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. The American cult of Positive Thinking demands that we do not speak ever about our unhappy experiences or moods. If you live in Europe and someone asks you how you are, it is perfectly fine to say “Well, I didn’t get a good night’s sleep last night” or “I’m a bit down today”. Here in America, you are expected to say “Good” or “Everything’s all right.” If you stray even as far as saying “Fine” or “OK”, the alarm bells in the questioner’s head go off. This is not satisfactory. This suggests creeping negativism and negativism, the Positive Thinker believes, must be ever and always avoided and suppressed.
If you tell the truth, you find yourself saddled with guilt. Other people don’t want to hear about your bad day. They might mock you, call you a “downer”, or tell you to “cheer up and get with the program.” Your bad mood is a burden to others: they don’t like the suggestion that they have to spend a little time listening to you or that they might be a contributing cause. So you say that you are doing well. In summary, you feel guilt for having ruined their day when the reality is that they have ruined yours with their insensitive expectations of a life free from “negative people”.
Your feelings count. Avoid the Positive Thinkers because they are poison. Find people who are real. They have good ears and just hearts.
Dream
Posted on February 10, 2015 in Dreams
I have a crowd of relatives and friends at my house of dreams. They are in every room. I walk into the kitchen and discover that someone has tried to bake a cherry pie in the microwave and the tin pan has melted through the bottom of the oven. I conclude that my friend Mary is responsible, so I go looking for her. Another visitor confesses to the blunder. I catch him as he is trying to go out the door. As I prepare to get him to buy a new oven for me, he slips out and rushes to an airplane that will take him to Europe.
The Hidden Side of Gia Carangi
Posted on February 2, 2015 in Addictions Bipolar Disorder Fashion Movies Stigma
A cult has grown around the memory of dead supermodel Gia Carangi, mostly due to the movie of her life with Angelina Jolie in the title role. The film explores many facets of her troubled personality including her drug use, her obsession with her lover, her bisexual promiscuity, and her death from AIDS. Her problems, we are led to believe, stemmed from her drug use which made her irritable, anxious, depressed, hyper, and in the end terminally ill with HIV.
Many have speculated that Gia was bipolar. This could be a strong post-mortem diagnosis given her interludes of manic behavior and severe depression. A Gia Carangi fan site says
Gia frequented New York’s jet-set night spots, such as Studio 54, and developed a heroin problem during the latter part of her life. Because of Bipolar Disorder, Gia experienced extreme mood swings and would walk out of a fashion shoot if she didn’t feel like doing it. She constantly medicated herself with heroin. Carangi made several attempts at fighting her heroin addiction, attending rehabilitation centers multiple times. In 1983, she was profiled on ABC’s 20/20 magazine, in a piece focusing on the dark side of modeling. In June of 1986, she was diagnosed with HIV, becoming one of the first famous persons to be diagnosed with the disease, and also the first famous female diagnosed.
The makers of Gia completely overlook the possibility that Carangi’s eccentric behavior was driven by an organic brain dysfunction. None of the semi-fictional “interviewees” alludes to bipolar disorder though likely symptoms are depicted.
Bipolar Disorder in a Time of Hate
Posted on January 30, 2015 in Bipolar Disorder Campaign 2004 Campaign 2010 Campaign 2012 Hatred Propaganda Violence
Shortly before my hospitalization for a mixed state came the 2004 election. I crashed and crashed hard after the results. Politics is a fascination of mine but obsessing about it is not my friend. When my expectations are high as they were in 2004 and the hope I feel is unrealized, I take it very hard. The mix of anger and disappointment plus certain medications I was taking for depression at the time pumped me up into a mixed state. One day, when I had enough of it and of other life issues, I texted my last will and testament to my wife and sat down on a log to study my veins for the right place to cut. A timely phone call from my psychiatrist saved me.
The 2004 election was cordial compared to what has happened since 2008. Elements on both side but especially the right have been whipped into a frenzy by their respective leaders. We hear stories of blatant racism and sexism, two faults that have been hidden until the recent elections. We see them not only in the political arena but also in the news media and on the streets of our cities. Some such as Fox News are instigating their viewers to greater and greater heights of denial and fear while others just give the demagogues air time by covering them without comment. We see black men strangled or shot dead with no justice leveled against their killers. And respect for the police — even the good cops — sinks lower and lower.
