[MotownJohnny]

"Everybody Knows" - The Dixie Chicks

Tell me now if you came sneaking up behind
Would you know me and see behind the smile
I can change like colors on a wall
Hoping no one else will find what lies beneath it all
I think I hide it all so well

...

You say I'll pay the price
That's the chance that I'll take
Though you may think I'm telling lies
But I just call it getting by

Ok, the Dixie Chicks quote actually isn't relevant - I was gonna post about lying about MI, but changed my mind and went for bigger fish.

What if I were bipolar?

I have spent two bloody miserable years doing everything in my power to escape that diagnosis. I hated it. It terrified me. I staunchly denied it, and actively sought out confirmation of the fact I was not from any who would listen.

What if I were? Where would that leave me?

Would it be the death sentence I feared it to be? Back to square one with a diagnosis, a label, mood stabilizers?

Back to the dock to endgame, and go through with it this time?

Or could I somehow face it, accept it, and go on?

[surfacetoair]

Situations arise that force us to face it, but dealing with it can be problematic. Better to deal with it before something happens that forces your hand.

[JaneC]

Then you would have a diagnosis of bipolar instead of PTSD.

You would still be MowtownJohnny, the same person inside and out. It would not define you. You would still ride your bike, go to work and do a fantastic job, you would take care of yourself, your home, your health, your dog and live successfully.

You would take the appropriate medication and live your life to the full, as you wish to do.

Why do you feel the need to have a label determine your possibilities in life? Determine your chances at achieving the fulfilling life you wish to live? You are so much more than your diagnosis!

(Sorry if that comes across as snappy, it is not my intention. I am in a bit of a grumpy mood after putting up with poor behaviour of classmates! Grrrr)

"What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

[venusss]

You would still have to take care of your trauma issues first and foremost.

Moodstabilizers and all that are up to you. If they work for you, then it's something to consider.... if not, you are not oblidged to go down the route just because it's the mainstream approach (let's be honest... how well it works? Not sure about that).

[MotownJohnny]

This is a weird one, out of left field, but it is the best analogy I can think of:

I think I need to come to the understanding about myself that the Cylons ultimately came to about Humans in the tv series Battlestar Galactica (not the absolutely dreadful 1970's one, the 2000's remake). The Cylons destroyed almost all of Humanity because they viewed humans as flawed, imperfect, and they viewed it almost as a kindness, an act of mercy, putting them out of their misery. Their religious/philosophical belief was that they sought "perfection" in everything. It was very much the pressure I was raised under - had to be perfect, even in isolation of the prison camp of my home. The penalty for imperfection was severe. You never knew when you would do something to merit the death penalty - in other words, I lived my life, especially my teen years, feeling there was a very real possibility he would snap and kill my mom and me. To add to that fear, one of my school friends in 6th grade lived less than a mile away, and one November night, for whatever reason, her mother lost it, shot her father fatally, then killed herself. So I knew it could happen in real life.

So, a bipolar diagnosis instantly threw me I to the darkest pit I have ever known. It made me feel like I was irredeemably flawed. Two things the quack said to me profoundly scared me - it can be "managed" but there are cycles, etc, and that it can be progressive and degenerative. So, I felt like I was completely hopeless, helpless, and beyond redemption because of the first, and that I was going to come to a really bad end after a few miserable years because of the second.

I used to fantasize (I guess that is the right word) about being executed like a Chinese prisoner, taken out and dispatched. I felt it was all I deserved.

I felt that I had transgressed, broken the family code of perfection, of keeping up appearances no matter what, of living in silent suffering (because there was no way I could keep this under wraps forever was my thinking). And I also broke the greater social contract - as I thought society had laid it out -crazy isn't acceptable, people who are crazy are marginalized to the fringes of society, shunned and abandoned, looked down upon, scorned and shamed - and they deserve it because they are weak. Calling it a disease is a cop-out, it is moral weakness, it is a sin, and they're to be punished in the here and now, like they will be punished in the afterlife. They aren't sick, they are malingerers, social parasites looking for a handout, wanting to suckle off the government teat and suck dry the hard working, virtuous good folk.

That was my thinking, I myself was both bigoted and stupid. I self-stigmatized far more than anyone IRL who knew stigmatized me. IRL, the few I did tell some aspect of the story to, some certain parts, were all kind and accepting.

