(12) You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD: In the Spotlight

You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD

In the Spotlight

I have a lot going on today, with my appointment over at the coast with Dr. Garratt, and our first farmers market of the season, up here on Bell Springs Road.  Annie and I have to leave the mountain at seven this morning, in order to be in Mendocino, well before our ten o’clock appointment.  If it seems as though three hours is a lot of time to get to the town of Mendocino from here, then I just remind myself of the last time we were on the coast, and we got behind a tourist, who meandered along Highway One, all the way from the Branscomb turnoff to the little coastal village of Mendocino.  Any attempt to pass this vehicle, during the passage through Fort Bragg, where there are two lanes of highway, was rebuffed by this vehicle increasing speed.

I do better with these impediments, than I used to, but they still try my patience to the max.  Then there is the ongoing series of roadwork delays.  A traveler may have no delays whatsoever, or find his path blocked two or three times, in any given trip, by roadwork.  We are on the clock for one hour each time we visit Dr. G, whether we arrive in time or not.  I prefer to leave early, and have time to kill on the other end, than to try and cut it closer, but have to stress every time we get slowed down.

Today also marks the very special opening of this year’s farmers market, up here on the ridge.  There is a long and storied history to this event, going back more than ten years, to the earliest days, when there were only a handful of vendors, and the market was still perched on Bell Springs Road itself, as opposed to being in the quarry, located three and three-fourths miles up Bell Springs Road.

With the market now located off to the side of the road, there is less worry about traffic and dust, as vehicles making their way up or down the thoroughfare can better navigate their way through the area, without having as much concern for pedestrians.  It boggles my little pea brain to remember that as recently as the year before last, I attended only three of these markets, and felt pretty uncomfortable at the ones I did attend.

The main reason I went in the first place, was to escort my mom, Pauline, so that she could catch up with old friends here on the mountain.  The main reason I did not like to attend, is simply because I did not like to attend any public event.  The nature of my panic attack issues, precluded my attending any public event without a fair amount of stress.  Part of the problem was the claustrophobic sensation of being in the midst of a crowd, though it is not nearly as predominant outside, as it is while indoors.

The other part had to do with what I refer to as the spotlight effect, the notion I used to have that all eyes were on me, as I made my arrival in any public setting.  I find it challenging to explain now, but it involved the impression that when I arrived at any function, at which there were many people, that I drew an inordinate amount of attention, and that everyone was staring at me.  It did not matter that I could point out that I do not stare at others as they arrive, nor do the people around me pay much attention to new arrivals, and yet I could not escape this feeling that I was under some sort of magnifying glass.

I found it so much easier to simply avoid the market than to attend it.  To be honest, that is the way I viewed all public appearances, whether they were intended to be enjoyable, such as a theater, or work, such as having to meet in the multi-purpose room, for a district gathering.  I found ways to delay my arrival until the last moment, and I preferred to stand in the back of the room. 

My very recently acquired ability to distinguish between anxiety, and  mood, serves me well right now.  Anxiety and mood variations coexist within most people, and it is the way one orchestrates these feelings that determines the level of comfort.  Little by little, I am overcoming my anxiety, and learning to enjoy the public venue, as I did last weekend, when I traveled over to the Central Valley for a wedding.  Now I look forward with a keen sense of anticipation to today’s market, and that is a new sensation.  

So if you see me this afternoon, and I do not respond to you, it is not because I am nervous, but more likely because I do not recognize you.  We may talk on FaceBook frequently, but I still haven’t set eyes on you in years.  Take pity on me and introduce yourself, and then watch me relax.  I never fake it when I do not know to whom it is that I am speaking.  I will hold out my hand and say, “Hello, my name is Mark, and you are...?”  

At least I got rid of that confounded spotlight.  

