Cathartic Purge (But I swear it leads to something)

Back from sabbatical. (fancy way of saying been too busy or lazy)  I think I might have to open up the season with one for me. Not sure where the Perpetual Bachelor is going to go this year, but I suppose that the fun in it at least for me.

I found myself smiling like an idiot while brushing up on my clinical knowledge of bi-polar characteristics.  It comes to a point where that stuff becomes elementary yet worth a review and reassessment.   Over time one forgets how they fashioned their lives around their condition.  It’s a marvel to realize that such choices become automatic and how ones troubles are usually due to a straying from those internalized rules.  Yes, feel free to assume I’ve had my issues, if you haven’t already long ago. (I can hear your snickering from here)  “S.A.D” for those who remember psych 101.  I’m like the only pun in the text book. Fitting though.

Those fortunate to learn to manage the various short circuits one may have in their heads develop an enhanced ability to decipher their own feelings.  As a blind persons hearing adjusts one with a bi polar disorder or depression issues may eventually be much more aware of their feelings and the causes behind them than the average person.

Of course that is a sugar coating found with those fully functional and educated on their condition and even when this is the case repercussions of a disorder still must be dealt with for most realizations are made retrospectively, usually just in time to prevent any real damage.

You can’t help but to still be a little “off,” but at the same time those who aren’t a bit “off” begin to seem insane or mundane, hard to explain.  I’ll stop. Any who…(yep, any who) this development that keeps one from conflicting with themselves causes friction between them and the outside world.

Deep down inside no one like to feel like they are flawed and with an intuition honed out of necessity to be more responsive to how one is feeling, their surroundings and the feelings of others, animosity towards the average comparatively insensitive individual can flourish since the “flawed” are rarely fully understood by that average person.

A health nut forced into the life style for some reason may have a little more distain for the over weight while a trust fund baby tends to have less understanding or empathy for the poor.  Those who have been places in their heads fear and loath the judgments of others and this may be one reason why it’s so hard for many to find help. Now imagine that they don’t know what’s wrong with them, which is basically always the case, at least the first time.  Pretty shitty.  It’s not like a broken arm or a limp. People do not readily empathize.

With that said I suppose examples or at least a few metaphors are in order. As I said in the beginning, I was smiling like an idiot.  I returned from vacation with an odd case of jet lag.   I would bound between bouts of joy and sadness as if on a trampoline.  Now after dealing with a depression disorder as a young man and for the most part conquering my demons I eventually realize that at some point I got on the roller coaster again and in a sick way can find amusement in it all.  Got to stop and be your own shrink. What am I feeling? Why am I feeling? What if anything should be done?

Most of all one wants to assess the situation to learn what the trigger may have been but before I choose whether or not to get into that I want to go back I and illustrate what I meant by fashioning your life around the condition.  Shit, I’m known to be a little bit of an eccentric and have my own methodical madness, but these adjustments are beside all that which pretty much makes for a character. I don’t mean to sound narcissistic or self abusive it is what it is.

For me, weather was a major player so I turn and bend that growing stalk that is my life toward the sunlight.  I ate well and began working out not because I was a competitive person or for the sakes of vanity, but because they brought with them natural endorphins, a healthier endocrine system and enhanced self esteem.  After learning slowly to show myself compassion I became more likely to show such compassion to others.  Then adversely show a much greater distain for those lacking in compassion.  One develops crutches, some try using people, thankfully I don’t think I did much of that in the sense one may think, but boy was I guilty of it in another way.

Sometimes some latch onto a safety blanket.  A hobby, a pet, an inanimate object can become the guard rail or pillar of ones turbulent inner world.

You’ve seen the cases where those mentally ill or deficient would just open up or have their keel evened with the aid of animal assisted therapy or your idiot savants gifted in whatever they find as a point of stability.  As for me, writing, animals and some “destructive” habits kept me a cool cucumber.

I doted over my fish and still do over my cat. One gets conditioned by the world and as sad as it sounds when confronted with stress I would take a pen, notebook and my cat before another human being.  I would love to have my old fish tank.  “Normal” people don’t understand why the troubled do the things they do and just throw it in as just a characteristic of being mentally challenged or ill.

When, if they could tell you, they might say that they could find more empathy in the eyes of a stray dog than they could in another person.  My 45 gallon hexagon fish tank that I took on a two day move down the east coast of the U.S sounds insane to most but to me it meant stability.  My cat I raised from a bottle and my library of scribbles was the earth, sun and sky.  My jewels in a world found unsatisfactory.  Of course this sounds nutty.  But it is what it is.

I will never work in a cubical, only outside or by large windows.  I love teaching because of the openness of youth.  Adult minds can grow stagnant, unmalleable and unimaginative.  Whatever agent of creation there may be we risk growing away from it as we mature.  That God, collective unconsciousness, or what ever universal truth is more one with the damaged, children or animal kind and it’s mans individual challenge to keep as close as they can to it through their lives.  I like to surround myself with things that remind me of such. (besides all the scientifically proven biological benefits for my condition that just happen to coincide, but the first part sounds so much more profound no?)

I have been there and back. Experienced so many things just with in my head that I could only be awed in what could possible be going on in someone else’s head.  But being “there” (I’m in a big quoting mood today”) and back, for me it’s like being a three dimensional ball in a linear world.  I see those who suffer within their skull and people walking by or feebly knocking upon the door I myself have been behind.  It’s a trip.

Last thing one wants to admit is that what ever short circuitry they suffer from or the solutions for the malfunction changes them, takes them over.  That’s why many refuse to take medication and it takes a rock bottom event to get them on it.  Many secretly are jonesing to get off whatever stuff they were prescribed and once they begin to feel better they stop, there’s a sudden relapse and some unfortunate things sometimes happen. And everyone is “surprised”.

Now, I don’t think I could tell you what or who I would be.  I was a broken kid when I had to make the adjustments and I was flawed long before realizations were made.  What I can tell you is that there have been many positive outcomes and mutations do to my condition and for all intensive purposes I am what I am and the only thing I could ever be.  Between hereditary and environment and the fact that our biological systems and subconscious still call most of the shots you’re all just as crazy as me, but you don’t know it, which makes you crazier than I.  The fact that I am pretty tuned into my insanity makes the average person merely meandering their lives blindly away far crazier than I am.  But that’s ok, I understand.

Now, I hinted lightly upon how such things could change the landscape of interpersonal relationships. Sorry for the prelude but I believe it’s necessary for the following installment to be understood clearly.

Dating with a Bi Polar disorder..I’m not even sure you’re even supposed to do that.   Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “ups and down in a relationship.”  But we will talk about that next time.  Same Bat time Same Bat Channel.