I'm stopping here at the half-way point, I have got to get around for work, running almost an hour late already. I need to finish this later, it's T time today, I need to "go there" and face this stuff- stare it down, take it on, let it pummel me, but get up off the mat no matter how bloody and finally give it a knockout with the fiercest hook, uppercut, straight right combo I have ever thrown.

[A Red Panda]

If you had bipolar, you would be exactly the same person that you already are. No change, because it would be something that's a part of you.

I have bipolar. My life has not ended (despite some attempts when in a severe depression... but hey, that's the depression talking not me). I have a successful life. I do the things that I want to do.

Having bipolar doesn't mean that my life is over. It doesn't mean that I should give up on myself. It doesn't mean that should kill myself because I was born with something. It doesn't mean that I am no longer myself.

It is the same for you. Your life wouldn't be over. You wouldn't stop being you. You would have no reason to kill yourself.

ETA: And regards to medication? If you wanted it, then try it. If you don't, then don't. It's no different than taking medication for anxiety or for "just" depression.

[MotownJohnny]

Thank you all. Thank you, Red Panda, especially for being so kind. I know what I wrote is in itself stigmatizing - it is where I was about mental illness and the mentally ill when this started. A mix of arrogance and disbelief "not me, doesn't happen to guys like me, I am
"better than". I know how wrong that is. I have met many fellow travelers on this road, and it has been eye opening. I have met some people who I do feel fall into the malingerer/social parasite category. But that is the exception. Most of those I met suffer with dignity and make lives in spite of their conditions. I dare say I have met people who are the superior, morally and intellectually, of many "normals" who look down on "us". Because I do see myself as part of the Us who endure the effects of MI both medically and socially. Many people give me hope from their experiences, but some comments in threads really scare me - ones along the lines of "don't tell anyone. I told people at work and lost my job" or "I told my friends and they abandoned me." Because again, it may not be what usually happens, but it might happen, and in my mind, the worst case scenario is always what is gonna happen. Always. At the hospital they called it catastrophizing, which is a good term, also black and white thinking - I dwell in the black.

In the Battlestar Galactica remake, the Cylons came to understand that human imperfection, human frailty, human mortality was actually not only not to be feared, but that diversity and the human condition, even if at times difficult, lead to a vitality missing in their culture. They ultimately came to embrace it, and the survivors of both races came together to forge a new society based on the new mutual respect and tolerance, and came to see by that point survival of both races required mutual cooperation.

[Open Eyes]

Your parent's generation followed the idea that the man is the ruler of the family and home. From what you have discribed of your father, he needed to have you and your siblings behave and look good for "him". A lot of children were taught to "fear" the father and don't do anything to upset him, even the wife was often "afraid". It was often the father that handed out punishments to the children too. However, a male child will get to a point where it is understood that he will begin to form his own opinions and be his own man.

Your core emotional settings are set up based on how your parents told you to feel and that is how a lot of people are set up in a deep subconscious level. However, children also get added messeges from their exposure to stories in books and the movies they see too. I can tell by the way you love music and different movies/stories you describe, that you used that as a source of "comfort" because you did not experience that from your parents. Well, a lot of children have done that, yet that has been practiced consistently throughout human history too. It got to be more so when children were taught to be more literate too.

The emotional reaction that you experienced when you were "labeled" was handed to you, and what you are doing now is realizing how very much you accepted certain emotional messages. When someone struggles with complex PTSD, they become very sensitive and experience a lot of emotional disturbance and these emotions are "magnified" and often happen without any conscious decision "to feel".

As you have noticed, it is quite the inner battle when PTSD takes place and so much of that battle is "what to do with or how to stop the emotions that take place" when the person wants to "just" not feel, ignore, not dwell, get over.

What is "good" about your recent revelations Mowtown is that your conscious mind is really starting to recognize this challenge on a different level. What takes place when a person develops PTSD is that "first" they are just "emotionally" overwhelmed and are extremely "sensitive". When that is not recognized properly right away and the person comforted correctly, they can get "suicidal" and begin to feel extreme "shame". It is a very big challenge that in itself is "traumatic".

The main reason you are so angry about being "labeled" incorrectly, is really not the label at all, it is because you are becoming more aware that ifhow the PTSD emotional challenge was attended to correctly and validated, you would not have "suffered" in confusion the way you did.

