R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Find out what it means to me….

“A few observations about the complexity of an illness that is so much a part and parcel of one’s temperament.  But most importantly [about] the role of love in recovery.  Love as sustainer, as re-newer and as protector.”:

“After each seeming death within my mind or heart, love has returned to re-create hope and to restore life.  It has at its best, made the inherent sadness of life bearable, and its beauty manifest.  It has, inexplicably and savingly, provided not only cloak, but lantern for the darker seasons and grimmer weather.

I long ago abandoned the notion of a life without storms, or a world without dry and killing seasons.  Life is too complicated, too constantly changing, to be anything but what it is.  And I am, by nature, too mercurial to be anything but deeply wary of the grave unnaturalness involved in any attempt to exert too much control over essentially uncontrollable forces.  There will always be propelling, disturbing elements, and they will be there until, as Lowell put it, the watch is taken from the wrist.  It is, at the end of the day, the individual moments of restlessness, of bleakness, of strong persuasions and maddened enthusiasms, that inform one’s life, change the nature and direction of one’s work, and give final meaning and color to one’s loves and friendships.”   “An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness,” by Kay Redfield Jamison

I was brutally and viscously attacked this weekend.  Granted it was only a verbal lashing, but it was by a “supposed” friend while he was a guest in my home.  But it was the intense animosity and the volume at which it was hurled that has left scars far greater and deeper than any he might have tried to inflict physically.

I share this with you because of what it means to me as someone who suffers with a mental disorder.  Because, while his outburst about my mental state failed to make me feel stigmatized, his behavior did (does) make me feel marginalized.  And that is unacceptable.  Bordering on unconscionable.

No one has the right to stand in judgment of you or your mental capabilities.  Least of all someone who acts self-righteous, who professes moral superiority, who thinks they have the right to determine what is and what is not acceptable behavior.  Especially when they themselves act hypocritically, because, for the record, accosting someone while a guest in their home and then sneaking away without leaving a note or saying goodbye to the other members of the household is not acceptable behavior.

The truly sad part of this story for me is that I lost a 15 year-long friendship that I cherished.  Not with him, but with his wife who stood by and said nothing while he repeatedly insulted me. Would his behavior have been tolerated had he attacked someone in a wheelchair?  Someone with mental retardation?  Someone with anorexia?  Is abuse leveled on someone who suffers from a mental disorder any less reprehensible than an attack on someone with a more physically apparent disability?

But, even as I mourn that loss I am left with the feeling of being empowered, renewed, reborn.  It has reminded me of two of my favorite (and empowering) phrases: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” and “Consider the source.”

I present this video as a gift to him.  To enlighten him.  Sadly he will never see it because as far as I know he has never read my blog.  If he had, he might have seen my mood swings for what they were, the unfortunate influence (or deficiency) of certain chemicals in my brain.  But the truth is, I make no secret of my disorder and he is well aware of (or at least he should have been) the fact that my mental state is compromised.

Personal Reflections on Manic-Depressive Illness

I can only speak for myself, but I have no doubt that most of us who struggle with a mental handicap (be it bipolar disorder, chronic depression, ADHD, obsessive compulsive disorder, etc.) struggle with low self-esteem.  The one thing that I feel is my saving grace is the gift of self-respect.  It doesn’t completely compensate for my disorder but it certainly makes it tolerable at times.  While I may not be the most successful or accomplished person, nor the smartest, nor the most humble, nor the bravest, I am a human being who deserves, no DEMANDS to be treated with respect.

And so I declared at the end of his tirade: “You and I are no longer friends.”  I chose the high road and did not stoop to his level of name-calling, etc.  Although I did slam the door rather aggressively on the way out of the room.  I’m bipolar, hear me ROAR.

That is my gift to you today.  Own that for yourself.  RESPECT.  Challenge anyone who dismisses you in any way, shape or form.  Confront anyone who dares suggest that your role or your contribution to life or society is any less valuable than theirs.  Do not take any slight or insult lightly.

Whatever your own personal handicap is, I guarantee you that you have other gifts that more than make up for any shortcomings or challenges you might face.  Stand up for yourself.  Refuse to be stigmatized or marginalized.  Never, ever, under any circumstance, allow someone to disrespect you.  Never let their ignorance and small mindedness affect how you feel about yourself.  I honor you.  Please honor yourself.

A mental disorder is biological.  Ignorance is not.

