Year: 2010
Please Shoot Down This Blimp
Posted on May 1, 2010 in DBSA Support Groups and Conferences Depression Encounters
I’m reaching that point where my earlier fears about where I was being taken have manifested themselves for real: a blimp of a depression rides in the middle of my head and I can’t pop it. Mitchell from New York said that he took me for an extrovert: like so many, he doesn’t understand that the issue is not dislike of people, but being quickly tired by them. And I have come to a place — of exhaustion, fear, and disappointment — where I both crave and vomit the company of others. Some extrovert I am who has run to a quiet corner of the DBSA National Conference to let his feelings bleed into an LCD screen.
I think myself an odd duck — stuck in a place that perplexes even those who are allegedly most like me. I’ve wondered if I am truly bipolar, then am told that it is “not meet” as Shakespeare might have put it to label myself with the illness: I am required to see that I am a person living with bipolar disorder. In this place, I doubt I am even a person, certainly not like the ones who are all around me. I feel freakish, bizarre, a disturbing if interesting specimen of humanity who bores and perplexes. Then there is that other question: why, if I can remember the details about the things that I did while in episode, why can’t I remember the feelings that impelled me to be one way or another? I walk around feeling an imposter who takes Tegretal, feeling doubt that I belong among the so-called sane, and that amidst all these others I am a tile in the floor stepped on and ignored.
Last night I ate dinner alone and tonight I shall undoubtably do the same when there is no forcing together of the peoples by schedules and included-in-the-price servings at tables in the outdoor pavilion. A man comes to open his laptop on the other side of this table and I want to squeal Please go away. If I didn’t want to hear Glenn Close’s sister at 4 pm, I would end my day in my room. Someone please shoot down this blimp. It weighs me down.
Mental Illness and the Follies of Our Enemies
Posted on April 23, 2010 in Hatred Liberals & Progressives Stigma Terminology
Stop saying that Michelle Bachmann is insane. She’s not anything like me.
Walking with My Butt to the Wind
Posted on April 22, 2010 in Body Language Coronary Neurology
I found it was easier to get discharged from a psychiatric ward than a neurology one.
Down a Cliff Under Fragments of Cloud
Posted on April 20, 2010 in Dogs Hiking Weather
What made him do it? Had he gone to the edge and just slipped? Was he testing me? Or had he decided to hell with the road, he was going to take a short cut?
When the Bootstraps Break, Have Something Ready
Posted on April 15, 2010 in Psychotropics Stigma
As a teenager and a young adult, I adopted the position that I would “pull myself up by my bootstraps” rather than take any medication for my depression or my anxiety. Pills meant that you were weak and truly crazy ((Like not taking them meant I wasn’t?)) My family of origin encouraged me in this. My wife suffered the effects ((Which fortunately did not include domestic violence. Like 97% of nonimbibing bipolars, I did not strike or threaten to strike her.)) . The years passed by and conditions inside my head worsened: the rages became more frequent and intense, the depressions more profound. It became increasingly impossible to implement the good advice therapists gave me because of the clash of storm wave to rocky shore in my head.
If I am to leave any advice to young people it is this: It can be an ennobling thing to attempt to take on your illness unmedicated and it is your right to choose such a path. But never, ever close the door to recovery by saying you will never take medication. It is not becoming addicted any more than a diabetic becomes addicted to insulin or a heart patient becomes addicted to the drugs that bring down her/his blood pressure and lessen the cholesterol in her/his system. If you need help, accept it. I made a huge mistake closing this door: my brain paid for it in the form of worsening moods, hallucinations, and anxiety. A little in the beginning might well have lessened the amount I am taking now. Be of open mind and make the right decisions for your health. You are still a human being worthy of dignity and respect if you choose to take meds. Shun those who tell you otherwise.
Why the mentally ill say “Screw You”
Posted on April 12, 2010 in Psychotropics Stigma Terrorism
The result is the usual nothing-gets-done-for-the-mentally-ill.
You Never Can Keep a Friend
Posted on April 10, 2010 in Disappointment Reflections Responsibility
After great pain, a formal feeling comes. The Nerves sit ceremonious, like tombs.
Emily Dickinson
I find the ease with which some people slough off accountability sociopathic: say you have a misunderstanding, a miscommunication. My practice is to get to the heart of the matter. If it is because I misread or misspoke, I quickly acknowledge it. I don’t stand on lies to myself or to others. My question for the world is how can others not admit mistakes of this order? These things happen and, at least, for me are easy to forgive and drop. Unless….
