Self-Healing post Bipolar Breakdown

One of the things I've learned about living with "The Beast" from my teen-aged years on is that you never know when that sucker is going to re-claim its hold on your brain.  Knowing that the stats say it only gets worse with age leaves a person always looking over one's shoulder -- but where?  The enemy lies within and there are the moments where it takes everything to bear it, because one doesn't recall any other way of being nor does one anticipate relief -- ever.

As I go through the paperwork analyzing my financial fall from grace --  my dearly beloved ex left me well provided for, and my actions later -- the typical actions of a person suffering from an over-inflated idea of their abilities -- wiped out my financial security.  I trusted those that for reasons of their own should not have been trusted.  I did these things myself, to myself, and it is hard to own up to the fact that I am indeed my worst enemy at times.

It's not easy to go through the seemingly infinite amount of papers that shout out to me what an idiot I was, but it must be done, for there is no other way to prove that my 50/50 partner - he whose name shall not be uttered - ;-) - skipped out leaving the books undone and owing me enough money to augment what I still have and enable me to live decently for a few more years.  Oh the pain, the pain -- and worse still is the crushing loss of the family ties that this project represented.

Had I but known -- when one suffers from the "empty nest syndrome' or rather  when THIS one suffers, as I did so profoundly for so many years -- (bipolar adds to the festivities!), well - I found myself looking for surrogate children, as mine are a continent and an ocean away.  I found some great kids, but in my eagerness to play at business with them, managed somehow to ruin my financial life.

I know some of you may recall earlier posts stating I was on the brink of foreclosure -- thanks to the loving intervention of family members, the debt was taken care of.  However, I'm having to fight to get "my own" back financially, & the enormous task has me wondering every day if my brain will teeter over the brink.  When the tears come for no reason, and the refrain I always carry in my head for my girls plays, I can always tell that the old brain beastie is lurking.

"oooh, oooh I'm missing you; tell me why the road turns?"   by lionel ritchie for diana ross

So.  Ms. Julie -- what ARE you doing to rehabilitate yourself?  That's what they call it, you know, when people who have had significant psychological breaks or traumas try to re-integrate with society again - rehab, emotional rehab.

Well, I've developed a freaking healthy respect for this brain-basher of an "illness" or a "disorder" or whatever they call it -- I don't know; all I know is that IT, and not I, has been taken control and run me off the roads throughout my life starting in my teens.  It distresses me that I have tears streaming down my face as I write this, for there's nothing wrong today.  The sun shines, all is as it was.  And yet inside there is darkness and sorrow.  And I wonder -- oh my god is IT coming back?

In my beloved Marin County, when one does a free fall from plenty to indigence, there is a gracious social welfare system that treats the mentally ill.  I hope we can keep these needed services available.  For the first time ever I have access to a real live psychiatrist -- who validated the protocol given by my  GP of 15 or so years - the wonderful flash gordon, md., healer & author of many books, the latest being "Blood, Sweat & Second Gear" -- who as author Susie Bright said, SHOULD be Surgeon General of the U.S. - he's THAT good, but instead he's treating ordinary folk like us.

So I've gotten a Psych doc, and have started making the journey -- sometimes ecstatic, sometimes excruciating -- from the bedroom that has been my cell of choice during the last several years.

Reintegration with the rest of the human race is absolutely essential for people coming back from "the twilight zone" as I like to call it, a place of muted or non-existent desire, will to live -- a life in the shadows while all about you people go about normal lives and you wonder why you can't.  The very most basic current of life force is drained from you.

You wonder why it is so hard to speak to other people sometimes.  Even the ring of a telephone brings with it thoughts of three years of creditors harassing me, and the sound of the doorbell is terrifying!  I shake my head in wonderment at my own peculiarities. In reading further I find that social anxiety disorder is often part and parcel of this "thing" I've been born with.  In the National Institute of Mental Health URL, I found a chart of the various symptoms of both ends of the bipolar scale:

• A long period of feeling "high," or an overly happy or outgoing mood
• Extremely irritable mood, agitation, feeling "jumpy" or "wired."

Behavioral Changes

• Talking very fast, jumping from one idea to another, having racing thoughts
• Being easily distracted
• Increasing goal-directed activities, such as taking on new projects
• Being restless
• Sleeping little
• Having an unrealistic belief in one's abilities
• Behaving impulsively and taking part in a lot of pleasurable,
  high-risk behaviors, such as spending sprees, impulsive sex, and impulsive business investments.

