World Bipolar Day, 2022

 World Bipolar Day 2022: “The deeper your scars, the more room there is to fill them up with love. Don't hate your scars, appreciate their depth."

It's been 13 years now since I was diagnosed with Bipolar II disorder after decades of psychiatrists, psychologists, PCP's, bartenders, spouses, families, psych wards, and dozens of other people who just "said I was depressed."

Mental illness packs a harsh reaction among anybody. As an expert cog in the public health system myself, bipolar on your rap sheet stops people in their tracks. “She has a history of chronic anemia…oh and SHE IS BIPOLAR.” “Ooooh…”

OK..yes, but then why the high high highs and low low lows? I KNEW something was gravely wrong--it was just getting someone to actually hear me out. I might not have taken so many narcotics or too much to drink if my illness wasn't met with such vitriol and shaming. I hated my first outpatient shrink, but he hit the nail on the head after a few months.

Can I just say that being on psychotropic medications, and knowing I have to take these medications for the rest of my life sucks?

It's very interesting to note that the vast majority of people with bipolar disorder (I or 2) actually wouldn't trade our lives or press a button and turn off the illness. We are different. We are fascinating & smart & brave.

I love what I HATE is happening to me most. Now, coming to terms with the shock to the system and trying to suss out if there's a healthy outlet can be really difficult, considering. In lieu of carrying around an immensely heavy bag of burning hot coals, while walking on black ice, hogtied, God blessed, I have been gifted as a drummer & a writer.

My moods flow from bad to better to stable. And the reverse. And then again. And again. I am not crazy. I am not bipolar. I have bipolar disorder.

Finders Keepers

Are Facebook memories sometimes better left in the mind's own memory bank, or do we need a nudge once in a while? Is the nudge a healthy idea? Remains to be seen. This was just a note I wrote after a therapy session (and I had to stretch to figure out WHICH therapist this might have been, but I nailed her down to the idiot at (now closed) Maine Center, between 2012-2014: 

"Friday, I'm arguing with my counselor, telling her I didn't think cognitive behavioral therapy would be effective in tackling and resolving my issues at present, and she wants to try dialectical behavioral therapy, which I naturally poo poo, because it's not like I'm repudiating cooperation in session, I mean, what the fuck? Plus, there's the whole "I'm-going-to-get-in-trouble-again-because-we-touch-on-Buddhism" factor, which makes me feel guilty at church. (Guilty Protestants aren't as guilty as guilty Catholics, inasmuch as at least we still sleep around.)

She had arrived at the session 15 minutes late, at 9:15. I'd been waiting since 9:00. Common courtesy, at least as I'm being trained, is to grant the client the duration of the 50-60 min session regardless if it fucks up the rest of the therapist's schedule because arriving late was her own damn fault. What's worse? SHE had clinical paperwork to do about me. As I'm also being trained, the counselor does the paperwork either before or after the session, not WHILE the client is sitting there, thumb-twiddling, sipping water and reminding her to put her letterhead in the printer side-up this time, because she's a little computer-challenged. 

After the DBT smashup, I decided I want to engage the next several sessions in more existential discourse. That's when SHE poo pooed & crabbed that it was too intellectual and off-path for the decision makers within Medicaid to approve as a treatment plan, and asked me what life & death and the here & now had to do with anything related to my stressors. (It seemed too snippy to say, "I'm trying, right now, sitting here, to not die.") I was promptly shooed out at 10:00 am, her clinical paperwork still incomplete, after she twiddled through her calendar in order to make my next appointment, which isn't until the day after I turn 41 years old, which brings the whole thing back to existentialism, which probably confused her further.

Had I known TOC was planning on coming to me via text to pout about how everyone at work hates him, and achieve reassurance that I didn't hate him on Friday, I would've made a bigger deal in the therapeutic plan under "work on personal relationships," which ended up taking a back seat to "keep criminal record clean." He's preening his peacock feathers over a gushy missive I wrote, claiming to be undeserving. Sneaked into some overt video clips he watched at my suggestion (which he "enjoyed," when their purpose was to "tear his heart out and shove it down his throat," were some subliminally included clips from "Annie Hall." 

