Bipolar humour

If you're bipolar and you're taking medication,
this will probably make you smile. It may also
invoke a moment of "been there, done that".

Being bipolar means i am, relative to most people,
living in an altered state. When one takes medication,
one is also living in an altered state- albeit one that 
allows one to function more better, more often.

That's the theory anyway, and for many of us, 
it holds true more often than not.

But from time to time, one can't help but wonder 
"Who am I really?". Who am I when I'm not on drugs?
Does the world still affect me the same way it used to
before the medication? What am I really feeling?

Compliance, for me, is a matter of percentages.
The longer I live with this diagnosis and the longer
I take medication, the more I become aware of how
it's affecting me. There's also a resentment factor that
creeps in along the way... something along the lines
of "fuck this- other people don't have to take drugs
every day just to be who they (sort of) are. Other
people don't have to spend $200 every month just
to be a human being.


Childish, I guess... but nonetheless real (sic).


*


Bipolar Humour 2
(or should that be Bipolar 2 Humour?)

I'm at my shrinks' for my regular appointment
to get my meds renewed and we're running the
checklist of usual questions.
He gets to the one about suicide:

"Any thoughts recently about self-destruction?"

"No more than usual".

There's a pause. We both smile
and move on to the next question.


Another example..

and the beat goes on.
La-de-da-de-dee...



*

a Bipolar-positive perspective?

i've taken somewhere around fifty thousand
photographs in the last ten years or so.

Somewhere along the line it dawned on me
that it was my way of mapping my world...
of capturing a handful of the thoughts that
were racing thru my mind as i wandered around.

On the rare occasions i ever looked at them again
afterwards, i realized that these images were also
a kind of diary.

This was partly due to the fact that i file them away
by date, but it was also because looking at those images
i could tell you where i was that day, and what the day
was like and what else happened that i didn't take
a picture of and so on.

But in the last couple of years i've also found
myself thinking that these images are also a way
of communicating, in some small way, to other
people what one person's bipolar experience
was like sometimes.

This is what the world looks like to me.

This is what the world looked like to me
wandering around a more tropical zone
than i usually live in ... sort of.

i say "sort of" because my wanderings - and
hence my image-making - are rarely as tidy
or as linear as a posting like this might imply.

Between one plant here and another there
might have been buildings, birds, statuary,
graf, clouds and anything else i might have
stumbled over along the way.

In that sense, just posting all the images taken
on a given walk would be a more accurate portrait
of a/my bipolar experience*.

At the same time there is something to be said
for a thematic approach too, and respect for one's
audience is one of those things. If one is going
to try and communicate, i think it behooves one
not to waste anybody's time...
including one's own.

i don't spend a lot of time trying to "get" a picture.
i may take two or even three photographs of something
trying to capture what i'm after, but that's it.

If i haven't "got it" by the third shot,
then i'm not really clear on what i'm after.

Why do you or anyone else need to see
a photograph that i don't think captures "it"?

Likewise, i don't spend a lot of time fussing
with the images once i've got them. i might
tweak the cropping or sweeten the contrast
or the colour, but if it takes more than five minutes
i'll bail... partly because again, if it needs more
work than that i didn't "get it" and need to work
on my skills, not try and fix it in the mix.

As John Lee Hooker used to say...
"That's the best, and later for the garbage".

None of the above has a lot to do with what
was on my mind when i set out to post these.

What i wanted to do was collect some of the images
on this theme where i really felt that i had got "it"...
(or come very close at least) as a way of speaking
to the perspective that most people - including
many of the diagnosed - have about "bipolar disorder".

i would not for a minute deny anyone else's
bipolar experience or their right to speak
about it in whatever terms they want,
and likewise for their friends and family,
or medical professionals or who-have-you.

The reason i started this blog was to have
somewhere that i could do exactly that,
and what this post was supposed to be about
is that i really really hate having my life,
my experience of the world characterized
as "a disorder".

