The Process of Loving

It's nearly 3am and I can't sleep.  I'm kinda tired but my mind is alert and kind of racing.  Maybe I had too much caffeine today.  Or maybe I slept too late or too much.  Or maybe my bipolar mind has its own agenda and sleep just will have to come later.

Last night, before I went to bed, I had a lengthy conversation with a friend who is struggling with her own issues.  I think she's looking for answers and might be asking too much of herself in some ways.  I don't know; I'm not a professional.  But the professionals don't always know the right thing either.  I gave her the advice that I could come up with, drawing from my experiences in group therapy and the intensive outpatient program that I've been through several times with my episodes and after my hospitalizations.  But I still felt worried about giving a lot of advice, and about her once our conversation ended.

She's a fan of my blog.  This blog.  This practice that I've been developing and using as a ritual to work out some of my issues and try and achieve something bigger, so to speak.  I'm trying to write my memoir of my experiences, centered around my struggles with bipolar disorder and the diagnosing process, or all the processes I've been through to this point.  I've had trials and tribulations with medication combinations.  I've tried taking time off away from work.  I've tried monitoring my sleeping and my eating rituals with the "Social Rhythm Metric" that we use as part of our group therapy.  And all of these things work in concert to bring me forth in this world.  To help me manage my moods instead of having them manage or manipulate me.

I sense that my friend is feeling grief because she doesn't have the support of her family in the way that she desires.  I know what this is like.  It still bothers me that my dad doesn't have a functional relationship with my mom's sister, for example.  And it bothers me that my dad doesn't make more of an effort to contact me or spend time with me.  But I haven't expressed these things to him because I haven't found the time and the right words.  I can make a difference and take charge of this situation by taking the initiative to talk to him about it, and ask him for more support.  Then again, he might read this before I am able to talk to him.  I hope that he doesn't take it wrong, or end up being too hard on himself.  I understand that he is trying as hard as he can, doing the best that he knows how.  And I know that he loves me.  He does a lot to make that evident.

So this is turning into an outing of my dad, and that wasn't my intention.  But you have to go where the writing takes you most of the time.  I love you, Dad.  Know that is true.  You have done so much for me, instilled a great love in me that I share with the world when I can, when I feel my best.  You have made me the best that I can be.  You can be proud of yourself, because you were there for me, during my childhood.  You got me to go to college, and that may be the single most important and enriching thing that I have done in my life to date.  You had a vision, and you made it happen.  Thank you for that.  You rock.

I miss our weekly rendezvous, when we used to meet for breakfast.  That was a great ritual for our relationship.  We just spent time together, once a week, more or less, sharing thoughts and observations about the world and how to fix it.  That was another thing that you have done for me-- you've made efforts to spend time with me, just to sit across the table from me, and make me feel safe.  Safe to utter my thoughts and get them out from swimming in my head.

I feel a loss that we haven't done that in a while.  Things happen; life happens, and we get into other routines.  I was just noticing the other day that we don't speak on the phone nearly as much as we used to.  So I felt a lack, and that's where the support request is coming from.  I'd like to meet with you more than we have been these last couple of years.  Not your fault, or mine-- I don't wish to assign blame.  I just am asserting my needs to have more time with you.  So let's see what we can make happen.

There.  That feels better.  Makes me think of my colon, and what amazing work it does on a daily basis.  Don't always know what it's doing, but it is productive, and something makes itself evident eventually...

Something pulls you along, while the thoughts are dancing and the ideas are formulating.  One of my favorite quotes I learned from Anne Lamott.  It's a quote by E.L. Doctorow that goes something like "Writing is like driving at night.  You can't see beyond the light of your headlights, and yet you can make the whole journey that way."  Hmm.  I think I will look up the actual quote and list it here.

“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” --E.L. Doctorow

There you go.  Talk amongst yourselves.

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?

Tell Me Where It Hurts

So I continue to stabilize.  I'm not having the suicidal ideation anymore.  I'm back at work, sleeping well, spending time with friends.  Laughing.  I realize that I did the right thing, and that feels good.  I'm at peace with myself.  I'm not searching for my voice or my calling.  I just am my calling.  I just am my voice.

Feels damn good, if I can say so myself, and apparently I most certainly can.  So what else can I say?

I wish that I didn't have to pay for an overnight stay in the hospital and an ambulance ride that was less than a city block's distance from one Kaiser facility to another.  But it's the price of doin' business here in America.  And I have healthcare coverage.  A person without my experience and coverage might be looking at a several thousand dollar invoice after an overnight stay for the same affliction.  And that's wrong.  Because mental illness doesn't care if you're affluent, or poor, or middle class.  It's doesn't favor women over men, or one race over another.  It attacks like cancer, without the lesions or visible symptoms. 