(11) You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD: Getting Better

You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD

Getting Better

It’s getting better; it’s getting better all the time.  The song says it all, though unless you know where the starting point is, you really do not know a lot.  An ice cube for someone stranded in the middle of the desert would be better than no ice cube, but would not change the situation at all.  From the perspective of someone who has gone from diagnosis, to acceptance, to therapy, I can only say my prognosis has a very positive spin to it.  The proof is in this past weekend, when I was able to attend two different social events, located five hours apart from Bell Springs, and do it with pleasure.

I have gone beyond just surviving, or coping, to actually being able to derive pleasure from being present at special family occasions.  For most people, the first impression would be confusion: Doesn’t everyone derive pleasure from these types of social engagements?  I would respond that any pleasure I have derived in the past, has come with a stiff price tag involving stress and personal discomfort.  Now, with awareness and superb coaching, I am acquiring a new set of skills, complete with tools, manual, and my own personal trainer.

I want to return for a moment to the oft-referred-to mood chart, and the determination with which I have pursued this compilation of data.  I have said that I instinctively felt it was a good tool, an efficient tool, for measuring data over time, which would then allow me to make more accurate predictions, for success of any specific upcoming event.  The mood chart has proven to be everything I had hoped, and more, but for the wrong reason.  There is a pleasing sense of irony here, that tickles my sense of order.  

I had hoped that by getting out my magnifying glass, and examining every facet of the chart, I could then formulate long-range predictions based on the data.  What I did not expect was to be able to use the chart in a far more effective manner, by examining the state of the moment, and being able to use the results to predict the outcome of an immediately occurring event.  In order to be able to accomplish this, reliably, one has to have his finger on the pulse of his moods.  In the past, I had no awareness that this could be done; now I am mastering the art.

I can distinguish between racing thoughts, and agitation.  I can wade through the complexities of irritability, recognizing that which is caused by illness, and that which is caused by circumstances around me.  I can measure the strength of my legs, noting the presence of lethargy, and be able to differentiate between the discomfort caused by arthritis, and that which is caused by depression.

In the past, without an awareness that these threads could be singled out for identification, I could only push and shove my way forward, pretty much at the whim of whatever emotion was calling the shots that day.  Now, by assiduously compiling the data daily, I feel as though I have a reasonably sophisticated barometer of what is happening inside my emotional vat, on any given day.

No red flags on the immediate surface?  Good to go.  One red flag?  What is the magnitude of the event, and what is the magnitude of the red flag?  I now have a tool in place, which I can use, to find out the probability that I will experience success, in any upcoming social event.  That is better than ingesting Lorazepam, reefer cookies, Vicodin, and booze, in order to try and keep the party inside my head, from bursting out and sharing its mirth with the world around me.  The net result of all that ingesting, was little memory, no enjoyment, and a tendency to avoid all social engagements.

Now, as I said at the top, It’s getting better all the time.  Tell the Lays Potato Chip people, that we don't need can postpone that last truckload of chips, thank-you very much.

(10) You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD: Toddler Steps

You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD

Toddler Steps

We are heading back from Placerville, going right through the center of Sacratamato, as if we own the joint.  On Friday, on our way to Ione, traffic  heading north on the Five, was at a dead stop.  Not so this morning.  We even took advantage of the carpool lane on the way from Placerville to Sac.

All factors considered, the past five days have been an unqualified success, as far as getting out in the world, engaging in several intense social situations, and learning how to adapt to the uncertainties which comprise my illness.  The success is two-fold, because two of the events took place in the Central Valley, necessitating a ten-hour round trip for each.  The process of getting anywhere must always come under close scrutiny, because the logistics of being trapped inside a car are still very much a part of the big picture for me.

For the second trip over to Sac, yesterday morning, we had brought along an ice-chest, in which we put a nice deli-sandwich that Annie had put together for me; we bought chips, we had bananas, and we had containers of Bell Springs water.  We left at nine in the morning for a five-hour drive, and had enough time to make a quick run past the site of the wedding, so that when the time arrived, it would be no problem.  I took advantage of the time to squeeze in a nap.  I went to sleep immediately, and that would be the end of the story, except that when Annie came to awake me, I was hard to bring to the surface.

