The people in white coats

It's nearly 4.30 am and i haven't slept much, maybe 3 hours in total. This is becoming a habit of mine that i was hoping to break with my doctor's help. I started a new anti psychotic over a week ago and i thought it had kicked in sometime around the middle of this week, and then i received a letter from the local psyche team telling me that they will be contacting me to schedule an appointment for an assessment. That generally means that someone in a health care profession has highly likely to have listened to me on the phone and decided that i was not in my right mind and they've placed a fucking psychiatric fatwa on me because my voice sounds anxious and i am extremely forgetful right now. So now i must wait out the weekend and contact the psyche team and tell them to back off.My mental health is not perfect but I know I don't require hospitalization.

The thing with the psyche team is that once you've been under their microscope once or been locked up in a psyche ward you never really get them off your back. I have been working toward being off the psychiatric grid for about four years now, and i was doing really well, well for me that is. I am happy to manage my well being and medication with my G.P. but as a person living in poverty it is necessary to reach out to certain services for the welfare of the kids, the needs of the kids and the reassurance that in the event that you do need something you have a ally.Someone has taken it upon themselves to decide, without knowledge of my current medical situation whereby i am testing out a new drug to address some pretty heave issues. So I am not at my best. Making me deal with the psyche team is just amping up the anxiety and hallucinations.

I just get so damn angry at these people. I feel like I am an inconvenience to the world they live in and they lock me up and dose me up. I hate being doped up It feels like someone just punched into your body and ripped out what ever it is about you that makes you you.It makes me feel hollow inside. It leaves me unable to think. unable to feel. The first time i was locked up I was 19 and i remember sitting down , hunched over and not able to respond to my sister while she visited me. i remember looking up at her and she was crying and i was unable to connect with any feelings about that. The only awareness I had was when I saw her I acknowledged in,my mind that she was crying. and i looked away and dropped my head again. That was probably one of the worst days of my life. I was scared. I didn't know if I would come back from this zombie state. Enough blogging for today. I'm sure i'll have more to say about the psyche team in the near future. take care out there, don't go nuts, unless you are loaded with money. In that case you can call yourself eccentric and say all the things they want to hear and they'll happily send you on your way knowing that you will go and not be anyone's problem.

P.S. no picture today as I am not feeling the love.

I flew over the cuckoos nest

I want to talk about mental illness and the way it is treated. My general practitioner handles my medication choices and monitors my well being. I don't want to be in the psyche services as i was for a few years last decade. I have had some bad experiences with psych services and i don't want my fragile mental stability to be in the hands of people who , to them, you are just a number. I am happier at home with my kids...they help me be myself and be ok. Some times my G.P shakes his head and says "you are a very complicated person". I guess he is out of his comfort zone with me and believes a psychiatrist is required. I received a letter today from the psyche team wanting to make an appointment to see me. The psyche team have the immediate power to lock me up on the ward. 

My situation is this, i have bipolar, schizoaffective disorder, PTSD , dissociative disorder and agoraphobia. Many people with psychiatric disorders find that after some time they develop physical disorders as well. The instability, lack of genuine enrichment in their lives, often they are without family and friends, The massive amounts of hormones like cortisol attack the body quietly but effectively. I have insulin dependant diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. So my poor G.P has the frightening position of treating all these illness effectively with medications that will work together.

I think my problem is just too damn big. i have all of these disorders which render me incapacitated and when outsiders in the health field see me and get to know me they soon come to the conclusion that I am too hard to handle and they refer me on to someone else. or they lock me up in the nut house and drug me to the eyeballs and once i calm the hell down and submit to their thinking , they will let me go. I do not want to go back to the hospital. I do not want the psyche team to refer to a private psychiatrist. I do not want the care of myself handed over to someone whose job it is to sedate me and make me compliant.

Psyche hospitals are not nice places. I've been to the ones with high white ceilings, whit walls and white floors and if you look down the corridor while doped up on largactil (thorazine in the USA)you will feel like you're in a giant wormhole. There is wire covering all windows and doors. so we don't kill ourselves I guess. These hospitals look like the set of one flew over the cuckoo's next. Then there's the newer wards. They have more in the way of creature comforts and they have carpet at least. No amount of creature comforts make a damn difference.Its all cosmetic. There may not be wire all over the window but the windows and doors in the newer places wont break or shatter. It is highly unlikely that residents will charge past you and hit you to the ground as they try to escape, there's no escaping the old state hospital as you too doped up to think.

The state hospital sent me home.The newer hospital sent me to a private psychiatrist. After a couple of sessions i decided to google this guy . He was recently before the medical board for drugging, raping and threatening to commit a patient. As i read the transcripts of the case i recognized in the victims words the grooming that i shared with her. he was certainly all of the things she had said that he was including very interested in the intimate details of sexual assaults. I was unable to go back to him after finding this information. As soon as i stopped seeing him, rather abruptly, he began calling my house and being vaguely threatening if i did't send the cheque for his last three sessions. I couldn't make myself send him anything so i gave the envelope to someone else to post, Anyway while i had been feeding a monster details of my own assaults the transcripts of his case read that he was to be temporarily relieved of his patients care while he has 18 months without a licence.And his victim gets life, a life of hell.

I can't finish this post. it takes me to a dark place when i remember some of this. So i will see you next time.