One of the reasons i hate it so much
is that characterizing this way of being
as a "disorder" can very easily become
a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As soon as one is diagnosed,
one becomes "the other".

Hello stigma.

* hmmm... note to self.


*

Back to normal?

Walking home from the dog park yesterday,
i found myself wondering what it would be
like to be 'normal', as opposed to say... bipolar.



















Not forever or anything- but for like a day,
maybe, or even an hour or two.

What would it be like? Would i be calm?
Would i stop noticing/being distracted by birds
and signs and gum wrappers and everything else
that competes for attention in my day to day?

Would i be more like the others?

What would i do with the money that i didn't
have to spend on medication? Might i be more
sure of myself in conversation, less concerned
that i was sounding like a mental case?

Maybe i'd get all claustrophobic... more aware
of the borders of my perceptions, feeling like
there was something wrong with my ears
because i wasn't hearing all the sounds that
i'm accustomed to or with my eyes,
because i was walking right past flowers and signs
and gum wrappers and most everything else.

Maybe being normal would drive me nuts...

But maybe not. Maybe it would be 'better',
but i think it would just be a different kind
of crazy.






.

Is It A Bad Attitude? Bipolar? ...or both...?

does everyone who is bipolar
have a "bad attitude"

or is it just me, and everyone i know
who's been diagnosed?

hard to say...

the times in which we live

are such that if one doesn't have a bad attitude


it may well mean you ar....


a) illiterate


b) not paying attention


c) straight up stupid



d) over-medicating

it's an interesting time to have "a mental illness"

implicit in the diagnoses
is the the idea that one exists outside the "sane"..
the normal.

which is - allegedly - to be preferred.

i'm not sure that if i wasn't bipolar
i would still have "issues" with the pervasive
bullshit that the "private sector" and my government
tell me everyday.

but of course, it's one of the things
i can never really know.

*

Happy "Let's Talk" Mental Health Day!

Happy "Let's Talk" Mental Health Day!

Does that sound cynical?


It's not intended to...


It's now about 6pm on "Let's Talk" day*, and if the local news
is to be believed, there has been a lot of talk-
people posting/tweeting/w.h.y. about depression and other
manifestations of mental illness today so much that Bell
is kicking 57,000,000 nickels towards "improving care
and access, stimulating research and encouraging best
practices in the workplace.".


That's a lot of nickels.

Big respect and thanks to Clara Hughes for stepping
up to front this undertaking. She's my nominee
for "best use of cred".

And fair's fair - respect to Bell for doing something good
in the world. Yes, it's a mad bang for the ad buck buy,
but people are talking. That is a good thing, and in my
experience, rare enough to remark on.


It's even getting talked about during the sports report.
Amazing!

One can't help wondering what sort of world this might
be if more corporations-that-are-also-people showed
some fucking humanist initiative.


*


But all this 'good' is not without it's ironies...

Such was the result of my attempt to check out the web site. There's always room for improvement.

It's now about 7pm, and according to the local news,
it's up to about 62,000,000 nickels. Sweet.

This is my 4th post so far, and I'll probably do another
to kick it up to a quarter (as in 5 nickels, baby!).

It's not like I don't have quarters laying around the house.
It's not like I feel like I'm I'm stickin' it to the Man by costing
them money every time I do...


...but it is like "today's your day day, boyo.
Today you don't have to be ashamed".

I was diagnosed as bipolar 2 nearly ten years ago.
It was mostly a relief, frankly.

Why? Because it meant everything wasn't my fault.

All those days when I would lay in bed, so sad and broken
that only the thought of letting someone down that I cared
about could get me up.

All those meetings where I'd feel like a fricken'
Martian every time I suggested a possibility.

I could go on for days. Sometimes I do...

  Why not? I've got the time...

I used to be "high-functioning". I used to be one of the best
in the country at what I did. I used to make shit up,
and then build crews to make it happen and together
we would turn it into magic.

That was then. Now, I'm just another broke-ass guy
in a broke-ass town. I'm 58 years old, and I haven't worked
for years. I'll probably never work again.

