Manic Mode Panic Mode

Sleep is so essential to my not entering mania.  Unfortunately, I am not on a normal schedule yet. My goal for the moment is not to panic.  One of the difficulties is when I was young and working for newspapers I had a greater tolerance for functioning and remaining sane.  I am trying to remain calm about the situation, but it is frustrating. Hopefully, my doctor can figure it out.

I see my friends who I have worked with moving into different directions and finding success.  I know all the right people, but my mind needs to cooperate. Today one of my friends was written up in the Detroit News for his documentary film on a basketball player named Curtis Jones.  Buddy Moorehouse was nominated for an Emmy award for his film called Fouled Out.  Buddy Moorehouse was my editor when I worked as a freelancer for the Brighton Argus.  To read the article Tuesday, February 21, 2017 section B of The Detroit News entitled "Perfect Shot" capped greatest game."detroitnews.com. This should be a quote within a quote, but I need some lessons on the blog. The article is written by John Niyo.

My plan is to be able to restore myself as a successful writer, but for the moment I am on my own sabbatical as a matter of necessity.  I need to visualize myself working again as many things are going in the right direction.  I just have to be patient with me. I am confident despite my slow recovery that things are improving overall.

Rebel of Rigidity

I never wanted to be a rebel, but in my life, I discovered rebellion is a necessity in order to survive. To lose myself again would be a devastating blow.  I have lived between sanity and insanity too much of my life.  My insanity has lingered in the form of bipolar disorder; so how do I emerge from that. I now take pills, which I hope will keep me from flipping out again.  It has as much to do with sleep and learning how to live with the lack of it as much as anything.  My chemistry is a blessing and curse at the same time.  It has caused me to act on impulse and yet, I flirted with a sort of genius at the same time. My moments of mania have resulted in some of my greatest works in writing and art.  Tempering my soul results in a void in my life, a listless existence.

I have wandered halls of some of the best artists I have ever met.  I refuse to exist for one moment in time. A time when one excelled for a moment that is reveled in as the pinnacle of ones' life.  I have had many such moments, but I have a drive, which forces me to continue to strive for another such moment. Those with my illness have had many idle moments, but without the internal chaos, I am not sure I would have emerged with another pleasurable idea.  Some of the ideas are definitely ludicrous but being able to accept myself with the crazy thoughts allows me to move forward.  I am a survivalists because I have to be.  My children need me to strive over my bipolar existence so they will see a model of acceptance.

My mother lingered, in what was then called schizophrenia, but I actually think she existed with bipolar disorder that was not accurately diagnosed at the time.  She went through the hell of insanity, in which treatments were brutal.  The irony is: I for a time was hospitalized in the very same place as she. Somehow I thought I could save her.  Ah, but for the thought.  She too was a survivor though; as was my father.  He too was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but his was brought on by WWII. He definitely was bipolar and misdiagnosed.  It was from my father that I developed a love of poetry and the arts.

So why am I a rebel?  I was raised with the discipline of the Catholic Church.  I was raised at St. Vincent Sarah Fisher Home for Children for ten years and a Catholic Church for my entire schooling through grade twelve.  The turmoil in my life has caused me to exist in the outskirts of American Society.  I am the one many have cast an askance eye to when I was completely out of my mind.  So how do you override yourself; through acceptance.  I have finally learned how to accept me for who I am, though at times I struggle because of the rigidity of family members who still practice the Catholic faith.

A memoir in progress perhaps this will evolve as a book.

Life's Curves Reaction to Real Life and Death

When I was hospitalized at Beaumont Hospital at the age of eighteen an older women named Anna was choking on her food.  I performed the heimlich maneuver and she was okay.  The staff did not realize she was choking.  It was my first hospitalization when they thought I had schizophrenia.  My current diagnosis is bipolar.  I do not understand why I later reacted differently to other situations.

When my son was choking on a fishbone and turned blue.  My ex-husbands finger was too big.  So I did a baby finger sweep and unlodged the bone from my sons throat.  He is now 23.

When a women in 2011 swallowed bleach and alcohol, instead of calling 911, I called community mental health and they told me to call 911.

I was foreclosed on in 2011 and was subletting a room from this fella and he died. His leg fell off the bed and he was dead.  I called a relative to ask what I should do and she said, "do nothing," so I did nothing for two hours and fell asleep.  I then called 911 at 4:00 am and told them my roommate was dead.  Clearly the last two responses were wrong.  I don't know why I reacted this way.  I am trying to figure it out.

When a girl got her finger stuck at the library when the door hit her and she was bleeding from the finger. I wrapped her finger and told the mother to take her to the doctor.

When my own son caught his finger in my door on the minivan, I reported to the school where I was scheduled to substitute teach that I had to leave.  I took my son to the doctor and he relieved the pressure with a needle and x rayed the finger and though the tip was broken he said it would heal just fine.

