(22) You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD: Unfinished Business

You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD

Unfinished Business

Summertime and the living is easy, or so the song goes.  I find it fascinating that when the work increases, and there is too much on my plate, I seem to rise to the occasion, and even get a little giddy about the  whole thing.  Why is it that the more work there is to do, the less time there seems to be to worrying about mood spectrum disorder?

Is there a connection between what is going on around me, and my ability to control my illness?  It would appear to be a circular process, but I have yet to determine cause and effect.  What is evident, is that certain upcoming events create a level of tension, which can serve as a trigger for MSD.  However, equally obvious is that when I am getting good sleep, and maintaining my exercise regimen, I am in infinitely better shape to meet the challenges of a busy summer season.  

One thing I have steadfastly refused to do is berate myself for actions over which I had no control.  Mostly I can rationally view past behavior and sort it all out sufficiently, because most of what occurred to rock our world, took place here on the mountain, and impacted no one outside of the immediate community.

There is one thing, though, that I continue to fixate on, because it feels as though there is unfinished business, and that is the circumstance of Jamal’s murder, which rocked our community last January.  At the time, I was in full manic-mode, with my emotions swirling around in the vast, expansive vat which comprised my brain, and no recognition that I was on a spiraling downward slope, which was to end with me seeing everyone around me moving away from me on the Group W bench of life.

I wrote several pieces about the murder of Jamal in which I expressed outrage, and vowed to pursue the matter until its conclusion, whenever that took place, and whatever that result turned out to be.  It turns out that I made promises that I couldn’t keep, because the nature of my illness is such that I can no longer involve myself in such volatile emotional quagmires, because it throws my life into turmoil, and consequently, the lives of those around me.

Something had to give, and now that I am on the road to recovery, I can see that for the time being at least, stabilization of my illness mandates that I avoid the political arena, even if the circumstances are what they are, and my commitment to the cause was unequivocal.  Stuff happens, and paths change course.  Annie and I have talked over the situation, until we have exhausted all avenues, and our conclusions remain the same.  I can no more turn back the clock and undue Jamal’s killing, than I can turn back the clock to a time when I could commit to a cause, and follow through on it.

So, like many other things in life, I make a conscious decision to pursue one path, and avoid a second.  I have to assume that the family and tight circle of friends that comprised the people around Jamal, read the words that I wrote originally, and accepted them as an offering of genuine support and assistance.  When I wrote about putting my efforts into a college fund for Kaiden, I was operating out of a sincere desire to start a grass-roots effort to hook a little brother up.

Now I tend to view my attempts as part of the overall effects of my illness, a grandiose scheme to build up a coffer of hope and money, so as to make some sort of statement about the unfairness of it all.  I had a vision about a little guy being able to grow up with a community as a father, with a war-chest of funds, to propel him through higher education.  It sounded so good and it was good.  But I am no longer possess the same abilities that I did in an earlier time, so I now must deal from the new deck of life, and anything that threatens to turn into a joker, has to be avoided.

Avoiding hard challenges has never set well with me, but beating myself over the head with a brick, doesn’t set well either.  So, for the time being, I am going to set that brick aside, immerse myself in the frantic pace which makes up the summertime, and let the living be easy.  That’s what the song says, and who am I to argue with the music of life?  I’m sorry, Jamal.  I tried, but I have to set it aside, and I just don’t feel that you’d want me to hide.  

(21) You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD: Just Think Happy Thoughts

You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD:

Just Think Happy Thoughts

The funny thing is I am not feeling especially bipolar these days, and isn’t that a shame?  It goes back to that recognition that the average MSD patient still has normal days, in which there are no manifestations of his disorder, approximately 46% of the time.  So many people are impacted by the seasonal changes, or by fog in the middle of summer, that I feel fortunate to be seemingly unaffected by this element.

As it is, I am swamped with late spring/early summer chores, which leave me little time to ponder the intricacies of my illness.  Conversely, if I were being rocked by various available options, as far as MSD were concerned, then I would not be having the success with my chores that I am.  So it’s a good news/good news proposition: no symptoms and plenty of production.

What a benign period of time like this allows me to do, is work on patterns of behavior, that frequently take their cue from the characteristics of my disorder.  For instance, Sunday presented several low points, completely unrelated to the grand occasion (such as the Giants losing in the ninth) which had me wondering whether I was dealing with my illness, or just plain life.  However, being in the midst of the mellowest stretch of my disorder so far, I knew that I could not blame my illness.  Therefore, my attitude was able to make an adjustment, and I pulled out of it.

