This Slow Motion Ending

Life is made up of so many tiny moments, the little daily interactions and chores that we go through almost subconsciously, that we often times miss the importance of them. There’s such a focus on the major life events - our wedding (or weddings, plural, in my case), graduations, the birth of a child - that we kind of miss the forest for the trees. Sure those things are important. But it’s the little things that make life beautiful. And it’s the little things that I think we’re going to be left with in the end.

I don’t know this for sure. It’s just my opinion. But I can tell you that when I was 22 and living in Florida I was driving home one day down Highway 98, a beautiful stretch of road that parallels the ocean when the car in front of me was suddenly hit head on by a truck. I pulled over and ran to the scene as quick as I could. I was scared to death, but I knew I had to help if I could. The truck driver was injured but conscious. The driver in front of me wasn’t so lucky. He was completely pinned in the car, encased in a metal casket, and he was dying. I held his hand and I prayed for him - with him. And the entire time he smiled. I knew he was remembering those moments of his life that were important or that just made living the amazing experience that it is.

That man didn’t live long enough to get to the hospital. To this day I keep his obituary pinned to my refrigerator. I remember the way he smiled - as if it had all been worth it. I try to smile like that every day. I found out he was a Navy medic and spent his life taking care of people in need. I bet he had a lot of amazing moments to remember in the end.

I know for myself that reliving these moments does happen. My mother use to tell me a story of a horrible car crash she was in. The second it happened time slowed to a crawl. She was able to recite the entire Lord’s Prayer and then think of each one of her children before the crash was over. In reality, or our perception of it, that wreck took only a matter of seconds. When I was stationed in Kosovo I found myself in a terribly dangerous situation where I feared for my life. I had to sprint across an intersection to safety. It couldn’t have been more than 15 yards. It felt like it took forever. I was playing out my whole life, what it meant, what I had done, what my value was, in just a matter of seconds.

Buddhists believe the kind of life you lead ultimately affects the kind of death you have. Maybe they’re onto something. I’ve seen people ravaged with cancer live, fight and die with dignity, determination and respect. They should have been crumpled up crying out in pain. Steve Jobs is example of someone who died, I think, remembering all the moments of his life. His successes, his joys. I know he also died with a smile on his face. His last words were “Wow!”

All these little moments add up. They make up the majority of our lives. And there’s joy to be found in each and every second of the day. I love waking up my kids and seeing their smile. I love writing articles for people to read. I love the way it feels to complete a task that might not otherwise be all that fun - i.e. the dishes. But there is even joy and comfort in dishes. You can find it in the serenity and repetition of a task. I’m spending each day finding more and more joy in everything I do.

There’s a scale in our minds and on one side is joy and on the other is negativity. You don’t have to look very far to find negative thoughts. We are surrounded by them. But the happiness and joy is there too. You just have to look. I’m finding it everywhere, especially in those little moments. That way I’m ready, when it’s my time, to go home with a big smile on my face as well.

This Spiritual Journey

“Religion is for people who are scared to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there.” - Bonnie Raitt

There are a lot of cures for what ails you in this World. Some come from doctors, medicines to stop viruses in their tracks. Some come from spinsters, phony remedies sold on television commercials that promise a longer healthier life or a trimmer, fitter waste line. And then some cures come from spiritual men. Guidance and wisdom passed down over the years that can soothe the soul and bring peace and happiness.

It took me a long time to understand that to live life to the fullest you need a mixture of things, a concoction of health food, brain food and soul food, to grow and develop into a happy healthy person. Sure I took my medications. I followed the doctor’s orders, but I still found myself struggling at times with my bipolar disorder. If you’ve ever wondered what your purpose is, or what meaning your life has - imagine grasping at those straws weeks into a deep depression. You can lose your mind that way.

I noticed during my last hospitalization in the nut house that there were quite a few very religious people there. I’m not talking about hyper-religious, although we had a few of those too. My friend Gerald constantly carried on about the “Mother Fu$king Wrath of God” and how it was about to descend down upon all of us. No, I noticed quite a few Christians who prayed, studied their bibles and asked God for hope, guidance and delivery from their disease.

This was new to me. I’d never really considered asking for help from a higher power. I assumed he gave me this disease for a reason and he intended for me to figure out how to live with it and use it to my advantage. I attended a church service in the psych ward. It was a moving experience. But what I realized was that just as I needed help from a team of doctors, therapists and social workers for me medical treatment I was going to need a team made up of many wise men if I was going to learn to live right. Not just one.

