It is pushing a year since the Great Convergence of 2020, that fateful two-week window last year where I had a complete mental breakdown, I was hospitalized for a week, my wife left me, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, & COVID came bearing down (oh & my septic tank--pun intended--went to shit). This past year has been all about getting stable--finding the proper medication, sifting through my past to gleam lessons about choices, environment, & symptom management, separating the grief of losing D from the cacophony of mental illness, developing a sustainable routine & support system. Standing here in the spring of 2021, I am proud of my current condition, feeling like my best self without the blur brain tripping me up regularly.
​
Part of this new step forward was supposed to be getting back to work, something I haven’t been able to do well in two years. In the past, lost in my misdiagnosis / undiagnosed mental illness, I was never able to fully concentrate on the job, or rather, the job became such a burden, having to mentally prepare so much that it caused major exhaustion & often the problems I was trying to avoid were self-fulfilling prophecies because of my condition. Within my safe, supported life, that condition is now well managed, complete with solid boundaries & a clearer, consistent perspective; thus, I went out searching for job-based purpose & fulfillment, carrying the weight of my previous failures with me.

In order to avoid disastrous guilt & shame, I must always remember I was sick & not properly taking care of myself. As a teacher, I often took jobs that demanded more hours & energy than I had then, requiring much structure & space outside of work to recuperate & deal with my disorder. In preparing for this new job, I thought a lot about what with wrong at my other jobs. At a ranch for adults with intellectual disabilities, where I taught day classes such as creative writing, public speaking, & golf cart driving, my focus was constantly pulled away from my students & the classes, & I was forced to deal with organizational dysfunction, ultimately outside of my control. This disruption brought down upon me much undeserved stress & responsibility.

Many of my other pitfalls in jobs have been because of a disconnect between my need to manage my disorder at the time & a heap of responsibility. I held it together for a solid year at this awesome preschool in Austin, as an assistant teacher; I really excelled at the hands-on teaching/learning approach. Again, however, when they promoted me to Director of Operations, the mess of managing the self & the weight of managing others was too heavy for me to carry. Same was true this past summer when I tried a couple jobs with local businesses--working on cars, waiting tables--my need to manage my disorder actively incompatible with learning new skills in a high-stress environment.

This time I was looking for a job that would utilize my skills, while also being flexible. Mostly, I am most cautious of not overextending myself. The best jobs I have ever had since the onset of my disorder’s symptoms were task-driven, active, & independent. Most recently, at a farm in Austin, I excelled in my job sorting, washing, & packing vegetables for restaurants & grocery stores, able to listen to podcasts/music, work at my own pace, & focus on completing my to-do list each shift. I think it is why I’ve always excelled working for myself--be it handyman stuff or writing/tutoring. The task is straight forward, keeps me focused, & is solely my responsibility. 

About a month ago, I took a job with a non-profit here that supports adults with developmental disabilities, as a direct support professional in a group home; it seemed like a solid gig for me, nightly tasks--medication, dinner, activities--in a setting that is designed to be nurturing. During orientation & training, I saw a very organized & professional system with clear goals focused on caring for these vulnerable individuals. Unfortunately, in practice, that was not the case, as I witnessed several cases of abuse, both mental & physical, each day I was there in my first four shifts, which, obviously, was triggering.

After addressing these issues with the management / leadership team, I was told that it was taken care of & not to file reports with the authorities. On my fifth shift, I witnessed both other employees on my shift screaming at the individuals in our care, putting their hands on them, & making demands outside of their role as a support professional. I tried to remind the staff members of the individuals’ rights & better tactics for interacting with them, but I was also battling my own symptoms, namely impulse control.

That all came to ahead when the male staff member began teasing one individual with low verbal capabilities & she got so upset it seemed she was having a seizure. I tried to calmly-yet-sternly confront him, to explain how his behavior was inappropriate & actually abuse, but he wouldn’t listen. I knew I had to remove myself from the situation, heading to my car to call the team leader. Somehow, he got ahold of her before I could & told her lies about what had happened, all while trying to intimidate me, standing next to me at my vehicle. After he hung up with her, the team leader called me, immediately scolding me based on what he had told her & not hearing my side. I couldn’t take it anymore.
​
I felt the embarrassment of being misportrayed & the recollection of my previous blunders all come flooding in. My hands went numb, my eyes went blurry, & eventually I blacked out on the drive home, frothing with anger & disappointment. This is all to say, yet another attempt to work didn’t, well, work out. Instead, we’re back to the drawing board, hoping to find a small business idea & side hustles that will sustain my financial needs while still allowing the space & flexibility for me to take care of my mental illness & do the work, like this blog, that I find necessary on that journey. Till then, I’m putting my energy into a few treasured relationships, my writing, & my day-to-day conversations, remembering that love is the greatest work.