When a teenager fell and her arm was broken at a fourth of July celebration, I talked to her to keep her calm though her bone was protruding from her forearm. I had someone call 911 and directed the individual by siting our location at the park.  The police arrived shortly after.

I am normally calm in situations by I was surprised by reaction to both the bleach incident and the corpse.  I want to return to being me.

When a fight broke out in an elevator, I called the police.  I also called a worker from our building as it was past hours and the situation was handled.

When a women was bleeding from her arm after a IV was removed from kidney dialysis.  I wrapped her arm using a first aid kit at the building.

I need to realize how to stay calm again. 

Mother and Mickey

I plan to write this year about the humor in my life.  There really has been a lot of that although I forgot because I was sad last year.  You see having a disability doesn't allow you to be critical of others.  I have more empathy for people, but I digress.  I remember one year my mother was attending a funeral.  First we walked into the wrong funeral parlor.  She was introducing herself when someone suggested the other room.  When we entered that room she went to view the body.  She said my he looks so much like Mickey, her friend.  She was telling everyone in the room how much he looked like Mickey.  Turns out when we got home someone informed her it was Mickey, she thought the body was the father of Mickey.

Computer Blues

Technology evolving has already left me in the dark.  Every time I have a breakdown, I have to relearn what seemed so easy for me in the past.  I actually don't remember how to do things and this is frustrating because I am a writer with no money to update my skills or to be educated on what I used to do that I have forgotten.

I am debating about getting a word processing program to be able to assist me, but my computer already has an internal battery problem where it does not hold a charge so I have to leave it plugged in all the time.  I know this means my computer can fail at any time.  I find it difficult to get on the computer because of my frustration.

A Review and Comparison to My Personal Experience with Mental Health and Flowers for Algernon

If anyone has ever read the book Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes, this story is very real to me because every time I have had a break down, I forget what I have learned in so many areas.   Charlie is a young man who is severely handicapped and cannot beat a mouse through a maze.  When Charlie is given an operation, he is smarter than the mouse and ultimately becomes a genius, but he returns to the severely handicapped intelligence when the operation stops working. Like Charlie, the doctors have to find new medications to help me get back on track.  My mother died with a lack of clarity and there is a very real fear that I will end up like her.  My dad also had mental illness and was on medication like my mother. Ultimately, he died of a brain tumor, a Glioblastoma, one of the most progressive kind of tumors.

I didn't want to forget what I had to say, so I am writing this with revisions after the original was published.

I have a nice Case Manager now and I am hoping to get back to work as a writer. I am not sure when I last edited this work; however, I have returned to work as a writer having most recently been working for https://www.eastvillagemagazine.org and the View Newspaper. I also substitute taught some classes last year and have enrolled to teach again.

I reread, Flowers for Algernon, and being more aware of myself and because my medication is correct, I appreciate how author, Daniel Keyes, refined words in his book so that none of them were spelled correctly initially when Charlie records his progress per the surgeon's request; however, the spelling is legible and what you would really observe with a special needs person.

Today it is more correct to use the terminology, special needs, instead of retarded; however, at the time Keyes authored the book, retarded was the acceptable term. I hope one does not give up on the book because of the terminology, as there are valuable lessons to be gained from the book.

In the book, Charlie continues to write progress reports, and merely by the writing itself, one is able to recognize the vast improvement in Charlie as he even authors work to facilitate an understanding with the doctors. Emotionally, however, Charlie is stunted.

I am not sure how others have been impacted by mental illness, but I can share that there is no doubt I have been emotionally stunted and sometimes especially when the medication is not right, I have struggled to act my age as I am so confused. 

So, what does confusion look like? I was not quite two when I was sent to live at an orphanage, St. Vincent Sarah Fisher Home, yes home, I never did like the name change to center, where I lived for ten years.

 

I am working on my autobiography now and will give a summation using characters from books to describe my immediate family. 

 

Resilience

If heartache wrote the story, than surely, I've seen my share, but I'm an eternal optimist and still believe in prayer.  It does not mean my faith is intact, only that I still believe that when my life is complete, God will have a better life for me.

I have no complaints in the life I've had thus far, as I am doing far better than many that I know.  I never took the vow of charity and poverty that the Daughters of Charity took who raised me, but it seems this was the path laid before me unless I have sudden success, as I am an Irish girl I laugh beneath my breath for most likely my success will be posthumously if at all.

At least, I enjoy the process of writing and have enjoyed some journalistic notoriety.  The biggest joy; however, remains in the fact that I have been able to reach a few people and teach them the skills they seek, some cannot read or do simple math, others lack confidence and I am able to listen.  I may not don the Habit, but I do try to be charitable.  My personal life strays from the Church, but I am happy.