B B King

We all heard that B B King died the other day. A great musician who I had the good fortune of seeing him play live twice. Once with U2 on the Lovetown tour and again that same year I think, 1989 with his band at festival hall. I was 18 years old. I was at the U2 concert with a big group of friends when we decided to go back to the hotel that they were staying at.When we got there it became apparent that we were definitely not the only ones with such a plan. Lots of fans were at the Como and not long after we had arrive a couple of limousines puled up and out stepped the band. 

They played us some impromptu songs and mingled with the crowd. We took selfies with them before selfies were even a thing. As we stood around laughing, having fun and talking about how cool they were to us, a guy walked our way and looked like he had pegged us for something. He was about 70 years old with gold teeth and he was wearing a safari suit, blue, baby blue in fact.

He introduced himself as B Bop Pattison, B B King's manager. We told him that was nice while wondering what the hell he thought he was doing trying to warm up to chatting us up. There were about 5 of us standing around together at the time.We were polite enough to him but gave him no reason to believe that we aching to check out what was under that safari suit. He got the message and cleared off.

We hung out outside the Como for a few hours watching as lots of celebrities arrived for what could only have been a U2 party. My friend Georgia and I looked at each other with our invisible scamming hats on and said "lets go". As we opened the front doors to the Como and strutted through, everyone else outside went quiet and stood staring at us. We politely asked the hotel receptionist to call B Bop Pattison and ask if he would like us to come up. Of course he said yes, disgusting. So we were given a key to the Lift and we waved goodbye our friends with faces that looked shattered as we stepped into the lift.

We got to B Bop's room and knocked. He answered the door in his robe. There wear drinks already poured and porn playing softly on the tv. Jaysus H Christ on a unicycle, this guy is trying to punch a little above his weight isn't he. I thought a million things and asked myself several questions like "why doesn't this dude get a prostitute or at least someone closer to his age if he doesn't wanna pay for it. Well we got ourselves into this mess we better get ourselves out. I asked him where were U2 staying, on this floor? On another floor? He looked genuinely disappointed at the realization that we weren't staying with him and he told us they were having a party in the penthouse suite.

We couldn't have said "bye" quickly enough as we got away from that horny old geriatric and his 1970s suit and equally as 1970s porn. We tried not to run as we'd seen the tv monitors at the front desk and noticed CCTV cameras all over the corridors and the lift. So we walked, fairly fuckin fast, swinging our hips like those speed walkers at the olympics do. We got in the lift and pressed the button for the top floor. 

When we got to the top we noticed a staircase all lit up with the typical sounds of a party coming from inside. Drinks clinking, people talking and laughing and music playing. We jostled our way up the stairs, me, laughing out loud when Georgia sensed a little reluctance from me and got all up in face and said "think of the 60s, think of the beatles!" Good one George. We got a few steps up and checked each others appearance, no windswept hair, no raccoon eyes, no wardrobe malfunctions. Nope, we were good to go.

We walked into the party and did a quick sweep of the room with our eyes. Local celebrities, musicians, Hell's Angels members and 3/4 of U2. Adam was missing. I suppose it was around the time that he was partying on alcohol and substances and was probably out getting wasted and laid, who knows. We were making a beeline for Bono when their boring old fart of a manager got in our line of vision and with his big ape like arms turned us around and walked us out of the room. Ha! As we were leaving The Edge looked at us and said "i'll make sure you get an invite to the next one girls". We said "yeah thanks Edge, much appreciated" as we laughed and ran down the stairs, through the corridors and to the lift.

We dropped off our key at reception and walked as cool and nonchalantly as we could to greet our friends and the couple of hundred other fans that were waiting for another glimpse of U2. We were hero's that night for showing a bit of initiative and following through with it. We were grilled by many people about what had happened. We tried to play it cool as not much had really happened! but we were satisfied. Satisfied with ourselves for crashing their party. Satisfied with the fact that a couple of hundred U2 fans thought we were the bee's friggin knees and were pea green with envy.We were satisfied enough to go home.

So my final words go out to B B King. Rest In Peace. If you believe in heaven i hope they let you take Lucille in with you. And watch that B Bop Pattison, he thinks he's in with a shot with anyone with boobs and a vagina. 

When I became We

I would like to change the tone and talk about my beautiful boys. How i felt carrying them in my body and their delivery into this world. They were two of the most important days of my life. I was one of those women for who pregnancy and the motherhood of an infant suited me down to the ground. I have never felt as happy, healthy and alive as i did when i was expecting my sons. And I was so proud. So proud of my body for growing a new person inside of it. So happy to be connected to my babies within me, as i interacted with them and watched them kick and punch me with their little limbs.When they were born I was the happiest that I'd ever been in my life and I knew that i was meeting my new best friends and lifelong allies, for these boys would receive the best of me and i would stretch myself in life to teach them that that's what you do when you love someone with all your heart. You do the best you can and you teach, honestly, humbly, wholeheartedly and continuously.

