the Side Effects continue....
if i seem unusually focused on Side Effects these days,
this may help explain why.
here are the side effects from one of my meds...
this may help explain why.
here are the side effects from one of my meds...
there's the common ones...
and then there's the serious ones...
now, wake up every morning - or afternoon, as the case may be - and start working out what "reality" might be today....
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Men, women and depression
an interesting, if somewhat troubling infographic
on the different ways men and women deal
with depression these days...
looking for more useful information like this?
- check out http://bipolar-planet.blogspot.com/2011/09/men-women-and-depression.html
which is where i found this great infographic!
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Hey, it's the Bipolar Bear!
A brief summary of what may
be a minority opinion
on the Bipolar Bear.
If you are fond of it,
you may not
care to know...
be a minority opinion
on the Bipolar Bear.
If you are fond of it,
you may not
care to know...
and the beat goes on....
for more about the bipolar bear and i,
and then there's the bipolar bear and i, part 2, too.
for more about the bipolar bear and i,
and then there's the bipolar bear and i, part 2, too.
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the Side Effects
... was it a Parliaments album
or a Funkadelic album
where George Clinton says
"the side effects are what you get!" ?
or a Funkadelic album
where George Clinton says
"the side effects are what you get!" ?
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You know you're depressed when...
...you Stumble on to one of those Tumblery/Pin-up sites
and flipping through those sweet, loving, achey-breakey
cliches bugs you.
it bugs you so much you turn cheap and childish and mean,
like you usually are to yourself.
Yup.
and flipping through those sweet, loving, achey-breakey
cliches bugs you.
it bugs you so much you turn cheap and childish and mean,
like you usually are to yourself.
Yup.
Mea maxima culpa.
*
Television and drugs
You don't have to be fluent
in McLuhan or even familiar
with the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy
to know somewhere in your heart
that television is now,
and has always been
the drug of the nation.
in McLuhan or even familiar
with the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy
to know somewhere in your heart
that television is now,
and has always been
the drug of the nation.
...whether you started
on this small screen,
or you're on this one
right now...
on this small screen,
or you're on this one
right now...
it's all TV baby,
and one way or another,
we all have issues with it.
and one way or another,
we all have issues with it.
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Medication - yes or no?
if only it was that simple...
but if you're like me and find that life with medication
is better than life without medication, it is really important
to study up one what you are putting in your body...
as these infographics make brutally clear.
.
Check Your Meds
... so started exploring something that might turn into a project- a
comic strip called "Check Your Meds". we shall see what we shall see,
but if you see something you like, a comment or two would be appreciated
and encouraging.
stay tuned
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it's no secret that eating right can do
a lot for one's mental health,
and Mom was right - breakfast is
the most important meal of the day.
to inspire these good habits,
we present for your delectation
this recipe for Eggs
a la William Seward Burroughs II.
i haven't tried them yet,
but they read like the kind of thing
one could live on for long periods
if the need arose...
if life gives you Lemons
another flight of fictional fancy,
this time about a woman working
with her obsessive-compulsive disorder
to build a better life!
When she thought about it, which was rare, Jennifer knew temping sucked. The hours were bad and the pay was no incentive to excellence. The supervisors talked to her like she'd flunked Special Ed and the staff acted like demi-employment was contagious.
One day, ruminating on a sad tuna sal in the park, she had
a thought. It didn't matter what she did. She'd never thought it did in the grand existentialist scheme of things, but now she saw it was just as true of her day to day.
Once tasked by her supervisor du jour, it really didn't matter if she did it "right"... she just had to look busy. In the unlikely event that anyone ever noticed, she'd be long gone.
Suddenly, some of those sucking things about temp life seemed to her like creative opportunities. Her filing became very adventurous, informed by the I Ching and what she called 'practicing chance': never put two documents in the same folder; shred every tenth document and so on. Data entry was her opportunity to explore Chomsky, and as
a receptionist, she was often described as "fun" and "flirty".
No one knew much about Jennifer, like her obsessive compulsive relationship with computers. In fact, she was
a total dataholic and everywhere she temped, she took home terabytes of what would later be called "sensitive information"... but by then, Jen was long gone and living largely in the Caymans.
this time about a woman working
with her obsessive-compulsive disorder
to build a better life!
When she thought about it, which was rare, Jennifer knew temping sucked. The hours were bad and the pay was no incentive to excellence. The supervisors talked to her like she'd flunked Special Ed and the staff acted like demi-employment was contagious.
One day, ruminating on a sad tuna sal in the park, she had
a thought. It didn't matter what she did. She'd never thought it did in the grand existentialist scheme of things, but now she saw it was just as true of her day to day.
Once tasked by her supervisor du jour, it really didn't matter if she did it "right"... she just had to look busy. In the unlikely event that anyone ever noticed, she'd be long gone.
Suddenly, some of those sucking things about temp life seemed to her like creative opportunities. Her filing became very adventurous, informed by the I Ching and what she called 'practicing chance': never put two documents in the same folder; shred every tenth document and so on. Data entry was her opportunity to explore Chomsky, and as
a receptionist, she was often described as "fun" and "flirty".
No one knew much about Jennifer, like her obsessive compulsive relationship with computers. In fact, she was
a total dataholic and everywhere she temped, she took home terabytes of what would later be called "sensitive information"... but by then, Jen was long gone and living largely in the Caymans.
*
special for You
As the pills in the pestle ground down into powder, he thought about "uncle" Dimitri. He was actually a second cousin, but since coming to America with his father as young men, they'd remained close and after his folks died in the fire at the trailer park, Dimitri went to Nick and said "So keed, you want maybe come with me?".