My therapist told me that it is important for a therapist to listen calmly at a distance even if the patient is talking gibberish. The reason "why" that is so important is that a patient's gibberish does mean something to them, but often the patient is struggling so much emotionally that they can't verbalize it well enough "yet". This is especially true for PTSD. And yet, sometimes the patient is adament about their needs too and has a tremendous need to be heard and validated, that is an important symptom for a professional to recognize and make it a point to "listen and validate" because if they do not do that, it really does "add" to the trauma. I have talked about how that happened to me, and I have noticed that other members have also expressed that same "invalidation" and even "cold invalidating" experience they had in that crucial period of post traumatic stress.

When the symptoms of PTSD are described every symptom has a "reason" and the person who is struggling is "feeling" every one of these symptoms. The problem is, the person struggling has a very hard time "articulating" these "feelings". Mowtown, when you read the information I presented, you were so relieved and thankful, remember? Well, when I found that information, that is how I felt too.

It was really never about the label of "bipolar" for you at all. It was the confusion you were in that needed to be recognized and treated correctly "immediately". When an "adult" is not respected and correctly treated, that is going to disturb the mind so much that if there is any "history" where that "need went unmet", that will surface only adding to the confusion. The average person doesn't get that and tends to react to the person struggling with PTSD in "unsupportive and damaging dismissive ways". If there "is" any history of this "neglect" that will surface in the PTSD patient too. That is going to confuse the patient even more so it is "crucial" that the right treatment and support be in place. If the patient suffered "emotional abuse" in their family, that is the "last" place to put that person, that is the same as putting a very abused child under the care of the very person that "abused the child" again. No one in their right mind would do that would they?

If an abused neglected traumatized animal is rescued, would sending them back under the care of the person who abused and neglected that animal ever be considered?

Well, human beings are sent messages constantly "not to tell" and "to pretend or to put on a public pretend face". If this is deeply instilled in a person and that person develops PTSD and struggles profoundly emotionally, how is further treating that person like they are "wrong to feel" and "invalidating" them going to help? This is "stigmatizing", this is how society causes "further harm".

Mowtown, it is "not" a label, it is and has long been how badly that label has been stigmatized and treated that is the problem.

[Teacake]

It would mean you couldn't identify with wounded warriors. You are too old for that anyway.

It would also mean you wouldn't be prescribed medicine that could make you go crazy.

I'm not so sure why you assume you would have to take mood stabilizers. I've heard of bipolars who stabilise with diet and exercise.

The first thing you might consider is bringing your caffeine use down to two or three cups a day. It might hurt. Not as much as chewing up your liver though. You need your liver.

I'm serious, Johnny, do your own reading. You may be inducing a lot of your troubles with caffeine and possibly overtraining without attention to recovery. . Even if you have bipolar and not ptsd everything I've said about seeking the "natural" endogenous speedball still applies. Adrenaline junkies burn out and go to fat fast. And it hurts. Be forewarned.

[doglover1979]

Having bipolar isn't anywhere near as bad as having untreated bipolar.

If you think the diagnosis might fit, give treatment a try. Some people have a rough ride finding the right meds, some never do. Still, there are many who find immediate relief from medication.

Take care of yourself.

[Teacake]

And I suppose we'd rename the Forum "PTSD and Bipolar's Auxilliary" in your honor.

[MotownJohnny]

Hi, all, coming back to clarify a few things.

I don't believe I am bipolar. I only had one medical professional, the quack, ever diagnose that. I've had 5 subsequently say I wasn't and confirm they believe is is PTSD plus anxiety.

Teacake, you inquired about the Dr. who put me on Prozac knowing I was diagnosed with bipolar orginally. Because of concern that an SSRI could push me into mania. Well, yes, it is my current, really awesome Pdoc who prescribed Prozac. We also dabbled with Cymbalta, but I didn't feel it had any significant advantages, and my co-pay was a LOT more. So, back to the Prozac. Then I experimented and quit it on my own, and it definitely did make me more depressed. So, I went back on it. It seems to be working, my mood has lightened a lot.

RE the bipolar diagnosis - I didn't really bring the whole matter up in this thread to ask/inquire IF people thought I was bipolar, but to discuss my feelings on that diagnosis versus PTSD, which are pretty ****ed up if I do say so myself. Not that I care if posters do that, contribute thoughts about whether I am or not. Worst case scenario, people get it wrong - hey, a licensed physician did, got it totally wrong (maybe they should yank her license, lol). Best case scenario - I know all of you care, and that is awesome. I SO appreciate that. Support means everything.