My first born, Jesse.I had a dream when i was three months pregnant with Jesse. I dreamt that i was on an old rickety train out in the country.At the end of the line i got out of the train and began walking. I stopped when i came to an old weatherboard farm house. My dad was there waiting for me just outside the barn. It was 1993 so he had been dead for 5 years but not in my dream.I ran to him, so happy to see him and he was just as happy to see me. There were no words that needed to be spoken. We just smiled at this opportunity to be in each others company once more. He said to me "there are some people I'd like you to meet". Two old people walked into the barn. An old man wearing denim jeans and a flannel shirt and an old lady wearing a floral dress and an apron.They were lovely. The woman was carrying a swaddled baby. She approached me and said "Here is your baby. We want you to visit with him for a spell". I took the swaddled baby carefully from her arms and i met my Jesse for the first time. He was perfect. He was sleeping soundly and so at ease. He had fat little cheeks and a round soft little head covered in fine dark blonde hair. His little hands were fat and dimpled and clenched into fists up under his chin, i do that sometimes too i thought. I was in love instantly. My dad watched over me proudly as i found love with this new child. The old lady said to me "you can have your baby back in six months. We just want you to know that we are looking after him for you". She smiled sweetly at me and put her arms out to take my boy. I handed him back and her and her  husband and my baby walked off and into the house. I knew Jesse would be ok. My dad watched over the whole situation and he was happy so that was good enough for me. We said our goodbyes/ It wasn't sad. It was only a temporary thing, now that i knew i could see him in my dreams. I began my trip home with the sunlight warming me and a smile on my face.

Six months later my labour began on a sunday night. Small contractions but being my first baby i was so excited that it was impossible for me to sleep at all until he was born on the tuesday morning. I don't know what i expected of childbirth but i know now that for me, the thought that pops out to explain that labour is "i really did not imagine it was possible for a human to be in that much pain and live". I believe that people are so strong and their characters are determined so early that their births, their lives and their deaths are all typical of who they are. Their humanity is clearly there to see if you choose to look. My Jesse was sleepy and content and oblivious to other peoples' fuss. He was delicious. He still is. Strong, sturdy. contemplative, determined and unwilling to budge unless he sees love guiding him. Consequently he was a forceps delivery because i was too damn young and afraid and experiencing pain akin to burning alive, or so i'd been told and at that point in my labour, i believed. Needless to say I was glad that part of my mothering was over. He was so soft and gentle. i held him mesmerized by his dreamy chubby little face and i held him close to my body keeping him content.  So now I try to remember this first lesson that Jesse taught me, and I guide him with love and encouragement.And keep him warm and content and then i see the best of Jesse. His courage and wisdom and protective nature. I look forward with a mother's pride to learning more from him as the years go by and I will love him and shine a light for him to glow in and be the best he can be. I love you my Jesse. You have kept me on my toes and you have given me what I needed to learn to love well.

Kobe was born when i was 29 years old. I remember being fiercely determined during his pregnancy to be as healthy and in control as i could be. I was physically fit. I swam laps of the public pool every day for an hour and i walked everywhere. I ate all the right foods and tuned in to him as much as i could each day. I knew this baby was going to be big in character, i could feel it. Towards the end of my pregnancy he would swallow amniotic fluid and get the hiccups. Every day at the same time this would happen. You could see him jump with each hiccup as you watched my belly. I came to the conclusion that he was stressed at this time of day and sucking to soothe himself and taking in too much fluid, so i laid down in bed in the afternoons to give him rest and quiet time. That seemed to work. I didn't have any significant dreams during Kobe's pregnancy I did however just know that he was going to be ok. He had his big brother to look after him. He was fierce and strong, and I was in my prime and knew what i was in for this time.

Kobe's labour was fast, like Kobe. 10 minutes after arriving at the hospital and he was born. I was so focused on getting this little boy out of me that i did not say a word, just listened and concentrated. I don't remember it being painful as much as it was just hard work. So it was easier to focus and do what i had to do. When he was delivered i was amazed as he had a cone shaped head, like that movie with Dan Akroyd, the cone-heads. I watched his head round out right before my eyes as the plates of his skull moved into place.. The midwife put him underneath me as i knelt over him and welcomed my new boy into the world. He was spectacular. He had his little hands clenched and his limbs were flailing and he was not crying, he was raging furiously. I was amazed from the first second I saw him. I tried to coo at him and tell him that it was ok and he didn't need to yell so loud. I was crying and laughing at the same time. I touched him, kept cooing at him and i noticed his hands and feet were huge. He reminded me of a german shepherd we once had when i was a kid and as a pup we all knew it was going to be a big one once she grew into those paws. The paws and the serious displeasure at being out of his nice warm womb were enough to have me laughing as i enjoyed meeting and comforting my new, loud, angry, raging son..He remains a loud, fast paced, has no inhibitions kinda guy. He is always authentic and you never have to guess how he is feeling. He will let you know in 0.63 seconds. If i had one wish for every woman in the world it would be that they could have an experience like mine and Kobe's of childbirth.Kobe I love you my darling. You are a force and a comfort and everyone who knows you is fortunate for that gift.

The song that I want to play today is the song that I sang every day and night to soothe both boys and rock them to sleep with.

Mixed Nuts

I've been avoiding writing because I don't exactly feel very stable. It would be much easier for me to draw on my dissociative capabilities right now. I really want to go to bed even though I slept for 8 hours last night and I don't think that's happened for years The kids are out seeing a movie and its still and quiet here, except for the playlist coming through my headphones. Thank goodness for music. I started taking an anti psychotic just over a week ago for anxiety. Most of the time people take benzodiazepams for anxiety but they are very addictive and i am a junkie. I just don't use, My anxiety has been reduced hugely and the bonus is that my hallucinations have pretty much gone. I didn't realize how many hallucinations I experienced. I used to see people's shadows on the walls in my peripheral vision and when i quickly turned to see them front on they were gone and that felt very dark and sinister. I saw bugs and spiders. I saw constant movement in my peripheral vision , so i was forever turning my head, re-directing my eyes, watching places , searching for movement to confirm that i had seen something. My audio hallucinations seemed far more invasive, which is why I wear headphones. Even when i have no music playing I still wear headphones. It helps me tell the difference between a real sound and one inside my head. A real sound would be a little bit muffled with my head phones on and a not real sound is just as loud as always.My audio hallucinations are; telephones ringing, whispers, someone calling my name, cats meowing and probably that most distressing one is when i hear what sounds like three houses down a woman screaming like she is being murdered. I leave a tv on in the house at all times as it grounds me. I can focus on the one source of audio output and feel calmer.