Recalling in hindsight that we share a huge love for all things Woody Allen, he happened upon a clip in which Allen's character pouted a bit more fondly that he and Annie had broken up. Utterly unplanned by me, the universe in the here and now, as fragile as humanity can crinkle, planted Indelible Imprint #5,684 in TOC's mind that will remind me of me, which is always a good thing."

Free-Writing Thought Exercises From the Mid-90's. Yeah, Before I Was Diagnosed as Clinically Insane & Aced My Writing Major

Free-Writing Exercise

Based on "Intelligence Test" by Alberta Turner

By: Andrea Miklasz, 1993

Preface, 2016

In my undergraduate program at Knox College in English-Writing, we'd do mind-sparking exercises upon which to build lines/phrases just from our minds (no books allowed, e.g. thesaurus). I came upon this scrappy paper leftover of thought whilst cleaning my room, looking for a tax return statement. Poems were supposed to come out of these random-mind-statements or visualizations.There is other free-writing in the folder I found, and some of it did generate very good poetry. But this batch--come to your own conclusions. 

Which begs the question...Obviously, I was clinically insane in college--why'd it take until my 30's for someone to freakin' diagnose me in a mental hospital? To preempt your question, no...I was not on any drugs when I wrote this stuff, street or Rx'd. Read these, enjoy, but if you steal any of them, I'll have you hunted down by a very hungry grizzly bear (read: my brutish son).

Ideas from 1993:

1. Catching butterflies on my tongue

2. Rub my hair with wet oatmeal

3. Advise a balloon

4. Sell a hen a lottery ticket

5. If I could lay an egg!

6. Eat pasta with an ax

7. Small silver bells in a giant berry basket

8. Eating bullets

9. Breathe milk

10. Molesting screwdriver

11. If I shrank to the size of a pea, I'd eat myself.

12. If I had a tail I'd use it as a (paper ripped, line unfinished, God only knows)

13. I offer him his money back if he can tell me what my first name is

14. His hands are bulky, wrinkled as his memory

15. Crank bugs

16. And Harry slid under the table

17. And a table of woe

18. Playing Vatican Roulette 

19. With me as the booby prize

20. Stop scratching them

Untitled

Wooden monkey doll

Reflection in the lamp

Fishless fishbowl hammer sticking out of it

Skeleton is someone's wife waiting for him

A card game

The window sill needs paint

Lou Reed - "PERFECT DAY" - Music Video Directed by Luke Bechtel

Very Quickly: My Existential Crisis over The Colbeard Is Over!

Montclair, NJ Film Festival, May 1-10, 2015, with Richard (hubba hubba) Gere!

I know, I know. I haven't written a proper blog in 2 months. Like Stephen, I was in hibernation. While I did not grow the gray bush of mush on my face as my beloved favorite comedian did, I just didn't feel the love to write much recently. Interesting, given I've had nothing but down time for the last 2 months myself. I'm still on the fence about his longer hair...it's kind of sexy. Unlike Colbert, I'm getting a haircut tomorrow. After all, both of our birthdays are coming up in the next few days.

But this had to go:

Mr. Colbert, with all due respect, thank you on behalf of all of us who love you unconditionally, as long as you do not don this look ever again. How freeing it must have felt! Next time, see Steve Carrell. His beard is BOSS.

Love!

Off the Rails for No Reason Whatsoever

I, at least, have a totally clear conscience. One of my friends had a psychotic snap and decided to take it all out on me. She pointed out a few instances where I offended her, so I apologized and corrected those mistakes. She didn't accept my apology and persisted in antagonizing me even more, hitting my most sensitive and vulnerable spots with fury and nastiness. I must have apologized like 13 times, kept my cool, asked her if there was something wrong which I could help her with, and she just kept kicking me in the crotch.

She childishly unfriended and blocked my entire family and Meg from her Facebook. My son's (at least I have him, and he and Meg are my voices of reason...) response to all of this is essentially everyone else's: "So what? She'll come around when she's sane again." None of us are particularly worried about it. (Editor's Note: She did come back. And she did the same exact thing 2 years later. She verbatim sent the vitriol text messages one after another, cut and pasted or whatever, the same crap. Everyone was cut off. The same childish nonsense from a woman in her 50's.)