[Teacake]

There is no totally wrong diagnosis in psychiatry. There are behaviors and experiences that fall info clusters. The Medical model wants to treat these clusters as it they were diseases like chicken los or heart disease. But the psyche cannot be seen. It is not clear that the brain is ever soley at fault in mental illness. Its not a matter or consensus that psychiatric conditions are illnesses. The whole ill.esa model is somewhat platonic. There is a perfect ideal person who enjoys sound mental health and deviations from the ideal form are bad or wrong. Its just not so.

The whole illness vs injury distinction is as silly as race or gender categories.

We cluster symptoms for the Same reason we cluster traits in animals. Nature makes no distinction between canines and felines. Cats and dogs dont. Make that distinction. We do. Its what we do. To organise our world we make categories. Then we believe they are real. Go figure.

Symptom clusters are a tool. Thats all they are.

[MotownJohnny]

Well, I would like to very respectfully disagree about one thing - the illness v injury question. I find it scientifically and objectively dubious in that it really is semantics and just the emperor's new clothes. Because it is still the same emotions no matter what we call it. But functionally for me, it did make a difference because it relieved a lot of the pressure and shame I felt. Because under the injury theory I can put blame on other people, whereas if I when I though it was an illness I felt I was to blame and that I had defective genes. I know, it's all just mind games with myself. If I were on ten other side I would feel the opposite and hate the concept and deny it. It is a way to comfort myself - even though I know it is an artificial construct . I hope they come up with empirically verifiable tests for MI so we can stop the diagnosis go round, which IMHO causes a lot of harm.

[A Red Panda]

I blame any "defective" genes I have on my parents, because they're the ones who passed them to me Just sayin'!

[MotownJohnny]

My mom's family is nice. It is my dad's gene pool that needed to be shocked with chlorine, drained and scrubbed.

[Open Eyes]

Yes, it is true that it is important to understand that whatever a person is struggling with is not their fault. I have a feeling that no matter what the challenge is be it bipolar or PTSD or ADHD or whatever, a person can experience abuse in how they were blamed or treated badly verses understood and helped from the beginning.

I grew up with an older brother who had compulsive ADHD, he was literally severely punished = abused for something he could not help. The mistake for years was to expect every child to behave a certain way and punish them when they did not corform somehow through no fault of their own.

My daughter has dyslexia, she too could have been punished for something she could not help, that is exactly what was taking place with one of her teachers and I knew he was wrong so I made it a point to have her tested and I was right, she could not comprehend what he was asking/demanding of her.

I think "labels" can be helpful, but never to lead to having a person feel shame.

[MotownJohnny]

How is it possible to get past shame in a society that accepts stigmatization? Even if you can personally accept your situation and be ok with it, at peace with it, I think it is inevitable that you will encounter someone who does something or says something cruel to you simply because of what you have, not anything you have done.

[Open Eyes]

Mowtown, you need to understand that "stigmatizing" is normal to human nature. You could be totally sane and black and be stigmatized, you could be any religion and be stimatized, you could be a part of "any" class and be stigmatized, or even favor a political leaning and be stigmatized. That is a condition that is all over humanity, always has been that way, and probably always will.

They have tested children and this begins around age 3. I watched a documentary on this as they had two identical teddy bears, the told the child one bear liked the cookies she liked and the other bear liked to cookies she did not like. Afterwards they told her she could pick a bear and take it home with her, she chose the bear that liked the same cookies she liked. This is just "human nature".

[MotownJohnny]

I remember those sort of experiments from my intro to psych class about 30 years ago - had I known where my life was heading I might have paid more attention. It was a boring class with about 500 people in an auditorium and all of the tests were multiple choice so they could grade them via computer. So I mostly blew it off.

It would devastate me if someone made a mean comment about me in reference to mental health. I really need people to think I am a good man, someone who is a net benefit to society - I mean "need" literally - like a junkie needs their next fix. So many of the people who should have loved me failed me in one way or another. They were either just plain mean or abusive or just indifferent. Then I question who has the problem? Me or them?

