I Am (not) A Rock

Part of the life of most bipolar people is regretting not living the life they could have lived. In most respects this is caused by the illness – the inability to make a keep friends, jobs, other social contacts.

But environment plays a part too. If one has strong ties to neighborhoods, friends, parent’s friends and school mates, that can go a long way towards ameliorating the effects of bipolar behavior. In short – they already know you’re kinda weird and they accept the good with the bad.

I recently felt this little sting of regret when I saw a reunion of the eighth-grade class of one of the Catholic schools that fed into Lake Catholic where I went to high school.

They aren’t the only Catholic grade school to hold such reunions. There were a lot of Catholic grade schools in the 70s that had large classes (it was the height of the enrollment boom) that sent the majority of their students on to Lake. Now, many of them are struggling to hold on and some have had to close.

My elementary school I attended beginning in November of my kindergarten year, still exists. It grew a little and became more exclusive and expensive than it was. The nuns have pretty much disappeared, giving way to lay teachers. It is in many way, a shadow of its former self. Which is a good thing.

About six miles to the north is St. Mary’s Chardon where most of the people I rode the buses with went to school. It was a bus transfer point for Notre Dame’s students. It was also my family’s parish where we went to church.

But my mother (who was the sole decision maker here – the only time in our family she was allowed to make unilateral decisions, perhaps because she was a cradle Catholic and my dad was not) refused to send me there. Her story, passed down through the years, was that a teacher at St. Mary’s told her that if she wanted the better Catholic education available, to send me to Notre Dame.

But Notre Dame has the beginnings of what would become a long waiting list to get in, as the entire school from K-8 had room for less than 400 students. So, I went to a public school, Park Elementary (strangely enough with some kids that would transfer later to St. Mary’s) until November of my kindergarten year when I was unceremoniously yanked out of what I thought was a fun school and delivered to the tender mercies of the Sisters of Notre Dame.

To say this was a shock to my system was putting it mildly. I will skip details; I’ve discussed some of them earlier in this blog.

But the real mistake was probably made earlier when my parents decided to move from Mayfield Heights to Chardon. I was on the verge of kindergarten when they moved (August 1968) and was set to go to my neighborhood public school in the Mayfield system, one of the better and later, best in Ohio.

It was also the system where my mother taught second grade – not in the school I would have gone to, mind you. But there would have been some familial clout later when she because the teacher’s union president.

I often stare at the ceiling at 3 a.m. and wonder what my life would have been like to go to school with the kids I knew in my neighborhood, without ever having to be subjected to the ritualistic humiliation suffered at the hands of the nuns, largely for two reasons – my parents weren’t rich and I was a willful and smart kid who didn’t want to hide it.

Even though my mother would never admit, I was in the worst possible situation I could have been placed in. Even she would later admit that I learned almost nothing in school relative to what I taught myself by reading. Several years into my 8 ½ year sentence, even my father was making the case to my mother that perhaps I should transfer to St. Mary’s. If you knew my father, or have read about him here, you know that his objections were significant. Usually he didn’t care if I was suffering if it would ‘toughen me up.’ But he had seen enough of the nuns’ behavior and what went on in the halls that even he was disturbed.

I got off easy. We literally drove some kids right out of that school through bullying – kids that entered in the fourth and fifth grade. And yes, I participated lest they pick on me. And I was picked on enough being a fat kid with a funny last name, a geeky intelligence and a family nowhere near the economic level of the most popular kids. And there was nowhere to escape when you spend almost nine years with the same 26 kids (more or less) in the same room.

An aside: I often wonder if it ever occurred to her when she sent me to my first shrink between seventh and eighth grade, that my school environment would have had something to do with it?

But mom held fast. First, as I said, it was the only decision she had ever been allowed to make unilaterally in our family and second, she was one of these people who believed that once you committed to something, you should stick it out no matter what the damage or regret. After all, she didn’t have to be exposed to the nuns on a daily basis, she didn’t have to stand in a lonely outfield on a hot day waiting for the occasional fly ball that I would inevitably drop.

She also didn’t have to attend the Cub Scout pack comprised of people from the local elementary schools I didn’t go to when the majority of my Notre Dame classmates were part of the pack at. . .yep. . . St. Mary’s.