People insult me all the time, question my abilities and activities and yes, it hurts my feelings, which I told this friend of mine. She thinks I'm "pathetic." She thinks I'm not an intellectual or an artist, same as my son. She implied that she only asks me questions about things which interest me out of politeness, not because she's actually interested in learning something new. I always enjoyed learning from her and valued her opinions and ideas. Last week, we had a long, very enjoyable phone conversation, which gave no indication that something was wrong with her emotionally.

When she loses an argument, she retreats by running away. She's unfriended friends of mine who've disagreed with her on points, claiming they're stupid and she's not. She is incapable of entering into an intelligent argument or discourse without pulling out her "I know more than you do" card. (PS, that's seldom true.)

My energy is better spent doing things with people who don't lie to me when they say they love me unconditionally, completing my school work and enriching relationships with promise.

It was a difficult week. She should've known that looking at my Facebook. I lost a first cousin and it was a very emotional time for my family. (Editor's Note: My cousin died from thrombocytosis, a complicated autoimmune hematological blood disorder, which caused her body to produce too many platelets. My Gram had thrombocytopenia, the opposite blood disorder, where the body produces too few platelets.  Another cousin was diagnosed with lupus. All of us have hypothyroid problems. Another cousin in the last year or so with lymphoma. I looked in the mirror one afternoon and saw giant welts which are urticarial vasculitis. That was after multiple sclerosis came into the picture. Point being, I think, is that a frightening number of people down the lines on my mom's side have autoimmune disorders.)

Not only did she not offer condolences, but she ignored it altogether. She was offended at my last blog about helping depressive bipolar as if I was saying I had the "the most horrible disease on the planet." I never said that. This person has Crohn's Disease. I understand that she's very ill. It wasn't a competition of who has the worst illness. The blog wasn't directed at her, and, in fact, there's a point in that blog about other people not making it about themselves, which she obviously overlooked.

She may come to her senses eventually, but I'll follow Luke's advice. He knows she's done crap like this before. Possibly one of the cruelest things you can do to a person is kicking them when they're down. And she did. And I, at least, forgive HER for that, because she's obviously very sick.

How To Help Someone With Bipolar Disorder Who's In a Depressive Episode

Understandably, friends and family feverishly worry about a loved one who is manic/depressive and in a depressive episode. There are several tips and suggestions to help you adapt to that person's depression, which is just as hard on loved ones as it is on the bipolar patient.

From my experience, here are a few:

1. Please, whatever you do, do not ask us why we're depressed. While there may be triggers which precipitate a depressive episode, most of the time, we don't know why this feeling is looming over us. Ignorant questions irritate us further.

2. Try not to veil understanding of how we are feeling unless you're educated on bipolar disorder, because there's no possible way you could comprehend how we feel unless you've experienced it. It's a very dark place, and one we wish no one else would have to visit. Don't say, "Everyone gets depressed," because you have no idea how this type of depression presents itself.

3. Trust that the mood will pass in time. Please don't ask us when. We're just as anxious to feel normal as you are for us to feel normal, though we don't know what "normal' is. We only know "stable," and for those of us who "rapid cycle," stability doesn't last very long before we find ourselves either manic or depressed again.

4. Suggestions such as "Go out and get some fresh air and you'll feel better" don't work. Don't say, "Go exercise, go for a walk," because literally, we can barely move. We don't really feel like doing anything. Friends asking us to go out or do something helps a lot, so if you have free time, see if you can get us out of the house for a while, even if it's just to talk. Don't think your problems or feelings are any less important to us than our own, but we may have trouble iterating it. Just because we are wrapped up in negative thoughts doesn't mean we don't or can't offer constructive, happy thoughts to others. We try our best not to be selfish, but we have to be in order to take care of ourselves. Understand that most days, we need to sleep. A lot. If we're in bed until 2pm, or take a nap, don't chastise us as being "lazy." It is a struggle to get up and function.

5. Most of us mask our symptoms in order TO function and fit into regular lives. We're all good actors. Inevitably, we crash, though. Sometimes, we cry. Sometimes we get angry. Sometimes, we just want to go back to bed. If we cry, we often do it in solitude so as not to draw attention to ourselves or be pestered with questions.

