Life vs. Death, Living vs. Existing
I know the importance of mental health screening first hand, as a person who is Bipolar, with Asperger’s, OCD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Therapy works. So does the right combination of medications. It is the difference between life and death. It is the difference between just existing and living a productive life with loving relationships. If you are having difficulties coping, feel you cannot go on as you are, are depressed or have any number of emotional problems, get screened. Get help. You cannot do it alone. I know. I tried. This may be the single most important decision of your life. And if you are interested you can read about the story of my battle against mental illness.
For screening go to:
http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/mental-health-screening-tools
No Laughing Matter: a Tribute to Robin Williams
Robin Williams fans mourn the loss of one of the greatest comedians of history today. In this world of wars, and anguish, Robin Williams made us laugh.
For Robin Williams was a most gifted comedian but Robin Williams was also Bipolar.
His Bipolar disease fed his genius. It also killed him.
His Bipolar disease gave him the ability to wildly free associate right to the heart of our funny bones. His performances were floridly manic but his alcoholism was depressed.
In truth of fact, Bipolar disease often does beget genius but far more often Bipolar Disease is the cause of suicide. The most deadly of all mental illnesses, we Bipolars see, and at times, enjoy the mania but far too often are caught in the black hole of depression.
And while fans may mourn Robin Williams, we who are Bipolar cry tears of anguish not just for one of our heroes, but also for a disease that could kill us.
Like most Bipolars suicidal thoughts and wishes are not foreign to me, just as they are not alien to many mentally ill people. But more Bipolars die from their mental illness than any of the other mental illnesses
Fans loved Robin Williams and ignored the Bipolar aspect. Mental illness is still stigmatized and talked about in hushed tones.
We who are depressed are told to “snap out of it”, “look on the bright side,” engage in “positive thinking” as if we have total control over our psyches. If anyone could look at the funny side, it was Robin Williams and yet Bipolar depression sent him to an early grave.
Pay tribute to Robin Williams by accepting Bipolar Disorder and Major Depression and, instead of stigmatizing mental illness, treat the afflicted with acceptance and empathy.
May Robin Williams rest in peace at long last!!
Afraid of Love
Bipolar 1, OCD, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. These were the labels awarded me when a major breakdown at age 28 literally catapulted me into therapy. Later came yet another label, Asperger’s Syndrome. In crisis, I was given a choice: medication or a mental hospital. I chose medication.
At this point my life began. Having left behind a trail of failed relationships, I started my quest for love, this time by journeying within. For many years, I lived in a world of delusion and psychosis. Somehow I managed to keep working my job in a university library.
All along the motivation to get well arose from a partly delusional, somewhat complex, unrequited love for a woman at work. Heretofore, heterosexual I learned that I was bisexual. A surprise. Much more importantly, I learned that I had severe problems with my own identity. I was very split by Bipolar Disorder. So split I felt like two different people. Before loving anyone, I had to overcome major problems with closeness due to Asperger’s Syndrome.
I thought I had found someone to love but love was not to come until I struggled through 7 years of hard therapeutic work. I had to start from scratch. When love came, it came in the form of a man. He became my husband of 25 years, Thomas.
My book, “Eye-locks and Other Fearsome Things“, chronicles the journey just pre-breakdown through psychosis, towards some semblance of sanity. It closes with my finally finding love. And though it starts off with insanity, it addresses the very human problems of intimacy and fear of closeness. Meant to give hope to the mentally ill and help enlighten their therapists, my saga may help those of the sane world who have issues with love and intimacy, not just the mentally ill.
Available on Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, iBooks, and Smashwords, for $2.99, my book explains what it feels like to be Bipolar and on the Autism spectrum and explores the phantasmagorical mystery of love.
One review on Amazon.com by a psychologist:
On Finally Seeing Maya
A fragmentation of reality
A major psychotic break
The other day I wrote a poem, Point of View, about having a psychotic break recently. Well, the break was a very slight one. Perhaps many people thought I was just being poetic. It reminded me of a time when I was being prepped for a surgery and the surgeon asking me about the medications I take. When asked why I took Thiothixene, an anti-psychotic, I told him that I was Bipolar. He said, “I think we are all Bipolar.” Maybe it was an effort to relate to me but it hit me in a “sore spot.” Everyone has moods, it is true, but being Bipolar is not just being “moody.” If we who are Bipolar have to endure the stigma of mental illness, at least allow that it is different from being “normal,” and not just some self-indulgent form of self-pity. So braving the stigma of it all, for I am sure many will stop reading here if they have not already, it seems incumbent on me to educate people. Bipolar Disorder is a major axis 1 mental illness characterized by extreme highs and lows. It is one of the most risky mental illness diagnoses because people can die from it. They suicide during a low. In Bipolar 1 the sufferer can become manic and while manic, and even while despressed, can become psychotic. Normal people do not become psychotic except perhaps in their dreams. Being psychotic means a major break with reality. It means entering another world that most don’t even know exists. So, no, we are not all Bipolar.
And, yes, people have fractured views of reality. But some views are more fractured than others. There is another “reality” in psychosis. This other reality exists when one is psychotic. What interests me is that different people who are psychotic have similar experiences, making me think there really IS another reality that is floating around out there. In this other reality the TV and radio can give you messages directly relevant to your life– so relevant that one begins to think there is some mind-monitoring device in your TV or radio. And the AC has a microphone that allows you to talk to the world outside one’s window, to the people in the street, and they respond to your commands. When one has the nerve to venture outside of one’s apartment, a cacaphony of voices tells you positive or negative things. People (I thought of them as teachers and/or psychics) do not come up to you and speak to you directly for they know you could not handle that. Rather they speak loudly to one another about your behavior so you can’t help but overhear. If they are pleased with your behavior at the time, the comments are your reward for getting well. If they are displeased, criticism comes from everywhere. There is nowhere to hide the shame you feel because negative feedback is coming at you from every direction. Then life becomes a hell that does not disappear when you go back home, because you can still hear the voices next door or in the street. That is just one down side of this other “reality.” Everything has self-referential meaning. You are either hearing voices that don’t exist, or you are one step away from that because the voices you hear are actually real, saying real things, but those things all have meaning for you and you alone. There is no safe place. No escape. No privacy. I was living in an apartment at the time. How much worse is it to be living in a shelter, hospital, prison or, worse on the street where one is overwhelmed with every kind of stimuli possible!
Synchronicity is everywhere. This is, I suppose, a lower from of altered consciousness. Life alternates between heaven and hell. That is what I meant by a fragmented view of reality in my poem, Point of View. One wonders if there is some divine intervention in these states because of the ubiquitousness of synchronicity. Is this another take on discerning Maya? I often lament to my husband that I cannot see the world as a dream or Maya and I feel so utterly unenlightened. And yet, how foolish I am, for many years ago I lived in another reality. Only now can I see that “reality” IS a consensual dream or “Maya.”
(For a narrative non-fiction account of being Bipolar and Aspie, the quest for sanity and the search for love, please see: http://www.independentauthornetwork.com/ellen-stockdale-wolfe.html to purchase my book.)
MOONSIDE 