To all of my good friends and followers who remain loyal, who take the good with the bad, who love unconditionally, I am thankful.  I am humbled by your humanity and forever grateful for your acceptance.  Please feel free to add your comments here.  The support of my family, friends and readers has meant the world to me, and has been another, not so small, saving grace.  Please know that I am here for you as well.

A Show of Hands: Who Doesn’t Have a Mental Disorder?

“…attending to…deliberately selected targets, or even making a conscious decision to “veg out” for a spell, you would have had a far better experience than many of us have much of the time, captured by whatever flotsam and jetsam happens to wash up on our mental shores.  In short, to enjoy the kind of experience you want rather than enduring the kind that you feel stuck with, you have to take charge of your attention.”  Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life,” by Winifred Gallagher.

Is everyone bipolar?

Glenn Close PSA

I used to think I was unique.  Yes, a mental disorder is not something to be proud of, and I would give it away with no questions asked if I could, but it was one of those things that made me the individual that I am.  Now it feels like I’m just one more voice getting lost in the crowd of commercials and PSAs that make mental illness seem like the chic new accessory this year.

I’m all for removing any stigma attached to it, but quite frankly, I don’t feel stigmatized.  Maybe that’s because I’ve been in therapy for thirty years.  Maybe that’s because I’ve tried every drug (unsuccessfully) as soon as it hit the market.

Maybe it’s because I’ve always been more concerned with “getting better” than I have been about what other people might think.

Or perhaps I just live in a bubble of educated, liberal people out here on the west coast where I feel comfortable discussing my illness, writing about my disorder and sharing my challenges in conversations, without feeling the need to withhold my condition.  Without feeling the need to pretend to be “normal.”  In some ways it’s good to be “out of the closet” about your condition.

I’m also torn between the idea of talking about the disorder and trying not to think about it at all.  There’s a saying: What you think about persists.  The more I think about my disorder the more I’m aware of it.  And the more inclined I am to use it as an excuse for not accomplishing what I want to in my life.  It becomes a crutch.

Like the quote above from “Rapt” implies, your life is about the things you focus on.  Does focusing on being bipolar help me discover ways of dealing with it, or does it keep me mired in it?

The more I talk and write about mental illness, the more aware I am of it.  The more of a focus it has in my life.  I don’t want my life to be ABOUT being bipolar.

Do these conversations do more harm than good?  Perhaps not if you’re someone like Glenn Close’s sister who doesn’t have a diagnosis yet for what you’ve been suffering with.  In that case, disseminating the information is a good thing.

That being said, I do think it’s important to have the dialogue with our loved ones. They need to understand what’s happening with us as much as we do.  I’ve discovered that it’s a dance.  A dance very few people are capable of engaging in.But families need to not only understand, but accommodate our disorder, and that can be very difficult for many reasons.

So for now, I’m happy to be part of the conversation as long as it’s helpful.  But as usual, I don’t have any answers, just more questions.

Remembering the Fallen (Part Two)

I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet,

a pawn and a king.

I’ve been up and down and over and out,

and I know one thing:

each time I find myself, flat on my face,

I pick myself up and get back in the race.

“That’s Life.”  Lyrics by, Dean Kay & Kelly L. Gordon

Ok, so I’ve reached rock bottom.  I hope.

Needing a respite from rejection I stopped sending out novel excerpts and short stories to literary magazines and agents.  Unfortunately, that hasn’t put an end to the negative responses.  Yesterday I received another form letter from Berkeley Fiction Review.  It was a lovely little missive submitted to me in response to a story I sent them on December 1, 2008.  Ten months ago.

That’s not the worst of it.  The rejection that’s been the hardest for me to take is one that never came.

Several months ago I volunteered to teach prisoners at San Quentin.  I sent them cover letters, resumes, a detailed suggested syllabus and numerous e-mails, and in return I received nothing.  No acknowledgement.  No “thanks, but no thanks.”  No “message undeliverable.”  Nothing.

What little self-esteem I had left was shattered by the realization that I was being rejected by the California prison system.  By virtue of their non-response, I was being told that I was not even worthy of teaching writing to convicted felons.  Here I was, willing to risk my life working side by side with individuals incarcerated for crimes they’d committed against society, and I, a law abiding citizen with a MFA and a desire to do something positive with my free time, was being told by the University Prison Project that I wasn’t even worthy of a dignified response.