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. Two months ago, I handed my therapist a pile of questionnaires. A week later, she confirmed a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder (without hyperactivity). Two weeks ago, the day after I transferred her findings to my psychiatrist, I began taking Vyvanse.
Having traveled the country of mania before my acquiescence to mood stabilizers, I worried what this daily ingestion of a stimulant might incite in me. The night before I began, my entire body cramped up in dread of losing control. I took the capsule on schedule and went about my day. The kitchen table was a project which had defeated me in the past, so I decided to try it as a test. Somehow I saw the difference between necessary papers and trash, a distinction which I had had trouble gloaming onto before. I packed some of the contents into three boxes, stacked a few books and tablets, and crammed everything else except for my laptop and an iron mouse paperweight into a plastic bag.
Was this mania? I checked for the other signs: Paranoia? No. Grandiosity? No. Irritability? No. Impulsiveness? No.
Going Beyond Hope
Posted on January 28, 2015 in Anger Fear PTSD
I arrived at an epiphany this week. The anger of others frightens me not because I fear violence, but because I dread their rage to be unending. When I contemplated where this might have come from, I remembered how things were in my family when I was growing up. First, there was the continual picking of fights by my mother and brother particularly. Then grudges were held — for years. My mother needled me about things I had done in high school forty five years after the fact! Finally, I had no escape even when I became an adult. I dreaded coming home because these scenarios would be repeated over and over again. I had dreamed of leaving this all behind when I went off to college, but adulthood failed to bring me the freedom I craved.
To survive, I developed a number of behaviors. One was to simply avoid getting into any situation where people might fight with me. I isolated. I avoided parties and other social gatherings. I visited my mother as seldom as possible. I should note that not only was the anger of others an issue, but my own anger was a problem. Rage was a second behavior that could quickly get out of hand — though I never hit anyone or threatened to do so. I kept my feelings bottled up for ages without seeking insight into them. Thus from time to time after weeks or months of provocation, I would explode. The purpose of this rage wasn’t to get people to do what I wanted, usually, but to get them to leave me alone and let me do my work. (In my family of origin, there was a duplicitous code whereby I was expected to study, but could be interrupted at any time. I fulminated to try to protect my working time.) Finally, I ran when people attacked. An example of this: One time I went for a job interview where the interviewer started shouting at me. Instead of telling her that she was out of line, I murmured some apologies, left, and drove as fast as I could to get back home. So even though I was more than willing to protect my workspace, I was a coward when people abused me.
Adult life demanded that I make changes, but I did not dare to carry them out until after my mother’s death. I finally allowed myself the freedom to react assertively to rage — apologizing where I had to and standing up for myself when the other person’s apprehension of the facts or my intentions were wrong. My exercise of these has not been perfect, but at least I am standing my ground more. And I try to hear people out more so that we don’t reach the point where they attack me.
This self-empowerment is changing my life. I have less to trigger my anger or my bipolar episodes, especially the depression. A new dream envelopes my mind, a dream that goes beyond hope and manifests itself as self-confidence.
Death, Luck, and Going On
Posted on September 14, 2014 in Bipolar Disorder Disappointment Reflections Sorrow & Regret
I count my deaths. The times when I fell down and hit my head or hit it on the top of a door frame (a hazard of being six foot six and a half inches). The time when I ran a red light and nobody hit me. The time I put on the brakes in a heavy rain and spun around and around in a circle. The time when I was rear-ended. The time — I was four — when I stuck some wire in an electrical plug and felt the juice starting to flow into my hand. The time when a dog should have mauled me. The times I was knocked about by family or other kids so hard that I heard the scream of my brain. The time when I ate raw elderberries and needed to have my stomach pumped. The times I was bitten by wild animals and should have gotten rabies. The times I ate dodgy foods from the refrigerator. The two times when I was hit by a car — one as a boy and one as an adult. I should be, by these counts, in the grave and forgotten — a presence beneath a tombstone becoming diffuse in the dirt. But I don’t even have a scratch.
What to call this existence that I am in? Heaven? Certainly not. Hell? It seems so at times. Purgatory? More likely because there are lengths when life is not excruciating. What it all shares is an unyielding guilt for having survived to do so little, to be of such little impact. I mark that I have been an embarrassment and a mistake in other people’s lives. I’m sorry, so very sorry. But I can’t help being around. This thing will end when it ends. It is not for me to decide.
