Friday 15 December 2006

A while since my last posting. I have not been determined enough to put fingertip to keyboard. The medication has kept me in a glass prison. I can see out. I don't relish being outside the glass.
Venturing to supermarkets, traffic queues, crowded places, now renders me ashen/white, cold, very cold, sweating, terrified, with IBS bursting at my seams.
It's all in the mind. I have no physical trigger for this lesion. Somewhere, sometime, I had a traumatic event. It lay deep and buried in my subconscious. Was I left lost and alone as a child?
I know that TM creates peace and safety within the mind. I know that hypnotherapy can disarm fears, phobias, anxieties, stress...
I'm on a course of hypnotherapy.
The trauma has grown from deep within, each time a similar episode has happened. Eventually it surfaced into the open conscious mind. The Panic Attacks are out in the open. I work around them. I have great faith in the power of hypnotherapy and I shall prevail.

Monday

Television programmes are highlighting BD at the moment.
What can I gain from watching them? (Rhetorical) I am not alone in having to struggle with myself about not taking the medication. Medication means no 'highs.' And oh how I miss them. Most sufferers decline the medication in preference for the sizzling electricity of the magnificent High.
During a High, the need for any medication at all is silly. Through the 'lows' the wimpering for some solace is pitifully painful.
My 'lows' have been noticeable by their absence. Just one or two, here and there. But my creative tipper-truck that empties tons of ideas and words onto my pages has vanished.

I'm on the medication but I'm still unsure of how much I want to be on it.

Tuesday

Several weeks, nay, months have gone by since last I wrote.
I have had no inclination to put keyboard to screen and I did not write, just for the sake of writing.
This Blog is a focus (if possible) upon manic depression, my manic depression. I am not yet convinced that I have Bipolar. Oh yes, I was given a 'label' to attach to the illness. I took the 'label' gladly. This enabled/empowered/released me to focus upon one solitary aspect of what ails me. I was given free rein to fall into myself.
I am in the process of climbing back up.

I’ll Be Along Soon

I’ll Be Along Soon

Tears for you
Tears for me
Arms holding love
Wait to be filled
No rush, no time
Ticks the soundless clock
So tired of living
Weak, wan and old
Take me to you
Release my poor soul
Unworthy of love
I’ve sinned, cried and died
Deeper within me
Than mortal has pried
Your will is my will
My heart’s out of tune
Hold, heal, enfold me
I’ll be along soon.

CRIMSON DELIGHT

CRIMSON DELIGHT

Juice of the soul
Juice of the mind
Deferred gratification
Months in the making
Pain in the bearing
Delight in the flooding
Gaining control
Controlling the gain
Watch me ridding
My world down a hole
I’m fighting back
At this body’s taunts
Choosing MY time
Pain in flood
Relief in euphoria
Feelings
Focused deep
Whatever the hurt
I can hurt more
I take the pain
Showing true anger.

See it,
Feel the life
Flooding back in.

My fix?
I’m fixed
For now.

#15

I made a discovery today. I found the core of me. I didn't like what I found. Don't get me wrong here. There is nothing nasty or evil!! It is me, with everything stripped back and the skeleton of my personality exposed for me to look at. The skeleton is flawed.
I cannot write here of what I found. I'm still waiting to come to terms with it myself.
So much is now explainable of what course my life path has taken and what cause created the seed which produced a flaw in the skeletal infrastructure.
I now know who I am. It hurts me and it releases me in equal measure.
It came about through a Hyper episode which lasted for about an hour. My hope is that I can grab hold of that which releases me and begin anew.
This will have to be discussed in depth with J.
It is so important and I need careful guidance.
It does not explain my Manic Depression, but it does explain me.
It does not explain my arthritic spine.
It does not explain my BCC.
It does not explain my possible Sleep Apnoea.
But it does explain me.
Know thyself? How many of us can answer that question.
I feel a bit like I did when I was diagnosed with Bipolar. There is a sense of relief. What it is, isn't pretty, but I now know what it is.
I must discuss this with J.