The significance is that if I knew that I had one or more red flags present on the mood chart, then it is not simply a case of “suck it up.”  The absence of any red flags told me that there was something I could do about the bumps in the road, without feeling as though I were beating my head against a wall.  I think the idea that seems to predominate an uneducated public, would be the concept that someone who is depressed, can “think happy thoughts” and shake off a depressive frame of mind.  I am guilty of having taken that approach in the past myself.

A side effect of my experiencing a calm period, is that Annie gets to relax.  She also has a full plate, with her quilting practice picking up, and her preparations for market each Wednesday.  We are both devoting a large amount of time to our vegetable garden.  Last summer I was too exhausted from my construction work, to have any energy left for working in the garden.  This summer I said I was no longer capable of keeping up with the younger generation, and that I would no longer work on a crew.

That doesn’t mean I do not work; it just means that I either work by myself, or with one other person.  Another huge difference, is that if I go out to work on the workshop project, and want to take a nap two hours into the project, then I can stop and go take a nap.  That’s not as easy to do when you are working on a crew.  I also decided that working on a crew was unfair, because I can no longer be certain that if I want to work on any given day, that I will be able to do so.  Again, that is not fair to a crew, because if they are counting on someone being there, then that must be taken into consideration.

On Sunday I was motivated to go out and tackle several of the boxes that were being overrun by invasive armies of weeds.  It was still pretty hot up here, around ninety, and I enjoyed the time working with the soil.  While weeding the tomatoes, which are in the ground this year for the first time ever, as opposed to being in thirty-gallon grow-bags, I noticed that we have tomatoes already on all of them  The earliest I have ever harvested a ripe tomato from my garden, is July 18th.  I will undoubtedly have several varieties available earlier than that date this summer.  That is remarkable, but I attribute it to both the excellent starts provided by Casey and Amber, and the mild spring we had up here, which convinced me to ignore conventional logic, and plant outside on May 15th, rather than June 1st.

So just as the tomatoes are progressing nicely, so am I.  Being as busy as I have been, has made it impractical to continue writing on a regular basis, so something has to give.  I continue to write short stories in my head, and occasionally get one down on paper, but otherwise am content to let the events around me dictate the pace.  I go back to Dr. Cerri for my second session on Thursday, and will certainly post on how that goes, but otherwise, I will be perfectly content to cruise lazily along, with nothing about which to write.  You know what they say about no news being good news.  

(20) You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD: They Call the Wind Annoying

You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD

They Call the Wind Annoying

The wind started blowing around a week or so ago.  Have you noticed?  Some of us notice more than others.  When it isn’t blowing, it’s howling.  I am in the most extended period of normalcy I have experienced since prior to last summer.  I am getting the good sleep each 24-hour period, and my legs are as strong as they have been in a year.  But it’s that doggoned wind that I want to talk about this morning.

There was a spate of fires yesterday, sending crews out in all directions, the same crews criss-crossing Mendo County, in order to cover them all.  It’s not surprising when you consider that the heat plus the wind, makes for a volatile combination.  As our favorite local radio weatherman likes to intone, “The low pressure will mix with high pressure, and kick up the pressure gradients, and that will bring about the wind.”  

Around here, we call the wind “annoying.”  It takes its toll on the garden; it creates havoc on the deck, knock pots and knick-knacks off the railing, and it knocks Mr. Crips’s dish under the steps, so I have to go a-hunting.  Lately, it has created havoc with my efforts to keep the lumber covered with a tarp, so that the wind and sun do not cause it to dry and warp, before we use it to build the addition to the workshop.

It goes without saying that I would take rudimentary precautions to protect the fir.  Unfortunately, rudimentary does not cut it in this wind.  The tarp with which I carefully covered the wood, including placing a chunk of four by four redwood on top of it, was meandering down the driveway, when I overtook it and returned it to its rightful spot, atop my pile of fir.  I added a ten-feet-long piece of corrugated metal, ready to get placed on the top of the chicken coop, to the pile, on top of the tarp, and then put the chunk of four-by-four on top of that.

