The Two Presents
Posted on January 23, 2009 in Bipolar Disorder Stigma
I’m always battling between two presents when I write about my illness. First there is the present of having the disease, the what happens when I am in an episode. In this present I hallucinate, have delusions, and feel paranoid. But this present isn’t the present like the one in which I am writing this. Call this Present Two where, I have to reveal, my life isn’t so interesting because the meds are working like they have been for the last two years. I’m doing fine.
To explain my disability to others, it helps to jump into the First Present from time to time so that I can dramatize what the mind struggling with bipolar is like. It’s a literary device that I employ. Though it talks of aberrations of thought, it in itself is not psychotic ((I’ve actually been told that my psychotic writings are some of my best, but I am not about to return to the state of mind which produced them.)) . It’s difficult for me to speak of things like the ectoplasmic coyotes that used to hop into my path in the past tense because I have been trained to be forever on watch and to be forever an educator. The disease is always there and people are always ignorant stupid
In the Second or True Present, the only coyote I saw was real. My wife saw it, too, crossing the road at night. The medications I use make the First Present an artifice, a thing used to demonstrate a point. I don’t think this is always apparent to my readers. Sometimes I run into the Panic, characterized by the need on the part of others to hedge their bets as if an episode were going to happen in the next thirty seconds or so.
So while I get cheered by my fellow sufferers and the enlightened, I often get shunned by these others. He hallucinates. He has delusions. He is paranoid. I say “Guilty” to all of these — when I am in that other Present, when I do not take my meds, get my sleep, and avoid alcohol and other drugs. Three years ago I resolved to avoid the hospital. I made a point to be honest with my psychiatrist and to do the routine. It’s paid off because of my awareness of the two presents — the one where bipolar disorder wreaks its worst on me and the other where I master it. My mindfulness of the first preserves the second ((One constant worry: do I allow myself to indulge in exercises for the sake of my creativity? It is argued that these won’t precipitate me into mania or depression, but I’m not so sure. I’m holding back, a common problem for bipolars I am told by therapists. More than one has suggested that I am doing fine, that I don’t need to worry if I don’t see the symptoms. It’s the First Present that scares me, however: well or not, you see, I am always seeing the symptoms even when there are none.)) .
Veni Vidi Doodahi
Posted on January 19, 2009 in Festivals
Boston Buddies @ the Doodah parade on 12seconds.tv
We drove up to Pasadena to join the Boston Buddies in the Doo Dah Parade ((The Doo Dah Parade, you should understand, is a reaction to the Rose Parade which is hideously expensive to participate in and bans anything controversial. The Doo Dah Parade slopes dramatically in the other direction: it costs only $10 per person to march in and the organizers allow anything as long as it is not downright pornographic or calling for violent revolution.)) . I think I have earned the right after all this to enjoy a stupor.
The first, most noticeable things after we stepped onto the parade route from the endless waiting in the staging area were the tortillas. Thousands of six inch wide tortillas littered the way from Holly and Raymond to the march’s end just shy of the [[Norton Simon Museum]]. Tortillas and marshmallows that we learned people threw at the marchers for no good reason except harmless wantoness.
The Boston Terriers ((Drake was none too happy that Lynn had agreed to walk a sweet-natured — but also very sexy in his eyes — pug named Maggie. He kept turning his head to my wife, his eyes begging for her customary affections, but she minded her charge. I think this may have sullened his mood: he hung his head, sniffing the ground disinterestedly until the parade began.)) who we marched with thought this one long banquet line, peppered with biscuits handed out by the Basset Hound owners who stomped through ahead of us. Drake stopped frequently to tear a hunk off a Mexican flatbreads. He’d turn his head to the side, lay it flat on the pavement, and then wrench his treat off with the aid of a paw. One of the other owners got so frustrated that she picked her dog up and carried him for the remainder of the march. My doggy felt quite full as we rounded the last turn. The fish and sweet potato biscuits that usually interested him received all of the notice of the Mardi Gras beads that people threw from a balcony ((Once, in front of a television cameraman, he blew his cue to catch one. When I gave him a second chance, he bobbled it. The cameraman turned away. So went his chance for fame.)) .