Selfies and Narcissism
Posted on August 12, 2014 in Appearance Morals & Ethics Photography Reflections
Notice how people with no clue of the personalities of the people who post selfies jump to the conclusion that they must be narcissists? Appreciation of the complexity of motives driving self portraiture lies beyond the capacity of their minds it seems. I, however, believe the problem is ignorance which fuels too hasty judgements.
I have taken selfies for several years now. Many artists and photographers do. For most of us it is an exercise in our art, an experiment in composition. For many years, I did not like having myself photographed. It was a shock to see how people saw me or how I presented myself to the world. My wife, for example, seemed to include my then-ample-belly in every one of her photos of me. When I was young, I did not like my lanky frame. When middle-aged, my stomach. Now in my late fifties, I don’t care about these things so much because I have spent a lot of time desensitizing myself to my own face and body. This isn’t narcissism: it is self-experiment and rehabilitation.
What about the young woman who shows her cleavage or her legs? I have to ask why the obsession with how young women choose to present themselves? I will grant you that there are narcissists among them, but the focus on young women in particular rankles of sexism. There are men who like to present their six-packs. And men and women who are not so pretty and fit who still show their faces and bodies. Are these narcissistic or are they merely trying to show the world that they, too, are attractive?
It is no sin to like your face and body. Calling others ugly or narcissistic because they don’t measure up to your standards of beauty or privacy strikes me as more contemptible. I have come to like my face and I like the faces that others post, too. It’s not all about me, but about the comeliness of the human race. Instagram, Snapchat, and Dailyboother when taken as a whole celebrates us for what we are. Human beings are meant to be seen.
Check out my new blog
Posted on May 16, 2014 in Blogging Site News
No, I am not closing down Pax Nortona. I am merely making some separation. Chaparral Hiker is devoted to my adventures in the brush and beyond. Hope to see you there soon!
Mood stabilizer
Posted on May 2, 2014 in Poems
I foreswore
anguish
for a silver dawn
but I also
gave up
rabid joy.
Colors
Posted on April 4, 2014 in Encounters Mania Therapy
Awakening brought a turbulence of thought. The Supreme Court decision, troubles online, and other matters swept through my head — and like a white water raftsman passing through the Inner Gorge, I thrilled to every second of it. Fortunately, I had an appointment with my therapist. I dressed, ate, walked the dog, and then got in the truck for the drive to Laguna Hills. Enroute, I came to a rise on El Toro Road. A pair of bikers mounted the crest. One wore Day-Glo green-yellow and the other a pink so bright to my hypomanic eyes that I averted my gaze so that they wouldn’t hypnotize me. Then I saw the double yellow lines streaming over the top. They had never seemed so brilliant as they had at that moment. I knew by this that my mood was surging with the slope of the road.
“There are certain difficult things that I need to do,” I told my therapist, “but I can’t do them now because I would enjoy them just too much.” She laughed because I was laughing hard.
On the way back, I saw a cop car stopped by the side of the road, its lights flashing. It started moving as I approached, then picked up speed, turned a corner and vanished into traffic. A second sheriff’s deputy came from the opposite direction. Then as I came to a stoplight, a third one entered the intersection, slowing at the crossroads before zooming to the scene of all the excitement, its lights flashing white yellow red, white yellow red.
Broken Water Main
Posted on March 20, 2014 in Disasters Neighborhood
The street was slick as if we’d had a good rain. The closer we drew to our light at the crest where Saddleback Ranch and Glenn Ranch met, the wetter the road. It was flooding near the top. A pair of police cruisers hedged off the road. In the darkness, I could see a blue-white geyser shooting into the air in a steady torrent. A firetruck stood at the ready. At the other end, more police cars blocked off the road. We splashed past our usual turn and made a left at El Toro. Lynn and I schemed about what we would do if our water was cut off by the burst. “The only water we’ll use is for drinking and flushing the toilet,” she said. “I have Gatorade on hand,” I added helpfully. When we got home, we turned on the kitchen tap expecting it to scream as empty plumbing does. But a stream bubbled into a glass and I drank it.
