Mick Jagger Bogarted My Meds

I know it’s been a while since I’ve written anything.

I may have mentioned it before but there are stretches where I’m literally incapable of writing anything. It’s not that the muse isn’t present, it’s just that the will is weak.

For me, writing used to be easy and fun. Now I have to be in the right frame of mind and physically up to do it. So it comes in spurts.

Anyway, I’m in the process of switching meds. My psych is switching out my Lexapro for Cymbalta. And it just took me two minutes to remember the name of the drug. Hell, I’m just popping pills so much I can’t even remember what I’m taking!

I’m on the one week weaning which is always a fun time when you’re taking two SSRIs at the same time. How have I been feeling? A weird kind of mellow is how I would put it.

I’m mellow but confused and forgetful. And, I’m dropping almost everything I touch.

Still, mellow like a hash buzz is better than the Midnight screaming meemies. For those of us who have been trying to find the right med combination for decades, the period between switching one to the other is partly opening the presents on Christmas morning and partly dread. You don’t know the longer lasting effects until weeks pass.

Why Cymbalta? The psych feels it will give me more energy, less lethargy, perhaps an appreciation of golf on TV, I have no idea. I remember I was on it once but I don’t remember why I got off it.

Such is life in the Wide Wide World of Psychotropic Medication.

Good points:

Occasional Zen-like moments of introspective tranquility – even at work

Better sleep

Bad points

Appearing and feeling occasionally drunk; balance issues.

Loss of extemporaneous speaking prowess.

Weird points

Zen state causes me to stare at inanimate objects and contemplate their existence. Staring at a lock on a door: “Wow, always wondered just how locks work with the keys and all that. Fascinating construction. Wonder what metal it’s made of? Beautiful man!”

Earwigs – the songs you hear or just appear in your head become mantras that last a long, long time. Currently, walking down the hall:

Laughter, joy, and loneliness and sex and sex and sex and sex
Look at me, I'm in tatters
I'm a shattered
Shattered

Cool beans bro.

No I’m just groovin’ to the morning vibes. Don’t ask me how I drive. Man alive, thrive on jive.

I’m a cool poppa, 54 going on 21; what the Hell, it beats curling up in bed hiding from the world, shaking and sweating into the sheets. God love Big Pharma.

Rats on the west side, bed bugs uptown

I’m a creative. I write. I’m in control of my brain though I’m feeling my emotions drain. It’s vanilla shit but the vanilla beans are fresh and I’m satisfied.

Spacing out at the keyboard, wondering how long this will last

My brain's been battered, splattered all over Manhattan . . .

Shadoobie, my brain's been battered

my brain's been battered;

brain's been battered;

battered;

shattered;

Shadoobie;

;

OK, So I Lied

I've been nicely strong-armed back to a blogging group on Facebook in which we work to increase each other's blog awareness.

I've never been a part of such an effort but the people who run it, run it like schoolteachers. To wit: you get an assignment every Monday to link a FB post to this FB page. Then other members read and comment and like and well, I'm still trying to grasp it completely, but I thought it would push me in a more positive direction and keep me writing.

They are strict - do the assignments, don't fake it, or you're kicked out.

Writing is hard work. For me, it used to be a breeze but depression knocks the winds from your sails in many ways, especially bipolar depression and my traveling companion, anxiety. So it's very tough for me to write regularly - the muse comes in spurts. Heh heh (forever 12).

Anyway, I had a great time in New York City but when I came home I crashed very hard and am still not in a good place. The sick reason is that I was having so much fun I completely put work and all other troubles out of my mind.

You may think that's a good thing - but the way my mind works, when I came back on Wednesday, the shock of going back to work was too much. You see, when I worry, I'm prepared. Yes, I count the hours until I get back to work but it prepares me mentally for whatever may happen.

To forget my troubles for four days invites a sort of mental illness tsunami in which ALL of the worries come back at once. It's easier for me to deal with them continuously. As a consequence, I told my wife we'll probably not take a vacation like this for a long time.

Yeah, it sucks big time.

In addition since coming back, I've been having heightened anxiety and work flashback which have really thrown me for a loop since I haven't experienced those in many months. I see my shrink on Wednesday and we need to talk about this. The Ativan isn't working like it should - I'm taking more - and I feel like I'm on the verge.