My doctor is not equipped to deal with my medication needs.
I used to go see a shrink for that, whose practice was
a mere two hours a day, but he's gone now.
Nobody knows where.


I'm hoping I can get a welfare claim running soon.
I used to hope for a disability claim, but that apparently
those can take nearly five years to get going.


In the meantime, my Mom stretches her pension 

to include me. And my dog.

Even if I wasn't pre-disposed, it would be depressing.
And the beat goes on...

*


So, there you go. That's me celebrating Let's Talk day...
by talking about depression, and mental illness, and stigma.

*

If I was to try and boil it down to one thing I would say
to everyone who is not bipolar, it would probably come
down to this:

... that's my nickel.














* Bell has launched a campaign to encourage discussion
of mental health issues in the lead-up to its national
"Let's Talk Day" on February 8.
Bell introduced the mental health initiative in 2011,
committing to spend $50 million over five years in a bid
to change Canadians' attitudes on the subject.
Besides deflating the stigma around mental health,
the campaign also focuses on improving care and access,
stimulating research and encouraging best practices
in the workplace.

Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/bell-launches-2012-let-s-talk-mental-health-campaign-1.754199#ixzz2KjNXQQUc

The campaign against depression

Bell launches 2012 'Let's Talk' mental health campaign

*

Modern life causes brain overload

 











One of the interesting things about being bipolar for me
is my reluctance to assume that my experience of any
little thing in the world is widely shared. I know it's possible,
but it's not my my default.

So when I saw this study on line one night, I was more
than curious. I've felt overwhelmed by information most
of my life. I marvel at the way so many people seem able
to move through this world with an ease, a comfort level
that has always eluded me.

My usual response to the feeling of information overload
is usually to withdraw- go offline, unplug the phone,
go for a walk, go to sleep, what-have-you... 

I try to calm down and pull myself back together, and get
to whatever as soon as I can...sometimes an hour later,
sometimes longer later. People react to my reaction with
anything from annoyance to anger to dismissal, and go on
to the next person on their list.

... and despite my resolve not to project my reactions on
to other people, there is a part of me that thinks bipolar
people are sometimes similar to the tunnel canaries, used
by miners in days gone by to detect unhealthy changes
in their environment.

Anyway, getting back to that study, here are a couple
of things that gave me pause:

People are bombarded with the equivalent of 34 gigabytes
of information a day. Through email, the internet, television
and other media, people are deluged with around 100,000
words a day – equivalent to 23 words per second,
researchers claim.

“They are so busy processing information
from all directions they are losing the
tendency to think and to feel.

"Much of what they are exposed to is superficial.
People are sacrificing depth and feeling and becoming
cut off and disconnected from other people.”

Part of why it struck me, I think, is because this really
reflects my own experience of people in our digital age.

Something to think about...

 

or not.



I guess.

-30-

.

Depression - the dark, dirty secret

Is curiosity an inherent part of living bipolar?

One person is not much of a statistical sample, but it's
certainly part of my bipolar experience, Ever since I was
diagnosed, I have read a lot about "my condition".

Sometimes I learn useful things. Sometimes it makes
me laugh. Sometimes all it does is make it clear how
much of my bipolar life is not studied/discussed/etc...

Case in point: depression.

It's not that depression is not studied/discussed/etc-
if anything, it seems to be the primary focus of most
studies and discussions but from my perspective, there's
one key element of depression that never seems
to come out.

How fucking boring it is...

Being depressed is central to the bipolar experience,
to the point where unfortunately it virtually defines it.
By comparison, "mania" or as I call it "the fear of mania"
is a very distant second place.

Depending on whether you are BP1 or BP2, and just how
BP1 or BP2 you are, you may well spend over 60% of your
life being depressed. When one factors in the time spent
transiting into or out of depression, the odds are you will
spend most of your life being slightly to seriously depressed.

Often, this is a fact of life that is largely out of one's
personal control. Medication and/or various "lifestyle"
choices (nutrition, exercise, etc) can mitigate or even
minimize the impact of one's personal dark tide, but it
will always be a part of life.

