TRIUMPH OF SPIRIT IN LOVE, NATURE & ART

Bipolar Disorder

Photons of Golden Light


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Photons of gold

the tail end of winter’s light

up close

and far away

the tail end of the light of day

bright yet almost night

wafting with whispers

of a new season

a new reason

to live.


How To Get Low-Cost or Free Psychiatric Medications – HealthyPlace


How To Get Low-Cost or Free Psychiatric Medications – HealthyPlace.


Point of View


 

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It happens

every now and again

a psychotic break

reality blurred

thinking slurred

torrents of

uncried tears

MAJOR fears

choked inside

unable to open the door

to walk in the sun

or talk to someone

and then…

it passes

at least for this time

fractured mind

heals

and I emerge

purged

of demons

shaken but

crawling back

out of the dark

blinded by light

laden with guilt

over is it

unjustified anger

and justified hurts

or justified anger

and unjustified hurts

or no justification

just endless conflation

of swirls of emotion

that feed the

desire to die

I come

creeping back

confused lack

of any cohesion

into the world

of  “reality”

or Maya

depending on

one’s point of view.


Prayer of Despair


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Oh God,

where art thou?

I feel Thee not near me

clouds obscure Thy light

fields lie barren like my soul

Love was in my heart

but I feel it not

all is obscured

Pain and illness

shroud all light

in shadows of darkness

joy but a faint memory

as the mountains

in the grey distance

hope is out of season

bountiful is despair

a sin

yes

I sin the sin of darkness

and wish I could blend

into the greyness

and retire

into nothingness

Oh God,

forgive my ingratitude

for my many blessings

now shrouded in the night

so I can no longer see

Come to me

breathe life into my soul again

and let me see Thy Light

let me see love again

it was there

how does it seem to vanish

and take with it all hope

for why else is there to live?


Video

A Tribute to Paramahansa Yogananda


I wish this were my tribute to Yogananda but it is not.  Perhaps you will know of him in his”Autobiography of a Yogi”which is world famous.  That is where I first found him.  But he has written many other books and lectures.  In other posts, I have written much about how psychiatric meds for my Bipolar Disorder have destroyed my closeness to God.  Only in Yogananda’s writings have I been able to feel God– to go back to communion with God.  Interestingly enough, my husband’s best friend is a monk in Self-Realization Fellowship which Yogananda founded to bring Kriya Yoga out of India to the West.  Yogananda came to me recently when I was sick and brought me joy in my despair and rekindled my dedication to learning Kriya Yoga. Yogananda is an avatar, a man of God.  I hope these images pay him homage and inspire!


Eye-Contact and Animal Healers


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As someone with Asperger’s who spent much of my life avoiding eye contact until I was properly medicated, I still feel uncomfortable with eye contact in human interaction.  Yet I actively seek out eye contact with animals.  I am not alone in this.  For people with Asperger’s and Autism, eye-contact with humans is fearsome and yet with animals, sublime.

People say eye contact with animals is less threatening, yet I believe there is more to it than that.  Gazing into the eyes of an animal, I feel love, depth of consciousness, and connection– all qualities quite impossible to feel with humans, except in fleeting moments with my beloved Aspie husband who, too, has problems with eye contact.  Perhaps because Aspies and Auties are so starved for affection, so hungry for a form of love that they CAN handle, animals offer pure and simple love, and unconditional acceptance. The truth is animals are excellent therapists and natural healers!!  P.S.  Animals are good for depressives, too.

(For more information on eye contact and Asperger’s and Bipolar Disorder, see the memoir I wrote of my experiences with love, called “Eye-locks and Other Fearsome Things” http://www.independentauthornetwork.com/ellen-stockdale-wolfe.html)

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Beguiling Wiles


Though I write about meditation, spirituality, animal rights, mental illness and nature on this blog, I would be remiss in not sharing my passion for Indian dance and Bollywood movies.  Bollywood movies, like Western movies, are vessels of escapism, but Bollywood movies add morality, family values and frequently, religion, into the mix.  The dance and music is uplifting and, yes, sensual, without resorting to the blatant obscenity of Western films.