#14

J visited earlier this week.
The wide ranging discussion supported the fact that I cannot focus solely on one or two matters. My thoughts spark off one another, causing more sparks to dive into deeper recesses of my conscious and subconscious mind, memories, feelings, episodes etc.
It has been described as being like the ball in a Pinball Machine. It's firing off in all directions with only a small chance to try and control some of the movements. This is what it is like when I'm in a creative writing burst. Dozens of meaningful thoughts, related and unrelated, fire up and through my mind like a series of small rockets being lit at a firework display, but all firing and bursting into a mass of showering sparks and colours, at the same time.
Thoughts, so powerful and pertinent in their own way, to one or many of the other words, ideas, and images surging up and through my mind. They don't come into my mind as such, they are passing through at great speed. Grabbing hold of them and writing them down is a race, to catch them before they're gone forever. They never return. There is so much, that I cannot remember most or any of them, just the feeling of flying and soaring in a sky full of fireworks. Bloody fantastic. It's like throwing yourself into the Sun and burning up in an ecstasy of creative flames.
So, you see, I cannot focus on one or two matters. We discuss 'stuff' and my mind sets off on a pinball trip through my life.
How to cope? Music lifts me. Heavy rock one day, classical cello the next. 'Status Quo' to 'Tous le matins du monde.' 'Rock Anthems,' to 'Boccherini.' Use music as a friend in need.
Don't lose thoughts/ideas, use the voice recorder.
Much more was discussed, but it was hardcore personal pain and my coping mechanisms for bending with the whirlwind. Too vivid and too true of life to be written of in here. Yet.

The morning after the visit was a bad morning. You can't open old, deep, torn, ripped, wounds without getting payback. Counselling is a lift-shaft. The lift has a counter-balance. The rush up has to be balanced with the weight of the pain diving down. I was on the counter-balance, dropping like a stone and already half way down when I woke up. I've read other people's experiences of the 'morning depression.' It's nasty and vile and black and it hurts your mind like you don't want it to, ever again. But it does return, return, return...

Do I want to pay the price for the plummet with the soaring flights of fantasia? Do I want the 'fantastic' to be paid for with the excrement of depression? This is Bipolar!!!! Medication to cut the plummeting 'couterweight,' can castrate the surging 'creative thoughts' of the hyper episodes!

Enough. I've written enough for the moment. I'll stop.

Herding Of Cats

This lot appeared from somewhere in my mind where odd thoughts occur. I think that Dylan Thomas may have been a bit of a prompt. All I can say to make the piece more acceptable, if you want to soldier through it, is to read it out aloud. Words spoken with force, carry more of the intensity of the emotion behind the word. Don't worry about finding words that you have never seen or heard before. It's the sound and resonance of that sound that I am after. If you say "crackle" out aloud, you'll get a feeling of what I have tried to achieve with some words here below. Good luck.




HERDING OF CATS



Herding cats into the football stadium,
half empty
with gangs of Social Workers
who skreated and breated,
their animated throat-burning,
blood-curdling skrines
at that herd,
as they sploshingly began
hurling, water-filled, pink balloons at the cats,
Was not a good idea.

Squadroons of ill-tempered manx-tailed muggies,
brasted on olde hemp wine, and fired up with a passion
best kept for tin roofs
threw one another
at the rapidly blanching Sociatumpalists,
who tripped in their hundreds,
backing up the crumbling, cronkeeted terraces
of the Stadium.
Seasoned Ticket holders
fared worst,
whitened to the digital equivalent
of minus 3.

Hosepipes were deployed
to no avail.
Poltroons of muggies
scoffed at the audacity,
scorned the mendacity,
of broadcasts by tannoys,
supplied by Walmart.
Sneering through fur,
at a voice electronically enhanced,
while panicking Socios
realised with aplumb
the hosepipes were useless
with no water switched on.

Cats 4 Social Workists 0
Herds can be powered,
managed and armied,
by elitists in scabbie cabals,
but no-one told the muggies.

