Note: I am still figuring out tumblr and it seems that my post are in a different order then I wrote them. Enjoy figuring that out.

Fuck

Every time you get electro convulsive therapy  they give you a test at the beginning to see if your memory has been affected. It consists of awesome things like identifying pictures of animals, connecting dots, and drawing a cube.

The thing about this test is they only change it up every couple months so usually you have the same questions for quite a few treatments in a row. One of the things they ask you to do is name as many words in a minute as you can all starting with the same letter. For my first eight appointments or so the letter was “F”… which of course meant I started each session trying to think of a minute full of “F” words without saying “fuck.”

“Face, fumble, fear, flustered, futon, feng-shui, fester, Physics, no that doesn’t count, ferment, flamingo, Febreeze….” ahh, I just need to say Fuck.

The past year had been full of fucks. It is the perfect word to use when describing extremely frustrating challenges. Challenges you do not see ending. And I used this word quite liberally. It provided a moment of comfort, a release from the anger.  In the ECT appointments I wanted to say “fuck” so bad, especially in the beginning before the treatments had started working, but I just couldn’t.

Why not?

Because of the fucking ECT nurses who are so fucking kind and so fucking sweet. They are some of the best fucking people I have ever had the chance to fucking meet. Because of them I just couldn’t fucking bring myself to fucking say it. Not even one fucking time.

But then one day they finally changed the letter to “A”.

Assholes.

I suck at naming things – pets, improv groups, small islands I’ve discovered. It is just not my thing.
I have been doing this blog for only one week and it has already had three different names. Lucky for my kid I like his name or he would be having some sort of huge identity crisis by now. 
All three blog names have prominently referenced bipolar disease in the title. This is kind of odd because if I was going to categorize me, and you know, my stuff, being bipolar is really not a “big thing” for me. Technically I have Bipolar II. It’s like Toy Story II, less popular than the original but sort of delightful when you get to know it.
You see with Bipolar II you have less of the manic stuff (dancing naked while purchasing more than you could ever afford on some website like etsy.) and more of the depressive stuff (not dancing, not buying stuff, and cancelling your etsy account because “Why bother?”)  
The depression is something that is a relatively big part of my life, sometimes taking center stage and sometimes being a back-up dancer.
So why draw attention to the bipolar disease and put it in the title of this wildly popular (possibly a slight exaggeration) blog?
It’s all because of the mood disorder marketing. You see bipolar sounds like a legitimate disease. It sounds all real and something someone should actually be allowed to suffer from.
Depression, well in the slightly altered words of Seinfeld, who were the ad wizards who came up with this name? It is vague and wimpy and should be able to be defeated by anyone who is not weak or self-absorbed.
Being in a mood disorder program put these two illnesses in perspective as to how they affect my life. The thing about being in a group with a whole bunch of people who are on the crazy train is you figure out your seat assignment pretty quickly. As depression goes I can be the freaking conductor. When it comes to Bipolar though, I am the hobo in the back who tries not to cause trouble and every so often gets caught.
Fortunately right now I am just hanging out in the train station by the snack machine with no ticket in hand. Anyone wanna share some Funions? 
 

Thank You Princess Leia

wishful_art


It’s not what you’re given, it’s how you take it” Carrie Fisher

You know you are a real improviser when you start finding improv in anything.
“Oh marriage it’s just like improv, you have to ‘yes and’ your partner.”
“Business is just like improv, you have to take risks and get out of your comfort zone to succeed.”
“Getting a Prince Albert piercing is just like improv, you have to go through the discomfort to reach the moments of true pleasure.”
And on and on.
The Carrie Fisher quote above can easily be viewed as perfect improv advice, and it is. Don’t blame your scene partner, rather make brilliance from what they give you.
This is not what was meant though. Recently I have been reading Carrie Fisher’s memoirs. I am drawn to them partly because of her ECT experience and partly because when your son digs Star Wars, it is really enjoyable to bring home books that have fun cover art like Princess Leia surrounded by drugs and alcohol. In saying the above statement, Fisher was referring to the fact we can’t blame our parents for our faults, we need to own them.This is a lesson I have learned, albeit late in life, and I credit it to the combination of good therapy and having a child of my own.
Any therapist who knows what they are doing will encourage you to take responsibility for your life. I must admit the choice to listen is on you and I might have required multiple attempts.
Having a child kicks this realization into overdrive. One day you reprimand them a little louder than you should or let the TV babysit them and you get the scary image of them one day yelling “I am totally messed up and it is all your fault.”
I have realized I was raised with an ounce of stuff that can mess you up and a pound of all the stuff that adds to your life. And as hard as it is to accept, you can’t complain about one without being thankful for the other. I know everyone is not so lucky and I am sure they have legitimate gripes.
I, on the other hand, am a grown adult and would be a complete ass-hat if I did not own my shit. Coincidentally, another lesson that is also true for improv.

Two of the biggest things I battle in my life (I hate using battle but I cannot think of another word) are being at a healthy weight and dealing with a depression that makes me think about ending my life. Fortunately both of these seem to be on the right path currently and I am grateful. 
I am pretty sure I can sum up these two struggles in one true sentence about my life and that is this:
I once took a lunch break in the middle of attempting suicide.
A few days before I was set to graduate college I drove to a scenic lookout in Peoria with the goal of driving my car over the embankment and killing myself. While I sat there pondering this I guess I got hungry because I decided, in the middle of this very serious moment, to go grab a bagel. 
After this meal I went back and did indeed drive my car over a 200 foot drop. I am lucky, amazingly lucky. I survived and a lot of fantastic things have happened in my life since then.
Of course this destructive act led me to lots of regret. I worried and hurt family and friends. I missed my college graduation. I totaled a car. It all was just a lot of awful stuff.Though the Dr. at the psychiatric hospital did try to make me feel better about myself by complimenting my poetic choice of the scenic lookout as a place to end my life, so there is that I guess.
In all this, one of the things that still tends to plague me about this whole experience is my choice of what I assumed would be my last meal. A bagel, a sad factory-made bagel.
If I had this whole experience to do all over, well hopefully I wouldn’t do it but if I did, I really hope I would choose Thai food. 

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