So I started studying Buddhism - my religion of choice - even more intently. I poured over the words of the Buddha. I read parts of the Koran and looked into Hinduism. I still read what these wise books and wise leaders have to say every day. What I found was not a cure for my physical ailment, but a cure for my soul. I found spirituality. Its funny how alike all the major religions in the World are. There are subtle differences, but the major themes, or rules for living, differ very little. Great men have come from all religious backgrounds. And their words offer us a chance to see how we should live.

I think the one key element that stuck out to me as I studied these religions, was how many believe that in order to be fulfilled you must give of yourself to others. I think the key to my mental health lies in that. In giving, we receive. Then we grow. We find joy this way. Then this joy overpowers the negativity we see throughout our World. I think as long as I keep giving of myself, whether it’s through my words or a local food bank, I will find peace. And that’s one more day my mental illness is under control.

No matter what you choose to believe, or what faith you choose to follow, remember that we are all spiritual beings and there are many spiritual answers for questions we seek. Don’t be afraid to explore all the World has to offer. I did and I’m that much healthier because of it.

This Spring Fever

It's easy to get caught up in all the excitement. The grass is starting to grow again, the flowers are in bloom, boys and girls all across the nation are hitting the ballpark for America's pastime.  There is something magical about Spring. It makes me feel alive, like I'm coming out of a long hibernation and it's time to get back to the business of living. The longer days mean there's more that can be done and the more time we have to invest in things that matter the happier we will be.

So what's your investment for the Spring? I promised myself I'd spend more time nurturing relationships, especially those with my children. Love is time and the more time I can spend with the three mini-me's the happier we will all be. I realize that I will have to take time away from something else to do it, but family is one of the major keys to keeping me happy, healthy and sane.

I also want to invest more time in my writing. I've just recently turned writing into a profession once again after many years of just being a hobbyist. It's rewarding to be my own boss and to be doing something I love. I'm growing each day now, just like new leaves in Spring. While the jobs I'm getting right now aren't all that glamorous and the pay isn't amazing, they still allow me to pursue my dream and explore new and different Worlds and subject matters. It feels good to be living my dream.

Most importantly just like the foliage and fauna Spring is a time for me to get healthy and grow strong. It was a long, hard Winter complete with breakups, breakdowns, psych wards and experimental therapies. It's time now to put all that behind me and focus on the future instead of dwelling in the past. It's time to stop defining myself by an illness. It's time to step into the sunshine and shed all the negativity that surrounded me.

It's Spring and it's time for new beginnings. No matter what has been holding you back or keeping you down, step into the sun and let it go with the breeze. There's no better time to start living your new life than right now.

This Wild Ride

Being bipolar is a lot like riding a never-ending roller coaster. Life becomes a series of climbing to new highs and dropping to the lowest of lows all with a bunch of flips and turns and twists mixed in just to keep you on your toes. Like any ride that you were nervous to get on as a kid - it is always easier with a friend by your side. There’s something to be said for that partner in crime who pushed you to hop aboard the Scream Machine in the first place. It was a shared experience, a moment of bonding when the ride came to an end and you got off together all in one piece.

You’ve got to have those same kinds of people around you if you expect to survive the wild ride that is manic depression. They’ve got to be there, hands in the air yelling in excitement as you climb the hills and reach your peaks, and they’ve certainly got to be next to you when you are down at your lowest dearly holding on for life. It takes a certain kind of person to come along for this ride.

I’ve watched a lot of friends fall by the wayside when my bipolar became more than they could handle. They loved the highs - when I was the life of the party - but couldn’t understand the lows - when I would disappear beneath my covers, hidden away in my house for weeks on end. They gave up. A lot of my friends got tired of me being so unreliable. Despite the best laid plans bipolar has a way of making you change directions quicker than a criminal on the stand. What I said I’d do one day was gone and forgotten the next. I’d be off chasing another rabbit down a hole.

Eventually I realized I’d lost all of my friends. I’d ostracized myself. It made me question what kind of friends I had in the first place. Were they really there to be a friend, in good times and in bad? Was it a reciprocal relationship? Most of them weren’t. They were friendships built on weak foundations to begin with; drugs, alcohol, partying.

It hit me that the best friends I had were right in front of me all along. My kids. My family. I’d often ignored them to spend time with other people doing things, quite frankly, I had no business doing. I should have been focusing my efforts on my family all along. They are the people who take that wild ride with you and stick around no matter what. My eight year old constantly reminds me to take my medications. My daughter is always there to cheer me up if I’m having a down day. My parents can see when I’m at the top of one of those hills, going 80 miles per hour, and try to help put the brakes on a situation before it gets out of control.

