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Category: Health

Razor Blade

Posted on October 24, 2016 in Encounters Prose Arcana Suicide

Someone slipped into my truck and left a razor blade on the passenger seat.

A Quick Update

Posted on August 5, 2016 in Bipolar Disorder Body Language Daily Life

I have not had an episode.

Shingles: A Cinquain

Posted on May 12, 2016 in Body Language Poems

A road of pain, ooze, scabs, and scars.

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Goodwill Slavery

Posted on April 7, 2016 in Campaign 2016 Class Stigma

The minimum wage for the disabled was set at $0.00.

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Depression

Posted on March 24, 2016 in Depression Poems

I live here sometimes

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Why Did Ted Hughes Burn Sylvia Plath’s Last Diary?

Posted on March 10, 2016 in Literature Psycho-bunk Suicide

You know what? I don’t know the answer.

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Excuse me, Senator Sanders?

Posted on March 8, 2016 in Campaign 2016 Mental Illness Stigma

Excuse me, Senator Sanders? I live with bipolar disorder. And I resent being linked in any way to the Republicans.

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Hijacked by the Peanut Crunching Crowd

Posted on March 4, 2016 in Bipolar Disorder Literature Movies Psycho-bunk Suicide

“Suicide attracts speculation and prurience like flies to rotting food.”

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Are Terrorists Mentally Ill?

Posted on December 4, 2015 in Stigma Terrorism

The kneejerk is to claim that terrorists are mentally ill.

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Madness in Senegal

Posted on October 24, 2015 in Bipolar Disorder Hospitals and Prisons Vacation 2015

square926I wasn’t able to arrange any interviews. The doctors in the Senegalese mental hospitals were defensive, fearful that I would paint a bad picture of conditions, or busy. The assurances of the State Department staff who were helping me didn’t sooth this naive patriotism or persuade them to give me half an hour, but I learned a little. There’s no social security in Senegal, so the mentally ill either rely on the care of their family or begging. I didn’t see many people who struck me as being afflicted on the streets (unlike London and Paris), so I assumed that they had been assimilated into the crowd and received care of sorts from other dwellers of Dakar’s streets.

The luckier among the mentally ill receive support from their families who send them to mental institutions where they receive treatment in the form of psychotropics. These help as long as the money holds out — a familiar story to those of us who remember the dark days before Obamacare. I can’t tell you about the conditions in the hospitals; so, I don’t know if they followed the best standards of care or if they were dank prisons where patients were chained or locked into padded cells.

Mental illness is recognized even in the more remote and traditional areas, which refutes the myth that people in Africa regard people living with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder as holy. Instead, they are ostracized and feared — as they have always been, even when they have found a niche as shamans.

Most of the mentally ill disappear into the mass of people walking the streets of this city. They are ignored and forgotten, their symptoms shrugged off which is not the reverence of the myth makers. There’s rumor of an American in one of the suburbs who is in episode; there is no retrieving him and taking him home, however, because he will not come into the embassy for evaluation.

If I stayed around, I might see more; time is running out, however.

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Senegal and other places

Posted on October 23, 2015 in Bipolar Disorder Depression Encounters Mania Vacation 2015

I’ve been in three time zones this trip

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The Trip

Posted on October 1, 2015 in Agitation Bipolar Disorder Photography Vacation 2015

Why am I doing this? I don’t want to go mad.

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