My bipolarity is a blessing and a curse.  In some ways I believe it is partially responsible for my creativity, my desire to write in the first place.  But it’s a challenge because of the inconsistency it causes to my attention, to my ambition, and to the very source of my creativity.  So, here I am, trying to navigate the biochemical fluctuations in my brain without pharmaceuticals, while still being plagued with the emotional/ego issues that affect every one: fear, stress, rejection, etc.

I never know if my reaction to something is nature or nurture.  It would be ideal if I could separate them, study them independently, but I can’t.  Is the hopelessness I feel relative to the situation?  Is the despair triggered by the rejection or does the rejection merely amplify feelings that were already there?

I can be overly sensitive, susceptible to depression from even a simple (and perhaps unintended) slight.  So how do I forge ahead when I can’t be sure of what’s real?  Are others just insensitive brutes incapable of recognizing my significant talent?  Or is my wavering ego incapable of coming to terms with the fact that I don’t have any talent, that they are right?

I don’t profess to know why other writers have chosen to take their own lives, but I do believe on some level it had something to do with either the process and/or the business of writing.  You see, the thing with writing is that there is no right way, no one-way.  It is (to some extent) subjective, even to the author.  The brilliant sentences, the beautiful metaphors, the inspired alliteration that made it to the page yesterday, today sound flat, tired, clichéd.

That’s life

and I can’t deny it

many times I thought of cutting out

but my heart won’t buy it

but if there’s nothing shakin’ come this here July

I’m gonna roll myself up

in a big ball

and die

For various and unknowable reasons, the following authors died at their own hands.  Gifted individuals who had managed to make a name for themselves, support themselves doing what they loved, at some point decided that life wasn’t worth living.  The thought that these artists had come to such a conclusion even after they’d achieved success (and became the basis by which others would be measured), scares me to death.

“The lion still stood looking majestically and coolly toward this object that his eyes only showed in silhouette, bulking like some super-rhino.  There was no man smell carried toward him and he watched the object, moving his great head a little from side to side.  Then watching the object, not afraid, but hesitating before going down the bank to drink with such a thing opposite him, he saw a man figure detach itself from it and he turned his heavy head and swung away toward the cover of the trees as he heard a cracking crash and felt the slam of a .30-06 220-grain solid bullet that bit his flank and ripped in sudden hot scalding nausea through his stomach.  He trotted, heavy, big-footed, swinging wounded full-bellied, through the trees toward the tall grass and cover, and the crash came again to go past him ripping the air apart.  Then it crashed again and he felt the blow as it hit his lower ribs and ripped on through, blood sudden hot and frothy in his mouth, and he galloped toward the high grass where he could crouch and not be seen and make them bring the crashing thing close enough so he could make a rush and get the man that held it.”  “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” by Ernest Hemingway.

“Once in a while Chance would turn off the water and sit on the grass and think.  The wind, mindless of direction, intermittently swayed the bushes and trees.  The city’s dust settled evenly, darkening the flowers, which waited patiently to be rinsed by the rain and dried by the sunshine.  And yet, with all its life, even at the peak of its bloom, the garden was its own graveyard.  Under every tree and bush lay rotten trunks and disintegrated and decomposing roots.  It was hard to know which was more important: the garden’s surface or the graveyard from which it grew and into which it was constantly lapsing.”  “Being There,” by Jerzy Kosinski

“By this time the drink was beginning to cut the acid and my hallucinations were down to a tolerable level.  The room service waiter had a vaguely reptilian cast to his features, but I was no longer seeing huge pterodactyls lumbering around the corridors in pools of fresh blood.  The only problem now was a gigantic neon sign outside the window, blocking our view of the mountains—millions of colored balls running around a very complicated track, strange symbols & filigree, giving off a loud hum….” “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” by Hunter S. Thompson

Like the song says, “I’ll pick myself up and get back on my feet.”  Or, perhaps, “Roll myself up in a big ball and die.”  Only time will tell.  But for now…I’m still writing!!!!

Shades of Gray

“We do not want to admit our lack of substance to ourselves and, instead, strive to project an image of completeness, or self-sufficiency.  The paradox is that, to the extent that we succumb to this urge, we are estranged from ourselves and are not real.  Our narcissism requires that we keep the truth about ourselves at bay.” Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective.”  By Mark Epstein, M.D.

I haven’t been able to focus on any one thing for a while.  Everything is a shade of gray.

