Rapid Cycling

There is nothing that I cannot do,
Except that I find everything too difficult
My fierce ambition and driving pride
Are wrecked upon the jagged shoals of despair
Short lengths of flotsam once again connected as a ship
For the hull to be pierced once more on the breakers

Stray thoughts careen drunkenly through
The tangled, unsuitable field of my brain
Leaving a wake of wretched seeds of doubt –
That are destined to flourish
And scaffolding for towering pillars of ambition –
That are doomed to collapse

The common man falls on his face
To wail at his bloodied nose and stand again.
I rise up to the heights as a Phoenix, until my Prometheus wings melt
I hurtle from on high to the uncaring ground, crushed
From the painful depth I gather myself, crumb upon crumb, ash upon ash
Until once again I fly, destined to taste afresh the ashes of oblivion

(Not to worry, I am not in this place so much right now. Just call this a memoir and some-time spectre.)

Flying under the radar one minute, busted the next.

A few days ago I was hanging around with a few new friends watching a reality TV show. The discussion turned to the actions of one of the participants and one of my new friends noted that "he is crazy, he must be manic-depressive!" Everyone laughed, except for me. "He acts really nice one minute then is such a bastard the next. He's crazy!" I just kept my smile fixed. There is no way that anyone there had any idea of my bi-polar disorder. I just smiled and flew under the radar, but the statement shook me. Especially when I see on the news last night where, once again, there is a push to 'share' mental health records with the FBI so that the diagnosed mentally ill can be put on the list preventing them from buying firearms.

I do not care if you never want to buy a pistol and think that firearms are evil incarnate. If you have a mental disorder this sort of talk should have you afraid and outraged by turns. The fundamental proposition is to classify people by status without judge or jury. I could rant on about this, and probably will in the future, but this is as much as I have the stamina for today. :)

As for the busted... Yesterday I had my regularly scheduled appt. with Dr. Feelgood to do the medication thing. One of the things that has been going on is that I have been gaining weight on top of an already, shall we say, well-rounded figure. This has probably been caused by the Depakote, which increases appetite. It is also one of the important mood stablilizers that I am on.

So, the Dr. talks to me about it and says that I need to up my Depakote dosage but is worried because it may induce me to eat even more and gain even more weight -- especially with the holiday season coming on. So, the Dr. gives me the stern talk that they must be required to memorize at medical school about increased risk of diabetes, heart attack, stroke, so on and I make the obligatory promises that I will do my best to eat better and get more exercise. The visit with the Dr. ended at close to 5, and so I decided to go to dinner.

I live in a city near the town where my Dr. has his office. It is in the college town where I lived with my family, but I no longer live there since my separation with my wife. (I keep going there in case my wife and I are reconciled, I'd hate to have to change multiple doctors). In the town there is a fantastic restaurant that sells the best Gyros sandwiches ever known to man. They are friggen incredible. They are also about 3/4 of a pound of meat on a pita bread and topped with yougurt/cucumber sauce. A 'small' serving of fries there is sufficient to feed 3 people. So, since I rarely make it down anymore, I decided to get a gyros before I headed home.

Just as I sat down to my artery-clogging meal who should walk in but... you guessed it, the very doctor to whom I'd made promisess of being a good boy with my eating not fifteen minutes before. It's a small restaurant and I knew that there was zero chance of being avoided, so I just waited until he caught sight of me and smiled.

Thankfully, he was getting a 'to go' meal so he wasn't there too long. Actually, he sat down at my table while he waited and didn't really rail on me about the meal (it turns out that he gets a 'to go' order from there about once a week himself). Nonetheless I must say that I felt well and truly busted.

Adjustments

I'm not alone 'cause the TV's on, yeah.
I'm not crazy 'cause I take the right pills every day and rest.
-- Jimmy Eat World, Bleed American

Just a few adjustments I've made recently:

Taking a hand-full of pills morning and night religiously.

Learning to cook for one again.

Having a set "bed time" (usually, still working on it).

Rediscovering the true art of belching. Not the wimpy little burps mind you. I'm talking from the diaphragm, throat relaxed, booming off the top of your esophagus belches.

Listening to the music that I want to, when I want to.

Being comfortable at home by myself (with the TV on, yeah). I probably walked around Wal-Mart and the Mall more in the first few weeks of being on my own than I ever did in my entire life before that.