This tale was told across the shimmering amber embers of a pine fuelled carbon burner, by an actor of renown, who hasn’t looked back since he played the dumping end of a pantomime horse.

Regard it as a flight of fantasy or paws for digression.

PS
By the way, there is a hosepipe ban in the south east of this country because of a drought order. There is a dramatic drop in water levels because of very low rainfall.




I have no idea from whence this piece came, except to say that I've been readin' political-commentator-stuff, of late. Welcome to the other side. Who needs a pendulum when you've got Bipolar.? Why don't dictionaries open at the page you want? It's very frustrating. Especially looking for yer pendulums.

# 12

J is doing a Home Visit tomorrow. I have much to tell her. I managed to damage my previously repaired right knee, yesterday evening. The doctor in A&E had not heard of the meds I'm on for my Depression. So, looking on the bright side of life (cue a song) she learned of yet another piece of medical armoury to add to her accumulation of knowledge. SH is back under control. J must be told tomorrow. Oh but it does give a sense of euphoria and relief. It can become addictive. I am aware. ME is aware, not just me. The Objective Surveillance has been stepped up.

I want to begin a slowly growing programme of that which interests me. Photography for one. Drawing and painting for two, and returning to my 'pointilism' in crayon and pencil. Thirdly, can I direct my creative writing into a structured timescale on a daily basis? Some writers begin their day at 6.00 in the morning and work through until lunch time, while taking breakfast and tea at their desk.

I'm not altogether (pun intended) sure that my Bipolar will allow me to be so disciplined. (Have you noticed how close the words 'disciple' and disciplined' are? And what about Alphabet? Who has noticed the Alpha Beta Omega connection? I only realised this one yesterday, while sitting on the throne in my monk's cell) I've had to get used to the idea that the words which appear on my page cannot be forced out into the open. They flower and bloom in their own sweet time, and I am merely the medium they use. If this sounds mad, look at the name of my blog! I am not someone important and I am not like those poor souls who believe they are someone important from the pages of history, like Napoleon etc.

I'm an ordinary bloke who has a mental illness. I've been to the Edge of the Abyss and contemplated letting go. Perhaps the intense and tremendously powerful feelings experienced on the Edge, have kick-started a part of my mind that would have lain dormant? I really don't know.

Whatever happened, the result is that for the moment, I have several ideas for poems, which I am keeping up-to-date, by adding any pertinent, passing thoughts, to my Voice Recorder. The thoughts are now noted and not lost within seconds of appearing in my mind. J gave me the idea to do this and it's a good one. Dylan Thomas carried scraps of paper to write down words and phrases, as and when they came to him. I'm using the Voice Recorder in the same way. But I'm no Dylan Thomas. (or Napoleon)

Once I have a few recordings, I sit at this PC and get the thoughts down onto a screen page. This is usually about 2 days recordings and to be honest, I wonder what the hell I meant when I dictated some of them. However, they meant something at the time, so they get typed as well as the other stuff. It has become a voyage of discovery for me. I'd forgotten a lot of what I'd dictated. It's surprising how much there is. But that's down to my useless memory. At least I'm not losing stuff like I have done for years.

The simple act of writing this blog enables me to focus on what is important in my mind as I prepare the words, and the order in which they are to appear before you. It is proving to be a useful part of my therapy. I considered writing 'recovery' instead of 'therapy,' but Bipolar could be with me on a permanent basis.

This Rag

This Rag

Attractively patterned
A delight to be seen
This rag worn when new
With pastel and sheen

A skin to be worn
A statement declaring
An adornment so chosen
Collected for wearing

Worn on the sleeve
To parties and do’s
Admired and remarked on
This one you did choose

Is hardly a patch?
Of what it has been
Colours now faded
And jaded if seen

Peppered with pinpricks
Frayed through and through
Worthless to me
Of no use to you

Spun through Life’s cycles
Stretched on the line
A rag that now flags
And flaps out of time

Cleans up and wipes up
And no longer shares
With not enough left
To soak up the tears

Wipes clean those dishes
Shines up those lights
Yet hiding and covering
Its crimson delight

Kept for its uses
But not for itself
A Rag out of sinc
Its heart on the shelf.