In this excerpt from the film, “Khalnayak,” Madhuri Dixit and Sanjay Dutt star.  Madhuri is the diva of Indian dance and, in fact, I am taking free online lessons with her just for the fun of it. And fun it is.  Madhuri makes no bones about using one’s feminine wiles to beguile.  If interested the lessons are available at http://dancewithmadhuri.com.  Sanjay Dutt is the handsome, irresistibly vulnerable heartthrob of the Indian screen and he dances as well.  Most Bollywood stars not only act but dance, too.

In this scene, Madhuri Dixit plays an undercover cop acting as a dancer to allure and apprehend the soft-hearted criminal, Sanjay Dutt.  They have great chemistry and the dancing is definitely an earthly pleasure, a blatant manifestation of Maya, to which I am attached.  But I think I must follow to see where it leads.  Experiencing writer’s block and artist’s block at the moment, perhaps dance is good for my soul. Critics might say my interest arises from a Bipolar mania or an Asperger’s obsession.  Perhaps.  I don’t know.  I am certainly not manic at the moment. All I know is that the allure of this form of Maya is powerful, and to deny its existence may lead to the necessity of pursuing this manifestation of it in another life.  Paramahansa Yogananda says that all life is Maya, a picture show.  Perhaps by indulging in Bollywood films, I may get a new perspective on so-called “reality” and see it as Yogananda did, as a film show of the earthly passions, a dream from which we will awaken one day.


Interview with Slade Suiter of Authenticity Radio on Being Bipolar and Asperger’s


“http://www.spreaker.com/embed/player/standard?autoplay=false&episode_id=3642270”


Dark Clouds Overhead


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Things have spiraled out of control.  I am following far too many blogs and comments and finding it hard to keep up with all the new posts I want to read.  I am on too many animal rights, environmental and political lists.  Right now I have had a few weeks of migraines nearly everyday and am finding it hard to get myself to Physical Therapy to treat some problems that need addressing.   I am losing my temper at my loving husband and he, in turn, is under so much pressure at his clinical social worker job that he is losing his as well.  Clearly something has to be done.  I cannot stand the person I have become.

This means I will not be posting for awhile and I am not sure how long, or, if this is turning into a bad thing altogether.  I will not give up the animal activism and environmental lists because this is one of the few ways I can give to the world.  There is a reason I have been on disability for the last 13 years.  I have a major mental illness, Bipolar Disorder, and Asperger’s and these take their toll on my life and those around me.  So please forgive me if I don’t read all your posts, or read them and don’t respond.  I love some of you, and care for many of you, but now have to get my life back.  This means more meditation, more Reiki, possibly learning Qi Gong and lots of prayer.  It feels too bad right now to stay on the road I am on.  

Good-bye for awhile and my warmest regards,

Ellen

 


An Overdue Thank You!


DSCN1840_edited-2“Love cannot be had for the asking; it comes only as a gift from the heart of another”

~ Paramahansa Yogananda

And so I am sending my love to you whoever YOU are reading this right this moment.   More than a year has gone by that I have had this blog and I am only just now thanking you all for reading my posts.  If they have touched you I am grateful.  And I am grateful for all the “likes” and comments– but mostly for just reading my thoughts.  It is humbling.  Indeed this whole process has been humbling.  Not in the way one might expect, reading other people’s blogs and  finding people far more talented in writing, photography and painting, though that is certainly the case.  I was and am humbled by finding people who have a closer relationship to God, more faith than I probably ever will know.  I am humbled by finding people who are more giving than I, despite often challenging circumstances.  I am humbled by finding people who are seriously physically ill and yet full of more courage than I will ever feel- people who are handicapped and in pain yet vibrant and alive and more full of beauteous poetry, song, art.  I have found poets, healers, shamans, photographers, writers, artists, philosophers, teachers, animal activists, homeless advocates, and preachers.  I would list the people but I don’t want to cause embarrassment or an invasion of privacy.  You know who you are.  We have exchanged words.

I started this blog to showcase my book on how I found love despite being Bipolar and having  Asperger’s— it was written to offer hope to those who are loveless and have given up on finding the right someone.  But this blog took on a life of its own, viewed 9,031 times with 1,301 comments.  It allowed me to showcase my photography and write about, yes, mental illness, but also animal rights and the nature and wildlife preservation, and it brought forth hundreds of poems as I prayed to God to use my fingers.  But most of all, it brought YOU into my life and in so doing enriched me.  And for that I thank you, all of you, for all of you have been great teachers in the lessons of life.


