My Mind: Rhythmic Disturbances--Could it Be?

I have over twenty subjects that are either in my notebook or in the draft section in the blog, but here I am, unable to start, add to them, or finish any of them. Why? For two days a particular subject has been burning in my heart, but as I sat here, I look at the rough draft and I feel nothing. My mind will not come up with the words. I try, but I cannot find the passion I had when I first came up with the subject that I thought "I just had to get out!" Last night I thought about it over and over and could not wait to write today!

So, I sit here and with a blank page, write what my mind feels like saying. It may not be good, it may not be worth anything, but something will be written Oh, I wish I could explain in words what this feels like. If anyone who does not have my illness, you would probably say to yourself "my heart is not in it anymore." If you could just understand, and turn that around and realize I really and truly want to! I type one line, delete it, type something else, and delete that, until I get so frustrated I just give up. Last night my mind was burning with fire, words coming and going, ideas, everything so vibrant and real.

But this morning, I am depressed. Not only depressed, but anxious, restless, irritable - I am in a mixed-state that most do not want to be in. Symptoms from mania and depression come flowing in at the same time. It's scary! How come many people get "well" or better as they state, and although every day, faithfully I take my medication also, but as I sit here, I could count at least 7 different traits of manic-depression upon me right now?

I know by research that most of us who seriously suffer from this illness are, for the most part controlled by "rhythmic disturbances" which moods and symptoms change during the course of the day. Many articles and books I have read on this supports that in some, mornings are the worse. In her book "Touched with Fire" Kay Redfield Jamison quotes British psychiatrists W. Mayer-Gross, E Slater, and M Roth describing this very thing:

"An important and significant symptom of the endogenous depression--but also mania --is the daily fluctuation of mood and of the total state. Improvements of all symptoms usually occurs towards evening, the retardation and depressive mood particularly showing a change for the better. In the morning however, the patient wakes direct from sleep into his characteristic somber mood or is normal for a few minutes, before, as he says, the depression come down -like a cloud"

Guess with my particular work schedule, and everything else going on is just about the only time I can write? You got it...in the morning. I guess I just answered my own question as to why I cannot complete what I want to write late in the evenings. Go figure...

"My Mind" --For sale.

Lack of Writing - An Update:

When I logged into this blog I had no idea what I was going to write, and as I type this I still do not have a clear-cut outline or idea where this will go. At this time, I have no title for this, so I will try to name it after I am finished.

I entered the New Year optimistic that 2012 would be MY year. I do not believe in the typical "New Year resolutions", but I did had personal goals, dreams and plans of what this year would bring, and where I would hope to be when I reach the end of December. However, January was still young when personal problems came pouring in.

My mom, whom you read about, became and still is very ill. She has been in the hospital, rehab, and back in the hospital several times. In addition to the mental illness she faces, her health has changed overnight. The very strong 74 year old mother who up until a year or so ago would briskly walk an easy 5 miles a day, has developed heart problems; trouble with her knee; extremely and dangerously high blood pressure that no doctor or medication has yet been able to control; and now with only the one kidney she has, they suspect it is going south also.

Then, in the middle of this, I have been to medical specialists also. It looks like I am paying the price of the wonderful years of living under the beautiful, hot, southwest sun and skin cancer, once again has developed and I will have to undergo surgery.*

All the above, as you can imagine, has been a challenge to keep my unpredictable manic-depressive - moody, extremely depressed, mania, irritable, angry, dangerous mind… under control. Not writing for a while did not help either. It was just too difficult for me and… this obviously adds to the depression. I have come to realize that dealing with this “mental” illness; worried and trying to help mom; and scheduling and worrying about the upcoming surgery, there is no doubt why I feel as though I am in the center of a ferocious circle of problems - each one magnifying the other until I feel, mentally, it is impossible to handle them all.

There have been so many things I have wanted to write about and I will...as soon as I can. At least I hope you understand, and will "hang in there with me" until I am able to write more.

"Manic-depressive illness is an inherited vulnerability to a disease that can manifest itself in a wide range of fluctuating emotional states, behaviors, thinking patterns and styles, and energy levels. Heightened passions and partial derangement of the senses tend to come and go."

Kay Redfield Jamison

"Touched With Fire"

Bless you all,

"My Mind"

At Times I Still Ask...Why?

Today, as so many of you can relate to, depression that has a mind of its own, slowly crept in, even to the point that I feel as though I took no medication at all but knowing full well I did. Why? Where did it come from? Nothing triggered it. Today is a day where I am supposed to be relaxed and in good spirits because I am home not having to work. Football playoffs is on. This is a day of football, pizza and relaxation and yet I pace; I stare at the floor; the bedroom where the shades are drawn and is relatively dark where I can hide under the covers and listen to my sad music beckons me. Depression feeds upon depression*. I cannot get interested in anything. My world is dark grey and no light shines in. Why?