I KNOW this sounds like whining and I get that. But she couldn’t have devised a childhood to fuck me up more. I was surrounded by people I couldn’t bind with. And my insecurity as I got older just got worse as the mental issues took hold. Chicken or the egg? Causation or correlation? I’ll never know.

When I was paroled from Notre Dame and went to Lake Catholic I was very intimidated at first. But the people I met were not like the kids at Notre Dame. They seemed far more accepting. There were more people like me. And a lot less snootiness. After about a month, I was in smoothly and greatly relieved.

It wasn’t perfect but for me, no environment is ever perfect. But, although it isn’t the same most people, high school, looking back, was some of the best years of my life, especially after what I had gone through.

The years immediately after high school were full of effort on my part, to retain those friendships and connections. Eventually, slowly and sometime painfully, eventually, we all drifted apart.

I guess that’s why I was so jazzed about my class reunion last year – our 35^th. Of all the friends I had known, these were the people I had gotten closest to. I was very curious whether I could make friends again and possibly keep some.

The reunion went very well. I thoroughly enjoyed it and re-connected with some people. Unfortunately, for some of these folks, my own posting about religion and Trump have undone some of these connections. To their credit, most of my classmates are still nominally Catholic, many seriously so. Catholicism and I parted company some time ago. I do miss the feeling of belonging to a community, having something in common with people and the strangely comforting rituals of the Mass. But for many, many reasons, I simply can’t go back. They have their rules and I respect them but I don’t think it can ever be again.

As for politics, the heartbreaking thing is in another time, this would not have been an issue. Unfortunately, we only had a small grace period before the election would tear some of those bounds asunder.

If we can’t find a way to get beyond it, and we probably can’t, I probably won’t go to the 40^th reunion. I still have Facebook friends that I am trying not to lose or push away for various reasons. I hope they understand that I was always just a little – maladjusted. But I mean well.

When the elementary school classes of 77, whether they be St. Justin Martyr or St. Mary’s Mentor get together, I feel that tinge of what might have been. Although I recognize many of them who went on to Lake Catholic from the Facebook photos, I know that is not my tribe. I had four years with them – they had 12 and many grew up just streets away from each other, attended the same sports and social leagues and hung out at each other’s homes.

There were only four of us from Notre Dame that went to Lake, absorbed into a freshman class of 375 students – all boys, no girls.

And many of them still have friends and family in Northeastern Ohio. I’m two hours away in Pittsburgh so I can get up there if I want, but it’s not the same. I only really interact on Facebook.

Strangely, one of the guys I went to school with at both Notre Dame and Lake Catholic lives here in Pittsburgh. We used to be thick as thieves at Notre Dame. He won’t respond to my friend requests yet he is friends with some of our mutual friends at Lake Catholic. I would be lying if I said it didn’t hurt just a little.

I realize that a set of circumstances led me to where I am today – some I had control over, some I didn’t. I love Pittsburgh. I love my wife. But one should have friends outside of their spouse. My wife does – she’s tight with both her former classmates and all the friends she’s met in her knitting hobby.

My effort to do the same at work, at the Mustang club, at the local NAMI branch, at the improv school all have ended in either regret on my part or simply not being a good fit with others. But I have tried.

It’s difficult to talk about being lonely when part of the fault is mine. Most people who know me online don’t know how hard it is for me to go to work every day and when the day is over, I’m all out of spoons and find it difficult to leave the house for socialization. In fact, on my days off, I find I almost always have to work up the nerve to leave the house at all.

I try to be someone I’m not to make friends because I’m always worried that people won’t like the real me. And to those who always say, ‘be yourself’ I can go over my track record where that has lost me enough people in my life. And besides, this three-page whine has gone on far too long.

It just hurts.

#ImNotAshamed

It’s a big day for this hashtag on Twitter.

You can find the movement at https://twitter.com/teamnotashamed

It’s designed to help young people speak out about mental illness and hopefully break down the stigma which leads to self-harm and suicide.

If you look at their face page you’ll see a panorama of smiling, young people staring back at you. I wish them the best. Maybe their generation will be the one to finally put stigma out of business. One can hope at any rate.