And anyone who doesn't think that that this gets really
boring after a while (a) has never been there, (b) is living
in a very active state of denial or (c) is suffering from an
almost total failure of the imagination.

The darkest of the dark sides of depression is called "suicide
ideation". That's jargon-speak for "suicidal thoughts". Again,
depending on whether you are BP1 or BP2, and just how BP1
or 2 you are, this is probably a significant part of your
bipolar experience.

When these thoughts first start coming on, they can be very
frightening. Then, as time goes on they may even become
(and here's another dirty little secret of depression for you)strangely comforting.

That may sound very strange to some, but when most of
one's waking hours are spent in varying states of depression,
when all one can think about is what a worthless sack of
shit one really is, it is not really as strange as all that to
know that to find some slight comfort in the fact that
there is a way to never feel like that anymore.

But again, in my limited experience, once one was actually
explored the possibility of taking that step, and done some
research, and perhaps even decided on which way one
would do the deed, it gets really old, really fast.

To have the same thought recur, over and over, against
one's will is a great big goddamn bore. At some point, it can
even become as big a problem as the original feeling of
depression that brought one to thinking about suicide in the
first- ie- it is so, so, so boring to continually find ones' self
thinking about it (again, against one's will) that one can
start to crave release from how boring it is...














It's not a bad thing to confront life's most fundamental
question - to be or not be - once in a while. It's not a bad
thing to pause on occasion and look at one's life to see
if one has or has not been the kind of person one aspires
to be.

In fact, I don't think it's something that "normal" people
seem to do enough, frankly.

But as a full-time thing?

It's worse than useless. It's destructive. It takes the time
and energy one would like to like to put into doing useful
things in the universe, liken trying to change the
government or doing the laundry.

And when it is a state of mind that one has little or no
control over, it is almost a meta-state of depression
wherein one gets depressed about being depressed
all the time.

And when it goes on for days, and then weeks,
and then sometimes for months, 24/7?

It gets boring. Really, really, really boring.






.

Bipolar as Mood Disorder

There is an old cliche in Christian culture that the devil's
greatest trick is convincing us that he doesn't exist.
Sometimes I wonder if the inverse is just as true - ie -
the church's greatest trick is convincing us that god does.

I don't know if either one is true, and it couldn't matter
less, because (a) in the absence of such Absolute knowledge,
I just try to live in ways that help - or at least don't hurt -
other people and (b) even if I did know The Truth,
nobody would believe me anyway.

And anyway, I think there is another trickster among
us whose impact is just as profound who attracts much
less attention... words.

Words are really tricky.

They are tricky because we each and all assume we know
what they mean. On a personal level, this is probably
inevitable and maybe even benign.

Where it gets tricky, to the point of dangerous, is when
we assume that what a word means to us is what it
means to the person we're talking to...


***

A simple example would be "blue".

When I say "blue", I think of a dark shade called Navy Blue
that was probably imprinted by a set of Laurentien pencil
crayons when I was very young.







You may have thought of the colour of the sky,
or the sea, or a pair of pants or a berry on a bush.







You might even think of that same pencil crayon,
but the odds are you didn't...
yet that's what I meant.


***

Who cares.

Most of the time, none of us- including me. It's so obvious,
we're so busy, so use an adjective or two, blah, blah blah...


The only reason it's on my mind right now is because I was
reading up on some aspect or other of "bipolar"and once
again saw it described as a "Mood Disorder".


I had one of those strange moments where it was like
I was seeing this term for the first time, and it made me
go "Hmmmm....".

It reminded me of this graphic that I did recently:








Everyone has moods. Good moods, bad moods...
you don't have to be polarity-gifted to be in one mood
or another, or even to be called "moody".

The difference, when you are bipolar, is profound.

You don't have a mood- the mood has you.

You can't just think a happy thought or eat a Snickers bar
or have a coffee and move on.