The Web of Fears


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Caught in a web of fears

full of wet tangled tears

been this way for years

of course there are triggers

that make fears look bigger

but it is hard to figure

a way out of negativity

a way back to levity

and to my old productivity

it is hard enough to fight

the dramas of mind with my might

without succumbing to fright

about losing you

tis true

fighting at once the physical and the mental

is far too much for a mind balanced so gentle.


My Mind is Broken


It is 3 A.M. and it is another night I cannot sleep.  I have taken two sleeping pills to no avail.  When I am manic sleep does not come easily.  I write.  I eat.  I check email.  I pace the rooms back and forth, in and out of bed.  Luckily my husband does not wake during my perambulations.  The mania is not of the inflated ego variety, though I have had that at an earlier time in my life.  Years ago I remember going by Harlem on a bus route home one night when I was flagrantly psychotic and proclaiming, “These are my people!”  Why I said this I couldn’t tell you now– sparked most likely from some manic feeling of camaraderie. But, of course, it was beyond grandiosity and just plain crazy (yes, that is a psychiatric term).   Perhaps the roots arose out of the closeness I had with my Sicilian grandfather who was not exactly white and who had much spirit– what an African-American might call “soul.”  And from my father, a jazz trombonist, who spent his youth sleeping in bathtubs in Harlem when he would come to the city from white suburbia for jam sessions.  He, too, like my grandfather, had “soul”  hidden under white skin.

In any case, thanks to the anti-psychotic family of medicines I am not grandiose tonight. I did forget to take my meds the other night  and, like Karma, that affects everything about my life.   I am just raring for the day to start, for the morning to come.  I see a drunk sitting outside on a stoop smoking.  I want to see, not the people of the night, but the purposeful people of the morning, going to school, going to work, walking their dogs.  Two hours and forty-five minutes to go.  And then time to wake up, have coffee, pray, make plans for the work of the day.  How can fifteen minutes seem like an hour?  How can the cool night breeze masquerade as a morning zephyr?  I will make one last attempt to go to bed and sleep.  First, I will post a video of Jusuf’s, formerly known as Cat Stevens, of a beautiful hymn he sang, “Morning Has Broken.”  I am also posting a photo I took of a marsh in the morning light.  Enjoy!  And Good morning!

This was written a year ago in a mild manic episode.  Right now I am fighting depression triggered by Lyme disease and antibiotics.  I have zero creativity so resort to rewrites.  Hope to be back writing soon and commenting on fellow bloggers’ posts.  Please excuse the silence but that is how it is being Bipolar.   (Click http://www.independentauthornetwork.com/ellen-stockdale-wolfe.html  for information on, and to purchase, my Bipolar/Asperger’s memoir.)


A Secret Love


My husband’s look of love scares me,

turns off all emotion,
rendering intimacy hysteria for me
and forces a series of dogged pursuits by my Husband

whom I adore more than life itself.

Can’t turn off the flashbacks
loved Grandpa so
but not enough to do some hanky panky

that even as a child I knew to be wrong.

Bad enough the little sex games we did
when I was REALLY little and knew nothing of right or wrong,
just a fun game we played
till caught by Auntie who pronounced us both “disgusting”!
Why I never knew.
My fear that Grandma was jealous just made her laugh,
“Silly girl” to think such things.
What was there to be jealous of
between a little girl and her older husband?
What indeed!
What a deed!
She told me years later
he never was unfaithful

in all fifty years of marriage
“Ha!” I thought but never said,
“what he did with me
was that not infidelity?”

“You do the hanky panky

and you turn yourself around

and that’s what it’s all about.”

I remember that lewd smile even today.
Will it take me to my dying day to forget?
Oh how I loved him…
Taking me for after dinner walks
to catch fireflies,

silently sitting at the window together
at night after dinner,
watching the neighbors below,

Grandma in the kitchen,
Just him and me
a quiet bond between us,
or telling me bedtime stories of his youth.

My fault–
I was the seductress,
dancing in a hula skirt for him,
with tennis balls tucked into my aunt’s bra for breasts,
Hula dancing
to his songs he played on the mandolin.
Oh how I loved him!
No one knew.
I forgot about the “thing” between us till decades later,
when a friend talked about her incestuous abuse.

