Year: 2015
The Disaster of Daylight Savings Time
Posted on March 8, 2015 in Bipolar Disorder Body Language Daylight Savings Time Routine Whines
Everyone thinks of DST as an extra hour in the evening, but it also means one less hour in the morning. 7 a.m., for example, is really 6 a.m.
Dream
Posted on March 8, 2015 in Dreams
My mother has invited me for dinner. I know the purpose is to marry me off to one of the daughters of friends who have come.
Loser Who Thinks Too Much
Posted on March 7, 2015 in Bipolar Disorder Disappointment Reflections
Both those terms have been used to describe me. An insult just doesn’t stab, it leaves a wound — not a scar, but a bleeding dripping lesion that comes to you in your worst depressions and sometimes — like now — when you are feeling just fine. I am a loser because I have not worked since I was 33 and do not have kids. I did not make a million in Silicon Valley and no one buys my photography or my writing (which I haven’t tried to sell in a long time.) Never mind that I have been married 27 years to the same woman, never hit or threatened to hit her or called her a vile name. I am a loser, a pariah.
The isolation of bipolar disorder is hell, but the isolation of my personality is worse. When I take tests such as the Myer’s Brigg, I keep scoring in the rarest categories. Less than 1% of people out there share my characteristics. We wander around, seldom meeting each other. The way we see the world, the things we strive for just aren’t appreciated or discerned by the rest of you out there. You come onto my blog, read my accounts of my illness or other aspects of my life and you don’t get me. I am a cipher, a shadow on the wall swept by the wind, a curiosity that cannot be. I, like others of my kind, feel alone. No wonder so many of us end up in monasteries or convents.
The InterNet Argument Addict
Posted on March 5, 2015 in Addictions Anger Frustration Mania Netiots
Difficult to end when I am feeling stable but energized and impossible when I am manic, InterNet disputes are a drug of choice for me. I just ended an exchange that went on for over an hour with someone on Facebook. She would not stop and neither would I. It seemed to me that no matter what I said to refute her, she kept repeating the same thing over and over. My ire was up: I had a defense to make and, equally important, someone to skewer. Then in the middle of it, I realized that I had become a Facebook Mr. Hyde, shared one last anecdote, and announced the end of my participation. Others have responded to the thread since then and I have not read what they said. Whether they indict me or stand up for me, I shall not involve myself anymore.
Long ago — on the abUSENET, I learned that it was a waste of time arguing against the trolls and cranks of the Net. If I spent a long time preparing an intelligent rebuttal to something they said, they’d dismiss it with a brute-force remark or lame witticism. Some even went so far as to create robots that would repeat the same argument every time certain key words appeared anywhere in the newsgroups. You could easily exhaust yourself fighting these. I gave it up for the Web because I realized that the newsgroups were a waste of time.
On Crippling Self-Indictment
Posted on March 3, 2015 in Anger Anxiety Avoidance Frustration Mean People
I am thrall to this stupid, American insistence on balance, on not taking sides.
The Medical Marijuana for Bipolar Disorder Lie
Posted on February 20, 2015 in Addictions Bipolar Disorder Lies Psycho-bunk
UPDATED
Everyone seems to have a friend who has been helped by medical marijuana. When my wife had chemotherapy, we had it as a backup in case the anti-nausea drugs did not work for her. Glaucoma is a disease with medical research backing the effectiveness of medical marijuana. But the medical marijuana industry goes beyond what is proven by science. It welcomes those who use it for many other diagnoses despite the absence of peer review studies. In other words, if you can get a doctor or a nurse practitioner to write you a script, you can get high legally for any disease you can name. And the worst of the lies medical marijuana prescribers and retailers let fly is the lie that marijuana helps the symptoms of bipolar disorder.
Here is my full disclosure: First, I do not oppose legalization of marijuana provided it is regulated at least as well as alcohol. There need to be laws governing its sale to minors, bans against driving under the influence, etc. But other than that, I have no problem with seeing it available as a leisure drug. There’s considerable evidence that the liquor industry does not want this, but alcohol is worse than cannibis in some regards. Second, I have smoked marijuana. Here is where my strong feelings about the subject come from. When I was in college, I was talked into toking by my peers. They did not force it down my throat, they did not blow smoke into my lungs, they did not deceive me in the sense that they told me things that they knew were not true. I started using the drug by my own choice.
How Positive Thinking Poisons Bipolar Disorder
Posted on February 10, 2015 in Compassion Depression Ettiquette Stigma
When you are depressed, society forces you to lie.
Dream
Posted on February 10, 2015 in Dreams
I walk into the kitchen and discover that someone has tried to bake a cherry pie in the microwave
The Hidden Side of Gia Carangi
Posted on February 2, 2015 in Addictions Bipolar Disorder Fashion Movies Stigma
We think better of drug addicts than we do of the mentally ill.
Bipolar Disorder in a Time of Hate
Posted on January 30, 2015 in Bipolar Disorder Campaign 2004 Campaign 2010 Campaign 2012 Hatred Propaganda Violence
What does one do in an America of violence, alienation, and stigma?
This new country: ADD
Posted on January 29, 2015 in ADD Mania Psychotropics
I seem to accrue more and more diagnoses to cover my symptoms.