"Caution: Police line, you better not cross.
Is it the cop, or am I the one thats really dangerous?" - Warning, Green Day

I thought about those lyrics a lot two years ago, because I figured when my family "found out" I was bipolar (so I thought at the time) they would haul me into court and get me declared incompetent. When that happens in my state, your name is put on a registry with the State Police, so if you are ever stopped, they "know" you are mentally ill. So, in the inner darkness of my despair, I figured that would make me a "marked man" and if the police ever had any reason to interact with me they would rough me up or worse, because they could "get away with it" because "who will they believe, a cop or a crazy man?" Who in that scenario is truly dangerous? It all just was one enormous self-reinforcing feedback loop of terror anyway - having the social worker ask on the intake if I was ever violent or homicidal meant in my mind they automatically assumed I was because I was diagnosed bipolar, and "they all are violent" in the view of "normals". So, even if I was the most meek and respectful man ever to a cop, he was gonna seriously hurt me just to "teach me a lesson, your kind isn't wanted here" in my la di da bug up their butts suburb full of wealthy hypocrites. It all seemed so unfair - I always was "such a nice guy" according to everyone, coworkers, social contacts, clients, everyone except family of course, who saw and still see me as a pathetic loser. Now I was suddenly no longer a nice guy, but automatically a menace to society, a threat, because I was bipolar. Such was the runaway terror train that chugged away 24/7 in my mind back then -Thank God it only runs about half that now. The psych nurse at the hospital called it catastrophising - I dunno if that is a real word but it is apt.

Wow, quite the tangent there - sorry to ramble so, I'm physically in a lot of pain as I overdid it today and this surgery is proving a much tougher recovery than the prior ones, I guess I should have expected that because it was by far the most extensive one they did.


I can pretend that I'm not lonely
But I'll be constantly fooling myself
I can pretend that it don't matter
But I'll be sitting here lying to myself
Some say love ain't worth the buck
But I'll give every dime I have left
To have what I've only been dreaming about

Everybody wants something
Gotta want something
What are you living for?
Everybody needs something
Fighting for something
I know what you're fighting for
Cause we all

We all want someone there to hold
We just want somebody
We all wanna be somebody's one and only
We all wanna be warm when it's cold
Yeah yeah yeah

No one wants to be left scared and lonely

We all, we all, we all, we all, we all
We all want the same thing
We all, we all, we all, we all, we all
We all want the same thing
We all, we all, we all, we all, we all
We all want the same thing
Everybody wants something
Gotta want something
Yeah, yeah we all want love - Rihanna, We All Want Love

So yes, you want to know the brutal truth - my quest of the past two years has been very much a quest for acceptance and love and support of the kind I never got from my father or my family. Especially from him, of course, that is why the close bonds I made with a couple of my trainers were so important. You wanna know something weird - one of my deepest desires is to be physically held and embraced by other men. Not sexually. I'm 49 years old, and I need a dad. I had a father, who profoundly ****ed up my life, but is never ever had the least little bit of a dad. I want the kind of closeness I see in some father-son, brother to brother, or even lifelong best friend "blood brothers" relationships.

"Blood Brothers"

We were as young as we were dumb
When we piled in an old pile of junk
It was one for all, and all for one
A bunch of outlaws without a gun
Shootin' bad booze outta Dixie cups
Chasin' every girl that wasn't fast enough
No matter how bad the break or how bad the luck
Or how bad the day we still had us

Blood brothers closer than your next to kin
Thick as thieves and the best of friends
Take a bullet for each other

Yeah brothers like that don't come cheap
You fight, you cry, you lie, you bleed
And you lean on one another
Blood brothers

I got a scar on my cheek from a bar room brawl
Wasn't meant for me but I took the fall
It's a cowboy code it's an unwrote law
When you mess with one you gotta take us all.

Blood brother's closer than your next to kin
Thick as thieves and the best of friends
Take a bullet for each other

Yeah brothers like that don't come cheap
You fight, you cry, you lie, you bleed
And you lean on one another
Blood brothers

Time can fly on by
Everything can change
Until the day we die
We'll always remain
We'll remain
Yeah yeah yeah

Blood brothers closer than you next of kin
Thick as thieves and the best of friends
Take a bullet for each other

Yeah brothers like that don't come cheap
You fight, you cry, you lie, you bleed
And you lean on one another
Blood brothers

Yeah yeah
Oh oh
Blood brothers - Luke Bryan

[MotownJohnny]