The perpetrators of the littering arrayed themselves in tiers, beginning with kids on the curb, grandparents in lawn chairs, and a miscellany of adults standing behind these. Plenty of people tried to lure the dogs to them with whistles, outstretched hands, candy, or pieces of the cornmeal frisbees that littered the street. I did not find these annoying: I brought Drake over for a little love and then moved on. What bothered me were the unauthorized performers who walked against the tide of the main attraction, almost tripping us or running into us. (Uncle Fester, I mean you, you bald, silver-headed — and I mean silver as in the metal, not white — lightbulb of a man!) There were also the photographers and the kids who thought by standing out about ten feet into the street they could get a privileged view. You couldn’t, of course, count on anyone to remain quiet in the presence of the dogs. As I attempted to put Drake through his routine, it was common for a bystander to whistle, call, or make clicking noises to attract either his or the attention of another dog.
We spent more time in hurry up and wait mode than we did actually treading Colorado Boulevard. As we humans stalled, our mouths semi-agape, our dogs puttered around our feet, longed for the cool alley where they had waited before the promenade, occasionally got in fights or engaged in the frenzied, athletic mating rituals which did no harm other than embarassment because everyone present was fixed. Ahead of us, other groups slowed things by doing their necessary routines. Roman gladiators led by Caeser slaughtered one another, a gigantic cat caught mice, drill teams went through their routines, bagpipers fingered fake bagpipes while a stereo blasted real bagpipe music, a man dressed as the Pope (with a white cross-emblazoned umbrella) waved from a tiny, white convertible, the statuesque female transvestite Erica Valentine (what great legs “she” has!) rode in a white school bus, invisible babies performed on a trapeze assembly built of plastic pipe, Frenchmen smoked, and a group of adamant cigar lovers sat in lounge chairs on the back of a flatbed truck the odor of their stogies lingering in the air for blocks.
The organizers, who originally placed us between a firetruck and the Frenchmen, sent us out behind a group of anti-scientologists and ahead of another group of dog owners supporting marrow transports who were constantly dashing from beneath the shadow of a large, gray flying saucer owned by the Raelians. The anti-Scientologists marched with Xenu, signs that proclaimed the names of victims of Scientology, and a wagon-borne volcano whose meaning I did not fathom. Rael’s flying saucer was accompanied by a coterie of aliens from various science-fiction movies and imaginations ((There is some splendid footage in one of the Doo Dah videos on You Tube showing them nearly losing control of it one year.)) .
At the end, the parade made a sharp right and concluded with no direction as to where to go for its participants. We sneaked out through an alley where the anti-Scientologists gathered with their volcano and Xenu for a group shot. Lynn handed Maggie the Honorary Boston Terrier to a volunteer and we waddled back to the parking garage where it took about twenty minutes to get out. Drake collapsed in the back seat and slept all the way, along the crests of the foothills and through a traffic jam in Santa Ana with more starts and stops than our march. Once home, he drank from his water dispenser for several glugs and fell onto his bed. I slept for three solid hours, from the late afternoon sun into the restful beginnings of the night.
Social Anxiety Jeans
Posted on January 15, 2009 in Anxiety Reflections Video
Social Anxiety Jeans on 12seconds.tv
Here’s the article where I picked up the information. I just love the expression on the macaque’s face.
No More Prozac or Ritalin Jokes
Posted on January 13, 2009 in Psychotropics Stigma
I think I heard the most-dumbass-possible response to an objection that I have about people making cracks about psychotropic drugs. Fellow makes a lame joke about needing Ritalin to get some job done. Do you need it? I ask. Uh, duh, no. That’s insulting then. Long silence. Then (actual quote): “Well I feel the vast variety of drugs I’ve taken gives me right to make light of them if I see fit and not be judged by you.” ((Guess what bubby? Living in this world you are constantly being judged. Get used to it.))
“You’ve shown your cards,” I respond, “and they are not good.”
Damn, I’m kickass between 3 and 4 a.m.