But I did have these thoughts the other day while trying to get back into an exercise routine.  Feast or famine.  All or nothing.  That’s how it is with me and my disorders.  I go to the gym every day for three months and then stop going all together for the next six.  So there I was, back in my tee shirt and shorts, trying to jump-start my fitness routine once again.

I did my weight routine.  Easy enough to cut short.  This is something you want to ease back into.  Then on to the treadmill.  I punch in “random,” “forty minutes,” “weight,” (wouldn’t you like to know?) “level 15,” “speed 3.2.”

Ten minutes in: I am bored but determined to stick it out.

Twelve minutes in: I am bored and tired.

Fifteen minutes in: The rationalizations start.  I’m bored, tired and depressed.  It’s okay to stop.  No one will know.

Nineteen minutes in: That’s enough, isn’t it?  I’ll do twice as much tomorrow.  An hour and twenty minutes.  I’ll be in a better mood and get more out of it.

Twenty-one minutes in: How much benefit am I going to get from another nineteen minutes anyway?

Twenty-five minutes in: Okay, thirty minutes.  I’ll stop at thirty, that’s enough for one day.

Thirty minutes in: Ten more minutes.  That’s all you have to do.

Thirty-two minutes in: I really should take my protein drink now.

Thirty-four minutes in: Okay, just six more minutes, you can do that.

Thirty-five minutes in: Okay, really, what’s five more minutes worth?  I’ll burn what, twelve calories?

In actuality, the rationalizations were closer together, constant.  It seemed like the whole time I was on the machine I was looking for an excuse to get off.  Blame it on the iPod not working, the annoying guy next to me hacking every thirty seconds, the irritating rock Musak.  Now, this isn’t always the case.  Often, but not always.  Sometimes I get on and just do it.  But that’s rare.  There are days when I give in and stop and there are days when I stay with it for the time allocated.

The days I stay with it are the days when I am able to constantly remind myself of my commitment.  I committed to forty minutes (or whatever) and I need to keep that commitment.  EST (Erhard Seminars Training) taught me that.  Our lives don’t work when we don’t keep our commitments.  Even to ourselves.  Especially to ourselves.

But here’s the thing: because I suffer from a mental disorder, there is no way of knowing when I’m in the throes of an episode or when I’m just being “normal.”  You see, with a mental disorder, whether it’s bipolar, depression, ADD, OCD etc., there is no separation between episodes and non-episodes.  For example, if you suffer from migraines, you know when you have one and when you don’t.  Now, there may be triggers, but you either have a migraine or you don’t.  That’s my suspicion anyway.  So, if you call in sick to work, it’s because you actually are sick.  But if you have a mental disorder, you can never tell if you’re just being lazy, or if you’re having an episode (being sick).

Really, who wants to spend forty minutes on a treadmill?  But I imagine most people either do it or they don’t do it.  I don’t suspect they spend the entire forty minutes negotiating with themselves about whether to stay on it or not.

Sometimes there is no question.  I AM depressed.  But most often it’s a gray area.  How do I determine if I’m depressed or just lazy?  How do I know if I’m just aggravated or having a bipolar “irritable” episode?  This is further complicated by the fact that, even if it’s not an “episode,” by continuing to put forth the effort when I’m on the fence, I might actually trigger an episode, and I never want to do that.

I wouldn’t blame someone for spending the day in bed if they had a migraine.  And I don’t blame myself for staying in bed on those days when I’m severely depressed.  But the disorder is such that there’s no way to tell if I’m depressed or if I’m fearful, lazy, frustrated, etc.  When should I try to work through it and when is that futile?

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted anything.  Have I been depressed?  Or have I been avoiding writing anything because I’m lazy?  Or fearful I have nothing of value to say?  Afraid of being rejected or of offending?

Where does the disorder end and I begin?

Remembering the Fallen (Part One)

“The fiery aspects of thought and feeling that initially compel the artistic voyage—fierce energy, high mood, and quick intelligence; a sense of the visionary and the grand; a restless and feverish temperament—commonly carry with them the capacity for vastly darker moods, grimmer energies, and occasionally, bouts of “madness.”  “Touched with Fire: Manic-depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament,” by Kay Redfield Jamison

I received another in a seemingly endless series of “not for us” letters in the mail yesterday.  One of those impersonal form rejection letters sent out by students and volunteers at literary magazines when they find a free moment to shove an 8 ½’ x 11 guillotine into a number 9 envelope and send it off to me using the stamp that I supplied.  The cut is quick, but it is not painless.