Here is where the sociopath takes off its trench coat and shows its ugly bones. Suppose I have responded exactly to what was said by a stranger. Suppose that person gave me no clue at first that he/she meant the opposite, but called me “stupid”. “Wait;” it could have been said at first. “What did you think I said?” Suppose someone else comes into the picture and castigates you for misreading the other person? So you quote exactly what was said, adding now that you’re willing to leave it at a misspeaking. “This kind of thing happens,” you state. “Let’s leave it there.”
You honestly want to stop the argument, but Third Party wants you to apologize for misreading what the other person said. But that’s not what happened.” You read all too well what was said. And you’re willing to leave it. Is this other person saying “Oh, I didn’t mean that!”? No. Third party directs the eyes of the room upon you. This clever ventrilloquist causes all the mouths all to say that you should be the one to apologize. The argument will not die the quiet death it deserves.
And this hurts precisely because you believe that we should be accountable for what we do and nothing more. You lose friends over it and it is written off to your stubbornness — maybe, in my case, your mental illness. It’s hard to undo because you naturally question yourself and what you do. “Am I missing something?” And on darker note, the sociopath in you makes a suggestion: maybe it is because you showed weakness by admitting your own faults in the past.
Fortunately, you ignore the sociopath. But you are still left with sadness: why do the rules of the world apply to you in this one way and to others in another? You may decide in the end that these are friends not worth having, but you keep hearing the voice of your mother saying “You never could keep a friend.” And so you have to fight the urge to let your grief step all over you.
Dancing Diamond
Posted on April 10, 2010 in Cats
Late at night, I read by flashlight. We are temporarily without light in the bedroom: our new bed has forced out the floor lamps, so we must wait for the money to afford wall lights over the bed. Boadicea comes to rest beside me. She fixates on the flashlight, rubbing her chin against the lens.
I keep the bedroom door open as I read. Across the hall, another door opens into the bathroom. A mirror covers the wall over the sink and the toilet. Once I shined the light in this direction. Bowie caught it, glimmer in the mirror and squatted fascinated.
Now it has become our game: I aim The light toward the mirror; my cat watches raptly, her desires captured by the dancing diamond.
Tired Pity
Posted on April 7, 2010 in Bipolar Disorder Morals & Ethics Sorrow & Regret Uncertainty
Every day, nearly, I meet a disturbed person, either online, in a support group, or, rarely, out in the world. The easiest, for me, are the hurt and disappointed by love: in their desperation the good in me can reach out and encourage them to pay no attention to the absence of affection in their life, to live life and know that they are likely to meet another. Harder are those who are suicidal, but not impossible. A good ear helps.
The worst for me are those whose lives are undeniably, completely screwed up either by an addiction which is killing them or codependency. It becomes clear that they are addicted to the drama in their lives — to the products of their highs and lows. Often these possess unacknowledged mood disorders. They will talk to you at length about the disaster that is their life. And you find that there is absolutely nothing you can say because being in the place you are — maybe a happy marriage, temporary financial security, a house free of dangerous family members or other violent residents — places you almost in affront. To these you listen and say nothing. They’re as difficult as the people who sometimes show up in a support group, whose manias spill over and flood the room.
I feel left only with only a tired pity. I suspect they hate me for it.
The Trail Guide
Posted on April 5, 2010 in Dogs Encounters Hiking
He was just lying in the road — not dead, but lounging as dogs do before a fire. Lynn passed him first and Drake followed. The two dogs introduced each other with a little friendly butt-sniffing, then the stray spread himself out again just below a bend on the Harding Truck Trail.
A couple of bikers came around the corner. One of them stopped to pet the red-haired mix. As they came towards me, I asked “Is that your dog?”
“I don’t know whose dog that is,” said the biker. “There’s a lady up there with a dog. Maybe it’s hers.”
“That’s my wife,” I said. “We only have the one dog.”
As Drake trotted ahead, his butt as tight as a jockey dressed for a race, the red dog came toward me. I didn’t know what to make of him. His short hair curled against his back. A pink tongue lolled out of a blocky, houndish head and a pair of silver eyes sized me up. I pulled a biscuit from my pocket and gave it to him out of pity. He took it politely.
We rounded the corner together and caught up with Lynn.
“Is there anyone up ahead?” I asked her.
She scanned the trail. “No, I don’t see anyone.” So we had a new companion. Drake tolerated him and the two of them sniffed the flowers that lined the road — blue lupines, blue dicks, and even a few California golden poppies.
The trail went down and then climbed up again in a kidney-shaped switchback, ground that I knew well. A cold wind was not matched by the bright light of the afternoon. If it had not been for the steady breeze, we would have been sweating. Instead, I rubbed my hands against my thighs to warm them and quickened my pace to warm my insides with blood.