​

I find that people have two, dare I say, polar opposite reactions to my negative behavior, knowing my bipolar diagnosis. On one side you have the Raving Randys, the no-nuance gang of "all bad behavior is bad behavior, period" crowd. On the other side are the Understanding Olgas, the folks who contextualize my behavior within my sickness, "That's bad, but I see where it comes from." Contextualizing, over condemning or justifying. There is a crowd that wants to give me a pass for all my negative behavior, an unnecessary & dangerous proposition. I'll say something inappropriate or not show up for three days, totally not in a mood swing or bipolar episode, & they'll just decide, "Ah poor guy, free pass!" totally letting me off the hook for simply being an asshole.

*

Once, my parents, my ex-wife, & I were getting in the car to head to dinner. I had forgotten something inside, so I hopped back in to grab it. On my way out, I had some song in my head, so I started air-drumming. My mom leaves over to my ex-wife & says, "I can't tell when he's having one of his spells or if he's just being weird."

*

My buddy CM, a neurologist, said he learned in med school that many bipolar folks don't finish projects, too energized by their mania to focus or too bogged down by their depression to follow through. He noted my organizational skills. I think it is a copy skill, not a character trait. I have a trail of unbusinessed: all my jobs, two divorces (of what I would call good marriages), etc. I think it also relateds to me being "okay" at a bunch of things--drums, cooking, handyman stuff--never getting my 10,000 hours in to be great, mediocrity as a form of unfinished. Instead, I've made a practice of planning so that I don't get swirled up in my manic energy or sucked under the weight of depression. To put that energy to work, I must have a plan.

*

I relistened to John Lockley, sangoma (a kind of shaman) on You Made It Weird w/ Pete Holmes today. From the moment I heard this episode a couple of years ago, I felt a kinship to John's journey. Born in apartheid South Africa, he was  a white guy drawn to the indigenous coulture, fiting in neither spiritually in his white culture nor racially in the tribe that later adopted him. He was very sick, lost in the dream world, ravaged by his unfulfilled calling as an emapth, a wounded healer, a sangoma. It is often how I feel in battling this bipolar disorder, stuck with all the traumas & feelings & confusions, both my own & others, & it literally makes me very ill. Right now, I'm focused on doing what he says, to connect to humanity, moving beyond just being a human. He says we must lead with our wounds. My illness, my losses, my connections to the dead--these are my wounds. How do I begin to be my sbest self with those at the forefront?

*

My view on my ex-wife D leaving has been shifting lately, as I process my grief, understand the dynamics better, & find hope in the future for the first time in a long time. Right now, I'm in awe of the bravery & commitment leaving took of her. Her house, her dog, her husband, her plans, she felt the danger grave enough to leave all that behind.

*

I've been realizing, at least with mental illness & mental health pitfalls, it is really hard to see how sick you are, make judgements & adjustments, & get better while you're in the midst of the sickness, which, I know, sounds like a hopeless statement. Simply, it is hard to tell how sick you are when you're sick. When I'm in extended episodes, I cannot see hwo irrational my choices are, hwo hurtful my actions are, how counterintuitive all of it is to getting well & feeling safe. Instead, it isa  fake-out blur where everything I do seems right within the heightened moment. That's why, when stable, the thought of possible episodes & the recollection of previous ones is so scare & embarrassing. No one likes being out-of-control!

*

Meditation has proven itself a useful tool for dealing with my impulse control problems. Whenever I feel a charged action--argument, sexual activity, random purchase--coming on, I take a moment to find my break (my anchor) & start letting the thoughts sift. There, in that head space, I can view the impulse as an object separate of myself, able to decide if it is a positive or negative behavior in line with my values & needs.

​

In terms of my episodes, when I’m feeling imbalanced & vulnerable, I’ve learned that my two main triggers are embarrassment & fear of abandonment, which is ironic, since my behavior historically has led to a high degree of both. My sometimes-bizarre symptoms--hypersexuality, erratic mood swings, physical outbursts--& mood episodes have pinned me to the memory of many friends & acquaintances as a fool, a nutbag, a psychopath, distinctions that flood me with self-consciousness & have stolen many worthy relationships. Regardless of whether or not I was in control or made the conscious choice to do those things is some useless debate; for better or for worse, this is me: 99% of the time a typical dude moving through the world with this ugly, mess, & destructive 1% tagging along.

When I texted my mom an article by Jule A. Fast, entitled “Three Bipolar Disorder Symptoms No One Wants To Talk About,” I added, “I’ve never felt so seen.” Really, I think I meant that I’ve never seen myself so clearly, as my three loudest symptoms happen to be the ones JAF calls out. These are the ones that create a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy with the abandonment & embarrassment. Both my divorces, the loss of numerous major friendships, my inability to hold a job,  & my blacklisting from the poetry community can all be linked to these three symptoms. Thanks to this article, I feel validated & given permission to talk about them.