Let me tell you what kinds of problems I have with making drug jokes when you don’t have the disease. First, it adds to the prejudice we struggle against anytime it comes out that we have an illness. “Ha ha ha. Some people are so freaking pathetic they need Ritalin to function.” Yes, some people do have a hard time because of their brain chemistry. So what? It’s the classic positioning of the sane over the insane, those who are lucky enough to not suffer organic brain dysfunctions and those who aren’t. Stigma. Bigotry. The moral equivalent of making remarks about black people eating watermelons ((If you want to see watermelons like you have never seen watermelons in your life, go to Greece in August and September. Piles and piles of watermelons at every crossroad, rolling down the hills of street markets. Yet no one makes jokes about Greeks and watermelons because they are not interested in tying the diet to a notion of racial or cultural inferiority in this case.)) .
Second, it is usually the case that the people who make the cracks have no clue what the drug is used for. The classic that I have often hear is people telling others to “take some Prozac” for their delusions or their alleged hallucinations. This is simply precious. Prozac is used for major depressive episodes. Doesn’t do a thing for delusions, paranoia or hallucinations.
Third, by making light of mental illness, it can lead people not to take their disease seriously. Actually that is not it. It has more to do with people being afraid to use the drugs that might help them. They’re afraid of what people might think or losing control or losing their personality. The last was, for me, the biggest reason why I avoided seeking professional help for years. I feared erasure of the soul. What I learned, as I followed the course that brought me to my current cocktail, is that there is a diversity of responses to medications and a diversity of medications. Yes, the road can be hard, but it is a damn sight better than what I tried to live through before.
Because of these fears, I’ve known people to seek desperate self-cures to calm the moods. Alcohol, drugs are all commonly used to curb the symptoms in the name of not taking that dreaded step of getting on psychiatric medications. The sad thing is that these things worsen the condition. Many times have I watched bloggers with mental illness turn to these and make things worse for themselves — force themselves to live in constant depression — because they fear that they will disappear or become slaves of psychiatrists if they take medications.
My finding has been that once I found the right pharmaceutical cocktail, I was better equipped to be myself than ever before.
Finally, and perhaps the most dangerous, cosmically-funny-tragic thing jokes about psychotropics can wreak is that such jokes confuse medications with street drugs. I’ve spoken about the folly of self-medicating. Let me tell you another story. A friend of mine who came to visit asked me if he could try some of my Prozac. Uh, why would you want to do that? “I’ve heard all about this Prozac and I just have to find out for myself what it is like.”
Say what? Excuse me?
As I explained to him, Prozac is nothing like street drugs unless you happen to be bipolar. Then taking it can put you into a dangerous mixed state, but psychiatrists are now trained to look for that. For most people, the only thing you will notice after being on Prozac for many weeks is that you’re no longer depressed. You don’t get the fireworks of LSD or the rapidity of thought of amphetamines or the smooth, somambulence of narcotics. You get to feel pretty much like yourself.
I only take one medication that has street value. My antipsychotic ((That’s what you need to be on for delusions, paranoia, and hallucinations.)) would ruin the party for most people since what it does it eliminate much of the stuff that people take street drugs for. The purpose of my medications isn’t to help me have a party or experience altered states of consciousness but to be able to live my life without interferences like semi-visible coyotes jumping into the road in front of me or incorporeal razor blades slicing my tongue or the voices that tell me how awful I am or fears that my former employer has called every possible person who might have a job for me with the news that I am going to start a union at their company or the moods that cause me to go on spending sprees. The results of all of these aren’t fun and I suggest to those who feel the need to do street drugs, you are really trying to shut down things like this or make things worse for a little while so that when you get back to your weird sort of normal, you can say to yourself “it’s worse the other way.”
Having a mental illness ain’t for sissies. I take a dim view of those sissies who take cheap shots at the expense of those struggling to feel the world as it is instead of awash in the badly measured soup of imbalanced neuroreceptors and neurotransmitters.
The Nest
Posted on January 12, 2009 in Creatures Weather
Now that it is winter, I can see that a sparrow or a purple finch built a nest in the purple plum tree out in front of my condo. I’ve been tempted to reach out and snatch it as a souvenir but it serves a more interesting purpose: that of a gauge of the strength of the wind.
It has been blowing since very early Friday morning. Each day the National Weather Service has told us that it will end by evening the next day and then extended that forecast to the conclusion of the weekend. We’re there now. The end of the foehn is due by six p.m. In the meantime, it gets its last licks, shaking cars and windows, asthmatically whistling beyond the walls as if it were really hiding in a corner set to thrill and terrify.