It does however leave me headless for a few days.  Especially when those successive mornings are spent in front of the television watching Nancy (Dis)Grace hawking her novel on Good Morning America and the Today Show.

Is her writing that good?  Is mine that bad?  You be the judge:

“He couldn’t just leave the body lying there like that. There was something missing. It was biting at him. He’d tried to go, walking back to his car in the dark twice now, but the nagging in his brain wouldn’t let him leave until she was absolutely perfect.  He looked at her lying there in the moonlight. Her dead body was absolutely stunning. Before, when she had been alive, sitting in the passenger seat of his car, talking and talking about her life and herself and her journey from Anniston, Alabama, to Atlanta to break into acting, he thought his head would blow up like a bomb. She just wouldn’t shut up.”  “The Eleventh Victim,” by Nancy Grace.

It makes me wonder, and I don’t say this lightly, if a world in which Nancy Grace is a published author, a “novelist,” merely because she has “a platform,” is a world worth living in?  This being the same world that offers Levi Johnston movie roles, John and Kate Plus 8 their own TV series, and rewards talentless singers like William Hung with recording contracts.

Now, to cleanse your literary palate and to inspire you, for whatever creative outlet you might have, here are the words of some true artists who died long before they should have.  By their own hands.

“As I was wearing the soles of my desert boots down to a mere sliver of crepe rubber on the old flagstone banquettes of the French Quarter in my fevered attempt to wrest a living from an unthinking and uncaring society, I was hailed by a cherished old acquaintance (deviate).  After a few minutes of conversation in which I established most easily my moral superiority over this degenerate, I found myself pondering once more the crises of our times.  My mentality, uncontrollable and wanton as always, whispered to me a scheme so magnificent and daring that I shrank from the very thought of what I was hearing.  “Stop!”  I cried imploringly to my god-like mind.  “This is madness.”  But still I listened to the counsel of my brain.  It was offering me the opportunity to Save the World Through Degeneracy.”  “A Confederacy of Dunces,” by John Kennedy Toole.

“First, the pulse of colour flooded the bay with blue, and the heart expanded with it and the body swam, only the next instant to be checked and chilled by the prickly blackness on the ruffled waves.  Then, up behind the great black rock, almost every evening spurted irregularly, so that one had to watch for it and it was a delight when it came, a fountain of white water; and then while one waited for that, one watched, on the pale semicircular beach, wave after wave shedding again and again smoothly, a film of mother of pearl.”  “To the Lighthouse,” by Virginia Woolf

“And dreams.  For months there have been dreams like nothing before: moist and busy and distant, full of yielding curves, frantic pistons, warmth and a great falling; and you have awakened through fluttering lids to a rush and a gush and a toe-curling scalp-snapping jolt of feeling from an inside deeper than you knew you had, spasms of a deep sweet hurt, the streetlights through your window blinds cracking into sharp stars against the black bedroom ceiling, and on you a dense white jam that lisps between legs, trickles and sticks, cools on you, hardens and clears until there is nothing but gnarled knots of pale solid animal hair in the morning shower, and in the wet tangle a clean sweet smell you can’t believe comes from anything you made inside you.”  “Forever Overhead,” from “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men,” by David Foster Wallace.

True genius often finds reality unbearable.  But the likes of Nancy Grace would never consider suicide.  They are too pleased by the sound of their own voice, however shrill.  Too enamored of their own reflection in the mirror, in the toaster, in the window at Bloomingdale’s.  While I don’t wish Ms. Grace any harm (although I can’t stop smiling at the thought of her being the twelfth victim) I do wish she would just go away.  She is not the type to put rocks in her pocket and wade into a lake.  Her ilk just makes the rest of us want to.  So in effect, she is spared, as WE are the twelfth victim.

There Must Be More to Life

“If there’s more to life than this, I don’t know what it is.”  “The Indispensible Calvin and Hobbes,” by Bill Watterson

My friend, Sarcastic Bastard reminded me today to take life a little less seriously.

So I am putting away all of the books on happiness and bipolar disorder and depression and attention deficit disorder for the weekend and going to the beach.

I will not think about the pharmaceutical companies or the little pink pills or the tiny blue capsules my doctors are always encouraging me to take.

I will not TRY to be, I will just BE.

I will TRY not to over-think every thing.  (I’m afraid “trying not to” is about all I can promise on that one.)

