Nearly a Year

Nearly a year since my last post. A lot has happened and a lot hasn't happened.

We suspected that I was having a bad reaction to Simvastatin, which I was taking for high cholesterol levels. Each shoulder was causing considerable 'discomfort.' Long story cut short...X-rays, MRI scan, disclosed considerable damage inside each shoulder joint. "You have a badly torn ligament and a very badly torn ligament," said my surgeon. Both shoulders are in a bad way. Story gets shorter...now on a high dosage of morphine twice a day. Taking physiotherapy exercises specific to the shoulder joints. I have to work at the exercises or I'll end up needing a couple of operations. My local hospital has a poor record for MRSA infections in patients who need invasive surgery.

Change topic...back into photography. If I can't get to somewhere, I can use the zoom lens on one of my digital cameras to get me close. I want to use my electric mobility scooter to allow me access to street scenes, whereby I can bring a different perspective to photographic images. Everybody knows what it's like to see pictures of views taken at our respective heights. The 'trick' I'm after is to get a completely different slant of street scenes; from a child's view, or a beggar's view, or a wheelchair user's view. Taking colour images that can be altered to B&W later on in the computer.

This link might work for you...it's my Fuji site and my gallery as of the present moment. I've tried to upload to Picasa, but they want your life history and a degree in how to fettle computers before I can even get my stuff into a gallery in Picasa.
http://www.myfinepix.co.uk/gallery/19591

B.A.D. and Panic Attacks

Having used Breathing exercises for several months as part of the meditation regime (Not really the correct word to use there) I have managed to decrease the number of panic attacks. I have been able to go up for Communion during Mass without having taken diaz. For 12 months I had to take diaz., in order to feel OK when it came time in the service to stand up, join the queue and shuffle along slowly in order to receive communion. Progress has been made.

The next step forward is to conduct the readings at the hospital chapel without having taken diaz. It will all depend upon how I feel in myself upon one of the chapel services.

Avoiding caffeine and sugars does make a difference. I cannot sleep at night if I have taken either or both, prior to going to bed. They do cause problems in the mind!

I AM (John Clare 1793-1864)

I am!

I am! yet what I am none cares or knows,

My friends forsake me like a memory lost;

I am the self-consumer of my woes,

They rise and vanish in oblivious host,

Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;

And yet I am! and live with shadows tost

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,

Into the living sea of waking dreams,

Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,

But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;

And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--

Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod;

A place where woman never smil'd or wept;

There to abide with my creator, God,

And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:

Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;

The grass below--above the vaulted sky.

As a B.A.D. sufferer, this greatly evocative piece by John Clare meshes very closely with my own 'condition.' I 'feel' I am in his mind, with the emphasis on the I am.

Panic Attacks

I've had several of these over the last couple of years. Totally frightening.
Even carrying the knowledge of what is going on in them only partly dispels the suffering they bring. It's all down to adrenaline being used up and then I can't have another attack until the body has replenished its supply. The vicious spiral circle of the self fulfilling attack is a difficult circle to break.

I am using Tibetan Meditation to teach my mind to allow complete relaxation on demand.

Breathing exercises are a tremendous tool in combating the advent of an attack. I can recommend the Samye Ling Buddhist Monastery in Eskdalemuir, Scottish Borders, for its Courses and teachings on how to cope with today's frenetic world. The setting is beautiful, and the pressures non-existent. It is a long drive for me to get there, but it is well worth the time and effort.

I have found that several people I have known for many years also had to endure similar dibilitating episodes. The condition has no barriers to victims. Although, those who have B.A.D seem to be particularly susceptible. It 'spoils' everyday excursions. Even shopping can become a dreadful and fearful experience. I continue to use the meditation as my main method of coping with this problem.

I shall keep a news update on my progress. Should anything be truly useful I'll post it in here as soon as possible.

Refreshed

I've had some real problems getting back into this, my Bipolarity Blog. However, after 24 hours of sending and receiving internet access data, I'm back in the throws of my Bipolarity Blog.