6. Hug us if we ask you to. There's a power of the human touch which alleviates negative emotions and uncomfortable physical sensations, and it releases seratonin into our brains, which we need. If we're at our lowest and you still love us, let us know that. We already feel unlovable. (A lot of that has to do with the amount of criticism we receive BECAUSE we're depressed.) We want to be loved and cared about. We are still good friends and loved ones.

7. We take a lot of medication in order to survive. Please don't criticize our medications, how often we take them, what we take, or why. Don't assume "less is more," because that's not your call. It's between the patient and the psychiatrist. Don't wish we could be free of medications, because that's the quickest way for us to kill ourselves.

8.  Most of us don't want to die, but in the depressed moments, sometimes we wish we could. It is not a character flaw or a reflection of how we feel about other people. If we're in serious suicidal danger, take us to the hospital. If we just feel hopeless and pointless as individuals, kind of leave us alone, unless you have positive reinforcement to offer.

9.  Help us get the right emotional support and therapy we need. It's just as important as the medications.

10.  Make us laugh. A good belly laugh about something does wonders.

11. Empathy? Yes. Sympathy? No.

12. We'll talk when we're ready to talk.  Kind of like wearing a hotel's "Do not disturb" sign around one's neck, it's not an insulting slight against you if we just don't feel like socializing.

13. Please don't tell all your friends and other family members that your loved one is depressed. This isn't a gossip column.

13, Give us consideration that it takes an incredible amount of energy to stay on-task. As is same with mania, our brains are all over the place and it's close to impossible to start a task in depression or finish 18 tasks in mania. It's frustrating to not have the energy or interest to get things done that need to be done. We may only leave the house if we absolutely need to, and that has to be okay.

14.  It doesn't really help when you tell us, "Quit crabbing and feeling sorry for yourself. Other people have things harder than you do. Count your blessings." We already know this. We don't feel sorry for ourselves. We don't want pity, nor do we pity ourselves. Yes, it sucks. Yes, it's aggravating. We're doing the best we can.

15. One of the WORST things you can say to us is "How did you get bipolar disorder? What happened to make you this way?" That's a grave insult. We don't ask you how you got cancer, or diabetes, or that ugly mole on your neck. Bipolar disorder is not a transmittable disease. You won't catch it from us. It's an incurable brain disease. The latter sticks in our minds and adds to our hopelessness that things will never get better.

16. Your agendas and priorities for us will not likely match our own agendas for us. Take that into consideration before placing demands on us we cannot accomplish. We're neither misbehaving nor defying others' wishes.

17.  We can love you and hate you at the same time.

18.  If we have children, we are terrified that they'll develop bipolar disorder or other mood disorders as they grow. We watch them like hawks. Sometimes, they are not only the ones who love us the most unconditionally, but also our best barometers of our own moods, especially if we are very close to them. They understand us, why can't you? Taking care of our children is more important to us than taking care of ourselves. We'll deal with ourselves after tending to the needs of our children to the best of our abilities.

19. Our tempers are short. Don't take it personally.

20. We may not shower, eat, or get out of our pajamas for a few days. Deal with it.

21. You getting depressed because we're depressed compounds our depression and makes us feel like everything's our fault. You can't change our brain chemistry, so please just accept us for who we are in the moments we're in.

22. It's not you, it's us. Don't make it all about you.

23. Encourage us when we DO get something accomplished. It took a lot of energy and determination.

24. As has been said before, bipolar disorder is not an excuse. It is an explanation.

25. Perhaps most of all, just love us, even though we're biochemically flawed. We miss "us" as much as you do. We'll get better. Right now, we're sad. It just takes time.

That's the tip of the iceberg and are all truisms for people with clinical depression as well. While I'm speaking from a bipolar point of view, Be kind, be patient, be available. Don't be a jerk over something we can't control. There are a dozen other things I should be working on at the moment, but this seemed more important to put out in the open, because my depression is interfering with my functioning, and this took me two days to compose, when normally, I can rattle stuff like this off in half an hour. Ideally, someone will find this list helpful and honest.