Being 'on the verge' is not a good place to be, believe me. I even departed FB for the weekend because I realized beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was harming me. How? When I get really angry, anxious, worried or lonely, I post things that I should not - I'm trolling for attention and I become one of those people I dislike on FB. It also feeds a bad spiral that causes me to become more depressed, anxious and mad and post more.

I think it's therapy - it's not. It's coming apart in front of a small audience of friends, many of whom do not know how to take it, And I'm putting those friends in an uncomfortable situation. Facebook is a drug - it can be good or bad but when I'm in a serious state it's a bad drug.

Twitter seems different but that's because I try to avoid getting into flame wars and only deal with people in my interest circles. Yes, it's an echo chamber (so is FB) but people like me can't, and I really need to stress this, can't let their emotions drag them into something they regret. And when my emotions are on a hair-trigger, that is not a good thing to exhibit on a forum more public than Facebook.

I recently finished binge watching '13 Reasons Why' which will be the subject of another blog post.

PS: I told you all that my writing would reflect the mood I was in on a particular day and I wasn't kidding.

Boring Man Goes to New York

There are, it seems, 10,000 blogs in English talking about various mental illnesses. Mine is one of those.

Of course, I want to talk about other things as well, with an emphasis on sharing my experiences in midlife dealing with bipolar2 and anxiety issues.

I don’t think I’ve been doing a very good job of it. I’m not good at self-promoting. I feel I have something to say but, really, are my experiences any better or worse; is my writing better or worse than the other 10,000 bloggists? I read some incredible blogs, some that literally want to make me stand and cheer.

I look at what I write and it seems flat.

I really used to be better than this. I was a columnist for two daily newspapers. I’ve been a journalist most of my life. I used to get a lot of kudos for my columns and it kept me going. I enjoyed writing them. I am acutely aware, right now, that my short sentences must sound like a jackhammer on the brain.

In the last several years, I have forced myself to write through the illness for my own mental health. This does not always produce entertaining or enlightening material. And let’s face it: no one wants to read vanilla blogs.

It is a great sadness to me that writing only comes when it comes. Several days go by and I just can’t do it, even though I have something to say. And when I do, it all seems so flat; sort of the writing equivalent of a flat affect personality.

Is it the medication? I think that plays a part. When I miss the highs and lows I also miss a lot of the creative spark that could send my writing flying in all kinds of exciting (and dangerous) directions.

Am I more afraid? Perhaps, but I’m getting over that. Pretty much everyone who knows me knows what I’m dealing with. There are certain things and people I can’t write about, family being one of them.

I think it is possible that I fear wasting the reader’s time. I’m probably doing that right now.

Author David Foster Wallace worried extensively about his medications hashing his creativity. A switch in medication led him into a downward spiral resulting in his suicide. Considerations of dropping medications for the sake of creativity are not to be taken lightly.

As much as I miss a lot of the old me, I understand why I must stick to my medication. The mania that was so self-destructive is held at bay and the depression, well . . . it’s handled as best as can be expected.

My psychiatrist has suggested subbing Celexa for Lexapro when I get back from New York. I doubt it will make me feel like a ‘new man’ whatever that means, but I’m more willing to experiment (with her supervision) than I would have been two years ago.

The basic problem is I can experience all the lows but the highs bring with them a certain glib silliness without the energy and creativity I would like to experience again.

My psychiatrist said I should mentally prepare myself for our (my wife and I) upcoming trip New York City. I told her that I was doing that by imagining every terrible thing that could happen to us.

Why do I do this? Simple – it’s insurance for the anxiety. If I go through every bad thing that might happen, if it does happen, I’m mentally prepared for it and it’s less of a big deal than being surprised. If nothing happens and I have a good time – it’s a bonus.

This is the typical thinking of people with anxiety issues. It’s why so many of us find it hard to relax and have a good time. Going to New York is me pushing myself far out of my comfort zone on the off chance that I will actually enjoy myself. It beats sitting on the couch wondering: what if?

My Story in 'My Life and Mental Illness'

Here's the link: https://mylifeandmentalillness.wordpress.com/2017/04/20/keiths-story/

Here's the main page: https://mylifeandmentalillness.wordpress.com

I'd like to thank Maria for including my story in her blog. I am one of many people who are telling their stories in the fight against the stigma surrounding mental illness. These stories show that we're your friends, co-workers, family and people you meet everyday.

May, by the way, is Mental Health Month. Follow that link to find out all about what's being done to raise awareness and fight stigma. Also, a major point is that awareness is not enough - services have to be available and affordable or society will continue to pay the price.