• A long period of feeling worried or empty
• Loss of interest in activities once enjoyed, including sex.

Behavioral Changes

• Feeling tired or "slowed down"
• Having problems concentrating, remembering, and making decisions
• Being restless or irritable
• Changing eating, sleeping, or other habits
• Thinking of death or suicide, or attempting suicide.

And back and forth and over and over for the rest of one's life.  And I can tell you first hand it is not easy, this path.  Nor is it for the unfortunate family members that have to deal with you -- support groups, people!  Get your support somewhere, because you will need it.  It is most wearing to be around somebody who is profoundly depressed, the "identified patient" as such who might suck the life right out of the room.  Save yourselves!

 For my self-prescribed rehabilitation I decided that I needed a radical prescription, a big dose of other human beings!  My mate Patrick has been, for almost a year, helping out at the Marinwood Farmers' Market.  Soon he began selling Nana Mae Organics (apple products during the Great Recession- Depression) at this Market, about a mile away from our house.

I didn't think much of this at first -- Patrick (Asperger's, panic attacks, ADHD) picks up projects and puts them down -- besides, to do a Farmers' Market you have to be willing to -- ah -- get  up early.  Simply put, I could hate nothing more.  A morning person I am not.

But I began to wander on down around to visit around noon as I had the sneaking suspicion I could do better at sales than Patrick, who NEVER can stay at the booth for longer than 20 minutes at a time.  A little friendly competition with my sweetie got me out the door -- whatever works, say I.

And so began my now weekly forays down to the market.  At first I'd wait to go down until noon -- then earlier and earlier.  I go with Patrick now; we join the rest of the Vendors, and are always only slightly late, rumbling into our space around 9:10 AM to the amusement of our fellows, as we live only a mile away!

I noticed very quickly that the simple interchange between human beings is a tonic beyond almost anything a doctor can prescribe.  I love sitting down there in our little makeshift booth, making change the old-fashioned way from a wooden cigar box,  and for the first time in all the 26 years I've been here meeting and enjoying my neighbors while we all begin the project of neighborhood/community building here in Marinwood.

Why is that that simply the action of placing oneself in the midst of others heals?  Because the primary "food" for we spirits in human bodies is the interchange of energy through the eyes and the feeling heart, and that is one of the ways we fight the Beast within -- with the sweet medicine provided by our fellow human beings.

I have a much more upbeat account of these experiences to pass onto you, but today was not a day for that kind of writing.  Today was a day for acknowledging and expressing the hidden sorrow in the brain that twists life in the body/mind for more of us than you might think.  One can only persist.

Have a great Sunday!

PS:  I just came back from another self-prescribed dose of "medication" - a walk in the canyon by our house in order to spot bay laurel trees that seem to be infected with "sudden oak" and collecting specimens.  It's so beautiful out there -- I lay in the green grass and felt the sun warm me while I watched the little girls play in the brook, as my long lost children once did.  Unfortunately, my mind came with me and began to brood over my girls, but all in all, the experience served me well.  My mother always told me that all that could be done was to place one foot in front of the other.


That doesn't sound very deep, but could anything be more difficult sometimes?

Ah well, my dears -- don't mind me.  I'm just a wee tad bluish today.

I'll be back with a rapturous account of a splendid day at the Market!

Rumination upon Education

As the daughter of a teacher, I KNOW what my mother put into her four decades as both a fifth grade teacher and a high school teacher/college counselor.  She brought her job home every single day and most weekends.  That job dominated her life; she loved it and influenced countless lives positively.  She elevated the prospects of thousands of kids in the San Joaquin Valley and 29 Palms, California. A great many among them were children of seasonal migrant workers, mostly from Mexico, kids who lived with entire families in rooms the size of a small bedroom. 

At her funeral in 1994, I met a wonderful gentleman, at that point head of the local junior college, who told me that she was the reason that he, the American born son of Mexican migrant workers, was able to turn his passionate desire to succeed, help others, and prosper into reality.  I heard this said about my mother over and over again as she fulfilled her passionate desire to enlighten receptive minds.  That is what a Teacher does.

She was always passionate about her job.  One person CAN make a difference, and the public service workers of our country -- the teachers, the nurses, the firefighters & police -- each ONE of those people dedicate their lives to making a difference.  I believe they should be able to RETAIN the RIGHT to bargain with the Big Boss Men, who already, it seems, believe they should be as kings unto their workers.  Gah!
 
United (Union!) we stand, divided, we are cracked like dried twigs, which is pretty much what they want, isn’t it?