Making new friends and realizing that some old friends are weirded out by me now (I'm not as troubled by this as I thought I might be, it's caused me to realize that some of my old friendships might not have been as healthy as they might have seemed).

Generally, beginning to accept who I am and to get over myself.

Becoming One of the Few

I would not say that I have been callous. I wouldn't even say that I have been unaware. I grew up in one of the few integrated schools in a rural area of my state. Growing up, I saw first hand the hateful epithets hurled at my friends. I have a mother, sisters, aunts… I have seen each struggle for respect of their skills and abilities at one time or another.

I wasn't callous -- but I also was not one of them. Growing up as a white male I can say that neither my gender nor my ethnicity served as a significant stumbling block. Don't get me wrong, I am no fan of affirmative action. I feel that such a system only serves to divide people who should be drawn together. Unfortunately, like democracy, it seems that affirmative action is the worst solution to the problem of discrimination except for all of the other solutions that have been tried or proposed.

But I digress…

My position was sympathetic but a bit uninvolved. An issue which concerned me only tangentially. Only a small, extreme element argued that my very existence posed a threat to civilization -- a small group with no real power or voice. That was when I was one of the many.

I find that has changed. Legislators appear on television and propose that my Second Amendment rights be curtailed without judge or jury because I am a "danger". Talking heads posit that I should have the scarlet letter of "bi-polar" placed in my school records or in my work files. Others suggest that registration is in order, allowing people in the community to know when and where I live -- like a sex offender.

Now I am one of the diagnosed. One of the "certifiable". One of the few.

A Cloudy Day

Clouds linger on a day predicted to be mostly sunny, both by the weatherman and I. Recent days seemed good. I got my first full paycheck, always guaranteed to make one more amenable to a new job. It even seemed that I made progress in learning the myriad intricacies of an out-dated legacy computer system and the parameters of my job. Then dawned today.

Half of my work from yesterday got e-mailed back to me from an accounting center at the home office, humiliatingly copied to my boss. In my fluster to fix the problems, I sent corrections that turned out to be incorrect. Finally, my boss came to me and asked that I take my time to fix all of the errors then present them to her before sending them out of the office. It is a new process that I am learning, so the errors might otherwise be forgiven, but several of them were simple typos – sloppy work. I have a good boss and she has never yelled, spoken with clenched teeth, etc. But she has made it clear in the past that the cardinal sin of this work is inaccuracy. Time is not relevant so long as your end product is 100% correct.

This is about a 175 degree shift (not quite 180) from my prior profession. As an attorney, time was always of paramount importance. Minor errors could be excused and forgiven when the larger picture was correct. The important thing came down to how much time it required you to complete a task. As a result, I still get flustered when a project is taking “too much time” and have a tendency to panic. Now I must school myself to calm down and work the problem.

But I didn’t do that.

And now I feel myself on the ragged edge of a stall. “How could I make these stupid mistakes?” I berate myself. I know that I must avoid allowing myself to become trapped in a depression that may take days or weeks from which to claw myself free. But isn’t it normal to be upset, and even a little depressed, when you feel like you have screwed up royally on your job?

Damn! Damn! Damn! Self-awareness and self-examination are not all they are cracked up to be. Churchill described Russia as “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”. Trying to pin down your own true emotions and motivations are ten times worse.

The true kicker is that the several days before may have been a mild mania. I felt good – really good – but it did not seem inordinately so. Sure, I did have trouble getting to sleep on time, but that was not such a big deal I reasoned. Now I wonder if I got a bit manic over the few days before, resulting in my flurry of hurried and incorrect work.

Should I have recognized the difficulty sleeping as a sign and been more cautious. Can’t I make a few mistakes without it being a manic episode? Maybe. Surely not every screwed up day in my life has been due to mania. But again, what if it was? Even worse, can’t I have a few good days in a row without it being mania? DAMN! DAMN! And DOUBLE DAMN!

I did have an appointment to see my pill pusher tomorrow, but I have to move it a week because I was subpoenaed to appear at a hearing for the guy who backed out into my van about three months ago. One of the things we are to check is whether my Depakote blood levels are right. Over time the body can adjust to the Depakote, and it may be necessary to up the dosage – especially since I started at a low dosage and am not the smallest of men. So I wonder, is the Depakote not having the full effect right now? I hope that is it. I hope that if I am beginning the see-sawing again that a minor adjustments to my medication can help. Of course, all if this may just be my own boneheaded mistakes.

