marientina

* Viv believes that her way is the only way and not living like her means boredom and mediocrity.
* Rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, related to hormonal imbalance
* did my mom get better after menopause?
* abuse of medication
* abandoned by husband and brother in the asylum yet emerges proud and shames everyone in the end (a great choice by the script not to paint her as a pathetic and hopeless crazy woman)

The date for it is significant since in 1994 I was getting ready to leave Greece and mom as quickly as possible. In 1993, I tried to self destruct several times. I was back then very much into poetry. There is a quote about poetry in the movie delivered by Dafoe: "Poetry is not an expression of emotion, but an escape from emotion." My own poetry was on the surface very coherent but meaningless and my prose was a self-centered ramble.

In translation from Greek, 1993:

Life is strange
Maybe love does not exist
Maybe all one remembers is pain
Maybe memories are always solemn
Nothing lasts forever
not love, not happiness, not sadness
Only memories that also fade
Time erases all

It sounds familiar, as if I lifted the lines from someone else, mainly because it is complete cliche of a poem.

My prose, May 4th, 1993, written in English.

It is back again. I'm lost again. I'm in a cloud, misty with thoughts. I'm not the same anymore. I went through some memories. Some gifts from Chris. My first ring. All this after cleaning my room. And yes, I did because I had an argument with my mom. She even tried to hit me. Well she did, but she hit my shoulder and back because I turned. That bitch! I don't want her doing it again. She can lose me if she does it again. She ought'n touch me anymore. Today I feeel so far and away. My thoughts are spread and gone everywhere. I'm sick too. I'm going down again. I am. Really. My eyelids are heavy and my head isn't communicating. I can feel it high. And I have such a dopey face today. I'm going down again. I'm listening to music. I shouldn't. It makes me go down even more. I'm all screwed up again. I hate it when it happens.

Such was the powerful influence of mom, teenage hormones and my own anemia which caused incredible depression. Some things have not changed: I still clean when I am pissed off. My mother's behavior is easy to rub off on you if you are with her every single day. She can make you forget what is rational and what is real. Watching Tom & Viv, brought strong memories of this back to me. In the manic stage and if not violent, the bipolar is a charming and brilliant spirit that everyone wants to be around. Yet every other experience around them feels like the sinking of the Titanic.

To this day, my mom accuses me of being too rational and unemotional and that my life is boring and uneventful. She believes she has chosen an exciting path by choosing not to be medicated and living every moment as it comes. While Tom & Viv isn't really about "the moment", Conversations with my mother has the entering and leaving "the moment" as a core mechanic. A spectator can choose to enter and leave a narrative fragment as they wish. Sometimes, they may choose to dwell and other times they may choose to rescue her from dwelling. They have a choice. I am drawing the line that choice is what separates and rescues from illness. All of us at some point want to ride a wave of emotion but at some point, we acknowledge that it is over.