This poem appears in my other Blog. The poem is something of a hybrid for my condition. It stands in this blog too. I have posted it in the D'Stillery Lounge as well.

#11

Having been down this road before and recognising the signs and the consequences of the direction I was travelling in, I decided that it wouldn't be fair on my sons, so I didn't.

#10

My Key Worker came 'avisitin' yesterday. I'd spent two days cleaning the house from top to bottom. It wasn't dirty! But I'm from the olde schoole. If you are to have visitors, you prepare your home in a way that shows your respect for them, whoever they are. We recently visited friends for the first time, in Bristol, and it was obvious that they had gone to much time and effort to make their home inviting and welcoming. I appreciate that sort of care when I'm on the receiving end.

Anyway, I was knackered, in pain, very tired, and happy with my domestic efforts. Being a house-husband, father, partner, carer, cook, shopper, washer et al, is taken for granted by far too many men in this society of ours. I have always insisted on doing anything I can to share the load. I take pride in not being a burden, but 'there's the rub.' Depression makes one a burden. I have to live with a family, who have to live with someone with a mental illness. A sort of double whammy. I've got it, I make their lives difficult, they mirror that difficulty in the ways they approach me. It ain't easy for them. We all do a balancing act and each day requires a different form of balancing. Relationships are tested and trust holds us all together. I trust them to give me silence when I'm really low, and they trust me to behave in a civilised way.

I have an elephant that emerges at all times of the night and day. It fills the room I'm in. Other people can sense it, but I'm the only one who can herd it. Herding elephants is harder than knitting fog or herding cats. The shear size of it, demands attention, which is distracting, diverting, debilitating and eventually destructive. I've been to the edge of destruction (cue a song) and I know the signs. Hiding the signs from oneself must be similar to alcoholics being in denial. The comfort derived from staring at four walls is much underated. Better to lose oneself in the oblivion of four walls than total oblivion? Yes.

How and when to change my drugs from the treatment of Clinical Depression, to the treatment for Bipolar Disorder, is taxing our brains. If I have OSA (Obstructive Sleep Apnoea) it will make an enormous difference to me, once I have my own CPAP or APAP machine. (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure, or Automatic Positive Airway Pressure) The mood improvement brought about by continual nights of proper sleep, will have considerable relevence upon how we tackle my BAD (Bipolar Affective Disorder).

I do have BAD and I cannot avoid acknowledging its existence. How we approach it is still up for grabs at the moment. I'm told that it may be another two or three weeks before I get the results of my Full Sleep Study. All the relevent medical staff are now aware of my situation and conditions. J was a great help in achieving this. I no longer have the patience to cope with authority figures and I could easily go off like a bottle of pop, if I met a brick wall. I know that walls can be walked around, but I'm too close to situations to be mentally able or fit enough to negotiate an outcome. My job involved constant negotiations, but I can no longer decide what shirt to wear some mornings.

I had a course of counselling to help me get through my days, but I'm too tired, too often, at the moment, to summon up the stamina to take one step at a time.

I've avoided SH for several months and that is a good thing. It is addictive and it does help me cope with severe pains. However, I'm aware of the temptations to indulge in the crimson tide and I've managed (correct word there) my moods with some discipline. But it isn't easy. Extra painkillers do help. They mask the pain though. The trick is to avoid doing anything that will aggravate the pain while it's masked, which would create even more pain later. Been there, done that, got the T shirt.

It's late, I'm heading for bed, or the recliner or the dining table, or the sofa. Or all four.

#9

A link of some interest. Varying views from people about a statue depicting Winston Churchill in a straightjacket, to illustrate Bipolar Affective Disorder in a great leader, who managed so much whilst carrying the 'condition.'


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4795832.stm

#8

I decreased the Mirtazapine, (Zispin) and I paid for it. So I have had to increase the Mirtazapine again. It means that my brain is slowly improving my mood. Seratonin is the key to mood enhancement.