I wanted to write a post that read more about bipolar because that was the subject that i touched on last. But I just can't unpack my illnesses to make sense of them one at a time. You see, I believe that mental illnesses live on a continuum. some people are way up the left hand side and are clear headed and don't even have to consider mental illness in their lives. Some people live in the middle and might feel reactive depression if something bad happens in their lives and then we have the good old right hand half of the continuum. Here we have a mixed bag of labels and behaviours and symptoms and services required. My labels that live on the crazy side are; Bipolar disorder #1, Post traumatic stress disorder, dissociative disorder and schizoeffective disorder. Oh and i have severe anxiety and agoraphobia too. The thing with mental illness is that these disorders are different for everyone. While one person may have an anxiety disorder and be treated for that with anti-anxiety medication and therapy, another person, like me might have several disorders that cross over each other and require treatment that takes them all into account. And when you have multiple disorders sometimes something happens that can trigger one disorder which in turn shocks another of your disorders into gear and then i can get so effected that like a set of dominoes they all come crashing down.

I will give you an  example of how this may happen. In fact it has happened, many many times. My kids and I come from a very violent husband and father, and growing up, as adolescents in particular, when you've had the level of violence in your life like we have, things can get pretty scary between two adult sized, angry young men who both have their own PTSD to contend with. For me, the natural competitive, testosterone filled, large physical behaviour that the boys display is enough for me to unknowingly start holding my breath and clenching my fists and render me unable to do anything besides monitor their interaction and know when I need to get out of the room. Before I do leave the room, as a mother doing what I can of a mother's job i speak up and tell them to stop fighting. My kids learned from the master of manipulation and violence so just as my husband did before them, my kids might look at me for a second before they rip into me. Sometimes i am invited with swearing and yelling to be judge and jury to their situation. This is really difficult for me when i see white rage in their faces and the physical signs of violence, like something is broken, a door is off its hinge, someone is thumping the wall or someone is crying. I can't think straight. I can't say anything without being yelled at. I can't say anything that will guarantee the cessation of violence.i can't breathe.

The boys start to look like their father, not so much physically as ...my mind and my body are flashing back to him and his fists and his yelling and his habit of throwing dangerous objects at my head, and his threats, big threats like threats to kill, threats to do as i am told and if i walk out i will be hunted down like a dog and put down. even now, writing this, its hard to breathe. It's hard to breathe when the boys fight so I leave. I retreat to my room. The dog might follow me but i can't pat him. I need to breathe and not scream and concentrate on slowing down and feeling safe and not seeing Mark. I get in the bed and draw my limbs in close and pull the blanket up high and shut down. I don't need to go to sleep as i can just shut down completely. No input, no output. mind is blank. If i don't shut down I will be oblivious to my kids and i will be catapulted back to mark, and the violence will get worse and i'll be stuck on the wrong side of his fists and his yelling at me and his every effort to provoke me into defending myself physically so he can look at me with a sick satisfaction on his face as he either accuses me of being the instigator or looks at me like i am crazy for wanting him to hit me. This is one form of episode that my PTSD and dissociation may take.

Usually, thank goodness, this is as bad as it gets for me in my current life. No-one hits me, or threatens me, or pursues me with a dark agenda which justifies his abuse or gives him the opportunity for more. If my kids see that i am not ok they stop fighting and help me. The yelling between them stops and they are in tune with my needs and try to give me reassurance but most of all, try to keep me in the present. They know whats going on and they are good boys.  If i can't be reached i might go -on to have nightmares that night, and then next and the next. Sometimes I wake hearing myself crying out over and over and i wake with Jesse in the doorway, just making sure everything is ok. PTSD. Sometimes i go for a few days having what are called absent seizures. I might be in the middle of a sentence and it feels like my eyes go a bit funny, like roll back or something and i just black out.It doesn't last long. A minute maybe and i come back, sometimes to the boys looking at me weirdly and asking if i am ok.. This symptom is another from the dissociative disorder basket.

I don't know how to introduce bipolar into this situation.I can tell you some extreme bipolar episodes that i have had but i might save all that for later and continue with how bipolar comes into play in this example of the boys fighting as my trigger. A trigger is something that sets off the illness, brings it out of a manageable state and into action. If i were to feel unable to sleep due to the stress that i feel with my PTSD and dissociation, I may set off a run of sleepless nights, because one sleepless night can easily lead to two and the stress increases  and before i know it i haven't slept in four nights and i will be either hysterical with ridiculous banter and want to play the "who can be the most outrageous and immature" game. We don't really call it that here, we just do it. Or I could go the other way and feel so depressed that all i can do is cry and ask the boys if they will look after things, including the administering of my medications because i cant move or speak or see or hear anything anymore and i need to please be left alone. For how long, no-one knows. My poor boys look so worried when this happens. I don't really do it much anymore....i couldn't stand what it did to them. So I take lithium to lower the risk of a bipolar episode. When it does happen this way its so sad. So fucking sad. I think "why did I leave Mark? What have I done to these boys? How much more of this do i have to take? Why can't i break the cycle? I thought i was bigger and better than this" I start to fantasize about suicide. Soothing myself with thoughts of how i can do it. Over the years i have made strategies for what is probably about 6 to 8 fairly reliable was to kill myself. Depending on what circumstances surrounded me and what mood i was in would determine the method i would fantasize about. i believe this suicidal ideation is a part of my bipolar.