I recently found out that in parts of rural America there may be one psychiatrist or psychologist for an area containing 50,000 people? And even if people find a mental health professional nearby, many times they don't have insurance - you know the drill.

In a way, mental illness touches everyone - probably someone you know. Like any other illness, it is treatable and people do recover and are productive members of society.

I am very lucky to have such a supportive wife and Facebook friends that put up with my screeds. Many people don't have such a support system and that's what this month is really all about.

I hope you'll take a few minutes and read these stories and look at some of the materials linked above.

High Anxiety

The reactions to my Monday therapy experience have not gone away. This morning I was as nervous as I’ve been in many a month.

I don’t get it. Maybe a therapist could tell me. For two weeks, I unpacked some fairly traumatic experiences in my life. The first week was work, the second week was family. This may be because the entire conversation centered on trauma.

I hate that I can’t control the ‘willies’ as I like to call them through conventional means. My brain races too fast for mindfulness techniques and Ativan will only take me so far. It’s not good to either drive or try to work popping too much of that drug.

Yesterday in a meeting I got the ‘willies.’ I hoped no one saw me taking the deep breaths in through the nose and slowly out the mouth. That DID buy me time.

This week, routine meetings have become ordeals of nervousness and paranoia. Today I have to attend a noonday awards banquet which I am dreading. At least I get a free meal which is about the best I can say about the experience.

My new therapist promised to teach me some techniques (which I probably already know) for managing these issues. I wanted to unpack some more personal garbage but perhaps I should give my continuing reveal a rest. She’s already diagnosed me as PTSD (and surprised other mental health professional haven’t) and knows enough about me to get to techniques. I suppose the rest of the shit package can be unwrapped later.

The rudimentary Cognitive Behavioral Therapy hasn’t been of much use either. I KNOW I will survive the day. I KNOW I can make it through this awards luncheon. I KNOW I can somehow manage my workload. My rational brain knows these things and keeps telling me I’ll be OK. But all of that knowledge seems to be overridden by – what? I don’t know. Some part of the brain that likes to fuck with me.

It is one of the most frustrating parts of the illness – getting mad at yourself for not being in control, thereby starting a vicious circle.

Yesterday something else happened. I had an eye appointment and went to get glasses. While waiting in the mall for the glasses, I experienced phenomena that comes about every 18 months to two years.

I will write a post in Facebook or Twitter and then come back to that post in 20 minutes and the post will look foreign to me – I didn’t write it that way. I can remember I wrote a post – right there – but not using those words and phrases. It’s like someone, not me, completely rewrote it.

It’s a scary thing. I tend to panic and start looking at other posts and tweets, making sure I haven’t written anything odd or offensive. I used to joke that I think my ghostly rewrites were better than the original text.

So I did post about it, trying to explain that my posts might not be written in my normal style and that if I wrote anything people found odd or offensive to forgive me. I said I’d look at them tomorrow and correct or delete them if so.

Of course, while writing that post, I was fully aware that these words might not look the same to me 20 minutes later. So I stared at the post for about 10 minutes trying to make sure.

When this happens I feel like I’m losing my mind or possibly having some kind of weird stroke. The episode lasts about 6 hours, always comes in the late afternoon or evening and is usually gone after a night’s sleep.

By posting it, I was also hoping someone would recognize the process and maybe help me with some advice. I’ve talked to doctors and the only thing that was ever done was switch me from Xanax to Ativan. It did not help.

But it’s worrisome. The best thing to do is to sign off social media, stop writing anything, and take a walk and connect with the environment around me.

My fear is that one day I’ll get an episode that might not go away.

Nightmares of my Father and other things

I must write this out because I fear if I don’t this day could be worse than I’d imagined.

I already clawed my way out of bed 10 minutes late, had a cup of coffee and a small bowl of cereal and knew, just knew that I would have to call off sick today.

I didn’t want to. I hate calling off sick. But the overwhelming tiredness, the shaking hands, the seizing feeling in my chest told me I would be a complete, useless mess if I went in to work.

Waking up at 9:45 a.m. confirmed that feeling. I am still feeling out of sorts, tight, nervous, jumpy, etc.

I went to my new psychologist yesterday. It was part two of ‘everything that ever scared the shit out if you – family edition.’ Last week was work and modern times edition.

I should say something about getting a mental health diagnoses. Most of the time, you can only get an ‘official’ diagnosis from a qualified psychiatrist, that is, one with an MD after their names. 