Meanwhile, I have got to get to sleep on time, or make myself go to bed a little early. I have got to expel fear, hopelessness and self-doubt from my mind. Without fail, I must implement those mental and physical procedures designed to keep me on an even keel.

The weatherman is calling for sunny skies tomorrow. Me, I think I will go with mostly cloudy, and try to relish the odd sunbeam that manages to break through.

Obligatory Cell Phone Screed

Recently while shopping at a not-to-be-named mega store, I noticed an unusual trend. Not only were about half of the customers wandering the aisles with cell phones glued to their face, but all of the personnel stocking the shelves that I saw were on THEIR cell phones, and even a “customer service” associate or two as well! I could rant on the fact that these people, ostensibly there to help the customers, were wrapped up in their own little worlds on the clock, but to me that is not the question. I just wonder, is there really THAT much more to say now than there was before cell phones?

I can still remember it well, when “dialing” meant sticking your finger in a hole on a little wheel (i.e. a “dial”) and turning it to the desired number, then watching and waiting as the dial returned steadily to its original position before entering the next number. The farthest you could range from the sturdily mounted base unit of the phone was as far as you could stretch the cord on the handset. Sometimes a call might be made to shoot the breeze, but generally speaking the telephone served a utilitarian purpose. By and large, speaking with your friends took place in person and sometimes one had to wait to tell another person something!

It is no secret that the explosion of cell phones causes an exponential increase in the time a person is available to make or receive calls, and has therefore led to a similar increase in the amount of time spent on the phone by the average American. But is there an imperative that availability must immediately correspond with action? Is there really that much more to talk about? As I walk among the masses of phone wielding masses catching hints and pieces of the conversations the only answer that I can arrive at is, “No”.

Invariably it seems, when someone begins a conversation with their distant friend, the first question is “Where are you at?” soon to be followed by a description of where the caller is at – vital information, this. Finally one party or the other inquires of the activity of the other, to which the response generally is “Nothing much”. Afterward, general trivialities are exchanged, usually involving one party loudly exclaiming “I know! I know what you mean!” followed by laughter reminiscent of a hen producing the largest egg of its career. Other callers argue with a spouse or significant other as they go about their activities, denying themselves and the other party of a chance to calm themselves before speaking further. Of course, even though the argument proceeds in angry whispers, invariably the reason for the argument becomes apparent to those around the speaker.

The callers go forth, usually oblivious of those around them, splattering the banalities of their trivial existence in the aisles of the supermarket like so much mayonnaise oozing from a dropped glass jar. Only, unlike the mayo, one never hears the announcement, “Clean up on aisle three, man arguing merits of his fantasy football picks.”

My solution is quite simple, really. I do the unthinkable – I pay attention. If someone feels the need to stand near me and blather on about the latest sale at Kohls, the exploits of their in-laws, or what they will be cooking for dinner, I actively listen. When the person on the phone glances my way I make eye contact, with a smile of course. I make it quite clear that I am politely listening to every word they say (and perhaps what the other person is saying as well, depending upon how loud they have their receiver set). It seems that nothing is more disarming to these people than the fact that someone standing nearby might have the *nerve* to listen in on their conversation. At this point the person on the phone will typically move away from me as quickly as possible.

This suits me fine.

The Devil I Knew

Yes, I hated my profession by the end. Actually, I hated my profession quite some time before the end. But, there was one advantage to practicing law – when I could force myself to do it I was a damn good lawyer. I know it sounds conceited, even arrogant, to say it in that manner. But it is the truth. Other attorneys, some quite senior to me, would often pop into my office and bounce ideas off of me. Usually, I could add to what they had already come up with. Where other attorneys came to a stumbling block, I could often point out a theory or case that would allow them to at least have a fig leaf of an argument if not a winning case. This was, perhaps, the only aspect of practicing law that I did not completely hate. Not that it did myself or my clients much good.

I could help others with legal theory, but especially at the end, I could not bring myself to do so much as make a phone call, or even answer a phone call. The other attorneys in the building would drop by and I would offer sound advice on their cases, then immediately go back to navel gazing. But, in my heart, I knew that I could do it. My competence was in no way in doubt.

Then all of that changed. Regardless of the “prestige” of being a lawyer, I recognized the need move on from the law. Now that change has arrived, I find myself again at the foot of a steep learning curve in my new profession. Perhaps it is a bit of an exaggeration to say “the foot”, but I do have much to learn. After having achieved a high level of competence in my prior profession, this can be difficult to take.