Oh how he loved me!
Arm around me always on the living room sofa
watching American Bandstand on the TV

giving me his whiskey-soaked cherry,
teaching me about art
making me the artist I am today.
Preaching the middle way to me

of relevance later, way later,
as it takes me a lifetime to learn the meaning of “I am Bipolar.”
Oh how I idolized him!
He carved the Lincoln Gettysburgh address, you know, in D.C, at the Lincoln Memorial
and many other illustrious statues.
He was a revered lawyer, working with veterans,
a self made man,
knowing no English
when he first came here
all alone at 16
and went to night school to learn English

while working as a sculptor
and then to law school.
He was a hero
helping poor veterans,
himself wounded in the war.
He was a hero
but no one knew

he was my hero.
“Of course he was having strokes,” my doc says.

“Maybe that explains the incest,” he says to me.
Men stick together
To defend the unspeakable
Which I just now speak out blasting loud and clear

in the blogosphere

for all to hear.

Naughty girl/old woman!
Just now allow myself the anger
while preserving the idolatry and Grandpa’s love

for such a love, and not irony this,

such a love is so VERY special!

 


“Couldn’t Look Away” – Book review by Alistair McHarg of “Eye-locks and Other Fearsome Things”


I enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone interested in psychological exploration – from clinicians to self-diagnosticians to concerned family members to lovers of extraordinary tales well told.

Do not imagine that this is a lesson-plan about Bipolar Disorder, or Asperger’s Syndrome, for that matter. On the contrary, we see Ms. Wolfe wrestling with a panoply of symptoms residing on different points of a spectrum – we never know exactly where we are, and neither does Ms. Wolfe. We get first person, real-time intimacy – the raw data, not the spin.

Asperger’s, autism, schizophrenia, paranoia, mania, depression, and challenging questions of gender identity blur back and forth until one is overpowered by the sense of a shape-shifting, ghostly enemy. We witness Ms. Wolfe inaccurately interpreting social cues the way an anthropologist might puzzle over artifacts from an alien civilization.

The writing is austere, elegant, forceful and almost chillingly honest. There is not an ounce of self-pity to be found, or self-aggrandizement. Serious students of these illnesses could hardly find a more useful document because – using meticulous diaries she kept through the years – Ms. Wolfe has made scrupulous accuracy her battle cry.

From very early on I found myself caring about what happened to Ms. Wolfe, wanting to know more. I sensed sweetness, innocence, and vulnerability – and that made me want to protect her. Consequently, the dread I felt as I watched her struggle with her own mind – and the outside world – created the tension of real drama. One would have to be a cold fish indeed to not suffer along with her as she trudges ahead with heroic determination.

Ms. Wolfe has achieved something quite remarkable. She has applied the direct simplicity of science to a human ordeal and, in the process, accomplished what art does, when it is at its very best. She has fearlessly and generously taken us into her world and – in doing so – enriched us all.

Alistair McHarg

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 Click on book to purchase.


“Living with Fear”


For whatever reason these days are days of high anxiety for me, nervousness to the point of tears.  Meditations are “noisy” with all thoughts and negative ones in particular.  To deal with this I share with you a helpful 9:06 minute webcast on fear and love with Jack Kornfield and Catherine Ingram.


Cruel Beauty


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The nature of paranoia

feels persecuted by nature

 sees flowers gossiping

their pistols pissing/hissing

stamens wagging

with stories about

the outsider

who turns away in tears

malicious, vicious words

pollinating the silence

while venomous stamens

 draw ovules of blood

as the razor sharp leaves

slit  slender petals


Springtime Blues no.3


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I am tres desolee

today

spring blossoms

morph to snow

when drained of color

against a grey sky

as I morph to lows

after a false high


Swarms


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The attack

not killer bees

nor locusts

nor hornets

nor any insect

but the contents

of the mind

 

Tied up in knots

not safe

not secure

not strong

not peace

 

Sick with

the plague of fears

negative thoughts

insidious

invidious

poison

killing  joys

bringing tears

of pain

and loss

and grief

 

The swarms cloud the sun

taking away the Light

and all it enraptures

attacking

the very source

of life

Love


Violet Reflections


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Today the sky reflects violet on the marsh

as statues stand shrouded purple in Catholic Churches.

Today my eyes weep blue tears, mirroring the sky,

at the slights, the fights, the cruelty of human nature.

Mine but pinpricks by comparison

to the persecution, execution and death

of innocents, of earth, of nature

and of He who was known as Jesus.