That was a result of the Lorazepam.  And here is the lesson that I have learned over the past five days: Mood spectrum disorder is its own beast, providing ample challenges.  Anxiety is another entity, in and of itself.  For me the two have always been inextricably braided together in three strands representing depression, hypomania and anxiety.

However, for some sufferers of mood spectrum disorder, anxiety is not a given.  Sometimes it’s there and sometimes it’s not.  Or sometimes reverberations from mood spectrum disorder create ripples of anxiety.  For me the anxiety came first, in the form of a gradual build-up as a growing child, graduating to panic attack syndrome when I was ten.  After ridding myself of this disorder in 2010, I figured I was good to go.

Now, I must learn to differentiate between anxiety and mood so that I can address the anxiety issue, before I focus on the my mood.  I have found the Lorazepam to be very effective for three reasons: I am already familiar with it, having taken it for five years before getting therapy to get rid of panic attack syndrome; I was incorrectly given the instructions for its proper use, and therefore learned through experience how to better utilize it; finally, this medication allows me to focus, unencumbered by anxiety, on the state of my mood.

Having elaborated greatly on my newfound ability to sift through the various key components of my illness, to see how I am doing at any moment in time, I now find that this ability is further enhanced by being able to further delineate a sense of anxiety from the myriad of other possibilities.  I call it baby steps.  I thought about taking Lorazepam for the graduation on Friday, but in examining the state of my anxiety level, I found it  minimal, so I decided not to.  It was a good decision, and I enjoyed myself immensely, unbothered by anxiety.  

In contrast, I chose to take one two-milligram Lorazepam pill a half-hour before I left the house yesterday morning, and another about eight hours later, prior to leaving for the wedding.  They did the job effectively, in so far as anxiety was concerned, but left me just a fraction over-medicated.  Annie said she saw me doze a couple of times, during one of several periods of general waiting around.  I did well exchanging social pleasantries, although there were only a dozen or so people who I knew. Annie also had a hard time awakening me in the motel, when it was time to leave for the wedding.

Annie said that no one likely would have noticed my slightly sleepy look, and that I had done well in all the categories that counted.  I am pleased with the outcome of this five-day period, including last Wednesday, when we went down to Ukiah to shop, and then came back to Bell Springs, to meet with Kati.  My success is tangible evidence that for the moment, I can manage my illness without either atypical antipsychotic medication, or a mood-stabilizer, which has been my goal from the first day.  

Baby steps, you know, become toddler steps, over time.  Well, I have plenty of time, and I have a good coach.  Thanks Annie.

Deathmatch

Deathmatch

“Just my luck,” I thought, as I came within a quarter-mile of the Williams turnoff, “A frickin’ pick-up truck, that thinks it’s a hay truck.  Maybe I can blitz past and sneak off the exit in front of him.  Argh!  Oops, Sorry Dude.  That was close.  Crap, this means I am stuck behind him.  Maybe he’ll turn right and head to Colusa.  Dum de dum dum.  No way. Double crap.”

I was heading back to the mountain, from a quick run over to Sac, and there was no way to avoid the infamous Highway 20.  It could be the smoothest, quickest jaunt ever; or it could be a trip to the dentist, the one who has just acquired a new drill, and wants to try it out on you, for the next hour and forty-five minutes.  Today, it looked as though I were again the dentist’s chair, only this time the chair was actually a bed of nails, and the sound of the drill was amplified fifty times over by the best sound system.  Oh, and he forgot to administer the Novocaine.

As the dilapidated rig trundled along in front of me, maxing out at 45 miles per hour, weaving rhythmically back and forth between, over, and on top of the parallel lines on either side of the west-bound lanes, I started to get antsy.  I thought of the expanse of highway that stretched out in front of me, and how long it would take to get as fas as the edge of the range of coastal mountains that I would have to climb, in order to get back to Highway 101, the lifeline of the interior of Mendocino County.  I let out a tremendous sigh. then another, and then I started muttering to myself. 