The sneak attack by the GOP in Wisconsin that killed collective bargaining in Wisconsin smacks of tyranny to me.  For example, when these slick creeps demean teachers, they are attacking societal fundamentals.  Do we, as a nation, value education?  Do we value educating the blue collar/middle class family as much as we value educating their peers at a higher social level?  If not, why not?


We’ve always had issues with class in this country.  We’ve had slavery, indentured servitude, the plight of women, children, the sick and the elderly who can’t fend for themselves.  And there has always been the model of the Banker (Big Business usually = GOP) with the cold heart in this country – plenty of those around today.  (“If you don’t give me the deed to your ranch I’m gonna tie you to the railroad tracks”)

Tell me, O weasel-eyed Governors with eyes of flint - I would like to know how destroying our precious national safety nets will do anything but impoverish those too weak to pull themselves up, thereby weakening our national fabric.  These “nets” are in place; they serve the people.  Honestly, really – what will take their place?  Smile, say "charity" and I will laugh in your face.

What happens when there’s no protection for the firemen, the teachers, the police, the drivers -- the We that are the People?  For Governor Walker to act like an over-confident bully, smashing the long-held values and Rights of a state known for securing those Rights, thereby paving the way for the rest of us, was viscerally shocking to me.

Governor Walker appears to be a mini-dictator, and there are several others of his ilk governing other states.  Their aim is to strip the Democratic Party of their one power base, the Unions, and to prevent President Obama from being elected or from achieving policy objectives.  It is also Karl Rove’s Machiavellian goal to achieve total GOP dominance within all systems of government.  If that happens, kiss the idea of America goodbye.

The state of Wisconsin is not supposed to be a dictatorship, run by a Governor with an unseemly urge to please billionaire businessmen such as the Koch Bros. His mini-dictatorship is somehow protected by states-rights while the rest of us watch in horror, wondering what next parliamentary bit of deviance will be used inappropriately.

In my state, California, a Democrat Governor was recalled a few years ago for NOTHING compared to what Governor Walker is doing, and I mean NOTHING.  I have nothing against Governor Schwarzenegger - I came to be quite fond of him -- he's MY kind of GOP-GOV.  I like moderate Republicans -- we do have a lot in common. I want to cultivate that love of the moderate which is unfamiliar to the flaming Progressive!

It's time to unite from within the center, reaching out -- reaching out to one another with a sense of inclusion towards ALL except the bat shit crazy.  I refuse to take this challenge to our working people without reacting in a protective fashion -- as they have protected us.  I refuse to watch a challenge to education in this country without working to educate people about why it matters!

People must know why a wide, stimulated, open & well-trained mind is worth more than gold.  The fewer great minds we have, the lower is our status as a country, period.  I would feel more comfortable with the direction of our country if we pointed our kids in the direction of math/science/saving the earth than by bombing the crap out of it.

When we stop respecting education, we are stale, through.  Do you hear me, America? WE – the almighty paragons of remarkable excellence, are on the verge of being  finished, second rate.  Our worth, capacity, flexibility and vigor as a nation are diminished; our educational scores are mediocre, our intellectual appetite dulled.   The mediocre are easily led like sheep, which makes me wonder if it’s too late already.  Again, how have we arrived at this point?

We have failed to educate our people. When people are not trained to think, they cannot discriminate.  Lack of discrimination leads to collective failures in judgment, resulting in cultural lurches like allowing GW Bush to invade Iraq (President Clinton was impeached for infinitely  less), forgetting the Bush years so easily, forgetting who the real Party of the People has always been, which led to the stupid, impatient results of the last election, etc.

Remember the old adage about getting the Government one deserves?  It seems that most of Congress has been bought off and now these Governors too. What do the Koch Brothers have to do with all of this and HOW do they stand to gain?  AND DON’T THEY HAVE ENOUGH WEALTH, NOW REALLY?? The idea that they have anything to do with policy that impoverishes the rest of America sickens me.

If you haven't noticed anything peculiar yet, to arms, to arms -- the Corporations are coming! 

The Tyranny of the Radical Minority

I am so filled with anger; raging impotently as I watch radical Republicans "govern." Watching the parliamentary sleight of hand that stripped Wisconsin public workers of their bargaining rights, I fear for this country. It is very clear that this could be the beginning of the end of Democracy in the “land of the free.” 

