Diary Entries for dugg

What the ****?

dugg

Where did all these ads come from? Flashing, blinking lo-budget crap attacks on my retinas are totally destroying my ability to concentrate on what people are posting here.

This site hascome to mean a lot to me- maybe the one place in my world where I can hook up with other people who understand bp, and where I can maybe also contribute something useful some times...

Now this proverbial 'safe space' doesn't seem so safe anymore- like anything I read or say is [...]

what a long, strange trip it's been...

dugg

the last five years have been a whirlwind of loss
and i don't know yet what else...

four friends on my "best" list died.

job? gone.

career? gone.

partner? gone.

dog? gone.

city? gone.

and so on.

i sat around with my Dad for a year, looking after him as he slipped away into his own orbit. spent another year and then some on a variety of cancer wards with my brother.

i [...]

Normal? whatever...

dugg

it surprises me how much this website and the groups and the people here have become a part of my life so quickly. part of it i know is because i live in a small town where i don't know knowpeople, but what really draws me is the profound degree of sincerity and honesty and compassion i find here.

it's pretty much the one place where i can interact with people who know what it's like to have been diagnosed who are living what i call "la vida medicado" and t [...]

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

dugg

"Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and the face the strange changes"

Hmmm... turns out Bowie's lyric was "turn and face the strain" but i likemine better, and it certainly is a better fit when trying to sort out a month on Lithium.

i've done a lot more reading on it which has help me reconcile the decision to stay with it. i've also been watching myself a little more closely than usual, i guess. does that count as a side effect?
[...]

Curiouser and curiouser...

dugg

I think that one of the differences between bipolar people and most other people is that bipolar people know that nobody is really "normal".

_________________

If you asked most people to choose between being bipolar or being normal, what would they pick? Yet if you ask bipolar people, many would not "go back".

____________

What if instead of "bipolar" it was called "polar [...]

is this "stable"?

dugg

well, it's spring in the north and six weeks into Lithium. i'm not down, but i'm sure as hell not up either... is this "stability"?

if it is, it's pretty over-rated.

i'm literally neither here nor there. i'm open to suggestion, and happy to cook dinner, or carry bags of lawn seed and soil around. i take my meds and check my email, but nothing seems particularly engaging.

the cloudy skies don't help much, but i can' [...]

the return of the Reaper

dugg

the last four years have not been easy ones. i've buried my three best friends and my beautiful dog, helped from father transition into a care facility as his mind began to slip away and my brotherthrough his long - and thankfully successful - treatment for lymphoma...

i thought that things were moving back towards the light... and now the news comes that another old, dear friend with whom i shared a lot has passed. in some ways, it was more surprising that he'd lived this lon [...]

my Lithiated life

dugg

well, according to the pill bottle this makes 16 days with Lithium in my mental mix, and i am starting to wonder about it...

i don't think i'm expecting my various meds to do all theheavy lifting when it comes to my brain and my moods. i know i need to 'do' stuff, like get some fresh air, eat, hydrate and apply myself to my 'work' (such as it is...).

i've always been a pretty diligent person when it comes to work. some of this can no doubt be att [...]

Lithium - the adventure continues

dugg

well, i continue to take all my meds, like a good little head case.
the sense of 'absence' that i experienced the first week or so is less profound now, but so, it seems, is everythingelse.
the dark thoughts are less black and more grey than they once were, which i guess is a good thing.
on the other hand, the anger that used to strike me, reading the news or watching it on tv also seems to have dispersed. i still notice things, but rather than upsetting me, they too s [...]

the Great Lithium Adventure!

dugg

well, it's a week into this new orbit and the Lithium is definitely having an effect... and i'm still trying to articulate just what, exactly, or even approximately, that effect is.

despite all my reading, and what i've learned here from others' experiences, there is still a dark shadow on the edge of my consciousness about this particular drug.

i talked with the new pdoc about why i had vetoed Lithium as a possibility years ago when i was first diagnosed. [...]