So I have these unfulfilled emotional needs. Acceptance, kindness, love. And I saw and kinda still see the label of mentally ill as a major impediment at the least to attaining any of those. Actually because of the extreme catastrophising I feared/fear that even my immediate family, who I am not sure truly loves me, will reject me entirely, and I won't even have those relationships -even if they suck, a bad relationship is better than being completely alone in the world, friendless, abandoned, unloved. In my really dark moments when I just "knew" I was gonna end up homeless, unless of course they locked me away in a psych ward or prison first, I would think that maybe if I could just find a stray dog or cat to love me in my final days when I came to my bad end I would have some other living entity with me so I would not die as I had lived my last days, abjectly alone. Even Tom Hanks had Wilson, after all, and look how crushed he was when Wilson floated away bad Hanks' character was totally alone at sea on that raft. Everyone needs love, and I think very few people are so bad they are undeserving - murderers perhaps. Many people deserve more and better than they give or get for various reasons relating to dysfunction. Everyone who ever lived, save for perhaps the very worst of the worst like the Nazi SS high commanders, or other despots like Stalin or Pol Pot or the Kims (of North Korea - the jury is still out IMHO on the Kardashian-West one), deserves to be treated with respect, with kindness, allowed their dignity. That was denied me by my father. Then it was brutally denied me by the quack, and I felt completely dehumanized, and of course internalized it as prima facie evidence of my valuelessness as a human being.

[Open Eyes]

Mowtown, it is very common with "complex PTSD" for the person to long for that fatherly/motherly genuine caring hug. That was expressed in "Good Will Hunting".

Just want to let you know though, a person is not truly considered "incompetent" if they have bipolar. So many people have it that are extremely functional and responsible. But I understand how at the time you had these feelings, that is more typical however with PTSD.

I think it is good that you are just letting these feelings out too. I am sorry you struggled so much emotionally and didn't have the right help at the time with it. I think that you need to mourn all these emotional challenges. It is important though Mowtown that you use your "wise mind" to keep yourself grounded and not continue to entertain and feed into these feelings.

How I can relate is that I was always so protective of my family and my horses and ponies, I watched over everyone like a hawk because I did love them. I always had this fear of invasion (because I had experienced it before) and when I did experience such an invasion where so much of what I had was so badly damaged, I just could not process it.

I can't blame you for being triggered by your family because they are still intrusive and disrespectful and judgemental like your father imprinted them to be, even your mother believed his garbage.

You really need to engage that wise mind though Mowtown, and continue to learn how what your father sent you as messages was wrong because you "are" a nice guy still even with PTSD. It takes time for form healthier subconscious messages.

You need to use your wise mind to "self love" too.

((Hugs))
OE

[MotownJohnny]

Oh, OE, I know all about the legal definitions and requirements of being hauled into probate court and declared a legally incapacitated individual, and also what is necessary to obtain a commitment order or an order for court supervised outpatient treatment. I didn't the day I walked into the quack's office. Two weeks later I had read it extensively, the statutes, case law, commentary. Remember, I was still showing up for work 5 days a week and trying to put in my poker face, but I absolutely could not concentrate on anything save my crisis, so I had plenty of time each day to look all of this up.

Of course, all that did was feed into my crisis and make things even worse - I just scared myself more.

Because I was so utterly great at catastrophising, in my mind I knew I didn't come close to meeting criteria for either incapacity or commitment -well, except for my extreme suicidality, which I shared with absolutely no one because it would have been ammo to use against me, BUT THAT WAS IRRELEVANT per my thought process. I had already been "railroaded" by the quack, falsely accused, sentenced even though I was innocent of the crime of being a danger to myself up to the moment she declared me that. So. To me in my doomsday mind, it would be really simple for my family to strip my rights away and have me declared incompetent since a shrink already pronounced me "crazy", bipolar and dangerously suicidal. And, who are they gonna believe, anyone from Joe on the street to the judge on the bench, all of the people, psychiatrist, family turned against me, OR me, "the crazy guy"? I saw it as pretty much a done deal already the very second my family "found out" - it would be an "easy out" way to get rid of their biggest disgrace and problem, me, the failure slacker ne'er do well. They wouldn't even have to go to the bother of feeding me poison mushrooms as happened to Clint Eastwood's character in the final scene of the movie 'Beguiled' - all they had to do was ask the court to eliminate their problem for them and haul me off. Good riddance to bad garbage I could practically hear them saying.

I know the reality is it is very hard to do any of that in the courts, but reality was trumped by catastrophe in my mind every time.

[Big Moma]

If you were diagnosed with Bipolar it does not mean much except for an awful stigma
of mentally schizaphrenic bipolar feeling associated with illness.

Stay away from the label if you can, that is good and better. It will change your life
and the way people look at you.

Read , enjoy life and pray. Do good.