At each misstep or error, which happens more often than I’d like when dealing with math, the critical voice inside my head goes into overtime. Perhaps you have heard this voice as well, the one that tells you, “You are a fool” “You will be fired” “They’ve seen through you now”, etc. ad nauseum. No, again not an actual voice, thank God, but feelings of doubt, low self-worth, and pure fear. The fear is the worst part. It is the part of my mind that unleashes the primal monkey in my brain and makes me want to climb chittering up the nearest tree and hurl feces at passersby.

All of this is coupled with the damnable self-examination to which I must constantly subject myself. “Am I being manic, or is this a normal reaction to a stressful situation?” “Is it normal to feel this frustrated at the end of a difficult day at work, or am I sliding into a depression?”

Someone asked me the other day if I missed practicing law. I answered honestly that I did not miss it one teeny tiny bit. I still believe that to be true. I am still relieved not to deal with the problems and emotions of others (dealing with my own are enough, thankyouverymuch). But what I do miss is the feeling of absolute competence. The feeling of mastery of a profession. The positive part of my mind tells me that I will learn this new profession in time as well – perhaps becoming as fluent in this as in others before. But at present this is cold comfort. No matter how it galled, how much it burned, I miss dancing with the Devil I knew.

Strange and unique things I have done recently

Started a blog.

Made a batch of salsa from scratch for the first time (hummus is next).

Knocked on the door of the house where my children live and that on the deed of which my name appears before entering.

Found a long-lost friend from high school who lives in the area.

Broke a board with my bare hand (thanks, Lori!)

Bought a car and leased an apartment in one day.

Started a job that requires the regular use of mathematics (fortunately only fractions, but teeny tiny fractions that are turned into teeny tiny percentages out to 9 decimal places).

Re-discovered about 100 books that I’d forgotten that I have.

Started burning candles on a regular basis. I started because one or more of my neighbors smoke and the smell filters into my apartment. I continue because of the smell, and also because I find it calming for some reason. Yeah, I am weird.

Why I would give money to bums now.

In the not too distant past I, like most Americans, would drive past the sign-toting bums standing at a prominent intersection pleading for money. The justifications are familiar: "Lazy bums"; "They will just use it to buy beer or drugs"; and/or "My taxes already pay for welfare programs". Now, I am not so sure.

I will not necessarily give them something every time, but if I have a free buck or two I will. In these individuals I see a possible fate averted, or perhaps yet in the future yet.

How can otherwise intelligent, educated people fall into the well of homelessness, addiction and the indignity of begging? It is a question that many have asked. Now, having stood at the yawning brink of insanity I feel now that I have an answer to the question. Thoughts of suicide plagued me for some time, even the exact plan of how I would accomplish it. In the end, though, I realized that I could not kill myself. At least, not in one go.

What I could do would be a much more slow form of suicide. Part of the appeal of suicide is to spare your family and loved ones from the torture that you have inflicted upon them. The realization that if you were gone that most of the many problems would go with you. So, you could simply dissappear. Dissappear from the family, knowing that your parting would cause passing trauma but not as severe as if you killed yourself -- probably. Your absence would certainly alleviate the problems you caused in the family. Finally, you could hide from yourself in the haze of addiction.

Maybe it enables these souls in their quest of self-destruction to give them the means to accomplish it (and who knows, perhaps some of them are actually just desparate souls needing help). But I cannot feel that by 'enabling' them, if that is what I am doing, I am respecting their decision to take a path that I consiered and ultimately set aside.

Surgically Bombing Your Brain

The term “surgical bombing” refers to situiations when an aircraft places a single munition directly on the target rather than flying thousands of feet overhead and dropping dozens of bombs in the hope that one of them will hit the intended target. By definition a surgical strike puts “warheads on foreheads”. [Warning! While not graphic (i.e. no blood or gore), the following link leads to a video that includes the explicit war death of several individuals from one precision guided bomb. Viewer discretion advised.] For example, see this video where a precision munition changes targets after it is released from the aircraft to engage several moving targets. However, even in a “surgical strike” with a bomb composed of 500 pounds of plastic explosives so called “collateral damage”, or unintended damage, is likely to occur.

