Dear Daniel Craig

Dear Daniel,

It's been over a year since I've written one of these confessional letters. I often  have good things to say to you recently. But the truth is although many, many great things are happening to me the bipolar disorder still lurks. And often times when it seems everything is at it's best I am at my most vulnerable.

Things trigger my depression this time of year. The holidays although I love them leave me feeling empty and haunted by things I have no control over. Stress is the demon I cannot seem to shake. It is always there, hissing like a snake, mocking me even in my successes, letting me know whether it is good stress or bad stress, my bipolar disease doesn't like it.

You see me online trying to keep the dreadful depression from pulling me under. But these last few days it has had its boot heel on my throat. Daring me to breathe a deep breath. And when I do attempt a gasp of air? Stress pushes down hard laughing at me. How dare I be normal? How dare I dream of greater things than what the world has seemed fit for me?

I fight. I fight so hard every day for my place in this world. I keep my head down. I push so hard. I do the impossible, I make two films. I write scripts. I want bigger things. I want the world to know I am more than my illness. More than my disease. Yet everyday it threatens to consume me if I am not aware it's symptoms.

People say slow down. You'll burn out. Don't over do it. So I took a month off. And now I find myself in quicksand. Two films to promote. To put on the festival circuit. A third film to find financing for and scripts a novel and a new memoir to write. In a way no way to support them.

I say to Missy the odds are against me. I say to Missy, I don't want to wake up if I feel as if I want to die tomorrow. I say to Missy there is no way for me to accomplish any of this. I sit in despair and cry out to anyone who'll listen. The disease may go into remission but the nature of beast is that it is cyclical and it can squash you like a bug.

And Missy says to me. The odds have always been against you, but that has never stopped you before. Missy says to me turn to your blog, be honest, it helped you soar in the past, it will help you soar now. Missy says to me, your disease was in remission once, it will be there again, call your therapist in the morning. Contract for safety with me and I'll be there for you.

I will find funding for Letters to Daniel. I will find a way to make it to the festivals I need to make it to.  I will write until their are no other words left to write. I will call my therapist. And will continue my journey of recovery one step, one minute, one second, one day at a time.

Sincerely,

Amy Leigh McCorkle