The "It Factor" in Conversation

      What has happened to the spontaneity of a child we all once possessed? The innocence that made being able to see another house from your bedroom window was enough to befin a relationship. People today have a script of things to say in passing, a script of what not to say when around certain people and an expectation of what one will ( or will not) be based on superficiality. In many cases, the prospect of communicating with another can lead to stress. Have we really abandoned those "naive" premises for something BETTER?

A Great Time Had By All

     In a long day of joy, I was able to finally slay the beast that was my statistics course. In a running theme of my life, I again came to an irritable impasse that occurs when I am tasked with busy work like so many formulas exist for what basic math could solve in no time. I have never gathered why we as a species make things so difficult for ourselves; like humanity doesn't ACTUALLY want to figure it out. What would we do then? Or are formulas for people that carry an instinct for math? Do these things actually do any good in the long run?

No Your Self.

      Know what you know, then figure the rest out. If you answer the questions you know for sure, then you can use logic or intuition for the rest. Logic is simply taking something you don't know and using facts about it you do know to deduce the answer. Associations of things..... 7 degrees of Bacon! Intuition is that inner logic that associates things on a subkevel, and it generally gets it right. You don't have to know, you just have to reason.

Yeah, I Really Do Think

     I like to think that somewhere in one of those alternate universes, I was conceived with a chance to be normal. To live the life of the Everyman.

     Then again, what would I lose? Pain, for sure, but how much have I discovered I my suffering? Insecurities, perhaps, but my vulnerability is what keeps me accessible. A drive to succeed would be nice. Ultimately, I am possibly the only (or one in a millions) in existence. Just like the people I unmask here on earth, the only thing I can control is me.

All Around the World

      I have been awake for 14 hours today, and in that time I accomplished much. Yet, I merely did the things I need to do for "daily life". Does that mean my supply of energy is so low that this is all I can muster? Or do I carry an enormous weight that seems insubstantial in my embrace? Even though we all find our fifteen minutes of fame, we are not all built or equipped to be anything more than "the common man" in our financial lives.....

Chemical Restraints; Chemical Warfare

Why must you pin me down?

Not quite suffocating

But leaving me apathetic.

Unable to pursue passions

Not wanting to accomplish.

What awaits seems uncertain,

Unclear what it carries.

My sole focus darkens

Caged in the eternal now

Filtered from the future

Paralyzed in the present

Hated by history

Mourning my memories.

I call out through mental mud

Voice painting the horizon

With my unbridled agony.

No hope of a distant ear

Only a cathartic

Cry of constant contrition.

Enveloped by fixation

A barrage of flashbacks

Pummels my resilience

Searing my conscience 

And robbing me of my

Willing self preservation.

Nowhere to hide in the mind

My enemy, my self

With no hope it will cease

And no way to shield me;

I crumple to a wary knee

Battered, exhausted, hurting;

Yet unbroken; angry.

I am sure I have better

If my drive returns

There is so much that

I could accomplish.

When the restraints tie you down

From within your base of hope

And the mind that gives strength

Turns on you to wreck you;

Riding the storm out

Is the best you can hope

To get another chance

To be fully alive.

All Endings Aren't Storybook

     There is a widespread feeling among many that suicide is "an escape" or "the coward's way out" or a "final solution to a temporary problem". It irks me a great deal when I used to hear (and now read them all over the Internet - apparently teeming with Doctor's and certified therapists) the many reasons people cast shade upon the idea of someone (literally) taking their life in their hands (as opposed to the figurative ideal of straightening ones life, which is smiled upon). All mental illnesses are not the same, and not all of the mentally ill react to life stressors in the same manner. However, I can tell you for those who suffer many illnesses, suicide brings the hope of closure. Those who pass judgement upon us; telling us to "buck up" and "it gets better" will never understand the feeling of waking up each new day and not knowing what their mind will be up for that day. Or having to think about everything that people take for granted - sleep rhythms, drinking alcohol, even the amount of soda I drink in a day can affect my mood. (As well as my belly) Then you have the medications required to try and manage your illness (never cured), and you start to see a glimpse of the stress that merely being RESPONSIBLE for an illness like these can carry. Add to that the shame many of us feel (on some level) for not being able to control our internal typhoon when it sets upon our shores. Many with mental illness don't like to share it with the world, because people hardly ever understand, and this misunderstanding can lead to emotional crisis being dismissed as "a cry for help" or "a tantrum" and even "an excuse". Imagine a person in a dark place getting their emotional turmoil being dismissed out of hand, and what that must feel like.

     My first suicidal thoughts came at the age of 14, when I was living with a Father who had once abandoned me and a stepmother who psychologically tortured me. I had always been a bit darker than the kids around me, but never to the level of angst I would come to embody in the decades that followed. That night at dinner, I began crying in my spaghetti (not as good a song title as "tear in my beer"..... although "Sobbing in my spaghetti" might catch on) and my Father growled at me to go to my room. A short while later, he came in and asked me what was wrong, and I told him that I hated my life and wished I could die. He told me I was being "melodramatic" and that I needed to "toughen up". This was my first interaction with the snobbishness people handle bipolar with. My first suicide attempt that required hospitalization was at 19, and when faced with what ad happened (not decade yet!), both of my parents took the time to tell me to stop overreacting, and that they had not raised me to be a quitter. Today, I look back and laugh; at the time, it was a devastating introduction to the absolute carelessness people handle mental disease with. It just so happens that, to this day, I am very open about being bipolar with everyone in my world, and there are those (as I have grown) who are much better at respecting my limitations and my liabilities. My shame is not from being bipolar any longer, but from not being able to do more for those who love, support and provide me moments in a life worth living.