How many times do we - those suffering from manic-depression ask ourselves this question over and over during our lifetime? We are not supposed to feel this way anymore. We are on medication, we go to the doctor faithfully, we are supposed to be better! No, it's not the life and death moods, but at times we wander if what we feel this moment will lead to it again. It has before.

I just wanted to post this to let everyone know that if at times you feel as I do, and are doing everything you know to get better, this can still happen - so you are not alone. Why? I don't know, and I wander if we will ever know. Today, as we improve on research, medication, understanding this illness...it seems as though the strides they are making are too slow. I should not feel this way. So please forgive me if I still ask..."why"?

It is a lonely road

Filled with agony and despair;

That only those who travel it

Can share.

"My Mind"

01/15/2012

“We’ll Hang in There Together…OK?”

Some of you may have read the story I wrote about my Mom and her condition before the three of us boys made the extremely hard decision to have her forcefully taken to the mental hospital. It was just about the hardest period in my life.

Having just come from Arizona, she was living with me a few weeks before and I saw firsthand how bad she really was. Myself, and my family witnessed manic – depression, the extreme highs and the horrible lows, along with schizophrenia that to this day most people have only read about. My poor wife being there alone with her during the day had just about lost her own mind in the process. As we know it is hereditary, and it does not necessarily mean it is evenly spread out among the children... guess which of the three boys got the major portion of it? Yep, it’s me…big time.

Now, years later after court order my oldest brother having guardianship and literally picking her up each month and driving her to the clinic for treatment, I am more than proud to state mom is living by herself, and doing reasonably well. She “has her days” like all of us, but to be honest is even doing much better than me!

I gradually brought the subject of my problem to her attention and over the last several years I have found we have “bonded” more than I thought was possible.* I’ll mention my bad days, and she seems to understand if I don’t call or stop by during those mood swing periods. She always wants me to call and update her as to how my doctor visits turn out, and will always ask me “are you hanging in there?” Now we have made a pact together: I promised I would hang in there as long as she did. Unfortunately for my part, I did not think she would be better off than me! So, on my bad days, she asks “are you still hanging in there?” and I reply “I’m hanging by my toe nails” and we laugh together.

Some of you have noticed during my reply to your comments, or messages you send “we’ll meet back here another time, and we’ll hang in there together.” Now you realize that phrase had more meaning than you thought. Just as serious as I am with mom, I am with you also - but you have to do your part for this to work – YOU have to “Hang in there with me, OK?”

“In solitude, where we are least alone.”

― Lord Byron

Part Time Blog - Full Time "Manic - Depressive"

Part time blogging is good. It is exhilarating when you are finally able to sit down and write what has been on your heart and hit publish! Many of the blogs I read are from people like myself who write part time. Depending on their lifestyle, some are able to post everyday, or at the very least a couple times each week. Others do the best they can.

I am reminded of an email, followed by a message on my blog when I first started out that if I wanted to be successful, I had to write every day -without fail. This message came from a very successful professional - full time expert - who writes three blogs of his own, and is contracted out by numerous other blogs. I guess he makes a great deal of money from his writing. For someone who had never set up a blog in his life; was going through a difficult time personally; and was writing about a very sensitive subject, this was extremely discouraging. For sometime this bothered me. Then I realized this expert blogger did not bother to read the title of my blog; did not read the purpose this blog was set up; and most certainly did not read what condition I was going through at that time.

Each of us who write "part time"  have different lifestyles and schedules. For me, I hold down a job that takes up to 9 -12 hours a day. Take all the other things going on in my life (sleep must come in there somewhere) and there is a very small window of opportunity left. But aside from all of the above, I believe we are missing the point. "Part Time" blogging and "manic-depressive disorder" does not necessarily mix well together.

I had been mentioning how my state of mind has been changing. I took the "Manic - Depressive" test again the other day-as I call it - and I still score 8 out of 9 symptoms - some always constant. Then, if not bad enough, in the middle of the major swings, I experience a "mixed state" where the moods change in and out, one from the other, many times both simultaneously, quickly and without any warning.

 Now here is the main point I want to make. When I swing into the "high" phase, it is rarely when I'm sitting here at this desk. So, what I do (yes...sometimes going down the road) I keep a large notebook with me and I am scribbling in large words all over the place, taking notes ninety miles an hour! They are good ideas, dreams of what I want to write that I cannot sit still in the car. Sometimes, it comes upon me when I am at work. When I am trying to sleep. Anywhere, anytime. I am so excited, I cannot wait to sit here and type it all out for you. Then when I sit here, I read the notes, and they do not make sense to me. I am depressed. How can someone admire the fiery colors of a rainbow, or the beauty of the rose garden when they are depressed. The colors are dark. Grey is around me. I do try to write using my notes...I try so hard, but my feelings are not in it and to be honest, the notes I took does not make sense to me.