If we lose our Power as a People, if we are so easily fooled, if a runaway Governor can dictate radical, radio-active policies and get away with it despite the wishes of the bulk of his constituency, isn’t that bordering on a state perilously close to Imperial rule, tyranny?  I've been around a long time and I have NEVER seen politicians behave so disrespectfully to the people who elected them.

The GOP won the last election by speaking of jobs and “true fiscal conservatism.”  True fiscal conservatism has a spine, and the people who espouse this philosophy and are elected on the basis of it should not be able to serve in Congress as the lackeys of the rich. 

 

After continuing the infamous, unnecessary and infamous tax break for the rich, Republicans are suddenly moving as one to strip the American Worker of the right to bargain with dignity for wages, hours, etc.  They talk so righteously of how we must ALL share the pain of balancing the budgets after giving this wretched tax cut to those who didn’t need it – Boehner and Mitchell fought furiously for their own, and now seek to attack entitlements – let the middle class and poor pay the price -- as the American people sink into a less gracious and conscious form of living.

If the GOP continues to stifle our lawful Freedoms including the right to vote, and continues to promote the growth of a vast underclass, taking from us all services we have won as Rights in the past -- they will be electorally wiped out at some point—unless they can make good on the next step in their plan, which has to do with making it more difficult for folks in the Democratic demographics, i.e. students, who typically vote the Democratic ticket, to vote.

How does that make you feel – to know that this is a nationwide effort by GOP politicos to restrain the Democratic voter-turnout, to destroy collective bargaining, to strip the Unions of all power and to make the United States of America into a dreary banana republic where only one party CAN attain power?
 

But who benefits?  Who would have the most to gain, however bizarre, and for what reasons?  In my opinion we are witnessing the struggle between Plutocracy and Democracy in America the Beautiful, and it is an awful sight to see.

There are so many ramifications to severe cuts -- for example, the downward slide of the U.S. in our ability to educate our youth will result in a modern form of peasant, who will breed children used as ready cannon fodder for our Orwellian cycle of endless wars.

.

Failed by local schools and pre-trained by vicious, militaristic games, they’ll be snatched up by the Masters of War. As educational systems begin to fail our children the culture becomes more brutal and violent.  Kids spend way too much time fascinated by blood-soaked games put out by the Military, and way too little time reading and thinking.

How purposeful is the creation of a class of the citizenry more suited for soldiering than the white collar and manufacturing jobs we no longer have?  So many of these kids have felt and feel that a life in the military was the only option.  They go because they have to.  They are our modern-day blood sacrifice.  The high and sustained rate of unemployment has made and will continue to make great use of the “feeder pond” of kids with no hope.  These young American heroes go off to serve and fight and die.

And then the heroes come back, but they come back changed, many of them broken, some shattered beyond our help.  Because of the underlying philosophy that sends these people off to war, there’s not enough help for them when they get back!  That holds for current veterans, and for the rest of the recycled vets of our many wars; there are so few options.  

They deserve everything from us, yet to the GOP that elite 2% of the richest is somehow more deserving of extra treats on their tables than our soldiers are of keeping body and soul together.  This is a result of the shifting of wealth that just happened in front of our eyes.  Failing to provide our vets with honorable work and services will have undesirable consequences, as always.

Our veterans come home, and they have certain particular warlike skill sets.  They have to make a living, and naturally they will look into the U.S. prison and jail systems, some will go for the shadowy world of the mercenary, some are so wounded they never come back psychologically, some readjust, go back to school/work and shake the traumas of War.  Left untreated and uncared for, many are loose cannons waiting to explode.  We ignore them at our own risk, and to our shame as a society.

It is important, essential to know that right in front of our eyes we are watching an entire reshuffling of the American Opportunity, a purposeful re-sizing of the American Dream, a casual toss away of our pretense to Excellence.  This fundamental dumbing down of the culture can't be strategic, it just can't be.  Can it?  Who benefits? 

Fascism is the union of the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex , a wonderful choice of words by President Dwight Eisenhower, who told us to beware of such a government.  It is my deepest fear that our beloved country is morphing rapidly into a collective of little states/tyrannies run by out-of-control, power-mad Governors who seem to feel Absolute Power is their Right.  I don’t understand why the Republicans don’t value their “worthy opposition” and why they seem to be trying to destroy us utterly.

I would like to know how the selfish folk behind this drive to hunt Democrats (and everything they represent to the working people) to extinction are reconciling the compulsion to Dictatorship with the U.S. two party system?  They have forgotten that the State exists to serve the people; many of these governors are CEOs who put the State in front of the People, and that is again part of what defines fascism.  

Take care, America!

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