Medications can be the same way. Modern American life includes advertisements on prime-time television for everything from Aspirin to Zyrtec, each of which includes a long list of possible side-effects. Side-effects, or collateral effects, are usually fairly benign – dry mouth, fatigue, etc. All of that tends to change when the medication is designed to “surgically strike” the chemistry of the brain. Most would think that the collateral effects of mood stabilizers or anti-depressants would be clear and severe, like so. [No warning needed this time :) ] But, just like the subtle distinctions between a mentally ill person’s actions and inactions, the subtle collateral effects of medications that affect the brain can be difficult to detect or determine.

Changes to libido (increases and decreases) are not uncommon as collateral effects, but such ‘hot and cold’ periods are really not so uncommon among the non-medicated. Increases of risky behavior, such as gambling or aggressive driving can occur – but so can mid-life crises as well. High blood pressure can be the bane of many in our society, but one medication that I took in my quest for the right balance caused my blood pressure to soar until I suffered persistent headaches. By the time I got in to see the doctor, my blood pressure was something like 160 over 100.

All of the foregoing is once again complicated by the presence of diagnosed, or misdiagnosed, illnesses. If a heretofore shy medicated depressed person suddenly becomes very sexually active, does this indicate that the person is suffering the collateral effects of the medication, or a perhaps a manic episode from previously undetected bipolar disorder?

And just how does the doctor go about determining which drugs to prescribe in what amounts. Pretty much trial and error.
“Did you feel better for the last couple of weeks?”
“Well, I think so…”
“Good, then we will up your dosage a bit and see if that helps more.”
Or, worse yet:
“No, I still feel depressed.”
“Ok, lets try something different then.”
There are no blood tests, no x-rays, no objective standard for determining if you *are* in fact getting better – only your ill, possibly misdiagnosed and improperly medicated brain to inform the doctor of you subjective feelings.

Changes to medications usually mean weaning you off the first drug and then slowly upping the next. This process can take weeks. If there is anything worse than starting the medications, it is weaning off of them. – dizziness, nausea, fatigue, confusion – all of these have happened to me while changing medications.

The only thing worse than the medications is to not have any medications. I must say, having finally found a good balance for myself that the collateral effects fade over time and the renewed ability to address life is worth the trouble. Despite all of my groaning and moaning, the long journey of finding the right medications has been worth it.

What does strike me as odd, however is the universal condemnation society places on those who have been prescribed these medications and refrain or refuse to take them. The person with a diseased heart who refuses medication or surgery and has a heart attack while driving, killing others, is not blamed – there is no mention in the popular press about this person’s irresponsible maintenance of health. Those diabetics who choose to eat themselves into an early grave and burden the insurance and medicare system getting self-propelled carts at “little or no expense” to them are rarely mentioned with ire, only sympathy. And yet if a mentally ill person does anything negative – from loosing a job to committing a murder – the first question asked is whether that person was on their medications. If the answer is “no” there is much wagging of heads and clucking of tongues by all, with perhaps the odd call to make sure that some further control is made on such people to keep them on their medications.

Medications: Damned if you do, committed if you don’t.

New Beginnings

There is something intoxicating about new beginnings. The yellowed and dim page filled with eraser marks and interlineations ripped aside to reveal a bright clean sheet. Of course, as one gets older, the page beneath the one you just tore aside carries the impressions from the prior page -- dim reminders of hasty notes written in a powerful hand. And, of course, there are some notes that you want or need to carry forward with you. That list gets longer, and longer, until a 'fresh start' is rarely the blank page of earlier years.

I find myself now with a fresh start in some sense. Tomorrow I begin a new job, and really a new profession, although the new job is based upon knowledge gained from my old profession. The indentations of the law have dug deeply into the next page for both weal and woe. The indelible ink of my three sons seeps deeply through the pad of paper that is my life, never to be forgotten no matter how often I tear at the pages. Once I thought the same was true of my wife, but now time will only tell if this is so, or if my marriage is another set of deeply inscribed indentations from the page before -- making it difficult to write fluidly on the new sheet of paper but otherwise the ghost of a hope that died unfulfilled.

New beginnings are intoxicating, but they are a young man's heady drink. The older we grow, the less we taste the wine of new beginnings and the more we taste the dregs of what might have been.

One More Thing...

This has nothing to do with mental health (other than the fact that it has been bugging the crap out of me). After the tragic I-35 bridge collapse the news reporters have all been talking about the "EE-mediate" order to review the structural integrity of bridges.

