Bipolar DisorderImsomnia.

There are times I can’t sleep at night. I usually lie in bed and wait for sleep. I don’t count sheep, but I do change my position on the bed 47 times and worry somewhat anxiously about my life. I worry about whether I’m going manic again because before every manic episode I’ve ever had in the past, not sleeping was the first warning sign.

Every day I wake up late and am groggy. My eyes are crusty and are often peeled shut. Though my inability to wake up early has been a life-long affliction, it’s gotten much worse since I started taking my current medication. The bottle the pills come in usually warns me about drowsiness and operating heavy machinery, but it never says anything about how difficult it will be to wake up in the morning or how embarrassing it is to explain to people why I am not on a regular sleep schedule.


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Hi!

Throughout my life i considered that i was seeing things completely differently than other people. I'm a musician and an artist and i thought this was the reason why i was seeing life the way i did and still do.

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Lincoln's Melancholy by Joshua Wolf ShenkI am in the midst of reading “Lincoln’s Melancholy”, by Joshua Wolf Shenk, which is secondarily titled, “How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness”. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked it up, but in addition to Lincoln's life story, many of the ideas given in the book are truly interesting.

Lincoln was a severely depressed individual, which  is well-documented by his writings and those of his friends and family. He was often described as somber, but also as a person with a wry sense of humor. Like many of us who struggle with Bipolar Disorder, his depression was probably genetic and was also exacerbated by personal hardships.


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FishI recently watched Oliver Sacks give a TED talk entitled, “What Hallucination Reveals about our Minds”. The writer and scientist talked about an amazing older woman who had experienced hallucinations while in her 90’s due to blindness, but was otherwise healthy.

The woman received comfort from the fact that her condition had a particular name. Having an actual diagnosis for strange things that you can experience can actually come as a relief, but I also think for some  cases, the diagnosis can be too limiting for the patients as they start to consider all of the things that they can’t do.

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Chuck PalahniukChuck Palahniuk, known primarily for authoring “The Fight Club”, his penchant for writing about support groups, and for having a name that even his most ardent of fans cannot pronounce, just wrote an “inspirational” article for Men’s Health with specific advice about how to make your life worth living.

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Cilantro Pesto for Chelation TherapyMy uncle has Bioplar Disorder I, the same as I do, so there isn’t really a doubt in mind that my Bipolar Disorder is related to genetics. That fact hasn’t stopped me from reading up on other therapies or reasons that may play a role in my Bipolar Disorder. One thing that has had me concerned for some is mercury poisoning, which is caused by eating fish with mercury in it, or through mercury fillings and can cause neurological damage including dementia and psychosis.


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Bipolar Disorder in ChildrenI just read an article today about Bipolar Disorder in children about Judith Warner’s book on the subject. It seems that Judith Warner’s opinion is that Big Pharma actually has it right- children who seem to have the symptoms of Bipolar Disorder should be medicated.

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Forced Hospitalization for the Mentally IllI just read today that our state is considering passing a bill that would make it easier to put people in mental institutions against their will.

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Family Guy and Sarah PalinEverybody knows about the Sarah Palin versus Family Guy debate. How could mean, old Fox TV say anything bad about poor Trigg, who has Down Syndrome? Even worse, how could they defame his mother, the most righteous of the right in all of “Real America”?

Watch the clip and see what you think.

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Salt Lake OlympicsI missed the last winter Olympics because I was in the tropics.

I wasn’t as lucky for the Salt Lake Olympics because I was in a mental institution for a portion of the Olympics. I had had a manic episode on a vacation in Asia that year and nobody around knew what to do; the obvious solution was to fly me home.

My Dad sprang for a trip home for me. Between the flight and layovers, I didn’t get to sleep for about 28 hours, and got put into the “hospital” the next day after my not-so-glorious return. I was so tired from the flight and disoriented that I had difficulty sitting through the four-hour long admission process.

In all actuality, I probably didn’t really need to be there at all.


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