mysteries & enigmas

dugg

out of the blue, yesterday turned out to be kind of inspired, at least by the lights of my personal mood chart- which consists of clocking how many 'pieces of work' i do, day by day.
mylatest self-assignment being the Check Your Meds comics i've been working on lately. yesterday, i created 20 of them- not all incredible, but none less that 'good' and 3 or 4 that i'd call "very good".
it was a pleasant surprise, as i've been less inspired lately [...]

new horizons

dugg

well, a new med has been added to the mix- my new pdoc has prescribed lithium.
when i was first diagnosed as bp2, it was suggested and i was all like "no, no, no!" all my associationswith it were with a kind of zombie thing, the proverbial chemical lobotomy and the word itself scared the crap out me.

since then, i've done a lot of reading and learning about bp living. i've also been feeling so awful lately that i was - and still am - open to anything that bro [...]

what's bipolar for "happy"?

dugg

what is bipolar for "happy"?

these days the clinical for a brain like this is 'bipolar'. in the old days,
we used to be called 'manic-depressive' which is stillpretty accurate...
from what i've read - and lived - more time is spent in a depressed state

than a manic one and it's while one is on the dark side that one is less
functional , more likely to harm ones' self and probably be unpleasant to
be around. [...]

February - the cruelest month?

dugg

if February is the cruelest month, Valentines Day is big part of why...

the rational part of my brain has never had much use for Valentines Day... just another one of those stupid greeting card holidays that to me always seemed to be made for people who didn't pay very much attention to people they cared about ...
it always seemed to me that communicating/expressing the love one felt for someone else was something one did every day, expressed through one's actions, large [...]

the big whatever

dugg

i'm generally pretty good in my own company, especially since being diagnosed. i cut myself more sack than i used to, i make myself laugh a lot and i have come to appreciate the curious ways inwhich i actually do get things ...

but lately i'm starting to feel more and more like a ghost- like i am a fading memory in most people's minds, and less and less able to have any kind of effect on the world.

it doesn't seem to matter much anymore what i do or what [...]

Very, very bad craziness

dugg

I haven't been around here or anywhere else lately. There's been things to attend to, like getting to see a new brain doctor... which around here means everything from getting the appointment to get a referral to getting up at 6:30am and driving for an hour an a half....
And then there's current events, especially this one...

Every few months, there's another story about police in Toronto killing someone who had mental health issues. The latest is a young ma [...]

and so this is Christmas...

dugg

i used to really that song. now that it's the soundtrack to a commercial for what i know (i know, i know, i know....) is very deserving organization trying to do good things in the world for kidswith nothing, i absolutely cannot bear to hear it.

partly because that ad gets played everywhere, or so it seems. every time it comes on, i hit the mute and change the channel. but too late...

i feel like all those kids would love to have a chance at MY problems... bein [...]

how are you?

dugg

it's just one of those social conventions.

someone says "how are you?", and you are supposed to say "fine". or more better, you say "fine, how are you?"
then they say "fine" and then, since everything's fine, the conversation moves on. or not. whatever. no biggie. except for me these days, it kind of is. a biggie, i mean.

i'm not sure if it's a bipolar thing or just s [...]

another stupid day

dugg

Rats...

i thought maybe this time was going to be different.

This time of year has never been easy for me. Long before was diagnosed as bp2, the lack of daylight seemedto facilitate some sort of awful synergy with the convergence of my birthday, Christmas and the ending of another year and spin me into places that were/are very dark, even by my own high - or is it low? - standards.

This year, being out of the city, with fresh white snow and crisp c [...]

bipolar rocks! or does it? (4)

dugg

How would i know?

There is no line that divides "the bipolar disorder" from "the real me. i can't sort what i say or do or think into tidy columns like that, attributing what i like to "me" and what i don't like to "the disorder".

Bipolar disorder is not something separate from "me". It's not a wart, or a tumour or a hangnail, something that could be removed.

It's integral to the [...]