There is no such freakin' word as "EE-mediate"!!! There is a word pronounced "EM-mediate" (immediate). The origins of the word are as follows: the prefix "im" which descends from the Latin prefix "in" -- meaning "not"; and, the Latin word "medius" meaning "in the middle" from which we get such words as "mediate", "Mediterranean" (middle of the world), "median", etc. Thus, the word "immediate" means "not middling" or, to put it into the modern English vernacular, "faster than moderate/without delay".

"EM-mediate" means something. "EE-mediate" means nothing other than the fact that the reporter reading the teleprompted message cannot even pronounce the words written for them correctly.

I call for an ee-mediate change to this.

One Flew Into the Coo-Coo's Nest

I had the distinct privilege of spending my 40th birthday in a mental ward -- to be more specific a "crisis intervention" center. The Sunday before my wife and I spoke in great detail. For the first time, both she and I came to a true realization of the magnitude of my problems. Suicidal thoughts, or simple thoughts of fleeing, were regular for me. For months I suffered from paralyzing inaction at work and allowed almost every client and matter to stymie. The real prospect of financial ruin, bankruptcy and perhaps even disbarment loomed before me. While my wife had guessed at some of this, the sheer magnitude of it all surprised her. For sometime our relationship had been rocky, even before this revelation. The remaining flex turned brittle and broke. Faced with the magnitude of my problems and likely the end of a thirteen year marriage, I broke as well.

Monday afternoon found me in the facility (at my wife's urging, I might add -- she is not a completely heartless person). Life in the facility is difficult to describe. You find yourself returned to childhood and beyond. Your belt , your watch, your keys, even your money are taken away from you to keep you from presenting a threat to yourself or others. Your clothes are washed for you by an attendant, not as a point of customer service, but again to keep you from harming yourself or others with the washing machine or dryer.

Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner are all at set times -- much earlier than you are used to (dinner was at about 4:20). Not only was the food the typical bland institutional fare but there was only one choice of food with scanty servings -- I lost about 10 pounds while in the facility. However, because the dining room was on a different wing of the unit, the walk to and from each meal constituted the only real excitement for the day. For the remainder of the day I was free to watch television, to read one of a couple dozen dog-eared and decades old books from genres that were wholly unappealing to me, or to sleep. As the adjustment to my medications made me very drowsy, sleeping during the day became a very viable option. There were also board and card games led by the assistants, but I could never bring myself to get involved in these. My only responsibility was to metabolize the medications I had been given. Otherwise, I was free to do nothing -- and as little presented itself to do, doing nothing became amazingly easy.

My fellow denizens were a mixed lot. Several were drug addicts sent to dry out by the various local townships before continuing with their judicial process. I carefully avoided any mention of my profession to avoid the incessant requests for free legal advice that necessarily follow. Others were individuals such as myself, professionals and working individuals who needed to have a 'time out' and a readjustment of medications including a self-employed plumber, a business man, and a carpenter. I tended to spend time with these folks. Then there were the truly ill -- those being held until a court order requiring them to submit to long term treatment at the state's mental health facility could be obtained.

The truly ill presented the most uncomfortable aspect of the stay for me. Not because I ever felt endangered by them, but because part of my work as an attorney had been to work the very docket that they would appear on. The town where I reside has the largest mental health facility in the state, and attorneys in this town on a fairly regular basis are called upon to represent the severely mentally ill as they went through the process. Now I found myself on the other side of that system. Thankfully, as I came into the facility voluntarily it did not become necessary for me to appear as an inmate of the asylum before the judge that I had argued many cases before, represented by an attorney who knew me.

As for the conduct of the truly ill, it was mostly benign. One lady kept trying to pull down her pants and would regularly walk around the unit doing the 'tomahawk chop'. One older gentleman seemed fairly lucid until he began to tell you about the scar between his shoulder blades where his ancient ancestors cut off his wings. Another younger gentleman walked around the ward, regularly stating in a loud voice the first three or four "steps" of the twelve step program of Alcoholics Anonymous. The drug addicts would often sit in corners, trading information on the best and most undetectable means of cooking meth or passing drug screens. Me and my cohorts generally spent the day watching daytime television and/or watching one of the five DVDs available to us (I saw entire showings and scenes of "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Gone in 60 Seconds" more times than any human being should be subjected to over the course of one week).