Now I have been stuck behind Winnepiggos countless times; they annoy me but they also remind me that I live in a spot that others travel from all corners of the globe, to see.  I have been stuck behind big-rigs, spewing diesel smoke out of dual exhaust systems, and remained calm because I recognize that living in a remote place in NorCal, means that most of what I purchase locally, must be transported by big-rig.  Finally, I have been stuck behind little old ladies (the original lol) and not gotten impatient, because I may too be old some day, if I don’t do something dumb, and get my ass killed on the highway.  lol

But this clown was unique.  His pick-up truck was a relic left over from a bygone era, and the rust which permeated the undercarriage, indicated it had begun its sorry existence in a cold-weather climate, where they used salt to counter the effects of ice.  There were two bales of hay visible, that had been draped across the walls of the truck bed, perpendicular to the bed, so that a full foot of the two hay bales, stuck over each side of the truck.  The net result is that I could not see past the vehicle, and he could not see me, any possibly existing mirrors effectively blocked by the presence of a whole lot of hay.

Particles of this hay kept whipping back at me, bigger pieces lodging in my windshield wipers, further annoying me.  Because it was still before six in the morning, we had the highway to ourselves.  I do not know that it would have mattered, or if vehicles lined up behind me might have changed the way things turned out.  It does not matter now.

Instinctively, I knew it was a set-up for disaster.  I knew that I could never maintain my cool, or any semblance of rational thought, if this yahoo maintained this pace.  You know what I should have done, of course.  I think a preschooler could have figured it out.  I should have just pulled over, twisted up a little goodness, and proceeded to get high as a red-tailed kite, floating effortlessly in the heavens above.  I should have known that this was not a regular, run-of-the-mill trip to town for the local yokel, in the vehicle in front of me.

It was my own personal “dance of the dead,” my swan song, as far as dealing with the immutable forces of an uncaring, unfeeling universe, in the form of a red-neck vessel of sloth and ignorance, placed here on this highway to hell, just to fuck with my head.  I did not listen to the voice of calm and reason, which dictated that I climb back out of the ring, set my boxing gloves aside, and take five, or maybe fifteen minutes, to slow the pace down.

No, I could have listened, and should have done more than just listen, but that is all just so much water over the dam, and there is no retrieving it now.  Damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead!  Except that there is still the problem of the haybeater in front of me, and my unwillingness to ease to the left, far enough to see past that mountain of hay, to pass that gnarly, slightly lopsided wreck.

“Dude, you are giving me a headache!”  Instinctively I had blurted out my words aloud, demonstrating my unhappiness to the fly that was lazily buzzing around my head.  There was no one and nothing else to hear my words, least of all the jerk in the joke of a truck, that blocked my passage through to freedom.  

As I contemplated the situation, two miles and almost three minutes passed, during which the pressure cooker that my brain had become, began to really heat up, sending a red mist around my eyes, that made it more than optimum, to keep my vision focused on anything but the monstrosity in front of me.  It is difficult to drive, even at the slug’s pace of 45 miles an hour, when you do not want to look at the object directly in front of you.  

A sign floated by on the right, that warned that radar was used to detect those who chose to exceed the speed limit.  I even tried to draw some measure of comfort that I would not be receiving any tickets for excessive speed on this particular trip.  It was of little consolation, because the meter inside my brain, had just gone into the red.  This particular shade of red, was blood-colored.

I determined that I would have to take a peek around the left, to see if I was lucky enough to get a break in the oncoming traffic.  “I’ll just ease my way to the left here, slowly, and whoa!  Bad time for you to ease left too.  Gotta watch this bozo closely, cause he isn’t following the same script that I am.”

As we ambled along, the temperature inside the vehicle far exceeding that, which was outside, the bits and pieces of hay continued to whip into and past my windshield, further irritating my already raw nerves.  My hands tightened their grip on the wheel.  “This is so retarded.  This jaboney is rocking my world, and I gotta say, this ain’t working for me.  Time to do something about it.”  