The next morning I came out to find the tarp again traipsing down the avenue, the sheet of corrugated metal and the four by four redwood cast to one side, and I said, wtf, (Whoa, there friend).  I gathered up my scattered wits, and the tarp, and prepared to do it right.  Fighting the wind, every step of the way, I replaced the tarp, tucking the ends under the fir, as well as possible, and put the metal sheet back with the four by four redwood on top of it.  I walked over to my stack of scrap wood and added another redwood post, a chunk of two by six, and just for ood measure, my skill saw.  That ought to do it, I thought.

The next morning I came out to find the tarp again off the stack, and actually missing in action, later turning up in the creek bed. Now I was seeing all shades of red, as I scrambled down the bank of the creek bed, to retrieve the recalcitrant tarp.  I stormed back up the side of the bank, flailing wildly as I got tripped up by a wandering root, and ended up in a heap, carefully cushioned by the crumpled up tarp, i was clutching out in front of me.

I did not even slow down until tarp, redwood posts, various chunks of this and that and my skill saw, were all in place on top of the tarp.  With an air of finality, and more than a slice of bipolar pie, I stalked over to another pile of materials, and reached down and manhandled an unopened bag of Readi-Mix concrete, over to the pile, where I unceremoniously deposited it on top of all that was already there.  If that doesn’t do it, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.

The next morning, when I strolled out to the site, the first thing I saw on the ground beside the stack, was that sack of concrete.  The tarp was nowhere to be seen.  We call the wind annoying, but it doesn’t seem to care.

(19) You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD: Ready for Action: Ready for Danger

You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD

Ready for Action: Ready for Danger

So I let not one, but two days go by without posting an MSD piece.  That was just to prove that I do NOT also have an OCD (obsessive/compulsive disorder).  That was a weak-sauce effort to inject a little humor into the subject.  Now that the crisis has been averted, as of say seven or eight weeks ago, and my therapeutic journey has been charted and plotted, I am ready for action, ready for danger.  I’m ready to work with Dr. Mark Cerri, a psychologist situated in Ukiah, and so traveled down with Annie, yesterday, to begin the process.

We arrived at his office a few minutes early, parking in the available graveled parking lot, adjacent to his office.  Like Dr. Garratt’s “office,” this one had a name on the window of the front entrance, that did not match the person I was there to consult.  As we looked around, it was easy to see that there were no other vehicles present, so where was Dr. C’s car?  At precisely 1:58, a vehicle pulled into the lot, and a man got out, looked over at us, and gave a single wave of his arm, and indicated that he would go around the side, and come back to open the front door.

He told us upon ushering us into his office, that he worked primarily on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and that he hoped we were OK with the arrangements.  I told him we appreciated his being able to fit me in so quickly, and that it was all good.  Right away I  asked Dr. Cerri  what I should call him, and he said that Mark was fine.  His manner was relaxed, his voice confident and modulated, and he put me at my ease immediately.  His opening words were simply ones which indicated that we should get acquainted.

I made the briefest of statements, having already given him some background information in an email, telling him that we had been seeing Dr. Garratt, on the coast, but that it was not a fit because he was not interested in pursuing cognitive behavioral therapy, and we were.  I then suggested that Annie take the narrative from there, because I had a tendency to get too detailed, and she could better maintain focus on the big picture.  It was a solid plan.

I thought back to the tumultuous circumstances surrounding my first visit to Dr. Garratt, after my having been “rebuffed” by Norm, the psychologist at Long Valley, who had given me fifteen minutes of his time, only to say he had no patient openings.  I had not been able to articulate to Dr. Garratt in the same manner, the facts of my case, the way I had done so smoothly in Norm’s office.  With Dr. G, I had become amped, as a response to the anxiety I felt at being there in the first place.

The net result was that the man prescribed Seroquel, an atypical, antipsychotic drug!  This was in response to what he felt had been portrayed as a guy who did not get enough sleep.  All that is history now, and it is enough to say that my opening session with Mark Cerri, went ten times smoother.  I had brought my mood chart along, to indicate that I was monitoring myself each day, to determine the level of prominence, of any of my possible symptoms, but we never got that far.

What we established was that we were going to obtain a book from Amazon, which Annie had researched and knew to be the outline of the cognitive behavioral therapy program we wanted to follow.  Annie is going to order two copies, one for me and one for Dr. Mark.  We established that Dr. Mark is going to begin gathering some history next session, and that he will subsequently begin a series of diagnostic tests, so that we can obtain a clinical diagnosis.  That was the one thing we were never able to extract from Dr. G.