The treatment I received itself was, in fact, pretty good. An RN there was the first person ever to ask if in addition to suicidal thoughts if I had ever developed a plan -- to which I honestly had to answer "yes". Why had I not acted on it? Well the ultimate conclusion that I came to mirrored that of Hamlet in the famous "To be, or not to be" soliloquy -- "And thus does conscious make cowards of us all." Weeks before I had even begun memorizing it as a mantra to keep myself from "tak[ing] up arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing them end[ing] them."

During my stay my condition was stabilized and my medications were adjusted. In addition I received a much needed "time out" from the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' as good ol' Willie put it. I felt ready by Friday of my stay to return home. First I would need to pass the shrink test.

Forever I have used humor, especially self-deprecating humor, in everyday conversation. It is part of my nature. So, when the shrink asked about what I thought of my stay I told him that, having turned 40 in a mental ward, that I'd been cheated out of my rightful mid-life crisis -- I should be chasing blondes with big boobs and driving gaudy sports cars. The shrink, of course, felt that I might be getting a little bit manic and ordered that I stay the weekend for further observation. (Note: I really did say that to the shrink and he really did make me stay an extra 2.5 days as a result. Shrinks have NO sense of humor.)

I do not think that it will be necessary for me to ever return to such a facility, but it holds less fear for me now than it did before. I would just be sure to bring several books with me that I would like to read.

Oh, and I wouldn't crack any jokes around the shrink, either.

To Boldly Split Infinitives and Self-Observe Like I've Never Done Before

The distinction between mental illness and mental health is not a bright-line distinction. On one end of the spectrum are the "healthy" and on the other are the clearly ill, those experiencing hallucinations or who simply cannot function at even the most basic level. Between the extremes are the depressed, the bi-polar, the ADHD, the high-functioning Autistic.

To the extent that it is clear that their actions stem from their mental illness, those who are very ill are excused to an extent by society. Problems arise, however, when unraveling the actions of the less ill.

Certainly there are many among the mentally 'healthy' who make fools of themselves. The question arises then, whether the foolish actions of the marginally ill, such as a bi-polar person, stem from a manic episode or from the unfiltered poor judgment of the person. Is the depressed person merely lazy, or has that person's condition made it impossible to carry on? Even the affected person can find the question difficult to answer.

Looking back, I can see decisions made during my life that I feel were definitely made under a manic influence. Decisions made that I knew at the time to be completely out of character with my basic nature, but with which I felt compelled to proceed. Others foolish mistakes are more difficult to quantify. I cannot say definitively whether they were made under a manic influence, under my own poor judgment, or some combination of the two.

Of course, suffering from bi-polar, the opposite is true as well. There have been times where I have been paralyzed with inaction that I am quite sure have been linked to depressive episodes. But there also have been those times when I cannot say definitively that depression played a major role, or any role in my inaction. Even the most 'healthy' person can need a break or even just be lazy.

I know of no magical key that will allow me to open this mystery. Nonetheless, much of my life seems to rest on making this determination. If I cannot recognize and take active measures against a manic episode, how can I take the appropriate actions to minimize its influences? Likewise, if I cannot recognize in myself the depressive cycle, how can I expect myself to seek the required help? It is not logical for me to trust in the observation of others. My wife of 13 years could not truly detect these shifts. Apparently, within me is the ability to cover up and lie to one and all, including myself, when these episodes strike. I have hope that the modifications to my medication have taken sufficient hold that the extremes do not manifest themselves often or at all. But, can I be sure?

That is the Gordian Knot, the $60,000 question, the continuing hero's quest of self-realization -- whether I train myself to be sufficiently self-observant and disciplined to recognize and correct irrational mood swings. The answer to this question will determine whether the rest of my life will fulfill the promise behind this Blog, or whether my life will result in a smoking ruin.

The Rational Insane

Insane. The word itself, literally, means one who is not sane -- implying that the person's basic mental processes have been compromised. Conventional thought is that an insane person is a person of lesser mental ability. This fact is self evident when observing the paranoid-schizophrenic skulking from place to place attempting to avoid the CIA, the delusional man walking down the street talking to his 'invisible' friend, or the lady who shrieks in terror and attempts to flee the non-existent monster. Society labels these actions as irrational and the person suffering from them to be insane.

