Holiday Greetings From Bi Polar Central!!

Love this ... and oh be joyful for me as one of my wandering wayfarers - my younger daughter - will be coming back to the Bay Area to pause, re-consider & re-calibrate her direction.  Her skills are excellent, ranging from "children's party faerie" w/balloon animals, magic tricks, a teeny tiny little voice and irresistible personality - to a superbly trained Shakespearean actor with a voice that can fill the room -- she's been on the "The Globe" in England, where she picked up her Master's at St. Martin's after graduating from NYU/Experimental Theater Wing (including a term at the UK's famous Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts).


When she's onstage doing a big role the wispy children's faerie disappears and any number of vivid personalities spill from her - that's some true talent there. I could watch what she does forever.  Pride in one's daughter's is an excellent thing -- and I am rich that way, rich indeed, for I have two of them I love and honor equally. 


Youngest returns to the SF Bay Area to take an internship with local genius Rob Melrose and his Cutting Ball Troupe -- one -- if not the of the most exciting, electrifying avante-garde theater groups in the SF Bay Area.  Re this returning daughter - it makes me very nervous that I haven't heard ANYTHING about her return.  She's coming back sometime, soonish.  That's all I want to know -- WHEN??  She's a lucky woman, though -- as this is a prized gig -- the Rob isn't just anyone, I can tell you that.  He and his wife, Paige Rogers, have built an organization here that has been sizzling.  It's their turn, somehow that's the feeling I get -- there's that buzz.


A sense of creeping anxiety grows as I look at the front room -- once again I have another collection of debris from the garage getting sorted for Goodwill.  A neat & tidy area it is not!  I have seen photos of other "mental" people and their living spaces are not from the pages of "Better Homes and Gardens". In fact they come in every sort, from the strangled, pseudo-Zen approach of an over-the-Top OCD personality to me, who is surrounded by all of the life collected around me, quite a bit of my two grown daughters' things and then there's Patrick, who moved all his stuff into an already full home.


I am not one to enjoy being judged for my ETERNAL LACK OF HOUSEKEEPING SKILLS.  My deepest longing, my unfulfilled desire -- is someone to help us around here.  However, I am no longer in the position to pay for it.  Trade or barter, yes -- real actual money -- no.  We just don't have it.  Welcome to the new America, my friends.  "And why do you think you deserve assistance" the formerly Great Society says to the newly impoverished mother of grown, highly educated daughters?


I can't bend and to move objects requires a strange sort of crawling that doesn't work with carrying.  I hate asking for help as I don't like rejection.  During my decades as a sickly sort of person I have come to easily recognize the resistance and hostility in the eyes of people I reach out to. "Reach out to your friends and family" ... as so many of the texts say.  Well - why? 


After a life of being able  to pay for 25 years of being to pay my own way, and then NOT -- falling into "Malice's Wonderland" as I call my years long stays in the hell realms of Bi Polar - hiding, daring to ask for a favor from time to time - recently willing to barter in any way possible for my need is great -- newly poor, period. I don't like being told NO when I work up my nerve  as I don't like the feeling of: 1) abandonment and despair, 2) rays of rage that rapidly infuse into my being through the cracks in my brain, leading to a display (or not) of  "going bipolar on somebody's ass!"  Or of course there is always, always the distinct possibility of nuking ANOTHER set of relationships -- thank god I'm now poor enough for a psychiatrist.  Irony?


Please understand that I am NOT justifying the feelings of frustration that come up -- I'd rather be hale and whole, and do my owned damned dishes.  The rage -- well, that comes from -- I think -- not only the anger I see in the eyes of those who've just seen my tender belly (it's both animal and human nature to take down the weaker in the pack!), but the primal anger that wells up in me, independent of anyone, basically bellows to Life Itself: I WANT BETTER THAN THIS!! I ck with love! People out there -- and I mean anyone anywhere who knows people having disabilities of one level or another -- while it is true that some people have issues with being thought of as "disabled", others have made a kind of peace with who they are, have found a way around some of it, but also KNOW THEIR OWN LIMITATIONS!WANT TO DO MORE FOR OTHERS THAN THIS!! I WANT TO BE STRONGER/STURDIER/AND NOT A PERSON ONE WOULD EVER THINK OF AS NEEDY, NOT EVER.  You don't always get to choose, though, you know?


When someone helps me, I am astonished, grateful, si


However, it does not mean we, your different brethren, like this fate. There's a reason that bi polar sufferers have a singularly high suicide rate. It takes a lot for someone to ask for your assistance.  If it's someone who has issues with depression, isolation can be one of the biggest setbacks for them, and to sacrifice a bit of your time to get them out of the house for a walk or a bit of shopping, or helping them do the dishes together = no-cost therapy.  NOBODY wants to need help, nor have to ask for help.  MOST PEOPLE would prefer to be in the place of being able to pay for it.  And if you are the sort that finds such people weak or offensive as opposed to ill -- do them a favor and stay away, or get over yourself.


Times have changed and people are broke.  Depression lurks in the depths of those winter months.  I've been advised by people who know the score on Twitter lately as I've felt myself sinking again to use full spectrum florescent lights and to exercise -- the "rulz" as she put it!  They do help!


Here's a shout-out and a thank you to the errr "invisible" friends out there in the blogosphere/twitosphere for the contact and support.  And people, if you have an active relationship with someone with mental or physical  problems, try to be there for them if you can.  I know that you might not be able to do much and -- it might not feel pleasant sometimes as there's a fear and perhaps an annoyance factor there -- or maybe a bit of disdain: "why do YOU need/want/think YOU deserve help?"


I don't understand this too much, having been through several hospice circumstances with my dying mom and other friends and family, which involved a different sort of strain than merely a helping someone with a damaged brain.  You can't SEE that damaged brain, exactly.


I get that -- and I don't get that.  Just around the time when I started to feel like I had a unit of friends that had some kind of understanding, I realized that there was resentment alive and thriving -- that's when the healing stops and the full retreat begins again. 


FEW wish to be a burden to their friends and family, and it's my opinion that overly-sensitive people with mental problems would almost rather do themselves in than see the flat, cold look of rejection in a dear friend's eyes.  So be careful with your loved ones -- times are tough, Christmas is coming, and that's the loneliest time of the year for many people.  Reach out if you can, but only if it's heart-felt and truly meant -- otherwise things just get worse.


Okay, that's the latest from Bi Polar central.  Off we go into the Holiday Season, so be careful, my friends!  Oh - and if anyone feels like talking about seasonal moods or whatever -- holidays, relatives -- I have a firefox plugi-in called "Intense Debate" installed & it might be a good time to take it for a ride!
































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