  Mom even laughed when I couldn’t resist my punchline:  “Imagine all this time I never knew my Jewish mother was such a passionate woman!”  Definitely a groundbreaking and loving, trust-building moment for the two of us.

Letting Go and Designing Flow (with the help of family and friends)

Let’s get back to the theme of the essay.  Mom’s challenging feedback not only shook up the puzzle, it made me mentally restless.  This “constructive discontent” freed a basic recognition:  I had not sufficiently set the stage for the purpose of the poem within the Shrink Rap itself.  (And, yes, I had given more presence to the “passion” choruses than was warranted.)  Suddenly, there was a window for adding more subject matter content, now in machine-gun rhythmic, Tom Lehrer-like fashion.  (Here’s a gift:  google a video clip of this ‘60s Harvard mathematician and satirical-political writer-piano player-singer extraordinaire.)  The second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth stanzas make a case for why we all should be more knowledgeable and passionate about the subject.

Also, noteworthy, I’m definitely dancing on the creative edge in these stanzas: inventing new terms, slipping in a mythical-biblical reference, using genome as a verb and byte for bit.  The rap is substantively, not cosmetically, enriched; no trivial feat these upgrading at the push of a button daze!

I also received on point feedback from CJ, a friend and creative colleague (a talented visual artist).  Her critique motivated a search and design mode for several more descriptive or evocative terms and phrases.  For me, the challenge of creative writing, especially poetry, is weaving meaningful conceptual content into thought-provokingly memorable and, when possible, en-light-ening images, sounds, and rhythms.  The realm of Shrink Rap allows me to truly sew and spread “word artist” wings.  Hope you too will take flight.  Naturally, would love any and all feedback.  Enjoy!

Mark
stressdoc@aol.com 

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A “Passion for Change”:  The (Shrink) Rap ™ on Mental Illness

 

You say you're ready to "change for passion."

Sure, you’re hip to the latest fashion.
But will you really rearrange your brain...
Ready to work with a "Passion for Change"?

There is but one reason why
For all this “Passion” hue and cry
Mental Illness, my friend, this is no lie
Is American as apple pie!
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The (Shrink) Rap ™ on Mental Illness

When it comes to knowing inner demons
Life’s seasons yield all too human reasons:
Childhood trauma, chronic OCD
Addiction, abuse, brain anomaly
SAD, bipolar, or PTSD...
Finally, rounding out our litany
With fall color intensity
And spice of life variety
DSM disorders of personality.
Oh biochem-branch of our fallen family tree
Will you genome more labels or bloom creativity?

And now a new web of complexity
A Siren song to one’s sanity
Our all-consuming digitocracy
A multi-hyper Facebook Fraternity.
Whether vanity or solidarity
United in distractibility
Making Google eyes at the “TNT Trinity”
As we deify Time-Numbers-Technology!

Passion, oh passion
A cyber celebration
Passion, our passion
What’s real, what’s illusion?

In insta-mode most miss the irony:
We’ve become so sedentary
No time for nature, no space for serenity
Bowing to 24/7 availability
Sacrificing work-life integrity
Tracking texts as one-armed banditry
Saving face as a cyberbully
Gaming for eternity.
The question for the future…
What’s the breakthrough-breakdown boundary?

Still…there’s a “new normal” equality
Of this you must agree:
Patience is now a luxury
And OMG…Everyone is ADD!
So forget “To be or not to be?”
You’re likely viral if not a byte crazy!

Passion, oh passion
Not just mindless action
Passion, our passion
Sowing seeds of compassion

Can mental illness be a deviancy?

When one out of two, says the CDC
One day’ll show symptoms, predictably.
Now think about that…it might be you or me!

With mental illness most play a blame game

“Get it together, stop being so lame.”
Or we shake our heads: “It’s such a shame”
Now you’re only a diagnostic name.

Passion, oh passion

"Touched with Fire" ** interaction
Passion, my passion
The blazing pain of compassion

MI – Myocardial Infarction

A disease worthy of all our attention.
But MI – the Mental Illness version
It’s only an “in your head” perversion.

 

With a heart attack, you don’t get no flack

We rally troops and fight the no good plaque.

With a mind setback; wrong side of the tracks.

For the mentally ill there is no slack!

 

Passion, oh passion

Drives human exploration

Passion, our passion
Moral compass of compassion

 

This mental health rap is not meant to scare

But we still need to play “Truth AND Dare”

Especially when a family affair

That touches all whether distant or near

And it touches all for whom we care.

 

Mental illness breeds when slighting human needs!

With meds and counseling we can stop the bleed
With jobs and housing – a mind-body is freed.
To change heads and hearts takes both word and deed…
Join Passion for Change; now help take the lead!

 

Passion, oh passion

Past time for indignation
On beyond compassion
It's time for a decision!

 

Passion, my passion

A mind’s sacred mission
Passion, our passion
Will YOU commit to action?

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** Touched with Fire" – The title of Kay Redfield Jamison's book, Touched with Fire:  Manic Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament; Jamison, a psychologist at Johns Hopkins University Dept. of Psychiatry, also authored the best-selling autobiography, An Unquiet Mind.

 

© Mark Gorkin  2014

Shrink Rap ™ Productions

 

 

Mark Gorkin, the Stress Doc ™, www.stressdoc.com, acclaimed Keynote and Kickoff Speaker, Webinar Presenter, Retreat Leader and Motivational Humorist, is the author of Practice Safe Stress and The Four Faces of Anger. A former Stress & Violence Prevention consultant for the US Postal Service, the Stress Doc leads one-day "Stress Resiliency" workshops for "METRO" Managers and Supervisors of the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority (WMATA).  "The Doc" is also a Team Building and Organizational Development Consultant as well as a Stress Resilience/Wellness Consultant for international consulting firm The Hays Companies.  Mark leads highly interactive, innovative, and inspiring programs for corporations and government agencies, including the US Military, on stress and brain resiliency/burnout prevention through humor, change and conflict management, generational communication, and 3 "R" -- Responsible, Resilient & Risk-Taking -- leadership-partnership team building.

Email stressdoc@aol.com for his popular free newsletter; info on speaking programs and phone coaching sessions.  And click https://vimeo.com/69053828 for the Stress Doc's wildly pioneering "Shrink Rap" video.

Stress Doc Mantra: "Think out of the box, perform outside the curve (the Bell Curve) and be out-rage-ous!"