We came to our destination, a lone eucalyptus tree that had been burned to a stick by the Santiago Fire of three years past. Lynn and I had a problem: there was a picnic bench where we fed Drake his dinner before turning back. The strange dog complicated this simple repast. I called him to one side, offering a biscuit, but Drake ran over, too. Lynn tried to call Drake back to her, but he was followed by our red guest. Finally, Lynn placed Drake’s feeding sack on the table and lifted Drake to the surface so he could eat unmolested. The red hound accepted the distraction of a few biscuits while Drake ate. Lynn lifted our Boston Terrier down so we could eat. Drake yipped and snarled when the stranger sniffed his butt, but mostly they got on peaceably if not entirely amicably.
No owner appeared, so we let the well-testicled mutt accompany us on the way back. The two dogs bounded through the uncut, undulating meadows along the side while Lynn and I stuck to the broad, rock-strewn dirt road.
Near the bottom of the hill, we asked one of the neighbors of the Tucker Wildlife Sanctuary if he knew whose dog it was. He threw up his hands and laughed when I suggested he take the dog for himself. “We’ve already got a dog.”
A family with a white West Highlands Terrier met us at the trailhead. Our companion ran over to their girl and made friends. “He’s a nice enough dog,” I said to the father. “We met him about a mile in and he’s been following us all the way.”
Our companionship ended when we put Drake in the car for the ride home. The red dog tried to jump in with him, but I forbade him using what we call the “game show noise” — a throaty call that told all dogs and cats that they had transgressed. As Lynn carefully backed out the car and drove off, we exchanged hopes that the dog would find his way home. As we reached the top of the parking loop for the turn-around back down Modjeska Canyon, we saw the dog beginning to climb the fire road in the company of the family.
“Well,” said Lynn, “I guess he’s appointed himself trail guide.”
Ending a Holy War
Posted on March 26, 2010 in Abortion Accountability Journalists & Pundits Sexuality
“I am half sick of shadows,” said
The Lady of Shalott.
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson
When it comes to the whole abortion controversy ((For the record, I have been calling myself pro-Choice even though I have personal concerns about abortion as a means of birth control. I simply cannot think of a reasonable way to outlaw it for this purpose without denying much needed help for victims of rape and women whose lives are endangered by their pregnancies. So I live with what I consider vile just as I live with legal alcohol.)) , I feel like the Lady of Shallott: there’s this huge game where each side can’t even agree about what they should call the dispute. Is it about Life or about Choice? The alternatives thrust us not into clarity, but twilight.
Such terminology — and the dispute over what that terminology should be — is an invitation to holy war. You not only fight about the laws and court decisions, but you are led to have this second fight over language. Where we are divided, we are divided a second time and completely unable to talk civilly about the meat of the issue.
For this reason, I support the decision by National Public Radio to change the terms of the debate in its coverage. A memo to all NPR staffers says:
NPR News is revising the terms we use to describe people and groups involved in the abortion debate.
This updated policy is aimed at ensuring the words we speak and write are as clear, consistent and neutral as possible. This is important given that written text is such an integral part of our work.
On the air, we should use “abortion rights supporter(s)/advocate(s)” and “abortion rights opponent(s)” or derivations thereof (for example: “advocates of abortion rights”). It is acceptable to use the phrase “anti-abortion”, but do not use the term “pro-abortion rights”.
Thank the Universe that someone is trying to change things! (And if this is not neutral enough for you, I invite you to suggest something else.
A Screech like a Crushed Hat
Posted on March 26, 2010 in Dogs
It was three a.m. and Drake would not leave the front door alone. So I harnessed him up and went for a walk in the night. Water from leaky sprinklers formed amorphous gray blob silhouettes on the sidewalks. Drake went from bush to bush, sniffing and leaving his urine autograph at each one. I grumbled. “Are you going to do anything meaningful?” I asked him. He just pulled me to the next plant.
Then as we came to a place where sidewalks met next to a grassy knoll, we heard a cry that my synaesthesiac sense registered as being shallow and broad, looking a bit like a crushed hat or static on an oscilloscope. It screeched but once. Drake’s ears went up and he pulled harder at the leash. I didn’t know what kind of animal made the sound, but my imaginings grew from a cat to a raccoon to a mountain lion.
“Let me see!” Drake begged in the words of resistance against the leash. “Whatever it is, I want to show ’em!“
“No dice Little Guy,” I replied. I directed him back toward the condo. He resisted the direction of my march, but at last surrendered to my greater power. He reluctantly climbed the stairs and pouted as we went in the door.
“I’m sorry, Little Guy, but I know you. If it had been a mountain lion, you would have done something stupid.” I pointed to his bed and he sadly curled up, his adventure cut short by his owner’s worried response to a simple mystery.