Many of them are from the UK (Team Not Ashamed is in NYC) where services, yes, even the NHS, are as shitty as ours but the big difference is there are FAR more non-corporate grass roots advocacy groups there than here. Here in US it seems, no one wants to do it unless they can get a corner office and an expense account (I’m looking at you NAMI).

In any case, I had a twitter exchange with a young lady from the UK this morning that basically had an ‘I don’t give a shit’ attitude toward those who refuse to acknowledge her personhood.

Of course, she is young and can bounce back and find a great deal of grassroots support, as I have said, where she is. Not so simple in the US, as I have found. Copping that kind of attitude, as righteous at it may be, means usually a quick trip to the unemployment line, poverty, incarceration, even worse.

You know I’ve been there and I needn't repeat the story.

Am I ashamed?

Honestly, yes, I am. At least outwardly, I have to be. I live in a society where mental illness is still largely regarded as a personal moral failing and psychiatry has much the same prestige as quackery. While there are some parts of the US where the attitude is different, in most places, it’s still best to keep it to yourself and if you can’t do that, at least apologize for it if it offends anyone or gets in the way of making money.

In all honesty I would MUCH rather have the police called on me in the UK if I were having a mental emergency (or Germany, or France, or Denmark, or Norway, or. . . ) than in the US. Do I need to say why?

If I knew at 18 what I know I know, I would be in another country. Not because I hate America but because I would need to be in a society where people with my issues are more accepted – not necessarily more helped – but more accepted, especially in the workplace.

In the ongoing crisis with my Federal workplace, my union representative even cautioned me not to fall back on my condition for any reason even though the VA has programs for accommodating the hiring of people with various disabilities including mental illness.

“All they’ll hear is that you can’t do the job anymore and they’ll get rid of you for that,” she said.

But I can and HAVE been doing the job, and, I have been WORKING steadily since I turned 16. I’ve had a grand total of seven months of unemployment in 37 years.

Why now?

I ran into a group of people I should NOT have let my guard down with or been honest with in any way. I have this naiveté that people, especially in places like where I work, are decent and caring and helpful. I really have no one to blame but myself for walking into this and giving nasty people a sword to run me through.

If I am ashamed of anything, it’s that. I wish I could keep my guard up like other people. I don’t understand it, since I am usually a pretty paranoid person – just one who can’t keep from oversharing.

And I see a presidential candidate that can be counted upon to look at mental illness in the usual American way. You slackers won’t get any sympathy from Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton may be making false promises, but she’s at least being respectful.

So, for me, it’s not so much shame that’s the issue, its despair. And I think that’s a lot more dangerous. 

September Song

It's September and It's National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month.

Don't get me started. . .

BFD

So you may ask: why so sarcastic.

Here's two stories that buttress that sarcasm:

She didn't kill herself but it illustrates a larger point:

Young woman's journey ends tragically in mental hospital

No she didn't. But the system cares more about preserving it's own budgets than the life of any one person:

My mother didn’t have to die 

The point is we can  have all the 'months' and press kits and hollowed-out shells of social service agencies but if we don't think of each other as our own brothers and sisters, if we don't really the value a life other than its ability to produce revenue, then it's all a sham; a feel-good exercise that happens every year and improves nothing.

My experience with the local NAMI chapter always reminds me of that. Careers! Budgets! PR! Isn't it any wonder that non-profits have such a bad reputation as being snake pits to work in?

So there's this video on The Mighty.

It's typical of the kind of slickly produced feel-good videos they make that are supposed to have a salutary effect on the lightly disturbed. I say lightly, because I have a real problem believing these are intended to be effective with people in the depths of the hell that is their own personal illness.

It also plays on the latest gimmick of 'showing notes' to music, a technique that has been beaten into the ground.

I know its against the whole zeitgeist of present-day feel-goodism about mental illness, but why don't we take a realistic look at what might be the reply to some of these 'notes.'

1. . . .it really does get better; I promise you won't regret sticking through it. -- well, that's a hell of a promise to make and who are 'you' anyway? I've been waiting for it to get better for 40 years. How long before my magic unicorn arrives to deliver me to 'wellness land?' If I have to look forward to seven more years in that pit of hell I call my job, you're not doing me any favors.