I think i always have schizoaffective disorder hanging around . I think it lays quietly in my mind doing it's thing like an old friend, not causing a fuss and being really familiar. My understanding of schcizoaffective disorder is that it is basically schizophrenia that is triggered by stress. So all my hallucinations i put down to shcizoaffective disorder and my delusions, which are few and far between these day but when i tell you about the old days of about 10 years ago, well, then you'll have you some delusions. It's also responsible for paranoia, which effects me every so often. A definite symptom for me is anhedonia  which is an inability to experience pleasure. The times I have felt this way remind me very much of the few times in my life when i have experienced what i believe was catatonia or very close to it. I could not move, I could not speak, I could not make eye contact with anyone. I could not feel a thing. Looking back i want to say that occasionally i would feel very very sad but i really think the point of my catatonia was to not feel. So while schizoaffective disorder lies around my mind sunning itself with my grey matter pretty much all of the time, it doesn't really effect me so much if i take the anti-psychotics and try to steer clear of stress, another reason why i am agoraphobic...the world stresses me and i really don't want to be seen as a crazy person having a psychotic reaction to it's hustle and bustle.

So those are my 4 main mental illnesses. I hope i have explained well enough how they feed off each other and i need a wellness plan and caring people around me who know me to assist me in living successfully. I really wanted to make this post a "bipolaxin #2" but i really don't know how to talk about one of my mental illness without talking about them all. Anywho, time to go/ This post was a bit exhausting to think about and write. Time to leave it alone.

Bipolaxed

I am feeling really tired and weepy today. Jesse said i was giddy yesterday. I loved writing to him so much that i was giddy. And today i am flat and tired and teary. Bipolar. Welcome to bipolar world. I was diagnosed about 14 years ago. I was also diagnosed with PTSD, dissociative disorder and schizo-effective disorder. At first i thought i was all about the bipolar, up and down, manic, depressed. Thats what seemed to be happening to me. even the kids said in family councelling when asked what they though of mum's bipolar, "it's easy, when she's manic she shops and when she depressed she stays in bed". Jesse was about 12 and Kobe was 6. They had me sussed out and they thought the councellor was an idiot.

I look back now and i see i was more than bipolar. After an involuntary admission to the psyche ward i was discharged when i was sufficiently compliant and drugged enough to be convenient for society and the psychiatric staff to manage. I was given a piece of paper with the name of a leading psychiatrist on it and was instructed to make an appointment, He would be waiting for my call. I called and made my appointment. He was a very old man, maybe 80 years old or so. His practice was in his home. While waiting for my appointment i noticed a little old lady wearing an apron pottering around the kitchen next door to the waiting room. She asked if i would like a cup of tea while i waited and i politely declined. Her husband shuffled in to the room and ushered me to his office.

I sat in his tiny office and took in my surroundings. His medical certificate, his photography in frames on the wall. His coffee table with knick knacks and him, staring at me with a notebook and a pen. I found his photos calming and the discomfort i felt under his gaze and being asked to answer his questions was tempered by staring at the soothing images on the wall. He walked me through the bipolar survey. Tick enough of the boxes to questions like "do you ever put yourself in danger when you are feeling uncontrollably elated", and you win the prize, a diagnoses. However many boxes you tick and to which ever applicable boxes you tick determines your bipolar status, bipolar 1 or bipolar 2. I scored a 100% no need for any more questions thank you very much as i have bipolar 1, manic and depressed.  As he walked me to the front door he expressed his satisfaction at having successfully diagnosed another fellow bipolar. He had disclosed his own status during my appointment. He said he would open a nice bottle of shiraz to celebrate that night. I left his house feeling confused, angry and panicked at the thought that he was my future. i'd already wrestled with my addictive demons before, several times. Does bipolar mean i will always wrestle with the mask of addiction? The thing i knew so well through my own experience and the experience of others in my family. Would i always be that person who reached for the celebratory drink, or drug as well as the commiserating drink or drug? I was upset because I saw this man as an expert, he was on the board of the Melbourne clinic. He was the author of several books about bipolar. He had made groundbreaking advances in the understanding and treatment of people with bipolar throughout his long career. And he was just another drunk with a headcase and a certificate to talk to other headcases.