Again I eased to the left; again, he did also.  How could he know when I went left, if he couldn’t see me?  This maniac was clairvoyantly evil.  Now we were down to forty, when he jerked back to the right.  Barreling at me, going hella faster than I, was a gasoline tanker.  Screaming incoherently, I jerked the wheel to the right, and my last epic carnival ride began.  Even at forty miles an hour, a sharp enough jerk of the wheel is going to produce an instantaneous technical problem, of immeasurable difficulty.

I sailed off the highway, summersaulting merrily into a three hundred-year-old live oak tree, in a manner that would leave my little sportster, a crumpled, twisted mass of fiber glass and steel, with little remaining of me at all, except for my stubbornness.  Plenty of that to go around, even if the rest of me went up in smoke.  That’s too bad because I won’t need it anymore.  

Down the highway continued the hay-laden old pickup truck, seemingly oblivious to the destruction behind him, his scythe conveniently mounted in the easy-rider-rifle rack in the window behind him.  The driver, garbed in black, had a pleasant smile on his skeletal face.

(9) You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD: Sonic Whispers

You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD

Sonic Whispers

Annie and I arose on the early side yesterday, and strolled out the door at 4:30AM, bound for Ione to see Lito ring the bell, after receiving his diploma at the Cal Fire Officers’ Training Academy.  This was the culmination of a six-week training camp, reminiscent of a military-style boot camp.  Forty men and women started out, and thirty-nine successfully completed the course.

For me the day was a test of my ability to travel five hours in the car each way, attend a public event, with a lot of pomp and circumstance, and not allow anxiety or mood to interfere with my enjoyment of this venue.  My attendance was an unqualified success, on all levels, and it began with our preparations.  We had run down a list of necessary components, including the decision to hold off taking my anxiety medication, because, frankly, there was no anxiety.  That in itself is a first.

Next Annie and I had a key discussion about where we would sit.  She said to me, “I want to sit close to the front so I can see.”

“Well, that sounds reasonable.  How close is close?”  My former students heard me tell them for years that I always choose the back left-hand side of any public venue I attend, because it allows for the best exit strategy, should I need to employ it. 

“I want to sit at the front, because I’m short.  Last year I couldn’t see anything.”  Last year we had come to this same location, to watch Benny walk across the same stage.

“Maybe you and Vanessa can sit up front and I can sit by myself at the back.”  The prospect did not thrill me, but neither did the idea of being in the center of a mass of humanity.  I have to be candid.  Sitting in the middle of a row of seats, with folks surrounding me, continues to be something that I cannot do.  Period.  There is no exception to the rule.  

I do not try to comprehend the source of my anxiety; I listen to the sonic boom that whispers in my mind, at even the thought of such a fool-hardy idea.  As it turned out, because we had had the foresight to leave our house well in advance of the time we calculated necessary, we were among the first to enter the hall.  Annie drifted instinctively to the left, and we found that the podium was off-center, and positioned closer to the side we were contemplating.  By snagging the outside three chairs, I could sit on the edge, and cope.  It was a perfect compromise.  People to the front, right (Annie) and people behind me.  But no one to the left.  OK, ready for action, ready for danger.

The trip was well worth the effort, already, before Bill Baxter, the battalion chief who runs the academy, noted Nathaniel’s name being called, by striding past the clasping of the badge on his chest, back to where I was standing, watching while Annie took a picture.  He approached me, holding out his hand to shake mine.  “I have had the pleasure of training two of your sons now.  Outstanding effort, on the part of each of them.  Outstanding.”  By going out of his way, to single me out for this acknowledgement, he made me feel as though I were a king.   I now better understand why Benny spent so much time, extolling his virtues.  I expect to hear the same from Lito.

As far as mood spectrum disorder having no effect on my participation, all I can say is, “Outstanding.”