2. You deserve to give yourself one more try -- 29 psychologists/psychiatrists, 25 different medications. Where's the 'pharmaceutical unicorn?'

Oh speaking of which, HALFTIME! (H/T Drew Megary) Enjoy a funny video:

OK, fun's over, back to The Mighty:

3. Open up. . . let someone in so they can find a way to help you through your tough times -- don't try this at work, OK kids? Also, for many, don't try this with your family or even your spouse (I'm lucky on that one). And remember the only reason your shrink listens to you is because you're PAYING them and most social service agencies see you as a numbered cog to get more funding. We clear on all of this? Oh wait, your church? Be serious here. They expect Jesus to cure you. Went that route too. Good luck to you because if Jesus won't cure you, the church figures it's part of God's plan. . . that you be miserable, perhaps to provide a warning to others.

4. Please reach out -- see above.

(and what's with that nail polish? so distracting)

5. Suicide is not a solution/it doesn't fix anything -- I keep finding it amazing that groups like The Mighty and the rest ignore the dirty little secret of suicide - people kill themselves to MAKE THE PAIN GO AWAY. Geez, why is that so hard to admit? Everyone has their breaking point and people who commit suicide have reached theirs. Perhaps they just needed another video. Or month.

6. This world needs you -- I used to think that. I really wanted to be of service to the world; whether is be as a journalist, radio host, civil servant. But they don't want to put up with my 'crazy' so most of those careers died in the fetid bowels of HR.

(I'm skipping a few here)

7. Getting help is easier than the alternative -- seriously? Unlike what you read in The Mighty, in the real world, getting help is about as easy as depicted in the two Post-Gazette stories I linked to at the top. And God help you if you live in a rural area AND don't have health insurance.

8. It's a thought; don't listen -- OK, for some people, it's be a 'thought' for years. They listen, they just don't act on it. Until they do. One of the biggest problems with many mental illnesses is the difficulty in turning off those thoughts. And the drugs that do turn off those thoughts pretty much turn off the ability to think and operate in the real world as well.

9. Someday the light will come, blah, blah, blah -- just stop already.

Our culture is full of feel-goodism because it's a whole lot easier than shifting spending priorities to really fund agencies that are less concerned with empire building than doing the job they supposedly were created to do. And to do that, you have to find people with a real passion for it and pay them what they are worth. And we also, as a society, need to stop looking at people as economic units and look at them as . . . well, for you Christians who hate paying taxes, God's creations (stop laughing). And of course, there's the stigma, all the stigma. But it makes for great reality TV.

Oh, by the way, here's what you can expect when you 'reach out' and 'tell someone' about your 'suicidal ideation:'

1. You may be forced into a mental hospital, pumped full of drugs until you're 'cured' or your insurance runs out, then you'll be thrown out into the street to arrange your own aftercare. Remember, in America, you're pretty much on your own for most of your mental health care.

2. You might lose your job and spend the rest of your life on public assistance begging for the help and medication that Medicaid thinks you deserve.

3. You might have certain employers or 'helping agencies' overreact to a report you may be suicidal and send cops to your house to actually assist you in the act, or set in motion points 1 and 2.

4. You might lose your friends or at the very least, you'll find out who your friends are. After all, people are busy and have their own problems. You got bootstraps? Pull 'em.

5. Points 1-4 may actually make you more suicidal than you were before.

Are you aware of suicide now? Good. They did the job.

Call me a curmudgeon but I'm genuinely sick of it all. Suicide prevention awareness month? We don't mean it, so let's stop pretending we do, OK?

One Way Out

I had a pretty heavy session with my shrink today.

She agrees my job is killing me.

She wants me to find a way to quit. I'm supposed to talk it over with my wife.

I'm wondering what kind of world my shrink lives in.

I think my dream from last night convinced her. In my dream there was an urgent voice telling me it was December 22 and I needed to get ready because Christmas is almost here.

You need to wear something red and green, the unknown presence urged me. You don't want to miss Christmas. You are so unprepared.

You need to get presents, you need to find your Christmas decorations.

I wasn't at my present house. I felt that I was at my family home but then again, it wasn't really. Somehow I sensed my father's presence, but he wasn't the voice urging me.

I roused myself in a way one rouses themselves from a lucid dream.