I chatted today with a friend whose husband has descended into depression. He only wants the four walls around him. I know this feeling only too well. He has no appetite. I know this feeling too. He's lost a lot of weight. He's had one session with a psychologist. It was a great help to him to know that "she got it." He's found someone who knows what he's talking about.

I warned my friend that her husband will be a lot worse before he gets better. The talking cure is good, but it requires one to lay bare, everything. He will have to look deep within himself and see all the gunge, crap, guilt, burdensome feelings, lost self-esteem and self-confidence that is him, at the moment.

He can only build himself up by digging right down to his foundations. Happily, she fully understood what I was saying. Her husband is going through the 'man' issues that accompany depression. I told her that the mantra, 'big boys don't cry,' is a load of bollocks. Her husband has to let go of his reserve and let the flood gates open.

We were in a small group and discussing various 'conditions,' including cancers. Out of five people in the room four have some form of cancer. The enclosed room allowed us the freedom to speak openly, and without fear, of being 'told' by others, what to do. Empathy is in short supply in this world and an empathetic oasis is a real 'find.' My friend felt relaxed enough to open up to the group and to me especially, about her worries and concerns for her husband. So much so that, she sat back and asked questions outright, without any gentle preamble, or waltzing round the bushes. However, I needed to talk to her privately about one particular aspect of depression, which can cause alarm for family members. She was concerned to hear of it, but accepted that it is actually a good indication of the level of depression being suffered. I cannot mention it here, yet, but #4, Cuts and Tears, grew from it.

There is still a stigma surrounding mental illness. If people have a problem with my illness, then it's their problem. I couldn't give a toss about their embarrasment. They ain't been there and they ain't got a clue.

#7

I am suddenly in a hyper phase. Hence, the proliferation of postings of my poems below this posting. They are but a tiny part of my literary output. I have episodes of intense creativity, during which, I cannot keep up with the amount of words tumbling out of my mind, as they demand to be put on a page, any bloody page!! And then, suddenly, nothing...........for weeks, months, hours, days, whatever.
I am not creating right now, but I can feel the surge below, as words and ideas begin to swirl beneath my consciouness. What will they bring to the table? desk? screen? page? I've no idea.
Alas, my elephant has returned. He spent the day with me and left for a while, but the bugger's come back.

I Searched For You

I Searched For You

I searched for you till you found me
I wept for you till you saw me
I crawled to you till you left me

I lied for you till you scorned me
I spun for you till you cast me
I tried for you till you threw me

I toiled for you till you ditched me
I stole for you till you stitched me
I pleaded for you till you used me

I lived for you

Lately Small Birds

Lately Small Birds

Lately small birds follow my steps
Dropping to my knees
I hear their hearts beating
I fall to their knees hearing their steps
Earthy essences drift through my senses
No one told me they had such beauty
Please send a poet
I cannot do them justice
I’ll start with small steps

Cuts And Tears

Cuts and Tears

Torn thoughtlessly leaving a heart swept away in crimson screams
Tears amalgamating into open veins crossed in love
Whitened mask lost in pleadings
These you created with looks and no sight
I leave you my heartbeats
I need them no more

A cutter's lament.

To My Prison Psychiatrists

To My Prison Psychiatrists


They’ve read the books
And done the tests
They’ve looked inside my emptiness
They’ve turned each page
And scanned the lines
To weigh my worth
Compared my crimes
They know me well
Their eyes unseen
Do they dream the dreams I dream?
Have they screamed the screams I scream?
I think not
I think not
Take your tomes
On brains and bones
Take your texts
And write abstracts
This soul is not for learning.

#2

I've been cutting down on the Zispin in readiness to start on the new drug, but after 6 days I'm feeling really low again. Changing drugs is always like this. Revisiting those places that the drugs have kept in check. I could describe what it's like, but not just now. I cannot face opening old wounds.

#1

I intend to try and tell my bipolar tale by using the facilities within this blog.