Bipolar versus Normal

Sometimes i wonder what life would
be like if i wasn't bipolar.


What would it be like
to be Normal?

Not like... forever or anything...
but maybe for a day.
An afternoon, perhaps,
or maybe an evening.

How would i react to things i like?

Would i find Beefheart and Dali strange
all of a sudden?

If i was suddenly Normal,
would i find things that usually make me
want to barf suddenly 'cute'?

Would i find myself more at ease in the world,
or just uneasy in another kind of a way?

Would i stop noticing all the sights and sounds
around me that 'distract' me from 'what's going on'?

Would i think fewer 'dark thoughts'
and more wonderful ones?

Would i feel trapped?
Claustrophobic?


Calm?

Would things creep me out less?
Or more?

Or would it all be pretty much the same,
only without the meds?

,

Vincent van Gogh

... another person with "mental health issues"
     who decided death would be better...

!

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.

*

special for You

a recent flight of fictional fancy,
set in a drug store near 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".

*

the Excitable boy

Jimmy had always been an excitable boy, curious about every single thing and running everywhere he went. He was also prone to sharing whatever was on his ind ...in fact, sometimes he used his outside voice even when he was in the house!

One day, his parents decided they really didn't like him very much. In fact, they couldn't stand him anymore. So late that night, they had a Talk. By the time the Conan credits rolled, they had narrowed their options down to either an 'accident' on the basement stairs or putting him on medication.

Jimmy's dad told his mom that if ten years of JonBenét Ramsey had taught him anything, it was that even little bodies were a bitch and a half, so why not try him on the kiddy coke and see what happened. "It's a no lose" he reminded her, "the stairs will always be there of we need them".

Six months later, Jimmy was a new boy!

Now, Jimmy sat very still and the Ritalin did all the running, from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. Everything was fine, even if he didn't remember who this weird lady was, or why she was so stoked about showing him her dumb picture of an old hippie.

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