“The Club”


It is Friday night.  Ten thirty and I still have not eaten.  I walk into the kitchen, take out a can of soup and dump the contents into a pot.  I walk into the bathroom, open the medicine cabinet and stare at the three bottles on the top shelf.  Mellaril.  Stellazine.  Valium.  I have already taken my Stellazine.  Valium is the drug of choice for the night.  I take one of the yellow pills out of the Valium bottle, go into the kitchen again and pour glass of wine.  The pill goes down.  The wine goes down.  And the soup goes into a bowl.  I sit in the yellow light at the kitchen table, and force myself to swallow the soup that doesn’t want to go down.  Another glass of wine.

SHIT!  IT’S 11:00.  YOU’RE NOT GOING TO PULL ANOTHER STUNT LIKE LAST SATURDAY.  DRESSING AND UNDRESSING.  GETTING UP ALL THE NERVE AND LOSING IT.  HIGH.  SO HIGH.  READY TO GO FINALLY AT 1:00 A.M. AND THEN DECIDING IT WAS TOO LATE.  TOO LATE TO GO ROAMING AROUND NEW YORK ALONE.  YOU CAN’T DO THAT AGAIN.  BUILDING UP ALL THE TENSION AND THEN JUST GOING TO BED.  YOU CAN’T DO THAT AGAIN.

I wash the dishes.  Brush my teeth.  Comb my hair.  Change my blouse.  Change my shoes.  Comb my hair again.  Change into a different pair of shoes.

SHIT!  11:30.  GET OUT OF HERE.  GO!  JUST GO!

I walk into the street and into the late February night.  It is freezing.

TAKE A CAB.  A BUS.  NO, WALK.  IT’S OKAY.  WALK.  JUST MOVE ONE LEG IN FRONT OF THE OTHER AND WALK.

72nd St.  68th St.  66th St. The streets go by so fast.  Too fast.  65th  St.  I approach the door.  This is it.  A camel flashes in red neon lights in the window and above that a sign painted in gold appears to vibrate in the neon light—  “Arabie”.  “The Club” as it is known.  Four women are in front of me.  Two guys hanging out in front of the disco next door make comments.  The women make like they don’t hear.  I can’t make out what the guys are saying.  I just follow the four women in through the red door.  I’m doing it.  I’m actually doing it!  A stout man asks me for five dollars as I get to the door and he gives me two tickets.  The tickets say they are good for one drink.  I follow the four women inside and line up to check my coat in the cloak room on the left.  It is lined in red velvet.  I fumble with the coat check ticket as I try to take the whole scene in at once.  The walls are also lined in red velvet.  I feel as if I have walked inside a giant womb.  The air is filled with smoke and a flood of voices overwhelms my ears.  Twinkling lights line the reflection-laden mirror behind the bar.  I try to take a breath.  I see women everywhere. Sexy looking women.  Butches.  Dykes.  All kinds of women.  Women talking.  Women hugging.  Women kissing.  I feel dizzy and giddy.  I feel all eyes are upon me, but walking up to the bar to order a drink I relax a bit and I see they are not.

THIS IS PERVERTED STUFF.

My legs want to run back out of the door into the street for a breath of air.

NO.  YOU’VE GOT TO SEE.  CALM DOWN.  LISTEN.  HEAR THE MUSIC.  IT’S COMING FROM THE BACK.  THERE’S AN UPSTAIRS.  GO TO THE BAR.  GET A DRINK AND THEN GO TO THE STAIRS.  CLIMB UP THE STAIRS AND LOOK AROUND.  YOU’RE JUST SCARED.  YOU HAVEN’T COME THIS FAR JUST TO RUN OUT THE DOOR AGAIN.  RELAX.  LOOK RELAXED, GODDAMN IT, OR THEY’RE GOING TO THINK YOU’RE STRAIGHT.  RELAX, YOU FOOL.

I down the rest of my drink and go over to the bar to order another.  I gulp.  My body slowly loosens to the effects of the alcohol.  The tension in my muscles unwinds in hot little waves.  I want to dance.  Women with women.  It doesn’t seem perverted anymore.  I decide I like it.  I feel safe.  I feel free at long last.  Free to be me.

I watch a woman in a long white skirt dancing near the bar by herself.  She sees me looking and smiles.   Is she smiling at me?  I look away.