It is even so hard for me to explain this because I am not in the best of conditions tonight either. As I was fighting this on going battle for sometime now, I just stumbled upon a quote from Kay Jamison that may help explain it a little better:

"In addition to the changes in mood and thought that are brought about by mania and depression (and the experiences - both good and bad - gleaned from the pain intrinsic to melancholia), the less dramatic, day-to-day aspects of the manic-depressive temperament can provide artistic advantage as well. For individuals who live with moods that change often and intensely, life is a tempestuous experience. The manic-depressive, or cyclothymic, temperament, carries with the the capacity to react strongly and quickly; it is, in a biological sense, an alert and excitable system. It responds to the world with a wide range of emotional, perceptual, intellectual, behavioral and energy changes, and it creates around itself both the possibilities and chaos afforded by altered experiences and fluctuating tempos. In a sense of depression is a view of the world through a glass darkly, and mania is a shattered pattern of views seen through a prism or kaleidoscope: often brilliant but generally fractured. Where depression questions, ruminates, and is tentative, mania answers with vigor and certainty. The constant transitions in and out of these constricted and then expansive thoughts, subdued and then violent responses, grim and then ebullient moods, withdrawn from and then involving relationships, cold and then fiery states - and the rapidity and fluidity of moves across and into such contrasting experiences - can be painful and confusing."

I wish so much I could "call upon those mania" thoughts at will while I am sitting here. If it was not for the above, I would write more often. It is so difficult to write when the words come one at a time, and all the notes you took even hours before does not make sense to you, or at best, because you have come down to a very low state, you have no idea what they mean. If I did succeed, it would not be real, therefore not true to my myself, or you!

I'll be back...as soon as I can.

"My (confused) Mind" 

Part 2: The "Unspeakable" Words: - CHILD ABUSE

"Children will not remember you for the material things you provided but for the feeling that you cherished them"

Richard L. Evans

I want to talk to you, a friend, a little now because I know I will not be in any condition at this end of this. I'd like to say "Thank You" from the bottom of my heart to those of you who dropped me a little note of encouragement either by email, Face Book (Eagle Mind) or on various Bipolar groups and social networks I belong regarding my condition. Those words meant more to me than you will ever know!

I believe that is what all this is about - we share a common "demon" that only we can relate to. I totally admire and respect psychologist, psychiatrist, neurologist and therapists and all the specialists who have devoted their practice and lives to make us better and continually try to find a cure, but it is you and I who lives with this nightmare day and night, and we alone know what we go through. This is why it is so important that we help each other -lifting each other up - with just a note of encouragement from time to time.

I made a commitment that I was going to write about a subject that even under normal mental conditions tears my heart out. As my condition continued to get worse, this is almost impossible for me to write. This horrible subject of "child abuse" has always been a sharp pain in my heart. It has been a long time since I first mentioned to you I was going to write about it, so you can tell I had trouble with this. Now, as I allow myself to dwell on it, a sudden rush of sorrow; pity; pain; and major depression slowly builds into a uncontrollable rage that if I do not force myself to change my thoughts, I truly feel what little sanity I have left will explode. "Then why put yourself through it?" I have been asked. I can only say...I just cannot be quiet. Something inside will not rest until I get this out. It burns within my soul.

"What does this subject have to do with Bipolar, and how will it help me?" To start with, it is written by someone who has bipolar I. This illness can reach down and pull from the heart something that one fills passionate about and magnify it one hundred times until it becomes an obsession. Also, when I first published this website, my goal was to try to tell my story, and include whatever I can to the best of my ability to help someone, anyone, even if it just one person. And finally, bipolar is a mental illness, and as you will find out, this subject has mental illness written all over it.

There are thousands of articles, websites, blogs, and organizations that have written about child abuse, so I am well aware I probably do not have anything new to add regarding basic information and statics. However, there may by a slight chance I may add something here you were not aware of, but most of all, I think maybe using my illness and the ability to draw upon my deepest, darkest feelings, it may bring to light this awful subject from a different point of view. I will share couple of stories with you that will make your stomach churn. In my state of mind I hope, I Pray, I can bring this to you through my eyes. I trust when you are finished reading, you will have just a glimpse of how my heart goes out to all the little ones who never had a chance to know what "real" life is. Whatever pain I may feel here is like a drop in the ocean compared to their pain, mentally and physically. Death, in some cases, is the only release of pain they will ever have. They may survive and grow old, but these types of scars will not heal, and death here also will finally close the "mental" wounds.