I will try to enjoy myself without the aid of Ketel One.  (But again, no promises)

I will not read anything heavy, or depressing, or self-helping, or motivational.  I will read literary stuff that is meant to be entertaining, not enlightening, not thought provoking—ENTERTAINING.

I suggest you do the same.  Life is short, but if you work it right, it’s just long enough.

My favorite strip of all time

And no, I’m not manic.  I’m just content from spending a few minutes thinking about the good things in my life and for the small pleasures that are unexpected, yet mean so much.  Like Calvin and Hobbes.  Funny AND thought provoking.  The best of both worlds.

Have a nice weekend.  Marco

Distraction

“Back in 1971, when the web was still twenty years off and the smallest computers were the size of delivery vans, before the founders of Google had even managed to get themselves born, the polymath economist Herbert A. Simon wrote maybe the most concise possible description of our modern struggle: What information consumes is rather obvious: It consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. As beneficiaries of the greatest information boom in the history of the world, we are suffering, by Simon’s logic, a correspondingly serious poverty of attention.”  “In Defense of Distraction,” By Sam Anderson (New York magazine, May 25, 2009)

Okay, so I’m a little behind in my reading. But that is exactly what Mr. Anderson’s article is all about.  Distraction.  Throw bipolar disorder and ADD into the mix and you have a mind that can’t stop gorging itself on available information.

That’s also the reason I post less frequently than I would like.  Too much.  Of everything.  The e-mails, the RSS feeds, the Facebook notifications, the Tweets…all keep begging for my attention.

“The Internet is basically a Skinner box engineered to tap right into our deepest mechanisms of addiction. As B. F. Skinner’s army of lever-pressing rats and pigeons taught us, the most irresistible reward schedule is not, counterintuitively, the one in which we’re rewarded constantly but something called variable ratio schedule, in which the rewards arrive at random.”

Mr. Anderson’s likening the Internet to a Skinner box was very enlightening.  Part of how we change behavior is by knowing why we engage in that behavior to begin with.  After spending the morning wandering through a couple of bookstores, it occurred to me that I was merely wasting time, not, as I had been deluding myself, doing research.  I am always waiting for that next piece of brilliant, entertaining, thought-provoking information that will lead to an insight, that will lead to a post, that will lead to…what?  Being cured?  Happy?  Successful?  Rich?  Adored?

Is anything every really enough?  I doubt it.  We (most of us) are hardwired to want more.  Sure, there are some people who can happily check-out, spend their “golden years” playing golf in Boca Raton.  But that seems to be less and less the case these days as the world gets smaller and as we discover ideas that twenty years ago would never have made it past the front door of our suburban home.  With more exposure often comes more desire.  If you didn’t know there was such a thing as an iPhone, you wouldn’t want one.  Trouble is, now you not only know about it, you have one, only you’re not satisfied with it because you’ve just found out that the newer version comes with video.

“The truly wise mind will harness, rather than abandon, the power of distraction.”

 

I don’t have a problem with being unhappy, dissatisfied.  It’s depression, a totally different animal, that I find unbearable.  I have always thought that wanting more is a good thing, you know, like sharks: if you don’t keep moving forward you die.  And by more, I don’t mean “more,” or bigger, or better, or faster.  I mean like learning to speak French fluently, or being able to play the piano, or hike Mt. Kilimanjaro, or win the Pulitzer, an Oscar, or a Tony.  Not having a Pulitzer doesn’t make me unhappy. It’s not like I need one.  But I can’t exactly be completely happy either if I really want one (am striving for one) but don’t have one yet.

I think the best we should strive for as humans is to be content.  Anything more is foolhardy, anything less a waste of what we do have.

But I did finally drag myself away from the bookstore and into the library where I am now writing this.  Okay, true confession; I didn’t start writing this until after I had perused the new books section for some possible unforeseen gems.  I mean, I did have to pass it on the way to the writing desks.  Hey, change is hard.

As Mr. Anderson’s wife reminds him, “You have all the information you need to do something right now.”

And so do I.

Thanks for allowing me to be one of your distractions.

Evan’s Excruciating Choice: A Family Devastated and a Boy Interrupted on HBO

“Bipolar depression is definitely more severe than just depression, and that’s why suicide attempts are more common in kids with bipolar depression.” From “Boy Interrupted.”