I drove home with a fierce defiance gurgling away inside of me, growing by the minute and threatening to explode and spew forth. I got home and walked into my office with my desk, computer, telephone and couch tucked behind the door in the perfect position to flop onto and be invisible. I quickly surveyed the walls and went to my bedroom to search for boxes and boxes of my personal photos and cards and images that i had accumulated over the years that all told a story . A story that brought a lifetime, my lifetime flooding back to me with a smile. I tipped them out onto the floor and began covering the main wall of my office with photos of me doing fantastic things and images of colourful happenings that i'd picked up over the years because they'd spoken to me and cards from friends and from Andrew (Andrew and I were in the habit of sending each other postcards with odd images on them, images that when accompanied by one sentence from either one of us that referred to our quirks and embarrassing foibles that we'd embraced as endearing qualities after having been caught out by each other and made to wear said foible with pride) that i'd kept for years. These were my favourites of all the photos and interesting images. The weird postcards with seemingly nonsensical images  that all made hilarious sense once you turned them over and read the one line followed by "love Andrew xoxoxo". I stuck photos and cards on that wall until the wall turned into a canvas of my life in collage. I was so fucking determined to prove myself as being more than bipolar. I scanned the wall and soaked up what i knew of myself. I was resentful of the implication that everything that i'd done in my life was even partially due to my bipolarity and i the dehumanizing way i saw myself experiencing that, i stood there and i looked at every picture and i told myself that was ME in that experience. It was a genuine Joanne-ism in colour on my wall, next to another Joanne-ism, and another and another.  I was not going to be reduced being the sum of a mental illness. I claimed my right to see myself as authentic, not sick and unbalance and in need of chemicals to make me normal. I finished the job and stood back enjoying the work i'd done. i was smiling, and i kept smiling even as i wondered to myself if obsessiveness was a part of bipolar and could fierce determination and defiance have anything to do with it. All i really knew was that my identity was under threat and i didn't know what to do.

I went back to see the old psychiatrist the next week. He wrote a prescription for me for lithium. Lithium i thought, the drug Spike Milligan took. Maybe i could be funny. Maybe i could be ok. If Spike was the genius that he was maybe that meant i could keep my identity and be me and not a zombie on psyche meds. You see, people will say to you "It's like having diabetes, you take your medicine and you are ok". It's not like having diabetes at all. I have diabetes and my pancreas has nothing to do with my identity. How i see myself. The way I see the world. The colour of my experiences. I fought the medication choice for years, i still do. Psychiatric meds alter your mind. Who I am is in my mind. I don't believe in a soul. The closest thing i believe in to a soul is the stain and energy we leave on those we touch in our lives. That stain feels palpable. Its why i believe our lives are not just our own and even though i have been suicidal for years and often when i wake in the mornings in incredible pain and my first thought of the day is "not another fucking day" and i fantasize about it all ending.....even so.....i know i will never kill myself because i don't want to leave my boys with that human stain, that energy. My life belongs to them too and i am thankful for that. The thing with taking bipolar medication is, it does change you and it may tone down the depression you don't feel it as often or with such desperate disabling intensity, it also tones down the mania. While most people will agree that mania is not fun, there are elements of epic highs and outstanding capabilities and the capacity to feel with a fucking capital F. When you are manic or on the way up to mania you can feel like you are operating on a higher plane. Colours are more colourful, brighter, deeper, more meaningful. Music speaks to you like it's whispering your thoughts, your feelings, just for you and you know what every word is saying to you. You know it like you wrote it. When you connect with someone you feel like there is no-one else on the planet but you and that person. No-one else can hear you and they've all just disappeared anyway. Insignificant disconnecters.. If you've ever seen the movie Limitless you could appreciate bipolar mania. At the end of that movie i was wide eyed, mouth agape, telling people that that was what bipolar was like. There's no reason to suggest that when you are in a manic state and you are flying comfortably that you cannot learn a second language in an afternoon, research and write a paper on a subject you previously knew nothing about with expertise and irritating confidence, be so attractive and magnetic that having sex with anyone you want to is entirely possible, However when you crash you crash hard. You cant leave your bed. You can't speak. You can't take responsibility for taking your meds. Black is blacker and as deep as the ocean. Your head is foggy and heavy and your tears are bigger and slower and drop harder.

The thing i have found about bipolar is that if you have a carer, someone to look out for you, they can calm you down when you are speaking to god through the tv and they can watch out for you and remind you that you will feel better soon and you need to take your meds and if you're really lucky they will bring you those meds and help you with your injections and your pills. I am one of those really lucky ones. Bless you boys. Anyway I have one boy home from school and the other one is on his way so i will talk more about this another day. Bi- Polars!

To Jesse

I want to tell a story, primarily for my son Jesse who is 21 years old. I wanted to write this for him for his 21st birthday but I wasn't feeling so clear headed and motivated, and I was depressed...and feeling like I'd let him down because my agoraphobia wouldn't allow me to attend his party. so anyway....I still want him to hear these words and keep them close to him because when I think of these things and I think of him I hold the thoughts close and they feel heavy enough to ground me and fill me with love.

Jesse is a christian and I am an atheist. we have had many philosophical discussions that have left us feeling like we were on opposing sides and as his mum I want better for us. What I want him to know, What I want you to know Jesse is that we are not so different. I suspect you already know that because I have seen you over the years show more tolerance than I have when we have butted heads over religious matters. Anyway....this post is about how I lost my faith and then found it again.

I was 18 in 1988 and I was dabbling in speed use, using needles, smoking a lot of pot and behaving in a way that doesn't make me proud. Bravado will have me speak of these times occasionally with a toughness like I think I was... Well I dunno what I think I was.... I suppose I was Usain Bolt in the way I was running as fast as I could away from reality. It was 5 weeks before Christmas and my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer. It was shocking for me. I was close with my dad, he wasn't perfect but I always forgave him his shortcomings and enjoyed being able to bring a smile and hear laughter from my WW11 veteran, too much booze drinking, not much for speaking old man, smiles and laughter that i knew how to evoke from him with my combination of whimsical girlish charm and defiant, determined attitude towards tasks that were traditionally reserved for my older brothers. I was the last of 7 kids and the only female born post the feminist revolution. So my dad found me amusing, endearing and good company as did I him.