So now the process has begun, in a calm and sane manner.  It was kind of nice, so maybe that bodes well for the future.  It sure feels right.  

Perfection in Paradise

Perfection in Paradise

As a lifetime fan of baseball, I am thrilled that Matt Cain has risen above the best of the best, and thrown the first perfect game in Giants history.  This is not just SF history, but all 129 years of Giants history.  Matt did something that Mathewson, Marichal and Perry had never done, and only 21 pitchers before him in the major leagues had accomplished.

Having listened to Sandy Koufax’s perfecto in 1965, I am ecstatic to have been able to share in a second perfect game.  I will not compare it to Christmas, because Christmas comes every year.  It’s more like your long-lost uncle showing up, and taking you, your dad and your best friend to Disneyland for three days, with unlimited money for food and entertainment.

I listened to Ed Halicki’s 1975 no-hitter.  I listened to John Montafustco’s gem a year later.  Both were notable accomplishments, but not like Matt Cain’s performance.  Approximately 19,350 times a Giants pitcher has ascended the mound and attempted to retire the opposition without a blemish.  That means that Matt had to have pitched the best game of his life, and that each of the other players on the field, must have also played his best game of his life, in order for this to occur.  

I find it easy to zero in on Melky Cabrera’s grab in the sixth, or the tantalizing snag Gregor Blanco made in the seventh, the one that sfgiants.com featured on a one minute forty-nine second film reel.  You can see a catch many times in that space of time, and enjoy it every time.  But there were 25 other outs recorded in the game, and each had to be done flawlessly in front of a sold-out yard.

I remember Jonathon Sanchez’ no-hitter from 2010, and how galvanizing an event that was on our march to the World Series title.  There is no way to calculate the impact such an inspiring performance will have.  Couple it with the Dodgers’ SECOND ninth inning loss in three nights, and we are only three and a half games back.  This is why I follow baseball.

Now the Giants are about to enter a crucial part of the season, with nine consecutive games against the formidable American League West, on the road, and six more on top of that, three against the Dodgers, and three against Cincinnati.  We are going to need every particle of momentum we can get to come out of this next fifteen-game stretch on top of the pack. 

I hate to make predictions, because I am terrible at it.  I will stick to simply saying that I believe Matt Cain’s performance will further ignite an already red-hot team, and that we will see the results of Matt Cain’s inspirational effort.  If we come put above .500 for the next fifteen games, I will feel that we are in position to overtake the Dodgers.  

Only time will tell if a Cainsational game makes a difference or not.  My guess is yes.

(18) You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD: Sleep

You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD

Sleep 

Somewhere along the line, sleep and I fell out of synch.  It happened so long ago, as to defy recollection.  It simply never mattered.  What’s a little sleep here and there among friends?  For so much of my life, I have suffered from the type of insomnia which surfaces three or four hours into a normal night’s sleep, and that’s it.  I’m done.  

For so many years I fought insomnia, the way everyone does who encounters it.  I stayed with it, determined to get my seven hours or more.  It didn’t seem to matter that I wasted a hell of a lot of time trying to sleep, when there was no sleep to be had.  Now, when I lie down during the day, to get either my morning nap, or my afternoon nap, and I can’t sleep. I know I am in hypomanic mode again.  I just never knew it in the past.

Sleep is the culprit, who tried to slip through the night, and avoid me to the point where I got caught up in the whole thing, and it backfired.  Sleep is the single component in my frame of existence, which serves as the first domino to go down, and start the flood.  If I maintain sufficient sleep patterns, I avoid the pitfalls of mood spectrum disorder.  If I do not get enough sleep, then I run the risk of setting all of the other factors into motion, which create the stage that is necessary for a nice hypomanic run.

So I pay close attention to sleep.  As one who retires each night around eight o’clock, I would like to say I sleep straight through to four or five the next morning.  I slept seven hours a while back, after a tumultuous emotional experience, and taking a Lorazepam, which is an anti-anxiety drug.  Other than that, however, five is usually the most I get at one shot.  My custom has been to arise at that point, possibly make the coffee, check in briefly with my computer, and then see about a second run at sleep.  I used to go ahead and have my coffee at this point, because I did not see sleep coming back into the picture, but now I hold off.