I went to work today, but work wasn't ready for us.  The work ran out, and they couldn't come up with a way for us to have more work to do, so they sent us home at our lunch/dinner break.  Half a day's pay for half a day's work.  I gave one of my coworkers a ride home, as she lives in Santa Clara too.  As we talked on the ride home, I shared with her how I had been through a crisis last week (we were already sharing personal stuff so I thought it appropriate.)  I told her that I had been hospitalized because I was suicidal.  I described what that had felt like for me-- that I had felt hopeless, and that I just wanted it all to go away.

"I feel like that all the time," she shared.  She explained her situation, and how tough it is sometimes to get through what life throws at you.  It was a good, cleansing, and nurturing talk that we had.

I wonder if more people have that feeling, and struggle with suicidal thoughts and plans and other hurtful things.  Are there really so many of us suffering out there?  I'm sure I'd be surprised by the numbers.  And the numbers are probably lower than what is happening in reality, because people, at least in this country, don't talk about such things as suicide and mental illness.  We don't ask for help.  We don't admit that we are broken, or hurt, or vulnerable.  We don't want to show any weakness.  We tough it out, with our "rugged individualism" that only goes so far.  You just can't think your way out of a broken mind.  It doesn't work.  And there's a lot more mental illness in this country than people are willing to admit and acknowledge.

I'm reminded of the documentary film "I Am," by Tom Shadyac, and his personal journey to arrive at a healthier place.  Recommended for viewing, I think it's out on DVD now.

That's what is known as a product placement.  And since I blew up my AdSense, it's one of the few ways for me to benefit something on this here blog.

So I think I've given you enough to think about for now.  Talk to you later.  Thanks for reading.

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.

I am Wan; Hear Me Roar

Most of my friends have heard me joke about how I'm 60% woman.

I say this primarily because I'm sensitive.  I don't identify with the macho, tough guy persona.  I cry fairly easily.  I'm emotional. 

I joked for a while in college that I was actually growing a clitoris.  That there was an itchy nub of skin in my nether region was probably something I shouldn't have shared with the general public. 

But this week, my friends, all that humor came back to haunt me.

Last Tuesday, I had my first mammogram.

All those times I joked about women getting their boobs rolled up in the car door window?  Yep.  They rolled mine up in there, too.  Even though I don't have much to roll up.  Didn't matter.  I guess I'm lucky I've put on some weight so they had at least something to work with.

No alarms or worries-- it was just to rule things out.  I do indeed have a benign cyst in my left breast that is causing me some discomfort.  But no cancer, as far as we can tell.  Dodged that bullet.

So go ahead and call me girlfriend.  I deserve it.

And I might be up for some hormone therapy soon.

Folk Singer Phil Ochs Had Bipolar Disorder

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

The Bigger Bang For Your Buck Theory

In 1957, hysteria swept over America as overnight we fell behind in the space race.  Russia had launched Sputnik, the first man made satellite to the earth.  America was haunted by the thought of the Russians beating us to outer space, and the implications that followed.  Would we soon be monitored, or even threatened, by superior communist space technology?

These days, there isn't much of a "Red Menace," and space exploration isn't stealing the headlines.  More prescient is the race to develop alternative energy technology in the age of "peak oil" and the threatening energy crisis as we look to move away from the use of fossil fuels. 

Although China is a commerce partner of the United States, many consider the country not as an ally but as a threat to American values.  So when the Chinese government announced a thorium research program in early 2011, many in the research community wondered if there might be another "Sputnik Moment" coming for the United States.

Thorium energy was developed in the United States in the 1960's during the Molten Salt Reactor research program.  The Nixon administration cancelled its development in the early 1970's to pursue plutonium technologies.  But there is definitely more research to be done on thorium, and it may provide an energy solution whose time has come.

Thorium is a safe and plentiful element that can be mined like many other heavy metals.  It has the potential to replace the use of coal plants, with many small "molten salt" reactors utilized, and a much lower refueling cost than conventional nuclear reactors.  Its benefits have been actively suppressed by the nuclear power industry, which lobbies for subsidies and other funding for a nuclear solution that has shown to be much more risky and dangerous, not to mention limited by the availability of uranium.  And nuclear reactors are far more expensive, volatile, and expansive of an undertaking than thorium reactors would be.

Thomas Wang of West Valley for Change, a political action group, provided much of the information for this article.  He indicates that thorium research may be an avenue that the United States could traverse to avoid being left behind in the energy conservation and alternative energy development frontiers.