Occasionally a Psy.D (Doctorate in psychology) will do the trick. But getting one from an MSW (Master’s in Social Work) counselor is a bit rare.

Yesterday’s session – ever see those Hitler scenes from the movie ‘Downfall’ or pretty much any movie featuring Hitler and his emotions get the best of him and he rages and gesticulates and such? You know, pretty standard Hitler stuff (note: I hate using Hitler as an analogy but right now the bastard is the best one I can think of)?

That was me. Talking about my family. I was shocked at how worked up I was. I had covered this ground with other shrinks before but I never gotten quite this worked up.

My shrink was concerned and told me we needed to get off the topic because she wanted me to leave in a settled state of mind. I understood this as Turnpike driving is bad enough without me processing another beating from my father.

She wanted me to look her in the eyes. I had not been doing that the entire session or the one before. Because what I was telling her embarrassed and ashamed me.

“There is no doubt in my mind that I can diagnose you with PTSD,” she said. I questioned, she was firm. I asked her to talk to my psychiatrist since Dr. H-S is protective and cautious of her diagnoses.

My shrink would. But she held firm. It was that obvious after two sessions? Yes, she said, and, really, nobody has ever broached PTSD with you before? No, I replied, no one had.

And so, I went home and everything seemed OK. I had dinner, did a little Internet surfing, watched Jeopardy, talked about it with my wife, all the usual.

Then I went to bed and the gates of Hell opened.

Not even here, not even now or maybe even later, will I recount the dream that woke me, finally at 3:15 a.m. It was one of those dreams that you clutch the covers and look around a darkened room convincing yourself that this is the real world, not the one you just left.

I clawed my way backwards out of bed, trying not to wake up my wife, downed an Ativan and went to the bathroom to try to get my shit together.

I will tell you the dream was about my father and a cat my mother had. It involved a weapon. And that’s as far as I will go.

It was, without a doubt, the worst dream of my life. And, it had seemed to go on for hours. In dreams, it may have indeed lasted that long.

I must have sat there for 20 minutes at least – shaking, breathing hard, trying to concentrate. Our cat came and sat next to me. Our cat seems to know when we need some company, so I was not surprised. She did not nuzzle me and jump up and demand petting as she normally would. It’s like she knew I didn’t want to be touched but just to have someone there.

The other thought I had is, it’s interesting that my father, dead since 1983, could transcend the decades to reach out and touch me again and make me hate him all the more. Some shrinks talk about giving someone space in your head. I guess he never left or something else is going on I’d rather not believe. Because this is not the first time I’ve had a nightmare about him – just by far the worst.

I managed to go back to sleep with more Z-Quil, a half Ativan and some meditation music. I knew that if I stayed up from that point I would just be re-living this dream over and over.

It didn’t work. I woke up less than two hours later and knew I had a problem. But I did my best to get up and try to shake it off and go to work.

So here I am. I have a day to try to work my way out of this, forget the feels as best I can, and not fear sleep tonight although I think that’s a given.

So, I understand my shrink’s concern about covering certain subject matter. Yesterday’s session must have somehow planted a ticking time bomb in my subconscious that went off in my sleep. 

Recounting the subject matter covered in the session and in my dream, I think it’s a good bet.

Why this reaction now when previous re-tellings didn’t spawn this reaction? All I could think of is the cumulative aspects of the last 10 years – taking care of my infirm mother, watching her slowly die while trying to protect her estate from a sister whose boyfriend threated to kill me (in front of my mother). Also: my job, the SWAT team raid on the house and then the 18-month inquisition at work that followed – all of it, wrapped up in one awful package.

Here on the couch, in a darkened living room, trying to write it out, am I. It looks like rain. The cat has left me and I just had a piece of raisin bread and a cup of tea. I don’t know how to process the rest of the day. I don’t know what my co-workers are thinking of me having taken the balance of the afternoon yesterday to attend this session with an eye appointment looming Thursday.

Yes, I always worry what they think. Because one time what they thought about me almost got me killed in front of my wife. A ‘mistake’ the current director refused to apologize for since wasn’t in charge then. I thought I’d forgiven that; I guess I haven’t.

I know when I come in tomorrow, I will work twice as hard, twice as fast, to make up for it – out of fear, no more, no less. I can’t escape the place, I told my shrink, so I will have to deal with it or lose everything.