In the 5 weeks of my dad's life that followed I visited him daily in hospital as fear and a desire to shut out reality started to grip me. I met my 3rd eldest sister for the first time as she was summoned from her estranged status to make peace with her father. In her company I was made aware of our uncle's abuse and in the weeks that followed, I listened as one by one all of my 6 siblings disclosed his abuse of them as children as well. knowing that he had had custody of me as a baby left me to wonder no longer why, when each time I was touched inappropriately as a child it felt as if I was wearing a neon sign on my forehead that said "victim". Those feelings of confusion and fear and betrayal felt all too familiar to me. I believe I was too young to have been able to articulate abuse by my uncle but my body held it's own memories. Along with what was beginning to feel like an ongoing spiral of trauma, my eldest brother decided it was time for him to disclose our youngest brothers HIV+ status. So dad was dying, quickly, mum was dropping serapax like tic tacs, all the kids were talking about how uncle Bob was a bit "funny like that" and my big brother, best friend, confidante, and hero was gonna die. Punch me in the fucking gut already......I was hurting.

We watched Dad die. It took 5 weeks. My sister and I were with him as he took his last breath. I like to think of us as his favourites. I can never really remember him speaking much to my other siblings, I don't remember him saying their names lovingly but he had pet names for my sister and I, Mick and Brigid, and it was us who held his hands as he passed at 5.32 on a Tuesday morning. It seemed fitting to me. It also seems fitting to me Jesse that you were born at 5.32 on a Tuesday morning. I don't believe in other worldly experiences but i do believe in the power of connection and the power of the mind. I think you were delivered onto this earth Jesse at that exact same time as your grandfather left the earth because we just need that connection, Humans need to feel a part of a tribe, and our minds and our bodies are forces to be reckoned with. Speaking of forces to be reckoned with, Neil young was playing as you were born. I like to think, as I was too preoccupied to precisely remember, but I imagine that you were born to Cortez the Killer. like Cortez you are big and bold and fierce and menacing and triumphant and courageous. Your grandfather would have got along with you well. Both sturdy and strong, quiet, still, deep and committed to those you love through everything life challenges you with. I will tell you more about him as time goes on...You would have learned a lot from him.

The next few weeks are a blur to me. I bumped into an old friend who was going to India in 5 weeks. I asked if I could tag along. She said that would be cool.So that day I picked up a second job working the register at a fruit and veggie market and I worked 7 days a week for the next 5 weeks and I didn't look back as I got the hell out of dodge and left my troubles behind.

India was beautiful. Awful and beautiful. I spent Christmas laying on the beach in Goa, soaking up the bohemian atmosphere that attracted so many iconic rock stars and celebrities from the 60's to make their pilgrimage there and leave their mark. I traveled over most of the country for 2 months, loving it all but adoring the desert. I don't know what it is about the desert that intoxicates me. The simplicity? the isolation? The brutality of conditions maybe. Maybe the little surprises, like when you are walking across a sand dune and you see a figure in the distance and as it draws closer. In stark contrast to the red, baron sand that goes on and on and reaches the horizon, you see a woman wearing bright colourful fabric who walks by steadily with a huge pot on her head and smiles. I think the desert breeds madness, and you know I love madness. Maybe its the lack of water. But there is definitely more madness in the desert.

Jesse if you ever travel to India please go to the desert in June. there is a 2 day festival of lovers. When you fall in love take your lover there and be a part of this celebration. It is about Layla and Magnun. Magnun means madman in Arabic and it was a name given to him as he was so deeply in love with Layla, so taken by her, he spent his days writing poetry about her. I like to think that the villagers labeled him as a madman but he was really a man with an eccentric artistic temperament, swept up in the throws of love. When Layla's father learned of Magnun's request for her hand in marriage he was furious as no daughter of his would be betrothed to someone who was considered mentally imbalanced. Layla's father did not hesitate to have her married off to someone more respectable. Magnun was devastated and was said to have left the village and roamed the desert scratching poetry to Layla in the sand. Some say they died separated from each other. Some say Magnun died at Layla's grave heartbroken. Some say they re-united and lived their lives as lovers in Rajasthan in the desert of India, where the festival is celebrated. When you go there with your lover, dance to Eric Clapton's "Layla"with your girl in your arms, this song was inspired by the story of magnun and Layla. if you go there I have a request of you. scratch a spontaneous poem in the sand for me. Thanks.

The next best place I went to in India was definitely Calcutta. I remember the train ride to Calcutta, Reading city of joy on the way and feeling so excited. I knew I was approaching a city of something, I didn't know what, contradictions, paradoxes, confusion and spirituality. The city where the leprocy colonies lie on one side of the train tracks and the rest of the bustle of the city went on at a rate of manic speed on the other side. I almost went to the leper colony. I decided against it in the end. I had no basis to go...I don't know enough about the religion I was raised in to understand what I think about how these people are treated. all I know is that all people are equal and those people deserve the treatment for their disease. The religious approach confuses me. I don't understand what the bible would have us do.....Feel sorry for the poor unfortunates? Pity them and allow them into heaven? I really don't know. When Bono was campaigning for funds for drugs for people living with AIDS in Africa he approached George W Bush and the religious right with a proposal that they consider these people as god would have the people in biblical times consider the lepers as poor unfortunates who were to be charitably given passage into heaven. I watched my brother die a long, slow, painful and terrifying death from AIDS and I listened to him and looked at the fear in his eyes as this man who was once a good little alter boy doubted that he was welcomed into heaven. It was cruel death, and it still makes me angry. He was no poor unfortunate. He was not a leper. Even if he was he would have deserved better. Anyway....enough about that. We'll talk about that another day.