ABUSE: I hate that word! For me, there is not list a word in the English language so revolting! Of all the people that breathe, I believe without a doubt child abusers are the lowest form of creatures that ever slithered on this earth. These cowards prey on those who either by strength or will, cannot fight back. Their victims are usually totally helpless, defenseless and at the mercy of one who by definition cannot relate to others as human beings, choosing instead to treat them as "objects" for whatever satisfies their own sick mind!

{Ok, I have to calm down --I am getting ahead of myself. I will get back to these abusers later}

Types of abuse:

Physical Abuse - Physical injuries is one of the most commonly observed signs of child abuse. This includes repeated hitting, beating, shaking, throwing, burning, scalding, drowning or any other forms of physical harm to a child. The child will tend to suffer more fractures than other children and bruises or marks are commonly seen or noticed on their body. All these may cause temporary or permanent disability or disfigurement to the child. In severe cases, it may lead to death too.

Sexual Abuse - Sexual abuse is one of the most disgusting and hideous ways to torture these pure and innocent children. Child sexual abuse includes engaging sexual activities with the child, displaying pornography or using the child for pornography purposes. Sexual abuse may or may not occur physical contact with the child. However, even without any physical engagement, it would have already caused the child's mind to be corrupted with these filthy thoughts, given that they are still a child.

Emotional Abuse - Emotional abuse includes words, actions, comparisons or even indifference that are always discouraging or demoralizing for the children. Emotional abuse often results in impaired psychological growth and development. The children are often rejected, ignored, belittled or even criticized by the abusers. This may occur with or without physical abuse; however, there is often an overlap. For instance, unreasonable demands on a child's performance and penalizing a child for positive behavior are forms of emotional child abuse. Any individual who is under prolonged emotional abuse often loses self-confidence and suffers from low self-esteem. Similarly, development of the abused children is often affected in terms of social, cognitive and psychological behavior. Unfortunately, it is detrimental and long-lasting.

Verbal Abuse - Verbal abuse happens when the child is being yelled at or scolded or even humiliated using harsh words. The verbally abused child may develop negative behavior, physical aggression and misbehaving at a higher rate when they are compared to others. In some cases, when they are agitated by the comparisons or comments made by the abusers, they may hit or quarrel with other children or classmates. When the child is constantly abused verbally, the child may become self-destructive and depressed and do things that may harm them.

Neglect - Neglect is a type of abuse where the child is not well taken care of. This includes parents or caregivers paying little or no attention to the child or basic requirements are not fulfilled. Basic requirements like food, proper clothing, hygiene and the attention that the child needs. In most cases, these children will suffer from emotional or mental pain.

Substance Abuse - Substance abuse is also a type of child abuse where child is exposed to illegal drug activities. This includes child being drugged so that parents or caregivers are able to control him/her, using the child as a middleman to sell or distribute the illegal drug and other substances, or manufacture of a controlled substance in premises occupied by children.

Abandonment - Many people do not know that abandonment is also considered a type of child abuse. Abandonment is when the child is being left behind and the parent's identity or their whereabouts are unknown. This may cause the child to suffer from serious harm (physical or mentally). Physical harm such as improper upbringing that causes the child to be lead astray. Mental harm such as the child will be growing up without their real parent and that might make them feel inferior to other children.

STATISTICS: 

In 2009*: 

Fighting a Loosing Battle Here...

I just have a couple of minutes but wanted to say a couple of things.

Ok, I'm loosing it! For years I have been settled in and comfortable in a "routine" daily schedule. That is now history. The manic-depression in me that I could understand and almost live with is a thing of the past. The cycles that came and went are now constant with NO chance of a break. Without warning I switch back and forth: in the middle, instant irritability, rage, out of control; then deep depression. The problem we (my doctor and myself) are facing is at times I have all of these at once - going back and forth.

As you can tell, one of the many, many symptoms that comes with this "wonderful" illness is obsessive behavior. Instead of what some do, I feel I have to change the appearance of this blog, over and over. I believe I had it looking half way decient, then I changed it and now I am not so sure.

Then, comes my time. I am second shift Supervisor where I work. I have to leave the house at 2:30 pm for a meeting by 3:00pm. I usually get home about 1:00 am. In the middle of this, I am on here changing things, reading 4 books, reading a dozen or so emails from various newsletters I get on bipolar, reading and answering emails from readers, interacting on many bipolar groups on FB under Eagle Mind, and then, with no time left...home life. That makes me feel guilty...in turn...makes me depressed.

Writing the next main subject comes into play here also. It is hard. Here is a photo that has arrows showing the gauge from severe mania - severe depression. When I am attempting to write about the next main subject, the meter goes near the top...in the red...then to the bottom... while I am typing. Why write it then? I can only answer by saying...I have to.

I will try to write a note sometime in the morning hours. Sorry but I have to cut this short.

"My Mind"