Blue Blood

This is a long-overdue check-in with the San Francisco Giants.

Blue Blood

Has anyone but me noticed that the Dodgers have lost five straight?  That is just such a shame, you know, because that means that the San Francisco Giants just might actually have a chance this season.  Fans frequently have a hard time remembering that the baseball season is 162 games long, and that teams that get off to quick starts, must sustain their intensity for an entire season.  Otherwise, the hot air that they spew early on, provides a great deal of motivation for the teams in the rear-view mirror.

Right now, one-third of the way through the season, the Giants are four games above .500, matching a season high, and they have yet to see Timmy emerge from his funk.  If we can have made the adjustment to Wilson and Sandoval’s absence, and still been able to make progress, imagine where we will be, when Pablo comes back and Timmy gets on track.  I have said it before and I will say it again.  Don’t you worry about Timmy.

Examine just a few of the emerging components of the Giants 2012 team.  Start with my personal favorite, Gregor Blanco, the single most intriguing new Giant this spring.  He has seized control of the leadoff position, and is showing the league how it’s done.  This spot in the lineup is critical and it appears the Giants have scored big-time.  Gregor provides a spark reminiscent of Andres Torres, and creates havoc for the opposing pitcher, when he gets on base.

Secondly, we have Joaquin Arias, the player taxed with replacing the Panda.  The Giants tried several candidates for this slot, before Arias settled into place.  That’s the kind of depth a team must have, in order to be able to sustain its drive when key injuries occur.  Last year we were unable to plug that prominent gap at the catching spot, and we lost out in August and September.  This year, maybe not.

So why is Blanco more intriguing than Melky?  Because Melky is producing the way Sabean figured he would, albeit at a much higher level.  Blanco is still an unknown commodity, injuries and timing having played a key role in his career so far.  Now he has melded with an aggressive blend of teammates, to show the baseball world how it is done.  

Melky Cabrera set an SF Giants team record for the number of base hits in May, besting Willie Mays’s 1958 May effort, and Blanco was on the base paths in front of him, setting the pace.  Melky has more hits than any player in the National League, and is heading his team's charge.  Together with Angel Pagan, the Giants have furnished their team with a trio of fleet-footed outfielders, who are learning to patrol the unconventional realm of AT&T Park.  Listening to Angel at the plate last night, dropping that pop fly in, just in front of the onrushing Cubs right fielder, made me chortle.

Right fielders coming into our yard have to make a decision, every time a player steps to home plate.  Guard against a ball getting past and to the wall in Triples Alley, or guard the line?  One guy can’t do both, unless he has been there and done it before.  Nate Schierholtz has demonstrated how it is done, but is still struggling to establish himself as a force to be contended with every day.  Meanwhile, opponents get to have the joy of on-the-job-training in right field, with 40,000 fans screaming at them.

Finally, take a gander at Santiago Casilla, and tell me that we have not plugged one of the most gaping holes in our team’s effort to climb back into contention last season.  He has stepped up with authority, slamming the door in the ninth effectively, with a lot less drama than Brian Wilson.  Drama is OK if it gets the job done, but efficiency is more desirable.  Helps keep the “t” word out of the broadcast booth.  I do not associate torture with baseball.  Tension yes, because a good game always includes tension, but not torture.

The only torture I have experienced this season, has been listening to discussion about how the Dodgers were running away with the title.  I have great respect for Matt Kemp, but he is now experiencing technical difficulties.  It is a part of the game, and affects a team’s performance.  Personally, I look forward to the continuation of the season series, because the Giants are a team on the rise, not one trying to maintain its edge on a slippery slope.  

Torture?  Bring it on.  Just make sure there is plenty of popcorn, peanuts and cold lemonade.  I like to be fat and sassy while I watch our players administer the rack to a team that tortures me just by being on the same field.   I heard the Dodgers bleed blue.  I’d like to see that.  Let’s create a new version of the Black Sea, and make it a Blue Sea.  At the end of the season, they can rechristen it the Dead Sea, because that will be more descriptive.  Go Giants!