It seemed that everywhere I went in Calcutta and almost everyone I spoke to had been personally touched by Mother Theresa. Everyone had a story about her. I was struck by the depth of compassion and a collective sense of solidarity and spirituality that I felt in Calcutta and I reflected on my reasons for being there. I remember calling home and crying tears of yearning down the phone line as I spoke to each person in the family home. I woke up one morning and jumped in a taxi and asked the driver to take me to the Sister's of Charity's convent. I stood at the door wondering what I would say when someone answered my knock when a nun opened the door and asked if I wanted to meet Mother. I said yes and she took me in.

Mother Theresa walked into the entrance way and greeted me, took my hands in hers and smiled sweetly. I told her I was from Australia and I was very pleased to meet her. she spoke to me for a few minutes. handing me a card, a religious card that she blessed. She also blessed me. As she held my hands I searched for something in that experience to give me hope or faith or understanding or something that 19 years of Catholicism had lead me to believe was available to me when I needed it. I needed it more then than I ever had before. I needed to reclaim some of my fractured childhood innocence and I needed to believe that my world was going to be okay. She asked me if I would like to pray with her and took me upstairs to a large room with lots of travelers kneeling down behind all the sisters of charity. The thing that struck me the most was the women, women from all corners of the globe in white linen Saris. They were beautiful women. They looked like they would be more suited to the pages of a vogue magazine. I was amazed. In this dirty, poor, starving city where children chase you on the street putting their hands out for coins, I was in awe of these stunning women, maybe they were looking for the same thing I was. I don't know. I hope they found it anyway. I listened to them pray and sing beautifully and I left. I didn't feel any fuller for the experience. maybe I felt a little less desperate. I received a few hours of respite from my feelings. It felt as if there had been an enormous build up to that experience and then it was over and I closed the door on my desire for a fairy tale existence as the nun closed the door behind me that night.

I left Calcutta. I flew to Thailand. I began drinking heavily and smoking a lot of pot. I spent 2 weeks on the island of Koh Samoi, drinking, drugging and screwing other backpackers. I was filling up on everything as there was a hole inside me. When I tried to leave Koh Samoi I realized that I had lost all my travelers cheques and had no clue when or where this had happened. I realized how desperately sad I must have sounded to the lady on the telephone at the bank, Answering her questions vaguely. Not having any details to give her. Wondering why she was being so nice to me, Inquiring about my well being and if I had someone who could pay for my meal and accommodation that night when I must have sounded like a drunk, stoned, badly behaved teenage brat making an arse out of myself in someone else's country. I was ashamed and I needed to fill myself up more with substances and behaviour. I got back to the mainland and caught a bus north.

I got to Chang Rai in the north of Thailand and made arrangements to trek into the hill tribes. I set off the next day and began the walk through the hills, Stopping every few hours to meet with a new tribe and share a cup of tea and admire their wares. I settled for the night with a tribe whose women wore steel necklaces, elongating their necks with each additional necklace. The tribe was located next to a poppy field. We were in the golden triangle. It was time to fill that hole inside me. I settled in for a couple of weeks, gathering my poppies each day, scraping the resin from under their skin and smoking pipe after pipe until I was anesthetized enough to pass out. I was comfortable. looking back now it makes me sad to see myself searching for comfort-ability. I wish I'd set the bar higher. I still feel sad for that girl with the emptiness inside who just wanted to believe in something and be okay.

I'd lost track of time and smoked myself into a routine with the locals. I needed to straighten out and go back into Chang Rai for some supplies. Cleaned myself up, fresh clothes and a clear-ish head and off I went. when the bus stopped on the main street of Chang Rai I wondered what was going on out there. People were all over the street. travelers were smiling and hugging each other. Young people were dancing in the street. Everyone was celebrating. I got off the bus and said to a passing backpacker "what's going on?" he looked at me and smiled "Nelson Mandela's been released!". I stopped dead still and sucked in the air like it was filled with sweetness and light. It felt like I was in a bubble. I watched everyone, so happy, sharing their joy. It was in that very moment that I realized... People can do anything. People can do absolutely anything. what a man this man was. what a hero to us all. What he represented. He changed the world. I felt like we could all change the world. I was full with excitement and full with belief. I had found my faith. On that very day I found what I was searching for. I had been running so hard, away from my family, away from my problems, away from my feelings. In that moment all I wanted to do was go home, hold my family close and love them and believe that everything was going to be okay. Of course everything was not okay, not for a long long time but I never stopped believing it would be, ever again. It still really is not okay but I have 2 kids who have traveled this road with me and they are more than okay. They are exquisite. and they have their own versions of what faith is to them, and that's okay. I get that. so Jesse... Hold your faith dear. I will try to understand you more than I have and help you understand my heavily swayed and tightly held convictions. Just know that I love you and respect you.

Love from mum.