Two new poems...both concerning my internal doors, avenues, aspects, confinement

MEDS


Down unlit, unswept alleys wherein the lost abound
In temper, angst and brain-fog shackled blind and bound
Awaiting thirst and hunger, soon to tread their path
Dreams now bent on conquest, or, empathy with Plath
Ungripped by winter's clench with her residues of loss
Throwing caution to the now, the future, and their dross
Write me soon a missive, an abstract, or a tome
Fulfil these empty pages which yet score this cursor's roam
I crave the flights of fancies and the firework displays
The buzz, the fizz, crescendos, of my old bipolar days
These meds, with their sea-anchors, haul me back to port
Killing any vestige, of my old bipolar sport.


FREEDOM

Below our senses, concealed from view
Beneath all sight, embraced, yet True
Unglimpsed within our mindfulness
Freedom lurks 'neath Caxton's press

Cast the seed through hall and hearth
Scattered down knowledge'd path
Plucked and groomed, in thoughtful nurture
Alas 'tis scorned as second nature

Given Life, respond in kind
Creating self and open mind
Follow seasoned, quick and dead
Existential choices bred

To take this gift and in its granting
Acceptance of constraint and parting
Freedom's Life while all persuading
Carries chains with links unending

Give me Freedom, give me choices
Give me bells, and give me voices
Stand beside the drums of thunder
See my foes distraught and blunder

Let my grasp outreach my span
Let me be an honest man
Take my past and false renewals
Take my oath to suffer fools

Grant me patience, understanding
Grant me peace in Life's partaking
Dispense with cant and masked delusions
Freedom's surge brooks no intrusions

I want to ride the train of thought
Behaving as all others ought
I've spurned a thousand, thousand pleas
I've rendered Justice to her knees

They claim me for their very own
Did they forget my bloody throne
Flayed in every market place
Flaunted now before my face

Wooden stocks for slaves a'selling
Wounds through generations telling
Where's the fruit and where's the gain
Oh, that Freedom comes with pain

I sat with kings and lay with logs
I supped the best and fought with dogs
My purse was full, my heart distended
Truth was far from truth defended

False the tale and false the man
False the tongue since Man began
False my wails against the wall
To turn my back as children fall

False the cry to help and aid
False the tyrant self-displayed
False the shouts and lizard's tears
False the promises of years

False the schemes which never feed
Real the hunger, feel the need
Listen close it's written large
Hear the deaths in reportage

Freedom take me in your chains
I now surrender any claims
To rail and rant, to howl and scream
For Freedom is but just a dream

Increasing by 50%

Meaningful talk with my Psych., and the outcome is a 50% increase in BP medication. He told me what it can do and what it cannot do. My questions were in line with the questions he is asked regularly. I take some 'comfort' in this, because it means that I am not alone in my view of: the world, my illness, my medication, my fears, my personal expectations etc.

He confronted me with my outlook on how I behave in personal relationships and made me examine my approach to problems and using the 'no' word. He has personal experience in this matter. Therefore I give his views far more credence than I would normally do.

My 'survival' techniques were correctly performed when I plummeted a week or so ago. My positive reaction to a negative need was just what he wanted me to do. I have to be vague here because of deep personal turmoil. I can say that what was a possibility/probability, became a non-starter.

The pain of the mind is as bad as the pain of the body. Seeing a broken leg makes it easy for onlookers. Not seeing a broken mind makes it impossible for anyone but the sufferer. I'm now on 'increased' help. Let's see how I get on.

Coping with the un-cope-able

A truly bad 2 weeks!! Two events 'conspired' to bring me to my knees. Each event was instigated on its own, but being together, they put me on the receiving end of a double smashing of my mind, my emotions, my self esteem, my self confidence, my days. No steps forward and 5 steps back!
I was swirling around and down the upper edges of a cone shaped miasma; unable to stop myself as I plummeted down, whilst trying to claw onto the side of the cone. I needed urgent help and the Samaritans were my saving lifeline.
Not a life threatening episode, but a blood-letting 'need.' How to cope with the dark days of the un-cope-able? Knowing the release of blood brings euphoria of an unnatural kind. Feeling the pain releasing the anger of what cannot be fought. Taking the mind away from the devils in the brain. In short, diversionary tactics for a mind in torment.
I'm to see my 'specialist' in a couple of days and I want to know what can be done with my medication. I feel that the problem comes under the 'label' of clinical depression rather than Bipolar. It isn't a mood swing, it's a nosedive into a pit.