I had to pause the film “Boy Interrupted” to make a comment, to take a breath. I see much of myself in Evan and yet I also see things from a new perspective. It’s enlightening to watch someone like yourself be dissected and second “guessed.”  But the film does a remarkable job of capturing (from my experience) what it’s like to be bipolar or to live with someone who is. I started blogging about it back in April of this year, not to expose myself à la reality TV, but as a way of thinking about it in an open forum in which a community is built, stigma is removed, and coping skills are shared and learned.

I attended Stanford University’s School of Medicine’s 5th annual Bipolar Education Day and learned that because of the genetic make-up that causes bipolar disorder, it’s unlikely there will be a cure in the foreseeable future. Drugs are not a cure and the “trial and error” method of prescribing pills simply adds more torment and dashed hopes to sufferers. I believe strongly that films like these are necessary. It’s imperative that the sufferer and family and friends comprehend the dynamics. This understanding gives the bipolar person some perspective and a bit more control (at least from my perspective) and it gives the family a frame of reference so that they know how to handle certain situations and don’t take things (like irritable outbursts) too personally.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Also on Huffington Post: “Boy Interrupted: Interview with Filmmaker Dana Perry”

Bipolar Blogger MIA (missing in apathy)

“[Major depression is] immediately detectable to people who know what they are doing. It is an advanced psychological state of despair that one can see in the patient’s eyes, in their slow movements, in the sense that they are in physical pain…” “There is no covering up; they exude naked and pure pain, like a wounded animal. There is absolutely no pretending that everything is okay. All pretense of normalcy goes out the window.” “Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry is Medicating a Nation,” by Charles Barber

The title is not exactly true.  I’m not really apathetic.  I’m hopeless.

Anyone who’s ever studied depression has come across the maxim: depression is anger turned inwards.  I beg to differ.  I believe that the major cause of depression is the loss of hope.

Anger is a feeling.  Depression is about the loss of feeling.  I know.  I’m in it right now.

I can’t write to save my life.  Nothing matters.  And if there is anger, perhaps it’s caused by the hopelessness.  A dozen topics swirl through my head but I can’t choose one to write about.  None of them matter.  Nothing I have to say on the subject will make any difference to me or to anyone else.  I don’t matter.  And that makes me feel hopeless, which, yes, makes me feel angry (but not the other way round.)

If given a choice between angry and hopeless, I’ll take angry.  Part of that is not a choice but a symptom of being bipolar, irritability, which can easily escalate into anger.

I watched it happen this past weekend over something stupid: a walk with the dog.  My ADD was acting up and while I was doing my best to get ready and out of the house, my partner got impatient.  He made a couple of comments (and a few exasperated facial expressions) and a switch was flipped in my head.  Literally an on/off switch.  I got as angry as a person can get and I refused to go.  And there was no turning back, nothing he could say or do that would change my mind, that could fix it, that could flip the switch the other way.  I became “invested” in my anger.

I have seen that over the years, that willingness to “cut off my nose to spite my face.”  Why?  Because the anger feels good.  It feels great.  It’s HELL, but it’s better than apathy.  If you’ve been walking around like a zombie for weeks or months, the opportunity to feel anything is a welcome respite.  And anger can be delicious.  Intoxicating.

I spent the rest of that day by myself nursing that anger.  Not because I wanted to, but because I couldn’t control it.

I think suicidal thoughts are like that too, when you suffer from chronic depression.  For me, suicidal thoughts were never so much thoughts of suicide, but the idea that, if it ever “really got bad,” there was an option.  Just knowing that I could end it if I needed to was like having Xanax in my side pocket (knowing it’s there can reduce the anxiety and thus the need to take it.)

I always looked at suicide as a free-floating life raft, never seriously contemplating it because it was always there in my side pocket.  But ever since taking Lamictal*, another switch has been flipped, one that put suicide on the table as a real option.  It’s like those images—vase/face or young woman/old woman.

Once you’ve seen both you can never go back to seeing only one.  And once you’ve seen suicide as a real-life (pun not intended) tangible option, a way out of the hell that you are in, you can’t go back to pretending it isn’t.  You can’t go back to the day when taking your own life was like a pill in your pocket because you’ve tasted the sense of relief lingering in those thoughts.