Against the maleficent gusts — the [[Santa_Ana_winds|Santa Anas]] or satanas ((Raymond Chandler wrote of these: Those hot dry winds that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen.)) as they were originally called — the nest has held on, supported by three sticks pointing nearly straight into the air. That bowl of grass and twigs has become my hero, resisting that which overwhelms my moods. Tomorrow, if it is still there, I shall salute it and leave it for its maker or maybe a descendant to reuse it.
The Twitter Dances
Posted on January 12, 2009 in Anxiety IRC/Chat Micro-blogging
Sometimes you have to ease the suffering of others by blocking them so they can’t be offended by what you say.
If you are of an obsessive and sensitive frame of mind — mea culpa — participating in a forum such as Twitter can put stresses on your psyche akin to those placed on your body by participating in a dance marathon. Round and round you go, answering every remark sent your way. But just as the winner of a sixty nine hour stint complained of the sensation of always having a man’s arm around her, so, too, do I get to feeling that I’m just not up for dealing with every remark that comes my way. In the cases of some, I can say the word and they back away. In others, I find that the best thing to do is to completely sever ties — to block them from reading any contribution I make to any conversation. I can’t hear them, they can’t hear me. It’s similar to enforcing a protocol for comments on a blog or choosing whose blog you read. I see no moral deficiency in doing this.
Ah, but some will insist that I have an obligation to hear out everything every person has to say. I must be open to criticism. I agree that a little good criticism dispensed to the purpose of easing my anger or other type of suffering is a good thing. But implying that I am an asshole or that my experiences count for nothing and therefore I have nothing valid to say is not something I would say — except in the rare moment of grumpiness brought on usually by Santa Ana Winds — to any other. Nor is it anything except painful to me. So as I would do to others, I expect the same to be done unto me.
There’s a right I uphold for everyone: to choose who they can include in their circles. Note the word “can”. I am not included in every circle and I do not expect to be included in every circle. It would not do for me to tell others to block others from hearing them. Likewise I do not take serious formulae which expect that I have to take everything.
In this I may be brutal except in that I may not publically humilitate the bastards. If others have strength to cope, then I envy their power, but I do not place the same expectation on myself. It is some people’s rule that everyone can have a hearing. It is not a policy of mine to let other person’s limits be my own nor to impose mine on others. I know where I chafe: I will apply what salves and guards I need to keep me on the floor.
Book Review: Allegiance
Posted on January 11, 2009 in History Reading
[amazonify]015600741X::text::::Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War[/amazonify] by David Detzer
My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
An excruciating history is revealed here, reminiscent in some ways of the prelude to World War I. Detzer tells the story of the shelling of Fort Sumter. We have all heard about this event in school, but little do we know of the political matters and the vainglorious romance that prefaced it.
The first few chapters move slowly as statesmen probe and waffle, soldiers do their duty to the best of their understanding. No one wanted this, but it happened. As Detzer points out, not a single actor had participated in or even heard the details of an internecine conflict. They went ahead anyways, the South with secession, the North with its refusal to turn over Federal property to the rebels.
Detzer gives us the city of Charleston as it unexpectedly was in 1860-61, the Southern sympathizing officer who became a hero to the North, and the frenzy that led to the emplacement of guns around Charleston’s harbor, all aimed at the brick bastion positioned to choke off all shipping to the port. We see the slaves and the freemen, the white working class, the gentry who climbed up onto their rooftops to watch the bombardment in the early hours of the morning.
When it gets to the action, the author tells us of the intricacies of manning the guns and the extreme exhaustion of the Federal garrison. Civil War buffs will find this an interesting read that will fill in their knowledge of the months that led to war and the first days of a conflict that would ultimately wreck a whole section of the country. Read this slowly for the details, Savor the blunders, the blindness, and the prejudices that cleaved a nation.
[amazonify]015600741X::text::::Order this book here[/amazonify]
For the record, this is not a paid advertisement.