Barely cognizant, I thought out loud. "It's August, what the Hell?"

And then I fell back into a deeper sleep and it started right up again.

It's December 22nd! You're unprepared! You need some red and green! It's almost Christmas! You need to get moving!

This time I REALLY yelled in my dream - 'It's AUGUST DAMMIT! It's not Christmas! It's not December 22, it's AUGUST!

This actually went on for awhile.

When I finally woke up completely, I remembered what December 22 was.

December 22 was the day the work police came to my office to question me about the 'concerns' of some other employees. It was the day I was ushered off the premises and would remain off the premises until March 11.

I have no idea what this means but it shook the hell out of me.

I told my shrink that July 8 (when the SWAT team came) and December 22 will always be forever burned into my mind and it is nothing that I can erase. Like December 13 when my mother died, ever year I will remember because my conscious and unconscious mind will MAKE me remember.

I told my shrink that despite the way things were going at work now, that in the six years I have worked at the VA, that job has sucked any joy I had left in my life right out of my system. And now it plays across my subconscious. This may seem to be overstating the case, but for me, but it is a form of torture; my own form of PTSD based on mainly those two incidents.

The obvious questions:

Can't you find another job in government locally?
I have really tried. I was actually interviewed at NIOSH (part of the CDC) in Pittsburgh last October and thought I had it nailed. The two jobs that were open actually went to two of my co-workers. No one can tell me something funny went on there. They talk under the radar and I'm sure the word was put out. I had, the summer before, actually been flown to Raleigh to interview with the CDC. Nothing came of it.

So even if I was willing to move, the odds are the word would or already has gotten out. And, seriously, they're not looking for someone my age at my rate of pay anyway. 

Can you find a PR job in private industry?
I have tried that over the years. I have no agency experience and they look askance at government employment in this field (and I understand why). Also: I'm too old and male. They like hiring younger people fresh out of college that they can pay cheap. The young man that was hired at NAMI (last blog post) is a perfect example. And I applied for that job and wasn't even interviewed. Even if I had been, my salary would have been less than half of what I'm making now.

I'm a dinosaur. There's no going back to print journalism or radio. Both of those career fields are as good as dead.

I tried telling my shrink that I'm trying to gut it out, play mind games with myself, use my copious annual leave and try to find something else to occupy my free time.

The problem is, well, the problem is the paranoia and anxiety I experience every day there, the quasi-PTSD from the two incidents and the growing intrusion of work in my dreams.

Again, it may seem like I'm overstating the case but when you're already working with bipolar 2 and general anxiety disorder the things other people have the resilience to overcome, people like me get ground down.

And yes, I feel like a loser. But I keep working, keep plugging away. I get up and march my ass back to the office and do the best I can. I should think that would count for something on the credit side of my life account.

But I think my shrink is worried about me. She wants me  to talk it over with my wife.

The session ended before I could get into why it wouldn't matter.

We need my salary to keep the house. Period. And pay the bills. Period.

When I got married I made a commitment to keep up my end of the deal. I do this because I love my wife and felt she deserved the life she had not had. I wanted her to have a house with a real backyard. A good car. Room to enjoy life. I wanted her to be happy.

Going on disability goes against every fiber of my being. I have worked with only seven months total of unemployment since I was 16 - that's 37 years. I was taught that real men with all their limbs and otherwise healthy, do not sit at home watching TV drawing a government check. If I had been to war as a reservist (which I was, but never saw combat) and was wounded or disabled as a result of combat experience, it would be different. To look at me is to see no wounds. I don't see wounds. Other people have it far worse.

If I did this I would be ashamed of myself, fairly or not. I would have trouble looking my wife in the eye and everyone else. I will drag my battered psyche and my fat ass into work until I drop or make retirement which would be in seven to nine years, depending on the breaks.

And we could not keep the house on disability payments.

I am employed. I am lucky. There are people much worse off than I.

There is no way out for me except one. And my wife would rather have me alive.  But if grinding down my life is the price I have to pay some day to hold up my end of the deal, then I must be willing to pay it. I have two other failed marriages where I didn't make it work. I will be damned if I don't live up to my responsibilities this time.

