Regarding “Letters from the Edge” Podcast

Just a quick announcement regarding my “Letters from the Edge” podcast.

Back in 2023, I had great plans for this podcast: to promote bipolar awareness, to discuss the illness in depth, splicing in personal experience and, later, getting others to talk about their experiences; a deep dive into a whole manner of subjects related to living with bipolar. The dreams were big and plenty.

Sadly, I only ever managed four episodes. I told people, “oh, season one was always going to be short, a dipping-of-the-toe, like.” That was bullshit. I couldn’t continue because maybe I bit off more than I could chew at that time in my life. Maybe I was also in the midst of possibly my worst depressive episode since my divorce. Maybe it was a combination of all things. Maybe it was just life signalling now wasn’t the time.

I’ve always planned to return to the podcast, because I believed in the vision. I still do. Pragmatically speaking, I’ve found trying to fit in the podcast with my writing and other pursuits, family, day job etc to be an absolute nightmare. I’m that motherfucker trying to ice-skate uphill, to quote the immortal Blade.

Far more egregious, however, is that as time has worn on, I feel myself almost unable to talk about my bipolar experience. I have drafted plenty of material for episodes, but my confidence to talk about it has been shaken. I feel… unqualified to speak. A weird fucking version of imposter syndrome. I’ve arrived at the conclusion I may not be the right person to talk about these things and do them justice. I may not be charismatic or interesting enough to make these difficult and often taboo topics palatable.

So, it’s with a heavy heart I say I won’t be continuing the podcast, now or in the foreseeable future. I will be leaving the subject to the much more capable hands of other mental health podcasters.

I think one of the hidden reasons for me starting the podcast, at a time when I felt very alone in my battle with bipolar chaos, even when surrounded by people, was that it helped me express my struggles and gave both myself and listeners the ability to empathise and connect, to alleviate some of our collective pain. I hoped that by sharing, I could help myself and others.

I’m in a state of euthymia now – I actually feel… normal? It’s been this way for almost 2 months; I have only ever felt this way in my life probably a handful of times. I’m not seesawing all over the place. My meds and strategies must be working, though I know it won’t last forever. I’m still experiencing bipolar, albeit currently in a very unfamiliar way.

Yet now I don’t feel like I’m able to connect with the topics I want to talk about the way I once did. It may be this new clarity is showing me that I have reached the limit of my scope of practice, so to speak. I may be that I’m trying to be more stoic about my problems, including my bipolar, so it’s no longer the main character of my life. Kinda like that Cherokee idea of the two wolves inside us,  the one that wins being “the wolf you feed”. Maybe by giving it less airtime, it doesn’t grow out of proportion. (Or bite as often.)

I do love podcasting though, and at some point I’d love to start another, when I’m able – maybe on a topic I know far better, like writing or horror literature. Something that isn’t at the mercy of my mercurial emotional tides.

One day if I really, really felt some irresistible pull to return to Letters from the Edge, I might. But it would need to be for the right reasons or if somehow I felt more qualified to talk about it. For now, though, I need to leave it behind to focus on my other creative endeavours. My writing is and always will be a place I explore my experience, including bipolar. (My novel-in-progress features it quite heavily.)

This post is simply delivering closure to some of the lovely loyal people who have repeatedly asked over the past 2 years for an update and more episodes. It also serves as a mental decluttering for me; a defrag, if you will. One less thing consuming my mental RAM. A way to step aside and not have it hanging in my periphery like a cloud of guilt.

I wish you all the best mental health. Keep fighting, everybody ✊️