Becoming Sunny

"Sunny Day Sweepin' the clouds away, on my way to where the air is sweet." I've also heard "Keep on the sunny side always on the sunny side, Keep on the sunny side of life, It will help us every day it will brighten all our way.  If we keep on the sunny side of life" a lot!

My mom named me Sunny Elisabeth Clark.  Everyone assumes that my parents were hippies but they were not.  First, they were a little bit too young to be hippies.  Second, they lived in the Midwest and attended religious boarding academies.  There wasn't a lot of cultural "room" be a hippie.  They did have long hair and bell bottoms, but I think pretty much everyone under 30 did prior to 1980.

However, there was Avon.  My mom happened to be flipping through an Avon catalog, browsing the jewelry, perfume and lotions when she noticed the president of Avon was named Sunny.  My mom really, really liked that name.  So, I became Sunny.

It's a funny thing growing up with the name Sunny.  I get complimented on it all the time, people want to meet me because of my name and I have endured endless jokes about it.  The most common joke was "Is your brother's name Moonie?"  My somewhat snotty reply was usually "No, he is not a naked butt."  At least that is what I said starting at about age 11 when I was annoyed by whom ever was making that joke for "like the MILLIONTH time."  And singing, as you have probably guessed, I get serenaded a lot. I am always super impressed when someone knows a song with my name in it that I haven't heard before.  I have had thousands of comments like "Oh! How sweet, you must be just like your name!"  Um, no.  It is one of the great ironies of my name that I am not always like my name.  In fact there have been significant periods of my life, long periods of my life where I was completely unlike my name.

I have depression.  If you want to be specific, I have Major Depressive Disorder, Recurrent, Moderate to Severe (atypical symptoms), With Full Interepisode Recovery, With Seasonal Pattern.  Depending on who is doing the diagnosing, though, my diagnosis can also be Bipolar Affective Disorder, Type II, Moderate, With Melancholic Features, With Seasonal Pattern. 

You probably didn't notice, because you are not sitting here with me, but I just took a giant psychological leap back, put myself into doctor mode and distanced myself from the pain of having all that while having the expectations associated with my name.  And by admitting that, I stepped back into the pain.  It is very, very painful. 

I have two types of depressive episodes- lethargic, sad, guilty, tired, self-hatred, crying, hyposomnia (sleeping lots and lots), avoidant, ahedonic (not feeling pleasure), and amotivational (not motivated).  The second type is agitated, irritable, restless & angry added on top of the symptoms of the first type with out being so tired.  I have the first type of depression in the fall and winter.  I have the second type in spring.  How the party doing the diagnosing categorizes the second type of depression,  determines if they think I have Major Depressive Disorder or Bipolar Affective Disorder, Type II.  It's a grey area and is open to interpretation.  There is a lot of stigma attached to Bipolar diagnoses because those are the people that are often considered "crazy."  I am aware of the stigma but the diagnosis isn't what is painful, it's the experience, so I don't care what label I am given.  Plus, I am a doctor so I get that it is all from a chemical imbalance anyhow.

Did you see how I did that again? I went into to doctor mode.  It's easy, it's safe and I am much more comfortable in it.  When I am in my doctor mode, I am Sunny.  I am bringing help and hope and relief to people.  In fact, I am most comfortable in whatever mode I can avoid certain parts of myself.  When I am interacting with friends, I am Sunny.  When I am with my daughter & husband, I am Sunny. When I am with my extended family, I am Sunny.  When I am with my coworkers & colleagues, I am Sunny. 

If I am not managing my symptoms or I hit that self-critical piece of myself, I would probably be better named Stormy.  Even when I am managing my stuff or I am in place of greater self-acceptance, I am never, ever a morning person.  Moonlight or Starshine would be much more appropriate.  My brain chemistry has also gifted me with a couple sleep disorders, which set my biological clock to be a "night owl" and create a need for at least 9 hours of sleep a night.  My name is a misnomer on multiple levels!

I recently received feedback from someone I am acquainted through a Facebook group.  Part of the feedback included a comment about how I didn't match my name because I was critical of myself.  Well, yes, exactly.

I generally do a pretty good job of leaving that aspect of myself out of my day to day life.  It hurts when it is noticed.  It makes me feel anxious and ashamed.  And when I write, it leaks out. It leaks out all over the place.  And while I like writing and I want to write more, I avoid it.  I don't make it a priority.  I do so because writing creates leaks for areas I need to work on.  Greater self-acceptance, creating space in myself for something just for myself, feeling like it is okay to have something in myself just for myself, all come to mind.  For someone who was taught that self-sacrifice was the greatest form of love, doing something purely for myself creates a lot of angst.  I already have a lot of angst to begin with.  A lot of un-Sunny-like angst. 

Some of that self-criticism derives from the chemical imbalance in my faulty, amazing brain.  The rest of that is because of ingrained attitudes about myself that I picked up in my childhood.  I can explain the origins of some of those attitudes and I believe that some will forever remain a mystery. 

Regardless of the cause between my mismatched name and myself, the current struggle is that developing as a writer means putting stuff out there.  Well, that's not so fun, when you are leaky.  It requires courage and determination and willingness to be vulnerable.  I am not always super willing to be vulnerable but I am courageous and determined.  So, I will use those things to push me into vulnerable places, which will force me to confront the leaky stuff, which will then move me to a better place.  I will inevitably hit other areas of vulnerability and continue the cycle.  My life will always be a process of becoming Sunny and letting Stormy go.