I remember years ago, the Most Giant Asshole Rush Limbaugh pontificating that “fear is a great motivator.” It was, as he admitted, easy for him to say. Decades later, that fear would produce Trump. Fear is never a great motivator. If you rely on fear to motivate other or yourself, eventually, you’ll break down your people or yourself. Perhaps some thrive off it, I don’t know. The Limbaugh legions (who have now moved on to the even more execrable Bannon bastards), would probably attribute it to being a ‘snowflake.’

The personal is the political indeed.

But somewhere, deep down inside, a little growing voice tells me I am stronger than I know. To have gone through all of this and not jumped into a homemade noose is a good thing – taking nothing away from the poor souls to whom the pain was too great. We live in a society where the suicidal are hounded into their grave as a kind of sport. But my heart aches for each misguided soul to whom the pressures of the world and the fight against their illness, have become too great to bear. They have my sympathy – not my condemnation.

I feel battered this morning. But for some weird reason, I will get up and go back there tomorrow – a place that pains me every time I step on its grounds. I will fight the fear, not only of that, but of crowds, traffic, cops, my own government, and, most of all, the demons of the past. There’s still something in me that wants to fight – that insists I fight.

But today, I must get my shit together.

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.

Requiem: Amy Bleuel

Amy

I suppose I should write something about the death of Amy Bleuel, the founder of Project Semicolon.

Amy committed suicide.

It saddened me greatly, but did not surprise me.

There is a dirty little secret in the depression/bipolar community that we don’t talk about because it goes against the eternally happy you-can-do-it ethos slammed down our throats in America:

15% mortality rate.

That, strictly speaking, is the fatality rate for people with bipolar disease, not necessarily depression. It is the number of people who will die as a direct result of their disease either by suicide or some other behavior associated with the disease that results in death.

Some cancers have a lower fatality rate. Yet, we see cancer as a medical issue to be addressed with great resources. We see mental illness, as a corporate society, as something to be tolerated within boundaries while Big Pharma develops one useless drug after another.

The dirty little secret is no one can tell, no one can predict, no one knows for sure whether the smiling, outgoing, full of life person you knew on Monday isn’t going to be swinging from a rope on Tuesday.

And the scary thing is – the person with the illness generally doesn’t know it either.

So did Amy, who was a depression sufferer with other attempted suicides, wake up one day and Klingon-style, declare ‘this is a good day to die?’

Perhaps, but we’ll probably never know; and that is the worst part.

Experts prattle on about ‘suicide prevention’ as if there was some kind of ethereal naloxone for mentally ill people that can ‘sniff’ out those predisposed to suicide and offer some kind of fix to get their tortured brains to see things ‘a different way.’

It’s all bullshit. We exist by the grace of God, if you’re a believer, by sheer luck and circumstance if you’re not.

Amy Bleuel, like every one with this illness, fought it every day. And every day, like the rest of us, she woke up wondering what hand her brain was being dealt that day. Or, think of it this way – every day you get up and roll the dice. One day it comes up snake eyes. Why? No idea. One day your brain says, that’s all.

That’s all I can stand. Take the pain away.

And no amount of cheery self-help bullshit or bootstrap mentality is going to have any effect. Sorry.

One day, all the king’s horses (psych meds) and all the king’s men (mental health professionals) can’t put your shattered brain back together again. Self-medication has reached its limits and your brain told you that finally on this day, you could indeed, fly.

We still do what we can in terms of reaching out for help, taking our meds, battling the demons within. But the one thing no one talks about is the demons outside – a society and economic system that is unforgiving to those with these illnesses. Never discount the effect that the world we live in can deal from the bottom of the deck or load the dice any given morning.

But since society won’t change and it’s still winner-take-all, dog-eat-dog (and getting more so), at some point there is an existential angst that contributes mightily to the brain’s decision to push the button.

Amy’s whole cause was to get the survivors and the sufferers to find each other and find strength and support. It was also to use that semicolon tattoo as a way to try to educate a society on how many of us are out there fighting in ways you’ll never know.

But there was something else. Amy was a believer. She believed in a God of love and mercy and tried her best to express that in everything she did and said.

“Faith for me plays big around the aspect of love and hope. I have had the opportunity to have people come into my life and love me with a Christ like love. Through that love I am empowered to continue my story and spread that same love to others. To have faith in something bigger than yourself allows you to keep striving for something more, something bigger.” – Amy Bleuel

I don’t know what to say. There are no guarantees. One day, for reasons no one else will understand, it will be the day. People search for reasons but sometimes there are no reasons; there are only reactions.