I sip the rest of my second drink more slowly.  More women are coming upstairs to dance and the dance floor is filling up.  The wall opposite the bar and the DJ station is all mirrored and the reflections of the dancing bodies double the size of the crowd.  I begin to feel giddy with the smoke and the reflections and the music and the alcohol and the bodies.  I lean against the bar to steady myself.  I watch the dancers and through the sea of undulating bodies I see a woman leaning up against the mirrored wall watching.  She is alone.  Tall.  Black.  Well-built.  Dressed all sexy with a blouse open at the neck and tight fitting jeans and boots.  She stands straight and cool with her shoulders thrown back and her head held high on the muscular body of a dancer.  Her eyes a counterpoint of pride and vulnerability.  She sees me looking.  I keep staring and when the woman looks over to me again I let my eyes meet hers.  Our eyes play a game of flirtation across the room, between the sea of dancing bodies which separates us.  My courage is building.  When the woman looks over again, I smile.  The woman smiles back.  She walks across the room to where I am standing at the bar.

“Would you like to dance?” she asks in a sweet, accented voice.

From Chapter 6 of my memoir on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Eye-locks-Other-Fearsome-Things-ebook/dp/B007TOOF56/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1345051643&sr=1-1&keywords=eye-locks  Also available on Barnes & Noble Nook, iBooks and Smashwords.


The Crush of Paranoia


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Two of Me?


I look down at the catalogue card on my desk.  I look at the first subject heading.  It says: “City planning – Zoning.”  I see the word “City” and I see the word “planning” but I see them as “City – planning – Zoning,” something I’ve never seen before.  I go over to Tony.

“Tony, is this a new subject heading?  I’ve never seen the two together before.”

Dr. Lencek is standing by, listening and he says, “Ah, indirect communication.”

I hold the words in my mind.  “Indirect communication.”  What does he mean?

Tony answers gently, “Ellen, that’s not a new subject heading— we’ve used it before.”

I look down at the card.  Of course, it isn’t a new heading.  Now the words look normal.  “City planning – Zoning.”  My face burns hot and red.  How stupid!  I’ve used the heading for years.  I slink back to my desk in embarrassment.

“It will get easier,” Dr. Lencek says.

“INDIRECT COMMUNICATION.”  DR. LENCEK SAID THAT AFTER YOU SAID YOU HAD NEVER SEEN THE TWO TOGETHER BEFORE.  YOU MEANT THE TWO PERSONALITIES INSIDE YOU.  YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN THEM BEFORE.  YOU WERE DESCRIBING YOUR MENTAL STATE IN INDIRECT COMMUNICATION.  THAT’S WHAT DR. LENCEK MEANT.  THAT’S WHY DR. LENCEK IS ALWAYS TELLING YOU TO FREEZE ONE PARTICULAR MOMENT IN TIME AND KEEP IT IN THE MEMORY.  “HOLD IT IN YOUR MIND,” HE ALWAYS SAYS.  HE IS TRYING TO GET YOU TO BE ONE MIND— ONE PERSON.  YOU’RE SPLIT IN TWO.

I feel weaker than ever now, though I am sitting.  I look over at Dr. Lencek who is standing nearby Tony’s desk working.  I want to hug him.  All the times I was so nasty to him when he was trying to communicate with me . . .

IT’S THE PLAN.  IT’S THE PLAN YOU OVERHEARD DANIELLE DISCUSSING WITH CAROLINE.  YOU OVERHEARD DANIELLE SAY HOW SURPRISED SHE WAS THAT THE PERSONNEL HEAD WOULD ALLOW THEM TO GO THROUGH WITH THE PLAN.  DANIELLE HAD THOUGHT THE HEAD WOULD HAVE SAID NO.  THEY WERE PLANNING TO SHOW YOU HAD TWO PERSONALITIES.

But why would they bother helping me in this way?  Why would they bother helping me at all after all my moodiness and fits of anger?