They lived in the apartment over the restaurant. Old school even by Old Country standards, Dimitri's faith in hard work was stronger than most people's faith in God. He expected Nick to fend for himself, get good marks and help out
in the kitchen every night.
When it was time for college, though, his uncle's generosity put him through the finest pharmaceutical school in the country and helped Nick open his first store. "It's joose a loan, keed" Dimitri would say "later, you can pay me it
back, no rush...".
Ten years later, that store was a successful chain, but
the old Ouzo Inn was now serving Greek-Korean fusion and uncle Dimitri was residing in a priceless Minoan vase on the mantle in his condo.
Filling capsules with the powder, Nick counted 25 of them into a child-proof bottle, put it in a white paper bag and stapled it shut with a duplicate prescription. "There you are so, Mrs. Dubrinski" Nick whispered as he put it in the bin
by the cash register, "I make it special, for you".
*
i ain't half crazy
it seems the more i explore the history and the day to day
of mental health, the more likely i am to pitch a fit. in yet another fit of pique recently, i wrote a song - or some
lyrics for one, at least.
i was inspired, yet again, by the man i think of as one
of the finest lyricists to ever put pen to music, Ian Dury.
Mr. Dury was something of a Noel Coward for the Mandrax set. Among his many achievements was the fusion of his life after polio with an informed contempt for the international Year of the Disabled to produce a song called "Spasticus Autisticus".
this began with my attempt to collect words and phrases created to describe us all, and grew from there. musically, i hear it as a swinging chanson in a music hall style...
anyway, mes amis, with no further ado,
voila ma chanson folle!
voila ma chanson folle!
i ain't half crazy
i don't know when the cheese slid off my cracker,
or when it was i might have lost the plot
but now i'm what you call non compos mentis
you can't find marbles that you haven't got.
when i wake up every day, i'm cock-a-mamy
when i go to sleep each night, i'm off my head
and though you may have seen the lights on,
there is nobody home,
the wheel’s still spinning, but the hamster’s dead.
chorus:
i ain't half crazy, i'm the whole nine yards
there's six or seven missing from my deck of cards
i ain't half crazy, i'm all out of whack
i have gone around the bend,
and there's no turning back.
my sack is full of ferrets, my receiver's off the hook
i'm a trifle short of custard, that's a fact
i need a few screws tightened,
my think tank's got a leak
you see i'm out to lunch, my belfry's full of bats.
bridge:
i am batty, i am bonkers, i am all shook up
i am flippy, dippy and i'm witless too!
i am loopy, loony-toony, screwy, gonzo, i'm deranged
and so are you and you and you and you!
some days i'm really happy, some days i'm really not
and there are days when all i want to be is dead.
it's more than once i've had my head examined
and thanks for asking- yes, i'm on my meds
no matter what i'm into i'm still out of my head
and no matter where i go, i'm not all there
but it's hard to go the distance
when you're truly off your trolley
or win the jackpot when you're playing solitaire.
chorus:
i ain't half crazy, i'm the whole nine yards
there's six or seven missing from my deck of cards
i ain't half crazy, i am out of whack
i have gone around the bend,
and i won't be back.
lyrics copyright d.simpson 2011
the Bipolar Bear and I - part 2
i like bears, at least conceptually, and that's a good thing because there are more bears on my street than in most European countries. sometimes walking the dog at night, there are encounters. sometimes there are encounters
in the back yard, or the front porch.
bears are powerful, impressive creatures that could kill
me with one paw behind their back. i respect them
and their right to be here too, and as much as possible,
i stay out of their way.
in the back yard, or the front porch.
bears are powerful, impressive creatures that could kill
me with one paw behind their back. i respect them
and their right to be here too, and as much as possible,
i stay out of their way.
teddy bears were not invented in Canada, and there are reasons. anyone who has ever found themselves up close
to a real bear and lived to tell will never recall an overwhelming urge to cuddle.
but if you lived somewhere that bears were functionally extinct, the nostalgia is so predictable as to be inevitable.
to a real bear and lived to tell will never recall an overwhelming urge to cuddle.
but if you lived somewhere that bears were functionally extinct, the nostalgia is so predictable as to be inevitable.
the last thing i need to help through the ups and downs
of bipolar living is something cute. Bambi, pink ponies and all the rest use their helplessness like a weapon, launching pre-emptive strike on realities that need to be noticed,
talked about and changed.
no thing and no one changes for the better by substituting "Poor me, poor, poor pitiful me" for a broader and more informed, inclusive perspective.
the bipolar bear is frozen in an eternal present, where
the obvious - sometimes i'm up, sometimes i'm down - is presented over and over and over, like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.
if nothing real gets revealed, nothing gets learned and nothing ever changes.
if this is how bipolar living represents to the uni-poled, nothing's going to change. best case, there might be
a little more pity going around.
fuck pity. if you want to get real about something,
let's get real. til then, get your damn bear out of my yard.
claro?
let's get real. til then, get your damn bear out of my yard.
claro?
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Frank Zappa talks about kids
there's a quote i always think of when the name
"Zappa" comes up. i think it was on the album cover
for "Absolutely Free", but it might
have been the first album.
"if your children ever find out
how lame you are,
they will kill you
in your sleep."
i'd never heard the one below before yesterday,
which probably speaks volumes to his opinion
of inappropriately medicating the young.
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Nicholas Tesla had issues
Nichola Tesla was a genius. a one-of-a-kind- brain. he also had issues...
he may have had "issues" but Nicola Tesla
also had some very interesting things to say!
click HERE to read some actual quotes!
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