A Yawner of an Earthquake
Posted on January 9, 2009 in Earthquakes
The buzzing in the wooden stairs that lead up to our deck was the first sign that there was a happening — an earthquake. The sound worked its way through the doorframe and into the living room where Lynn and I were watching a DVD. I noticed the gentlest of tips of the overhead lamp. For thirty seconds, I heard it moving about the condo, but saw very little. Lynn said that one of the cats bounced about beneath her chair, but I didn’t see it. All in all it was a yawner of a quake, only 4.5.
Emperor Norton Day
Posted on January 8, 2009 in Festivals
Happy Emperor Norton Day on 12seconds.tv
The video reveals that this is not my birthday as my Facebook followers already know.
If you haven’t made the connection, this blog is named after Joshua Norton. You can read more about him here.
The Invasion
Posted on January 5, 2009 in Hatred War
The masterstroke of late 20th century Right — which defines itself, in part, to be proactive meaning pro-War, — was to embrace Israel and set it against Palestine so that it could slough off blame for the Holocaust. “That was Nazi Germany” the corporatist arms dealer will say as he goes about his business of arming his clients beyond all reason and rhetorically attacking those who call their actions against civilian populations war crimes. Like the Fascist, the Neo-Conservative does not make a distinction between soldiers and noncombatants, at least not one that will change his tactics of using high-explosives against civilian neighborhoods. He will always call for violent retribution unhindered by rules of war because that, he claims, is what his enemies do.
Many Israelis — and many Americans for that matter — are not aware of the degree to which they have been co-opted. I would call the majority of them not jingoists at all, but decent people who want peace with their Palestinian neighbors. The present leadership has abrogated negotiations ((The Bush Administration has put no pressure on them to do otherwise and it has blocked Security Council resolutions to end the fighting.)) and told its citizenry that they must “preempt” the Palestinian threat. This does not assuage the other side ((Supporters of the Palestinian cause have increased their rhetoric against the very existence of the nation of Israel. This invasion lessens the security of Israel. What has anyone done to pursue other means of resolving the conflict? The United States has cheered on the warring and done nothing to check the expansion into the West Bank. It has the power to ameliorate the threat against Israel by diplomatic means, but it laughs at these.)) . They, too, have addicts to never-ending war among them though they are weaker. The arms merchants are happy, some feel safer, but children die.
Right now, our aim must be to stop this invasion and resume the peace process that has lain in suspension for eight years.
The military industrial complex which feeds off these tensions has extended its tendrils into places like the U.S. Congress where it waves the flag and invents powerful enemies to keep itself in business. We are stuck with it in our lives and there’s no clear way for us to disentangle ourselves. But we must try.
This is What You Live With
Posted on December 30, 2008 in Bipolar Disorder Stigma
Defined by Disease? on 12seconds.tv
When these things come out of the blue, you never know if it is something real or based on the teller’s ((Is accuser a better word?)) personal situation. My wife, my real life friends, see no such thing. As the video says, what I have been hearing about is “letting it out more, not being so withdrawn, so safe”. So I’ve experimented with Twitter, 12 Seconds, etc. Sought my niche. And as I do, I get told “Oh, you’re going manic.”
But stop, an inner voice says. You spent the evening with several people who knew what mania was. In a group where people are accustomed to pulling one another aside and warning them, no one said a thing. That’s a bit of evidence you should be taking into account. Your wife has not given you pained eyes or asked you when your next psychiatric appointment is. One person said “Hey, I think you are losing it.” How well do they know you, really? Can you really know anyone over fiber-optic cables?
So I decide to be watchful, but not concerned. When I am manic, I tend to see mania in everyone else and blame my moods on them. I am not doing this. There are people in mania (by their report) and they are not annoying me as they would when the high spirits overtake me. The majority of people I see are fine. Some are a little lonely.
The next thing I watch for is orderliness of thoughts. I’m not jumping around from idea to idea except when answering more than one person at a time.
Third, how do I respond to arguments? Can I let them go? Yes. I have stepped away from a couple in the past two weeks. I remember them only because they are on my checklist of things to watch for. I’m not still fighting them in my head.
More of this might be settled in a walk. For a few minutes, I went out to listen to the cars passing on Santiago Canyon Road, out of my sight. Were they speeding as they passed? I hadn’t the slightest.