I am shaking now.  I try to get up from my desk to look up the call number for the book.  Dr. Lencek is standing by.  Tony and Danielle are standing to the side watching me as I try to get up.  I try to put one foot in front of the other.  It is as if I have forgotten how to walk.  My legs and feet don’t move the right way.  I look up at Danielle. She probably overheard most of the conversation between Tony and me from this morning.  She knows what is wrong with me.  This is why she has kept away.  She is watching me with an expression so dramatic that it is easy for me to see worry and compassion.  There are tears in her eyes.  For once I can feel the love.  I want to run into her arms and cry.  But I cannot walk.  It is as if I am a big baby and when I finally do manage to walk slowly past them to the back of the room, I am unable to respond when Eva passes by and says hello.  It is taking all my power and concentration just to walk to get where I am going.  I suddenly am so exposed.  Like a baby walking down the aisle.  But, no, it is like I am being wheeled down the aisle.  Something is moving me down the aisle and it is not my feet.  I am in a big, dark, round cave.  And in one corner of the cave is a small opening where the light shines in.

From Chapter 11 of my memoir on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Eye-locks-Other-Fearsome-Things-ebook/dp/B007TOOF56/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1345051643&sr=1-1&keywords=eye-locks  Also available on Barnes & Noble Nook, iBooks and Smashwords.


Mania Free-flow


This is the mind in mania, a sampling of the free-flow of racing thoughts and rhyming words that occur.  On first glance, the meaning may seem random but in the context of the memoir, themes of paranoia and the flip side of mania, depression, are apparent.

I catch the Number Four bus.  The bus is crowded.  The motor in my head starts racing again.

IT’S PANIC.  AND THEY’RE PUSHING.  PUSHING AND SHOVING.  AND THE STREET LIGHTS ARE FLASHING— GREEN VENOM/BLOODY TEARS ALTERNATELY ON THE RAINDROP WINDOWS OF THE BUS.  AND THAT WOMAN OVER THERE IS STARING, DAMNED BITCH!  AND THAT HAIRY MAN— THE EYES ARE PROBING AND LOCKING.  IT’S SHOCKING.  THE MIND MOTOR’S GOING FASTER AND FASTER STILL.  NERVE ENDINGS FIRING.  AXONS AND DENDRITES SYNAPSING ALL OVER THE GODDAMNED PLACE.  AND THE STREETS CRAWL BY.  FLIP FLOP.  THE CAMERA SHOP.  GOTTA MOP THE CAMERA SHOP.  FLIP FLOP.  THE BUTCHER SHOP.  CHOP.  CHOP.  RAW MEAT DROPS AT THE FEET OF FAT FLESH.  TICK TOCK.  THE ROUND, WHITE INSTITUTIONAL CLOCK TICK-TOCKS TO THE CHOP CHOP OF THE BUTCHER SHOP.  A SEAT.  SIT DOWN.  CLOSE THE EYES.  YEAH.  THAT’S BETTER.  NICE AND EASY DOES IT.  TRANQUILITY.  SENILITY.  DEBILITY.  THE MIND MOTOR’S RACING.  THE HANDS ARE SHAKING.  GRAB HOLD OF THE BAR.  YOU’LL GO FAR IF YOU GRAB HOLD OF THE BAR.  KEEP THE EYES CLOSED AND GRAB HOLD OF THE BAR.  THE BLACK HOLES IN SPACE TAKE THE PLACE OF THE RAY OF HOPE WHICH LIES LIKE A DOPE BURIED UNDER THE FALLEN STARS.  A MURKY MIASMA AT THE BOTTOM OF THE UNIVERSE. REHEARSE THE HEARSE.  ANOTHER STAR IS DYING AND TRYING TO REST AT BEST IN THE BOTTOM OF FOREVER.  AND PEOPLE ARE LEAVING.  AND THERE’S MORE SPACE.  AND I’M DOWN IN THE VALLEY OF THE DESPAIRING DAMSELS, SITTING WITH THE DOTTED, SPOTTED DALMATIANS, IN THE PURPLE PANTRY PUDDLES OF THEIR PISS.

From Chapter 2 of my Bipolar/Asperger’s Memoir.  For more information see: 

http://www.amazon.com/Eye-locks-Other-Fearsome-Things-ebook/dp/B007TOOF56/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363364264&sr=8-1&keywords=eye-locks

Also available on Barnes & Nobles Nook, iBooks and Smashwords


At the Brink


This excerpt from Chapter 2 of my Biolar/Asperger’s memoir of finding love shows the beginnings of a psychotic breakdown.