If I could give any advice at a time like this it would be this: understand that no one really wants to die. They just want to feel like they are needed and wanted, not shunted aside as a societal embarrassment. They want dignity and respect, not frightened stares and mumbled excuses.

For whatever time people have on this earth, they need a mission that connects them with what is real, what matters – not the false values of consumerism, but the interconnectedness of human souls that, working together, can truly save the world.

“People want to know they’re not suffering in silence, you feel alone like no one cares, to know someone is there, that is what these people go forth with, they take this energy to better themselves,” Bleuel said. “I think it’s just opening the minds of society. I would hope through my stories and platforms that they would see these are everyday people, just like you, and they’re attempting to make their lives better, but here is what they struggle with.”

“I wanted to start a conversation that can’t be stopped,” she said, “and I believe I’ve done that.”

Spoon issues

Spoon theory, for the uninitiated, is a way for people with a host of behavioral issues to explain how they deal with stress.

You are given a certain amount of spoons every day from the great spoon-giver. Each spoon represents the amount of social interaction or physical activity a person can expend before the need for what we’ll call regeneration.

Regeneration usually, for most of us, means spending time alone with our thoughts to process the situation and regain emotional strength to go out into the world and interact again. Those of us who live with social anxiety use spoon theory as a simple way to explain what we go through but we don’t really expect people to understand it. At least I don’t. It’s impossible to empathize unless you can feel it.

Anyway, I have problems on weekends recovering from work. It’s really starting to piss me off, perhaps more so now that it’s so obvious. When things were bad, weekends melted together with workdays since the level of stress and hyper-vigilance was constant. 

Although the ‘bad times’ I experienced are receding into the past, the emotional scars remain. I feel them every time I drive onto the property at work. The subdued, yet ever-present feeling that I am always one word away from having the moon and stars fall on me again is always there. 

But the overt threat of losing my job or being shot by the police in a botched ‘health and safety check’ is gone and now weekends should be a time for me to ‘do’ and enjoy more than sit and worry.

And yet, Saturday morning arrives and I make it to the couch and find I have a monumental task trying to raise myself back up again and get on with the day. Other than the bed, the couch is my ‘safe place.’ 

Yesterday I went to the cast dinner for the performance of Listen to Your Mother, an event I have been very much looking forward to.

But yesterday morning I felt entirely empty of strength and filled with worries. It took everything I had to get ready for this happy event. The cast had lunch at Lidia’s and read our written stories to each other. My worries included how I, as the only man in a 12-person cast would be received, and the usual fears about driving downtown exacerbated by the St. Patrick’s Day parade being held at the same time.

As usual, my fears were groundless. Listening to everyone’s stories was literally a transcendent experience.  Being around such creative and intelligent people was like breathing pure oxygen for me. 

And yet, when I got home, in no time flat, the feeling of excitement and stimulation drained quickly and I was back on the couch, dog tired, wired and fried.

And mad.

I am so sick of this. 

I should be over this. But I should have realized long ago that my conditions, which have waxed and waned my whole life, will be with me always. Thirty years of meds, shrinks, zen training, ‘lifestyle changes,’ weight loss and exercise have not exorcised this beast. I will carry it to my grave. 

It is my shadow. I can, under certain conditions, banish it for a period of time or land up in hypomania – where I’m in a fun and creative period making everyone else’s lives miserable.

But it always comes back.

I vent to my wife but she’s heard it all before and I know that my moods affect hers. So I try to keep the feels to myself.

“Why couldn’t this feeling last just a few hours longer,” I asked my wife and the universe. 

Why indeed? Would it be so much to ask to at least go to bed feeling the warm afterglow of an enriching, life-affirming experience?

But that’s not the way things work. Every day is a fight, sometimes easier than the day before, sometimes not. Two days are never the same and the differences in mood and energy from one day to the next can be so stark as to be scary.

I must realize that getting angry at the situation or getting angry at myself for not being able to maintain a steady mood state will get me nowhere except more frustrated. 

Somehow, at this late stage of a lifelong struggle, I must learn to accept the situation with grace, appreciating the good periods as well as the bad. 

Easier said.

Touched by Fire

Carla (Katie Holmes) and Marco (Luke Kirby), prepare to be taken to their home planet. No, I'm not kidding

So, I watched the movie ‘Touched by Fire’ yesterday, by myself, while my wife was out shopping. Well, about 2/3rds of it because she came back.