Otherwise, I arise and do a piece of writing, post an email or two, check out sfgiants.com in the event that we won, and spend some time on FaceBook.  Here is where the insomniacs come out of the woodwork.  I see the same people making the same rhetorical comments on F/B night after night, and they see me.  Before I was diagnosed, I routinely arose at midnight, or shortly thereafter, and that was that.  I made no effort to return to sleep, because I figured it was a waste of time.  

When I began writing, it merely replaced reading as a means of diverting myself.  I certainly never watched films upon arising, because electricity is an issue at night, and because I simply did not do television much.  Just the Giants games, and the occasional film sufficed to keep my TV cravings at bay.  Now I keep the big picture dialed in at all times.  I try to make sure I get at least six hours of sleep between eight at night, and six the next morning.  Then a nap, or even two during the day, gets me close to or past seven hours.

I won’t even go into the details of exercise and diet, as they relate to MSD, because of the magnitude that sleep possesses.  It is the proverbial deal-breaker.  If only I had known then, what I know now.  So many driven people pay scant heed to sleep, because they can manage without it.  Are these people sufferers from bipolar II?  I do not know; I only know that when I went five consecutive days of five or fewer hours max, per diem, Annie was gearing up for another visit from the enemy.

It didn’t happen because I was tracking my sleep, and it was the only component present, which pointed to hypomania.  Score one for me.  And that’s what MSD is all about: keeping score, so that we can keep track of the tiniest of details.  By itself, each component does not carry that much weight; combine two or more, and the odds increase that I will be in for rough waters.  

(17) You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD: Translating Then into Now

You Call it Bipolar-I Call it MSD

Translating Then into Now

I was walking the dogs according to custom this morning, ambling along contemplating the universe in general, when I had a thought.  I remembered an occasion last fall, when I had written a piece about our early experiences on Bell Springs Road, and posted it on my blog, and Annie had not been real happy.  She had objected to a point I had made early on in the narrative, and asked that I omit one little passage.  It does not matter what the specifics are, what matters is how differently I view the whole exchange now.

I have mentioned in passing, about two hundred times, that hard times were had this past year or more, but it’s hard for me to put a finger on what that looks like.  One example is just what I was relating.  One element about my writing is that I do not like to alter what I have written, except to correct an error of some sort.  I can not say specifically what that is all about, except I guess I feel that what sallies forth onto the paper the first go-round, is that which I wish to see on the paper.

However, when thinking about the example I presented, there was a specific reason why Annie made the request she did, so I should have been willing to simply cut the offending sentence or two out.  At this time that seems perfectly obvious to me.  Back then I think I took it as some kind of affront, and was offended that I was asked to remove it.  

This issue of what I write and post has been an ongoing one.  It is no secret that Annie is a very private person, and by detailing the ongoing trials with which we deal, I am opening her up to a potentially precarious path.  That is why I run my posts on MSD past her.  She has explained this issue of privacy to me multiple times, not to be a nag about it, but because I keep overstepping my boundaries.

I do not even think she minds my overstepping the boundaries, but she does mind it when I get agitated that she won’t allow this anecdote or that to be included.  So now that I am infinitely clearer about what constitutes violating her privacy, it does not come up as often, and when it does, I am much more likely to recognize it as an issue, before I even present it to her.

I have been sifting through similar examples of past patterns of behavior, for the past five or six weeks, ever since I accepted my diagnosis, and begun recording daily data.  I bring them up frequently as we walk, not to browbeat myself, but because these actions were the main reason why Annie sought help from a therapist, in learning how to understand and deal with my illness.  

Now that we have retained a new psychologist, and have an appointment for this Thursday, I am hopeful that we can focus on the dual tasks at hand: creating and implementing an appropriate therapeutic program, and addressing those issues which created disharmony in the past.  By isolating instances of behavior, which were addressed incorrectly in the past, and recognizing a more appropriate way to deal with it now, I feel gain insight.  

By doing this work prior to seeing the new psychologist, I save myself the time and effort of having to do it in a session.  It’s all forward progress.  Think of it as having the contractor show up on the job-site, and having to move a stack of lumber, or having to level the site.  If I move the lumber, and get the pick and shovel out, and level the site, I am that much ahead of the game.  I think I have established by now, that in this particular contest, called MSD, I need to stay ahead of the game, in order to remain even with life.