I feel the electric light glowering at me.  I look around the room in my basement apartment.  The men following me.    The phone call from Yvonne.  Nothing is making sense.  Obeah island witchcraft?  Danielle’s thing.  Danielle is the island woman.   The room spins again.  I feel like someone is watching me.  I feel someone here— looking in the window.

Jumpy thoughts.  Buzzing mind.  I know the signs.  Feeling the victim of a plot.  Fear of being followed— of being watched— of evil spells coming out of an inanimate object— panic—  magical thinking— paranoid ideation.  I have made the break with reality.  I have entered the deep, dark hollows of the paranoid’s world.  Terror!  I pick up the phone and dial.  242-6637.

“Hello, Dr.’s office.”

“Hello, may I please speak to Dr. Agostinucci?”

“Hold on a minute.”

“Hello, this is Dr. Agustinucci.”

“Hello, Joey.  It’s Ellen.  I’ve got to talk to you.  Can you talk?”

“Yeah, you got me at a good time.  I’m just in between sessions.  What’s up?”

“Joey, I don’t know.  I’m flipping out.  I can’t sleep.  I called Danielle last night and told her.”

“You told her what?”

“I told her what I told you— that I loved her.  And then she told me that she wasn’t ‘that way’.  And then . . . ”  I start crying.  “Oh, Joey, I’m so scared.  I mean it means that all along I couldn’t see reality.  I’ve been living in this fantasy world all this time, thinking Danielle’s in love with me and gay, and I’ve been drinking and drinking because I haven’t been able to sleep.  And then today I started thinking that spells were coming out of the elephant that Sundra gave me.  So I took the bus up to Columbia to throw it away.  And then I thought two men were following me home.   And Yvonne called me up from work and, Joey, I think it’s all a plot . . . ”

“Wait a minute, calm down.  You’re all upset!”

I continue.  “Yvonne and Danielle are in cahoots.  Maybe they’re both testing me to see if I’m gay.  Joey, I don’t know how I’m going to go to work tomorrow and face Danielle and face Yvonne . . . ”

“Calm down.  One thing at a time.  You’re overwrought.”

“But, Joey, I don’t know what is real and what’s not real anymore.  I can’t sleep and I can’t stop crying.”

“Okay, look, I’ll give you a prescription.   I’ll call in the prescription to the pharmacy.  They’re probably still open.  I’ll have it delivered.  Just give me the name of the pharmacy you use—  the one nearest you.”

“Uh . . .  I’ve got to look it up— just a second . . .”   I run to the bathroom to find a prescription bottle.

“Joey, it’s Rexall on 76th  Street.  The phone number is 663-7684.”

“Okay, look, I’m going to give you a prescription for Valium, 2 mgs.  Take one pill and see what happens.  If you still feel very anxious, take two.”

“Okay.”

“Listen, I think you should go to work tomorrow.”

“Joey how can I?  I keep bursting into tears.”

“Look, the Valium will help calm you.  It’ll be a whole lot worse if you stay home.  I suggest you call the Health Service first thing in the morning and make an appointment to see someone.  Tell them it’s an emergency.”

“Okay, Joey, I guess you were right.  You always told me I needed therapy and I always told you that I felt I’d go to pieces one day and now it seems that day has come.”

“Listen, you’re extremely upset.  Take the Valium and try to get some sleep.  If you need me you know where to reach me.  And if things really get bad you know you can always go over to the emergency room in Lenox Hill.”

“Yeah, that’s right, I can always go there.”

“Listen, when I call in the prescription I’ll arrange for them to deliver it, too, so you don’t have to do anything.  You have enough money to pay for it?”

“I don’t know.  Let me see.  Yeah, I think I do,” I say as I scramble through my purse.

“Okay, look, are you going to be able to answer the door?   Or are you still scared of those men?”

“No, the doorbell only rang twice.  Whoever it was is long gone.  I’m not scared of that anymore.”

“Good.  So just wait for the delivery.  I’ll tell them to speed it up.”

“Thanks a lot, Joey!  Thanks for everything!”

“Okay, take care, get some rest.  I’ll call you tomorrow to see how you are.”

“Okay, thanks a lot, Joey, bye.”

“Bye, Hon.”

For information on the memoir see: http://www.amazon.com/Eye-locks-Other-Fearsome-Things-ebook/dp/B007TOOF56/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1345051643&sr=1-1&keywords=eye-locks  The book is also available on Barnes & Noble Nook, iBooks and Smashwords.