I didn’t want here to see my reactions to the film. And, to be honest, I wanted to watch it alone, just in case there were any reactions. And there were. 

This requires an explanation which I’ve tried to give my wife in my own recently disjointed style of explaining myself. There are activities at home which, while they may seem innocuous to the outside observer, would make me feel self-conscious if anyone saw them.

Often, I wander from room to room, stopping to examine things, especially in the basement where I pull out old artifacts of a previous life or stare at fading photographs of a family long gone. I realize so much of this is self-torture, yet I’m drawn to it anyway.

I’ll talk to myself – long rambling soliloquies that either try to explain my actions to myself for the 119^th time or a string of things I need to remember or comments on current events. I can only do this alone for reasons that, for anyone similarly afflicted, are all too obvious.

Many times, I’m buried in the Internet (interesting choice of words) doing what I usually do: finding the information that reinforces my cynical and negative view of humankind. I guess if human society is stark raving mad, I must not be so bad. Current events are reinforcing this view at a prodigious rate.

So, we come to the movie. Briefly, it’s about two young people, probably in their mid-20s, both afflicted by bipolar, both having trouble staying on their meds. They annoy their families, are given to delusional, grandiose thinking and land up meeting each other in a mental hospital where their manias merge like two flaming suns and lead then down the rocket slide to near total insanity.

They are both rescued, a few times, a return to the mental hospital where they are put back on medication. Although the staff tries to keep them apart for their own good, they find each other again, a pregnancy results with all its usual complications and . . . well, I won’t ruin the ending. 

The important thing to me was how much I saw of myself in the characters. Now in middle age where the body (and the medications) start to regulate the amount of mischief the mania mind can accomplish, I had to think back when I was in my 20s and 30s with more freedom to act on my delusions and yes, I can see more of myself in their behavior. It just came out in different ways and circumstances. No two bipolars are alike, after all.

And the movie couple are bipolar1 and I am a twosie which means my whipsaws between depression and mania are not so sharp. Also, not being on your meds makes both the ones and twos equally capable of fucking up their own and others’ lives. Us twosies tend to fall much more on the depressive side of the scale but in some of us, although our manias are less bombastic, they can last longer and, in some cases, do more long term damage to our lives and others around us. 

What happens to Marco is what many guys with bipolar disorder struggle with. He finds that on his meds when he attempts to have sex with Carla he feels nothing and can’t get into it at all. The mind is willing, to a certain degree, but there seems to be a governor on the body’s and mind’s ability to carry out the act. This is MAJOR issues with men on medications for bipolar. The other problem is that the meds, while keeping your behavior and thoughts within a socially acceptable range, also tend to crush the creativity and heightened enjoyment of life most people in mania experience.

At one point in the movie, Carla assures him, based on what their psychiatrists say, that he will gradually be able to experience the full range of motions (not always true). Marco replies he doesn’t want the full range of motions – he wants mania. 

Whether you’re a onsie or twosie, great things can be accomplished on mania. Much of it is artistic – writing, painting, dance, etc. Much of it is activity based – a sudden compulsion that the whole house is now out of style and needs a complete makeover – and you do it. I can still remember gardening at night (yes I know it’s an R.E.M. song). Personal relationships are at risk – everyone else suddenly seems more attractive and interesting than your partner and you want to feel the rush of what it’s like to start a new relationship – no matter who gets hurt, because you’re not thinking of that. Sometimes you just want to get away – to travel and grab as many experiences you can while family members are left baffled by this sudden compulsion to take an instant vacation – alone. And then there are the other compulsions toward great creation and schemes. 

My mania gave me the incredible (to me now) ability to build a bookstore out of nothing including all the planning and design. My ex-wife wandered into my store for the first time and her jaw dropped. “You actually made it happen,” she said amazed. “You actually did it.”

So it cost me a marriage. But what an accomplishment!

At some point when the maniacal haze burns itself out or when the meds start working, the bipolar person has a crushing realization, a kind of ‘what in God, possessed me to DO that?’ The refrain is similar: it seemed like a fantastic idea at the time. Many times, in this phase which is often accompanied by depression and severe regret, we want to apologize to all the people whose lives we’ve upended or hurt. And apologize over and over again.

But after the mania burns out and time passes and we’re good little boys and girls and take our meds, there comes a longing for the energy and excitement of that time. Things get hum-drum and boring playing at life using the normal rules. We miss a time when things were fresh, new and exciting. We don’t forget the wreckage we left behind but we’d just like to feel what we felt when we were able to accomplish something so grand and glorious. Because now we can’t.