So next week, I want to hear how my shrink thinks I'm going to quit my job while simultaneously finding a way to shit money out of my ass.

No matter how this ends, even if I drop at my desk, no one is going to accuse me of being a lazy ass who didn't work for a living. Somehow, someway, I have to find out how to make it work.

It's just rIght now, I haven't a clue how.

God bless and keep my wife. She remembers the day the cops came too: every time the phone rings when she's in the shower.

And while you're at it, please stop these dreams and the early morning panic that goes with them.

He felt her lying next to him, the clock said 4:00 am
He was staring at the ceiling
He couldn't move his hands
Oh mama mama mama come quick
I've got the shakes and I'm gonna be sick
Throw your arms around me in the cold dark night
Hey now mama don't shut out the light
Don't you shut out the light

(Springsteen, 1983)

How I Got Blacklisted by NAMI

NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness, which is great place to build a career, if you know what I mean) has a program for the mentally unbalanced like me to go and give testimonies (and free advertising for NAMI).

Unless you take offense to the way we treat you

Without knowing much about the actual program, I sent in my app and received a call from one of the honchos running the program. She was looking forward to seeing me. Two weeks later when I showed up, she had not only forgotten who I was, I looked up and down the table and didn't see a name card with my name on it.

You don't do that to me.

I had already applied for a job there that I was well-suited for - communications/outreach. Heck, why not? I worked at 5 daily newspapers, had a radio talk show, worked for three Federal government public affairs shops, AND - Bonus! I'm whacko bipolar 2. Did I mention I have extensive public speaking experience?

I never heard anything from my app until that initial meeting where they introduced the guy they hired. Unsurprisingly, he was half my age, thin, pretty and deferential and damn happy to have this job. Geez, I could have accepted it if they had just interviewed me.

Well, the woman who didn't remember talking to me, fussed around and made a hand-written name card which she plopped in front of me, and pulled an unused seat from the corner of the room for me to sit in.

Ever feel like Charlie Brown in real life?

Oh, I should also mention that for the last five months I had been coming to this room for a support group meeting for people with bipolar illness and their friends and family. My input was genuinely appreciated by the parents who were going through such a rough time. I wanted to do what I could.

I wanted to get involved.

So now I'm sitting here like a dork with my hand drawn sign, looking around the room and seeing many of these people already know each other (like a club) and then the moderator slaps a packet of information in front of me that was sitting untouched at another table.

Welcome to NAMI. Want a cookie?

At the first break, I left, but not before I wrote a little clue for the staff on the back of the form. Basically, I said, here I was, a guy with bipolar2 and social anxiety and you TALKED TO ME two weeks ago, promptly forgot who I was, lost my application, acted like I was an interloper of some kind, never apologized - do you wonder why I left? We're not supposed to treat our own like this, don't you think?

I never got a response and I never heard from the support group again - not even an email asking where I was nor a newsletter.

Blacklisted by NAMI. Well.

In the end, it was just as well. What became clear in looking at the materials I was given is that NAMI would strictly control what we would say about ourselves when out in public. Remarks had to be structured to a prearranged formula which needed to be covered from A to B to C. And the class would drill this formulaic speaking into you and make sure you followed the script by sending more senior speakers with you on your speaking engagements.

You know, to see if you're reliable.

If I'm going to talk about my illness, it's going to be on my terms on my time. Picture a stand up comedy routine married with a TED talk. Sort of. I'm good at it. I used to entertain thousands before I pissed off the cops and politicians by telling the truth about them.

But being well medicated and understanding my history, no one would have any worries about my public speaking.

But I will not get in anyone's straight-jacket. Yes, that's intended.

I guess I should not have been surprised by what went down. It's happened before in other venues. I've read comments in Psychology Today and other mags bemoaning why is it that the people in the 'helping professions' are such Machiavellian assholes to their co-workers and within their profession? I'm picking on NAMI here, but I've heard the same thing about other organizations where careerism overcomes service.

Mentally ill people are not 'props' to expand the empire of a local MI (mental illness) organization or public profile of that MI organization's executive leadership. They are autonomous individuals with hard won pride and dignity whose 'stories' do not fit into any speech outline.

They are also people who should be treated with the utmost respect by members of those MI organizations. After all, they're the reason for your expense account.