(8) You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD: Courage

You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD

Courage

Yesterday marked two occasions: thirty years up here on the mountain, to the day, and Ross’s birthday.  Ross is newly moved into the immediate neighborhood, and I could not be happier.  He brings great energy onto the ridge, and it will be fun to have him around.  So how could I not traipse down to his place for a little birthday celebration, when Casey was kind enough to provide me with the information, including the gate combo?  Bipolar people appreciate having the combo; it makes getting through the locked gate so much more convenient.

I have had several opportunities to reconvene on the social circle, but have not had the courage up until now.  Why does it take courage?  Rita’s post today on FaceBook says it all: “The mentally ill frighten and embarrass us.  And so we marginalize the people who most need our acceptance.  What mental health needs is more candor, more unashamed conversation.”  Everyone in my circle cannot help but know that I have been diagnosed with a mood spectrum disorder.  I have dropped off the face of the planet.  Now I am back.

As the poster suggests, mental illness is not a warm and fuzzy topic in our culture.  Of course we have to distinguish what constitutes “mental illness.”  Does depression fit under the umbrella of mental illness?  Of course it does, but it frequently escapes the stigma, because being “sad” is not the same thing as being nuts.  People’s level of comfort varies dramatically when you venture into the murky waters of mental issues, which always highlight the extremes, without there being an awareness that extremes represent the outer limits of an illness, such as mood spectrum disorder.

You hear about the bipolar sufferer who spent a lifetime accumulating a fortune, only to lose it all in a scheme to buy up 10,000 acres of swamp land, that proved to be no more useful, than say, 10,000 acres of desert land.  You hear about the outrageous mood swings, which leave members of the household reeling in their attempts to keep up with the whirligig of frantic actions on the part of the patient.  There is not enough awareness that the majority of mood spectrum disorder patients, fit somewhere in the middle of the range of possibilities, with the depressive symptoms infinitely more apt to create challenges, than the manic side.

The manic side of the picture may prove more disconcerting to family members, but in my case, the depressive side of the illness is the side to fear.  This is where the tangible evidence of mental issues announces itself with authority.  Whereas mania produces a flurry of activity, and can turn out to be quite productive, lethargy is not something that I can gloss over.  The inability to rely on my legs for 100% of what I am accustomed to, not only makes it impossible to work at any kind of normal pace, if I were actually going to try and work, but it makes for treacherous going, because my reflexes are seriously impaired and I can not respond to precarious situations with the same alacrity that I once could.  The result?  I fall a lot. 

Maybe I should arrive at the party, and announce, “Hi everyone.  I’m bi.  Polar that is, not the other.  Annie is still the only person for me.”  I did not do that, yesterday, at Ross’s party, choosing to make a gentle entrance, as I am accustomed to doing these days.  I decided to momentarily pretend that I am just the same as everyone else.  Of course, everyone I observed was having libations which included alcohol.  Now I can have a shot of Jameson’s if I want, and no one would say boo or Shinola to me, but still I held off.

I told Dr. Garratt in Mendocino a month or so back, that I was not keeping booze in the house these days;  I did not need him to tell me that drinking would not help my illness.  Dr. G. occasionally appears as an enigma to Annie and me, because he is not the take-charge, gung-ho kind of guy I might have thought.  He puts stuff out there, and he answers questions, but he does very little directing, preferring to allow the immediacy of any issues dictate the pace.

When it comes to measuring progress and growth, however, the evidence is there.  I have taken huge strides, despite the issues with my legs, in determining the best course of therapy for me, and so I am not going to question the good doctor’s role in this process.  It goes without saying, but I will say it anyway, that without Annie, I would still be back in the dark ages.  I would be mired in patterns of behavior, that defied explanation, and provided a lot of questions, the primary one being, how did I become estranged from most of my family?  Just asking.