Today I am stuck in a state of mind(s) I’ve been in for a couple of weeks now, somewhere between hopeless, depressed, angry and suicidal.  And occasionally manic.  Thank God (I can’t believe I’m saying this) for mania, otherwise it might have been several more weeks before I was able to make another post.  So please pardon my brain-dump, but I felt that after a two-week hiatus, a rambling, nonsensical post was better than none.  And I wanted to make sure that those kind people who worry about me when I disappear for a period of time know that I’m still kicking.  Thank you for your support.  You are the reason I got out of bed today.

*Note: From the Lamictal website: “Like other antiepileptic drugs, LAMICTAL may cause suicidal thoughts or actions in a very small number of people, about 1 in 500.”

The Bipolar Anthem, Choreography by Ron Field

 I’m a thousand different people, every single one is real

I’ve a million different feelings, OK but at least I feel!

And I feel rotten, yet covered with roses

Younger than springtime and older than Moses

But alive, but alive, but alive!

“BUT ALIVE” (From Applause)

Lyrics Lee Adams/Music Charles Strouse ©1970

I took a road trip the other day, a few hundred miles up to the mountains.  I needed a little quiet, a little break from the noise.  A cabin in Tahoe where there is no Internet and no TV to speak of.  No updates on Sarah Palin’s “genius” career move.  No magazine subscriptions arriving in the mail containing partially nude photos of Levi Johnston.  No Michael Jackson retrospectives, no quick, but unfortunate glimpses of Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney or Governor Sanford as I speed date through five hundred channels. 

AHHHH!!!  Two days later I am a new person.  Refreshed.  Focused.  Ready to take on the world.  Okay, so I’m a little manic, operating on only three or four hours of sleep a night.  But the truth is, that’s all I need sometimes.  Why do I continue to try and live under other people’s circadian rhythms?  

From now on I will embrace the dark, working well past midnight, or dive into the day, even though it’s only four AM.  

Perhaps I am enjoying the mood because of a spell I was put under during the drive, thanks to XM radio.  I was tuned into a Broadway musical station for a short while (God there have been some bad shows) when they played Lauren Bacall singing “But Alive,” from Applause.  Now I loved it because she can’t sing for shit, but here she is, on the Broadway stage, in a musical.  The star of the musical.  (note: this might seem contradictory to my comments about people not deserving fame, but the woman “earned” her celebrity as an actress years ago.)  Not long after that they played some song from “Hairspray” with Harvey Fierstein on vocals.  Now I love Harvey, but he can’t sing either.  In fact, compared to Harvey, Lauren has a great voice.  (note: Harvey also “earned” his celebrity long before he was staring in musicals.)  But I digress.

My point (does there really have to be a point?) is that I was energized by hearing “But Alive.”  Not only is it peppy and uplifting, it’s got a great message.  A message that I also found hysterical.  Me, driving alone in my car trying to balance out my moods and listening to Lauren Bacall singing (rasping) about multiple personalities.  

If it isn’t already, I officially nominate it for the Bipolar Anthem, to be played at all conferences, seminars, meetings, therapy sessions, or any damn time we feel like it.

So, here are the lyrics.  Just watch the first couple of minutes of the video.  After that it gets kind of weird and requires all kinds of disclaimers about portrayals of homosexuals (kind of “Boys in the Band” meets “All about Eve”).  ‘Nuff said. 

I feel groggy and weary and tragic

Punchy and bleary and fresh out of magic

But alive, but alive, but alive!

I feel twitchy and bitchy and manic

Calm and collected and choking with panic

But alive, but alive, but alive!

 

I’m a thousand different people, every single one is real

I’ve a million different feelings, OK but at least I feel!

And I feel rotten, yet covered with roses

Younger than springtime and older than Moses

But alive, but alive, but alive!

 

I feel wicked and wacky and mellow

Firm as Gibraltar and shaky as Jello

But alive, but alive, but alive!

I feel half Tijuana, half Boston

Partly Jane Fonda and partly Jane Austen

But alive, that’s the thing, but alive!

 

This kaleidoscope of feelings whirls around inside my brain

I admit I’m slightly cuckoo, but it’s dull to be too sane!

And I feel brilliant and brash and bombastic

Limp as a puppet and simply fantastic

Frisky as a lamb, lazy as a clam

Crazy but I am … alive!

 

This kaleidoscope of feelings whirls around inside my brain

I admit I’m slightly cuckoo, but it’s dull to be too sane!

And I feel brilliant! Bombastic! Super! Fantastic!

Alive! Alive! Alive! Alive!

“BUT ALIVE” (From Applause)

Lyrics Lee Adams/Music Charles Strouse ©1970