happy birthday to me

So I'm 42. Wow. Not really too impressed with where I'm at. I would have never guessed I would be here. In NC. Far from CT, NYC & Cape Cod. 

What's in a name?

Bipolar                                                                          Manic-Depression

One is short and concise.                                                 The other long and descriptive.  

Neither means much to the layman. the untouched. the normal. But to those of us who struggle with. deal with. exist with. this illness. this albatross. this burden. it means more than you can begin to imagine. 

Alienation from family. Loss of friends. Gaps in careers/jobs. Extended absences from school. Unfinished plans. Impulsive behavior. shopping. sex. drinking. trips. creativity. lack of hygiene. euphoria. despair/depression. suicide. medication.

Bipolar                                                                                                                    Manic-Depression

Two words that mean the same  but give two very different impressions.

Who the hell is Demi Lovato?

(This is from a comment I made on a thread concerning Demi Lovato where people were commenting that this was a way for her to get her name in the news)   

 "who cares what her reason to come out was. It is the fact that she is helping to remove the stigma that comes with mental illness. It is a stigma that I have lived with for over 26 years and it was only private until the 1st person noticed(and rudely commented) on my tremor from lithium or when I was hospitalized for 4 months at the end of my senior year, etc. etc. the list goes on. So GREAT thanks to: Demi Lovato, Carrie Fisher, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Patty Duke, Sinead O'Conner and Evan Perry(RIP) BTW if you actually had any of the disorders she has you would understand it is NOT a bid for attention"

I am lucky enough to know 2 other people who are Bipolar. I say lucky because most people no matter how much they love you or profess to be a good friend just don't get it. Bipolar gets Bipolar - for good or bad they just do. When someone famous identifies themselves as being in treatment or even having been hospitalized for Bipolar you feel a little bit less alone. Sadly there is a downside. Being famous these people have access to the best doctors, meds, hospitals and treatment - most people diagnosed with Bipolar are not that lucky. All these things take money and insurance, something most people(whether mentally ill or not)do not have or not very much of. This can cause the ones around us, the very people who profess to love us, to compare our behavior, and what they perceive as lack of improvement or trying, to people who tend to be in the spotlight after being helped at a level I can't even imagine (but would love to experience). Very few of the famous implode on "camera". Sinead O'Conner came pretty close - remember Saturday Night Live? Kurt Cobain - self-medicated then suicide. Carrie Fisher almost destroyed her own life/fame but came back and talks openly about her experience with ECT(electro-convulsive therapy)

Voyeurism, when it concerns mental illness, draws the line at friends and family. People are looking for happy endings and for most of us they are not going to be found watching friends and family living with Bipolar. Our struggle will never mirror the struggle of the famous. I don't mean to minimize the famous' struggle but as I've said they tend to have the advantage. 

I fight for some semblance of normalcy everyday. I just recently regained some after over 2 1/2 years of pure hell. Hell that some might dismiss as weakness but whatever you want to judge it as  remember that it was my framework that my life played out in. I dealt with major medical issues for myself and my father. Death: my grandmother, my great-aunt and my dad. My hell consists of some of the deepest most profound depressions you can never imagine. Anger that stems from places I can't understand.... I'll finish this later...  

A Theory is a Theory but a theory is not a Theory

                                                               

Can we all agree (and by all I mean the religious zealots) that there are two specific definitions of the word THEORY.

The common,scientific definition: "A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena. Most theories that are accepted by scientists have been repeatedly tested by experiments and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena."                                             

Now the one most proponents of ID/creationism use to try to debunk Evolution is this: "A proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact." 

The problem with using the latter is you negate the Theories of Gravity, Relativity, Germ and Atomic among many others. In attempting to discredit real science because of the need to validate personal religious beliefs the religious put all scientific knowledge and advances into question. Ironically they have no issue with accepting that which benefits them while dismissing anything that threatens the fragile religious-pseudo-scientific world they have created.

The Decline of East Coast Politics

To all the Tea Party-Republican-Conservative-Liberatarian- Koch follower lackeys.... please make an attempt to see who and what is inching us closer to this ridiculous point of shut down. While the President & Democrats are not without some blame the majority of this mess falls directly on John Boehner(who needs a spine) and the rest of the moderates who are buckling to the extremist element aka the Tea Party. This is about the FEDERAL BUDGET not sectarian ideas that have nothing to do with the issue at hand. The party of  "we are the TRUE patriots" seems more like the party of "lets screw over our military and the Americans who financially cannot handle this right now" I'll be honest I'm torn between dread and morbid curiosity about what will happen when it's time to raise the debt ceiling.

                                                   

whatever is new is old again

So Obama is running (officially) again for President. The other side has a full assortment of potentials, although some of the candidates may not be playing with full decks. Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich (his unofficial slogan is: "who cares about the economy lets change 'equal rights' to 'equal rights only for people just like me"), Michelle Bachman, Donald Trump, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul & Rand Paul (a father/son Tea Party act), Sarah Palin (will she - won't she), Jimmy McMillan (of the "rents too high" infamy), Haley Barbour ("I'm not a racist but Jim Crow was not that bad."), Rick Santorum and John Bolton. And on a bizarre side note.... Randall Terry (yes that Randall Terry - founder of the radical pro-life movement Operation Rescue) switched from the Republican Party to the Democrats in 2011. My guess being he figured the odds might be better running against less people in the primary - face/palm