     Which brings me back to the beginning: suicide is often a desire for closure: to the sadness; the disappointment of not having the motor to match your desire; the mood swings; the responsibilities of being a person with a disease process and the unwelcome assumptions of the masses who can't see your malady and dismiss you out of hand. Suicide is also not a "cowards" way out; you can never understand how difficult it is to go against your internal programming that helps to keep us all alive. Suicide is a way to just stop the day to day melancholy; a way to stem the tide of despair (or agitation or discomfort or fear) that washes over you each day that your mind is "not quite right". In your darkest hour, when all hope seems lost, it at least provides the tumultuous mind an option to the existence it is currently suffering from. Like many other thoughts, it is harmless in our mind, but becomes something much darker when brought into reality. No one has the right to interpret the level of agony that someone who is brave enough to mention mental distress might be going through. No one ever taunts cancer patients for losing weight, but a tortured mind can be dismissed out of hand as unmotivated. Unwilling to "pick yourself up". Giving up.

     A quitter.

     Yes, I have reached a place in my life where suicide is a long ago lesson, and even my bipolar has gone from raging Cyclops to irritable gnomes, and a large part of that goes to finally gathering a great supporting cast around me. At last, I have a wife who cares and seeks to understand and forgives me my (hopefully) occasional trespasses. A best friend who will talk to me on any level I go down, and whose own battles give him a darker, more direct understanding of how I exist. A great number of close friends and acquaintances at my job that accept and encourage me in my darkest moments. Lastly, I have come to recognize over the course of my life that, without my bipolar and my suffering and my suicide attempts, I wouldn't be who I have become. I wouldn't be the voice others could turn to and feel accepted and understood when they are in pain. I wouldn't be so open to any experience or trying new things, as my bipolar beliefs have opened me up to. I wouldn't comprehend so completely the savage fluctuations of a life, mind and emotions in turmoil. I don't hate my diease, it has made me what I am. I do, however, wish some days that I were able to offer more to my wife and friends. I'm not always up to going out when everyone else is ready. How must my wife feel when I tell her I called out from work again because my mind is not ready for people? Does she truly understand? Is there a small voice in the back of her mind that questions if I just wanted to sleep in? How must my managers take it when I call out, again, for mental unrest? Does society have one iota?

     About society: why has mental illness always been so hard to accept? In a world where so many are standing with their hand out to the Government to make things better politically, why is it not imperative to sure the plight of the mentally ill that we all can (in some way) relate to? Why is it that race and sex and religion and acceptance are on every debate, yet no one can find the time, means and money to build facilities or monitor people with illness? Where I live right now, I have a young lady who was recently diagnosed with bipolar, but cannot find hep because there aren't enough outlets for her to learn how to work through this life changing experience? The local papers cry out for not harassing drug dealers or getting homeless off the streets, but the only mention of mental illness comes when discussing drug addicts and those inhabiting skid row? Just because I have made it as far as I have in life (I.e. I share a home and have a job while going to school), that solute lay does not leave me not wanting at times - wanting for a voice to say it's going to be okay. Yet my struggle to find light behind the dark shade of despair isn't a sexy enough topic - it doesn't get people mad enough to go and vote their allegiance to a cause. The mentally ill are taught that we are bastardized children that God must have used subpar parts in creating, and that our problems are ours alone to bear. We have come a long way since we were getting holes frilled in our heads to release the demons, but giving me a medication that effectively lobotomies an individual isn't a whole lot better.

     Will it ever change?

Not Always a Success

Man is not special 

Like snowflakes, he is unique

Not always useful.

Where Am I?

      It all boils back to one simple truth: What are you priorities? When you are staring up to the stars and imagining your life, where does that dream begin? To make a simple question complex; what are your priorities? So many things that we are taught to are priorities: family, money, fame, relationships. In truth, these may not be something that truly moves you; it's merely something we are taught. Money is not a priority to me. That said, it does provide a better life form my priority. Family in the universal sense is not a priority to me. My friends and my choices in life have given me those who I would deem "family" due to shared experiences over those who shared a relation to me before I was fully formed. I couldn't care less about my fame: universally or locally.  My priority is the relationships I form in my time on this Earth. Does that make me better than anyone else? No. When people query, "If money isn't a priority, how are you going to have all the nice shiny things in life?" I won't... Because that's not my focus. Money is a means to an end, and in the end is only there for me. As long as I can survive, my life with others, and our shared experiences, drive me to thrive.

     I won't die very well known, or with the biggest bank account, but I will die with the deepest heart and best stories. I'm okay with that vision.