That feeling of depression is not something you can
just shake off, or think your way out of. Even if you can
convince yourself to pull up your socks, it's not going to
change a damn thing*.


If you've experienced this, you know what I mean.

If you haven't experienced it, (a) you are soooo lucky
and (b) "depression", like "blue" is something we don't
share an understanding of, and we never really will.





*yes, there are things you can do that may alleviate
or even dispel that "mood" for a day or a week or whatever,
but it's always out there...

.

Normal-or-whatever 2

normal.


what the hell is up with that?


this question has haunted me most of my life. as a child,
and as an adult, i never quite "got it" and since i was diagnosed
as bipolar some years back, my "issues" with "normal"
seem to be growing.

to me, "normal" is a word people use way too freely.

am i the only one who finds this word loaded?
loaded like a gun?

some aspects of "normal" i get.

i understand that it is good, for example, to have "a normal
white blood cell count". i appreciate that one wants to look
at ones' feces and urine and feel like "hey, that's normal".

when it comes to things are objective, in the sense of
the physical world, "normal" can often be a good thing,
making ones' life and the world at large more understandable
and perhaps a safer place.


but when it comes to attitudes, to perceptions,
to behaviours... "normal" gets "weird".

normal stools

normal  (adjective)
Definition: common, usual

Synonyms: accustomed, acknowledged, average, commonplace, conventional, customary, general, habitual, mean, median, methodical, natural, orderly, ordinary, popular, prevalent,
regular, routine, run-of-the-mill, standard, traditional, typic, typical, unexceptional

Antonyms: abnormal, irregular, odd, strange, uncommon, unconventional, unusual

normal appendix

What is the Definition of Normal?

Normal is the state of being mentally and physically healthy
or conforming to a standard that is regarded as customary,
typical or expected.
It may also refer to a line that intersects a surface
at a right angle.

normal normal
normal

What is a Normal Person

The word normal typically is defined as a behavior
conforming with or constituting a norm or standard
or level or type or social norm.

So by this definition a normal person would be considered
an individual who conforms to societal norms and standards.

So typically a society will decide if a person is normal
by whether or not they follow the rules that that given
society uses to determine what is appropriate and
inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors.

For example when a person decides to enter a sport
that is not traditionally competed in by his or her sex,
they are viewed as abnormal. Each society will set
their own definition for what is a normal person.

the normal model

normal

2a : according with, constituting, or not deviating
from a norm, rule, or principle
2b : conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern
3 : occurring naturally
4a : of, relating to, or characterized by average intelligence
or development
4b : free from mental disorder : sane

Examples of NORMAL
    He had a normal childhood.
    These little setbacks are a normal part of life.
    a potato twice as big as normal size
    Despite her illness, she was able to lead a normal life.
    They had a normal, healthy baby.
    Normal people don't react that way.

Related to NORMAL
Synonyms: average, common, commonplace, cut-and-dried,
everyday, garden-variety, ordinary, prosaic, routine, run-of-the-mill, standard, standard-issue, unexceptional, unremarkable, usual, workaday

Antonyms: abnormal, exceptional, extraordinary, odd,
out-of-the-way, strange, unusual

normal urine

so to be "normal" then is to be....

average
conventional
ordinary
regular,
conforming
not deviating
unremarkable

is that how YOU see yourself?
is that how you WANT to see yourself?

is that who YOU want to be?

the normal curve

not me. not when i was a kid. not now.

not ever.

normal tongues

but above and beyond my visceral personal reaction
to these (also loaded) words, with their dreary,
suffocating and - to me at least - political implications...


is ordinary, conventional thinking what our society needs
to deal with the challenges that face us all- locally?
nationally?
globally?


don't the challenges we face, from climate change to poverty
to disease to racism, need to be looked at in new ways?
isn't it possible that any steps towards dealing with them might require require unconventional or even exceptional thinking?


haven't a lot of these challenges arisen from,
or been made much, much worse
by conventional thinking?


just sayin'...



to be continued...

!