Someone once told me that “Friends are God’s way of apologizing for family.” I disagree. Friends are an opportunity to grow and expand, in both positive and negative ways. Friends are temporary. But family is forever. And their support and unconditional love is what helps carry me through each day; up and down the hills of bipolar.

This Brush With Death

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. If that’s actually true all of you should be in love with me by now. I realize that I’ve been AWOL for quite some time. Needless to say, a lot has happened to me - as is prone to be the case with us bipolar folks. But I never quit thinking about any of you and I spent a great deal of time thinking about how I can better tell the story of a bipolar life via this blog so that it really hits home with the average reader. Of course I did all this thinking from the nut house.

For the second time in this short year I found myself locked away. If you’d been reading my blog you’d know I was going through some major life changing events - namely a break-up with my live-in girlfriend and the moving out of her and my one year old son. In the past I would have dealt with this like many men do - by drowning their sorrows in alcohol and searching for answers in the bottoms of empty bottles. But having given up alcohol I tried this time to go with a different approach. I went with prescription medicine to alleviate my suffering. My psychiatrist kept on prescribing me things, and I kept right on taking them. At one point I think I was on 13 different prescription meds. But what I didn’t know was that no amount of booze or pills could fix me. I just needed time to heal.

But I couldn’t see that through the fog of medications I was ingesting throughout the day. I just kept taking pills. And I finally realized this was no way to live. So I took a Klonopin. And then another. And another. And so on and so forth. And then I decided I’d had so many Klonopin that I should just sleep until all the pain was gone. So I took an Ambien. And then another. And another. And it kept going until all I had were empty pill bottles.

I realized there was a problem when I tried to stand up and couldn’t hardly move, much less support any of my body weight. I was almost completely lost mentally as well. I managed to mutter out hospital and thankfully someone was around to load me in the car and get me there.

I only have vauge memories of the next 4 days. The drugs really messed with my mind. I do know the doctor’s told me I was lucky to be alive - that the mix of pills I had taken should have shut down my respiratory system but for some reason didn’t. I asked to be sent to my VA Hospital’s Acute Psych Ward (also known as the looney bin or nut house) instead of the public one for further treatment.

This wasn’t my first trip to the VA’s psych unit. Earlier this year I spent 11 days there due to uncontrollable racing thoughts - a mixed episode in bipolar terms. It was a good experience. I met some great people and we all got along well. We were all veterans so there is a shared experience among us. It was supportive and encouraging. This experience was entirely different. To begin with I was still in horrible shape going in. Physically I was safe but still weak, but mentally I was a disaster. I hadn’t dealt with any of my life problems and now I had a suicide attempt to process through as well. Fortunately I got a wonderful doctor who listened, cared, was supportive and IMMEDIATELY got me off of so many drugs. He pulled back the reigns and I was down to 4 prescriptions. My head almost instantly started to clear. I stopped slurring words. My thoughts became less jumbled.

Being on the unit itself was drastically different this time around, though. It wasn’t welcoming. It wasn’t friendly. It was dangerous. Fights broke out. Tensions ran super high. A patient snuck in drugs and was using them in his bathroom. There was no camaraderie. I got the feeling a lot of the group this time didn’t want to get better. This was just another step in them playing the system. A rung on the ladder towards disability.

So I spent most of my time sitting and thinking. I had to process through what had happened to me over the last 3 months. It was all a blur thanks to the drugs. I had lost my girlfriend. I had lost my son. I had lost sight of the things that were important to me; writing, reading, being a part of a community. I had locked myself away and almost lost myself.

But it was amazing how quickly everything started to turn around. Thanks to the staff there I found the one thing I was missing most of all. Hope. Without it I had been paralyzed - stuck in the same spot, unable to move forwards or backwards. I was just wasting time and air. But they gave it back to me. And here I am now -eight weeks later and let me tell you I have a lot of hope. And a lot of plans. I’ve branched out into a new career and I am super excited about that. I learned that letting go of my girlfriend was what I should have done all along. I am moving forward and each day is new and exciting.

I’m going to be making some big changes to how I do things around here as well. I’m going to be posting with more regularity and I’m going to make some big design changes as well. I’d also like to make the site more interactive and start having more of a conversation than just me talking out loud. So look for all of those things coming up soon.