The Taste of Sanity

So I'm wondering today if everything I do is viewed through the bipolar lens, or if I'm just a regular guy that has bipolar moments in his life.

Comments?

*cricket sounds*

Okay.  How about we talk about Jersey Shore?

*insert din here*

I've looked back, not today, but before, at some of my posts and re-read them, with the thought of "I wrote this while I was manic," or "I wrote this while I was really depressed."  And I'm actually surprised by the writing.  It seems that through all the disabling feelings of depression and mania, I'm able to have a voice.  And it comes through regardless of how I'm feeling when I'm writing.  So it seems.

So press on, and do the work, regardless of how you feel.  It will show when you're feeling better.  There are some speedbumps and potholes, sure, but the over-arching theme of the work will come through, radiantly.

Or maybe I'm just manic now.

No.  I am hungry though.  So maybe that distracts and distorts my experience.  Do they have a pill for hunger yet?  Something I can take with my daily medication so I don't have to bother with all of this chronic eating?

Just kidding, of course.  I don't want to rid myself of the pleasure of eating.  But I do want to slow down and get a hold of myself when it comes to eating.  I could stand to not gain any more weight.  I'll be flirting with the 300lbs. mile marker if I keep on like I've been.

I really can't afford to eat the way that I have been.  Grabbing meals conveniently (read "fast food") just isn't convenient long term.  I can't afford it financially or physically.  And I pay a mental price, too.  Having a good nutritious diet is good medicine.

So for lunch today, I'm going to go out for Chinese food.

Hmm. 

What was I talking about?

Sensing the Ending

So I'm fresh out of the hospital again.  Just an overnight stay this time to make sure I got my thinking right and could "contract for safety" as they say these days.  I'm in charge of my life, after all.  Especially when it comes to thoughts about ending it.

I don't know why I was thinking about killing myself, exactly.  But I was.  Can't deny that.  I was thinking about it in great detail, wondering about who would be the first to find me, and what they would find.  What materials I would use and how I would go about it.  How I could account for contingencies, like if I got halfway into it and changed my mind, how I could be sure that what I was doing was right.  Like if I started to struggle to save my own life, could I anticipate such a struggle so that said struggle could be denied, unsuccessful?

This is not easy stuff to talk about.  But it's not fun to think about either.  This I know.  I'm not recounting this now for sympathy or attention.  I'm trying to understand it, too.

So I thought about suffocating myself with a plastic bag and duct tape.  I'd get a couple plastic bags and wrap the duct tape around my neck nice and tight.  Then I'd wrap my hands up in duct tape so that I couldn't claw at the plastic when I was struggling for air.  Not sure I would have been successful, as it's hard to wrap your own hands up, but I did try to envision how I could do it successfully.  This, of course, is dangerous.  Getting this far into a suicide scenario can't be a good thing, unless you're really meaning to end your life.

I was confused.  I think I believed that I was slipping into a situation that would land me back in the hospital and on various medications that would disrupt me and be another great struggle for me.  This didn't happen, and for that I'm thankful.  I knew that I didn't want to go through that again.  I still know that I don't want to have to fight for my very sanity like that again.  But that's what we do, every day of our life: fight for what we believe in.  Fight for what is right.  Fight for those that we love.

There's something about death that intrigues me.  I am in awe of it.  How does it work?  How is life here one moment and not the next?  Where does it go?

I will always wonder at these questions.  Maybe someday I will know, but I don't need to kill myself just to try and find out.

I know that I have received very good care and help during this latest crisis.  Thank you all that have assisted and counseled me.  I have a great group of support.  I am blessed and loved, it is clear.  I hope I can always draw upon this knowledge and love to get me through the tough times.

Folk Singer Phil Ochs Had Bipolar Disorder

Watch this great documentary.  I highly recommend it.  Here's the trailer.

The Start of Mania

The first blog post that I did on Greece I believe was Long Overdue.  And indeed it was.  I also talked about what had happened to me in Greece in Celebrate September 12th.

I'm just now getting around to getting on with this project of recollection of the manic episode in Greece and the ensuing struggles for sanity and recovery.  Bear with me as I do some organizing.

For more background info, be sure to check out Don't Imagine You'll Wanna Hear This. 

And hang in there, I'm pedaling as fast as I can.

A Little Spring Cleaning

So I've been doing this blog for some time now-- I just reached a milestone of over 5,000 pageviews.  I thought I'd try and do some organizing around here-- sweep up the leaves, turn over the compost, pick up the fallen fruit, and try and make some more sense of things.  So without further adieu...

I am bipolar I, which means I am subject to the possibility of manic episodes, as well as depressive ones.  I had my first hospitalization because of a manic episode while I was traveling in Greece in the summer of 2001.  I'm hoping to write a book about the experiences I had there, chronicling the onset of illness and my recollection of events.  I have blogged about some of my experiences with mania already, but I feel that I haven't fully told the story from Greece.

I was also hospitalized back in February of 2008, when I had a manic episode and had to be taken to VMC in San Jose.  My wife called 911 after I "lost it" and pulled the television out of the entertainment center and thrust it to the ground.  I became violent and through a chair and stripped myself naked and attempted to go out of the house, all the while screaming a litany of expletives while on a tirade about how the president had violated me.  I was finally calmed, clothed, and placed in restraints on a stretcher and taken to the mental hospital.

There was a turning point for me a while back--  I write about it in the post "Now What?" It's the point where I started taking responsibility for myself and my health.  And it has brought me to this time, when I am feeling recovered.  And that is a new, unfamiliar thing for me to be experiencing.

If you'd like to know of a place to start, you gotta find it somehow.  And you might not even really be aware of it-- that you're starting something.  But you are; you're in the right place.  Trust your intuition, your heart.  And you will find your path.

For more on my experiences with my bipolar disorder, check out The Comfy Seat and Writer Writes of Whiter White.