Because now we’re accomplishing holding down a job, taking care of our living spaces and significant others and marching slowly and safely through a life that no longer inspires us. And death awaits. For many men, it’s the long, slow, middle aged march to the grave where, instead of firing up grand, exciting ideas in your mind, you spend more time checking your bank accounts and what’s in your retirement savings. Hardly seems like living. 

You make and lose a lot of friends along the way until you’re left either partially or totally alone. I miss the parties of my youth but I can tick off the last five times recently I tried to become part of a group in some way and landed up either alienating or being alienated from them. 

And we begin to think that for our own good, perhaps we should just stay at home when we can, inside our homes with our significant others and limit human action to Facebook, where we run in to trouble anyway.

Notice how many times I have switched between ‘I’ and ‘we’ in this piece? Draw your own conclusions. 

Would I recommend ‘Fire of the Mind?’ Yes, even though the writing falls into sentimental claptrap, stock parental characters give stock parental lines and some of the acting and writing could have used a bit more of a realistic makeover. It’s enough, as usual, to make any afflicted person steer away from being honest about their condition to anyone, especially to mental health professionals.

I’m cautious that the film will not dispel but reinforce stereotypes about bipolar people and people with other mental illnesses in general. Is it worth the attempt? After all, ‘Rainman’ did so well to raise the awareness of autism, didn’t it? Well, if you want an honest answer to that question, ask anyone on the autism scale who has seen the movie. And so it is the same here too.

I suppose we could make the distinction between bipolar people who are relatively easy to spot and the vast majority of those who sit quietly next to you on the bus or plane, who write the articles you read, make the food you eat, create the art in galleries you marvel at, etc. And you’d never really know. How about the person at the business meeting who has an idea and his/her enthusiasm is so infectious, that everyone in the room is fired up by the idea (which may or not be feasible since the long-term prospects may not have been considered) that they jump out of their chairs in support and the boss says “we need more people like him/her around here!”

Yeah, they could be. 

Because life and relationships are long, we reveal ourselves in some way eventually. Either peers don’t recognize this sudden change of energy and idealism or regard it as symptomatic of some other factor or mental illness. Many times, I’m sure, people think the bipolar person has discovered some new kind of recreational drug when they truth is, they’ve actually stopped taking a drug.

The author David Foster Wallace, whose affliction and brilliance is reflected in his writing, was similarly tortured with what most professionals diagnosed as depression which began as a child and which he referred to as ‘the bad thing.’ He was able to create brilliant work while making his way, somewhat awkwardly, through the world of normals. He worried however, as the pressure grew from those in publishing and his fans to continue to produce even better writing, that the meds were inhibiting his creativity. In fact, I suspect ‘Infinite Jest’ was probably written off his meds.

Anyway, Wallace stopped taking his Nardil which led to severe behavior issues. At this point, both Wallace and his shrinks flailed around for something else that would work – anything that would work. In desperation, Wallace went back on Nardil but it no longer worked for him. As we say in the world of psychotropic meds, once a med craps out on you, it craps out forever.

Long story short, Wallace tragically hung himself. 

But when you take an honest look at Wallace’s behavior throughout his life, I think a strong case can be made that he was also on the bipolar scale. My early diagnosis of depression or major depressive disorder, masked the bipolar that was hiding behind the depression. Remember, your psychiatrist/psychologist only sees you for one hour bits of time where you could be anywhere on the scale. They don’t live with you, go to work with you, see your personal interactions. They know what you tell them, true or false (or somewhere in the middle) for the slim hour a week they see you. They really don’t know you. Sometimes no one really does. 

So, we’re left with a confusing mix of people with bipolar, ones and twos, with varying symptoms that wax and wane due to many different reasons. And movies can never really display a compendium of the average bipolar person. Movies must be entertaining and broad to be profitable. We get that. So, it’s a double-edged sword of hoping for awareness while fearing further stigma.

But, rounding out this terribly long post, ‘Touched by Fire’ did deliver a few serious gut punches to me. I could predict some of the action. I could see myself in some of the situations or dialogue. And if you’re wondering, yes, sex between two people in high mania could move mountains. . . before destroying them.

So, with all of those caveats, it’s worth seeing. If nothing else, I could identify with some of it which made me feel a little more comfortable with myself while still mourning what was and what will never be again – and for good reason. The ending imparts that lesson.