The question is, how irrational are the actions of the 'insane'? If the CIA were actually chasing you, intent on doing you harm, would it not be logical -- necessary even -- to go into hiding in order to avoid this terrible fate? How irrational is it to talk to your friend as you walk down the street? Especially in an age of technology that produces many people who are similarly walking down the street talking to their friend via cell phone. If a great, blood-thirsty fiend were attacking you, would not the logical and rational response be to shriek in terror and attempt to flee? Apparently the producers of any number of horror movies think this is so.

The 'insane' person often is not compromised in the basic ability to rationally think. Rather, the insane person often suffers from some form of hallucination. The brain receives visual, auditory, or even tactile information that does not conform with the reality of the situation. Having this faulty information, the 'insane' person then goes on to make rational decisions based upon the sensory input received.

The brain is an amazing organ. As the 'seat of reason' it can maintain all of the complex functions of the body and, at the same time, provide for object recognition, language, creative thought, etc. But, like any other organ, it is susceptible to chemical imbalances and manipulations. An otherwise 'sane' person can experience hallucinations by altering the chemistry of the brain with substances such as LSD. Others choose to override the brain's current, logical level of pleasure-producing chemicals through the use of substances such as alcohol, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamines. While under the influence of these substances it is not uncommon for an individual to engage in poor actions.

Society has a tendency to tolerate, or even forgive, the actions of a person under the voluntary influence of mind-altering substances. He or she was only "high" or "drunk" -- it is not like they were crazy. Should not the inverse be true? The 'insane' person has made no choice to have a brain with altered chemistry, whereas the sane person under the influence of voluntarily taken chemicals has made the conscious choice to have an altered brain chemistry.

Society has misplaced its priorities. More effort should be made to rehabilitate the insane person, who is arguably an otherwise rational person suffering from incorrect sensory inputs, and less effort in rehabilitation of individuals who have proven their intent to consciously and voluntarily alter their brain chemistry in an attempt to flee the very reality that the insane person longs to find.

Law: The Toxic Profession (or, You people drive me crazy -- no, really.)

Let's begin the account of my journey into mental melt-down with a discussion of my former profession -- the law. When it became apparent recently that the practice of law was fundamentally ill-suited to my mental health I stepped back to realize that it is ill-suited to the mental health of any normal human being.

As a cathartic measure I sat down not too long ago and wrote an outline of the reasons why practicing law is toxic to those unfortunate souls who bought the hype and leapt eyes-closed into law school. It turned out to be rather lengthy.

I will not bore you with all of the details, but here are a few nuggets that will help you to see what I mean. In 2006 the state Bar Association to which I belong averaged one suicide of an attorney per month. The vast majority of attorneys (over 70% if I recall correctly) would chose a different profession given the chance to start over again.

The billable hour is an evil and demanding slave master that requires you to justify your existence in 6 or 15 minute intervals all day, every day. There is an inherent conflict of financial interest between yourself and your client -- the client wants as much of your talents and skills as possible while demanding that you do it in as little time as possible and you want the inverse. Often the client who needs the most help or attention is the one least capable of paying for it, so the poor and middle class get poor representation regardless of whether their case warrants it (or the attorney can work for free, literally taking food out of the mouth of his family). The rich get gold-plated excessive representation regardless of the severity of their problem. Under the billable hour, if the 'wheels aren't rolling, you aren't making any money', meaning that you are docked time/pay for every trip to the bathroom, printer jam, hour spent learning a new program or day spent in mandatory professional education.

No one is ever happy to speak to their lawyer. Clients only call in times of stress and emotional turmoil. Often they often call repeatedly, demanding that you undo years of poor choices on their part in a few days or weeks time. Clients almost never see the other side of the argument and demand resolution 100% in line with what they believe to be 'fair'. Any result less than a 'fair' result means that you did a poor job and sold them down the river. Every client is not this way, but enough are to make up for the rest in spades.

And, finally, the cherry on top is that you are the butt of all jokes. Lawyers are the modern jews/paddys/wops/polaks/negros who can be impugned publically and in 'jest' without recourse. Everyone knows that by definition you are a greedy, lying, self-serving bastard.

There is more, but I think this gives one a flavor of it all. I lived in this hell for ten years. Finally, I lost it. My genetic pre-dispositions kicked in with fury, stoked into white-hot flames by my profession. So I say to all of the other attorneys I dealt with, the law professors, the judges, and most of all to every needy demanding client who called incessantly demanding immediate relief from your poor choices, YOU people drove me crazy -- no, really.