When my therapist SW read my ex-girlfriend LR’s essay, she said I see a very sick man in these words. My mom’s best friend, an LCSW, echoed that recently in response to my abuser essay, citing the manic nature of the violence, linked to both psychosis & memory loss, not a hunt for power & control, as the catalyst. The typical Midwestern boy-fighting never phased out the way it did for many of my peers; despite consistent counseling & much effort, my “black-outs,” as LR called them, took my body over, often leading to verbal & physical aggression. In her article, JAF admits to chasing down cars who flipped her off; I went through a phase of that in Austin, coming to mid-chase. Before I was managing my symptoms & noting my triggers, I was getting into shouting matches--with my partner, with friends, with strangers--once a week, often ending in me hitting a wall or other hard object, an ugly-but-necessary release of energy.

These violent tendencies were often nudged along by the second symptom noted, psychosis. These were the most baffling elements, at first very mild--errant sounds, whispering voices, paranoid delusions that never got off the ground. As my then-undiagnosed disorder progressed, they increased, intersecting & heightening my mood episodes. I didn’t know until last month that “[p]eople with bipolar disorder only have psychosis during a manic or depressed mood swing,” as JAF says. We see it all over my personal history--misreading another’s intentions as aggressive & disrespectful, becoming convinced that someone was out to get me, a cacophony of sounds literally drowning out my better judgement--but only in those times when my moods were off-kilter. Paired with increased irrationality, these psychotic elements escalated the situation to disastrous effects.

Then, in the aftermath, I am left alone with the guilt, embarrassment, & little or no memory of the situation, much like a black-out drunk. This is a frustrating one for me because I’m so high-functioning in other like areas, such as reading comprehension & direction-following; things I’m normally good at--listening, telling stories, etc.--become very difficult around & in episodes. I have physically harmed & emotionally traumatized two of the people I’ve loved most in this life, along with verbally & emotionally abusing many others I care about, & I have no recollection of those events, beyond their stories & the occasional dream. I cannot describe the heart-breaking & bewildering disconnect of this large regret-without-the-memory. 
​
In the past, this memory loss has often been misconstrued as untrustworthy or not caring. I hope being up front about this stuff helps for the future. As Denise Mann points out in her article “Bipolar Disorder and Anger: Understanding & Getting Control of Irritability,” the key is becoming aware of the stressors, situations, & internal signs that open me up to these now-talked-about symptoms. I’ve accepted the fact that I’ll battle these possibilities all my life. What I won’t do anymore is stay silent about them, letting the surprise & fear dictate how I handle them.

​

How are we all not constantly asking for forgiveness? All day we're just walking around farting & cutting in line & dropping stuff & forgetting things & being rude. It's really quite shameful.

*

I've been having sleeping problems ever since a drunk friend of my parents, having found out I was having a tough mental health week, showed up randomly at my house, demanding to be let in right in the middle of an episode cycle. Her boundary breaking has left me very paranoid at night, prone to delusions & hallucinations. It takes me about ten to twelve hours to get a decent six hours of rest. I am trying a better evening routine--less late night food & electronics, evening meditation session, melatonin gummies--but there is an imbalance with my sense of safety. Reason number 14,763 why I miss living with DS: I hate sleeping alone.

*

I was relistening to Maria Bamford's incredible stand-up special from this year, Weakness is the Brand, & the last bit is about saturation point, a concept where emotions of a moment get too high, ensuring further escalation & possible damage if the person continues in the confrontation. I was thinking about how this relates to my anger outbursts. I erupt because I've hit that saturation point, much quicker & much more intensely than others, often without warning or obvious trigger. I have to be even more proactive & attentive. It is probably why I have a very low tolerance for bitching & bickering. I need to concentrate!

*

I had a long chat with a lawyer the other day about my appeal for disability benefits. In the wreck of fluoxetine hypomania, COVID sinking in, my new diagnosis, & DS's leaving, it felt impossible to work, to string together six to eight hour chunks without dangerous symptoms. Up till this week, I carried that feeling, which translated into the case he was going to build, that I couldn't hold a full-time job because of my disorder. Ultimately, I decided not to pursue the case, because white it might be true now, it certainly isn't the goal & doesn't seem like I'll be long-term disabled in that way. I'd rather put that effort into getting well, baby steps towards being my version of an independent adult. 

*

I realized yesterday that I over-corrected intense emotions--anger, sadness, joy, fear--in response to their uncontrollable appearance in my bipolar episodes, almost banishing them from my "normal" life." I think a huge part of 2021 will be allowing these normal feelings back into my emotional range, building trust with myself to not fall captive to spells, going overboard.

*

I sleep in a twin bed now. My wife left & I couldn't stand that big California King. I am not a California King. I am just a lonesome Hoosier with too much bed. So, I just said, fuck it, & started sleeping in the twin bed in the spare room. My twin, in case you were wondering, is my grandpa, who died in this same bed a few months ago. But don't worry, I washed the sheets!

*

​Sometimes I worry I've read too many poems to be a normal person!

Yesterday on  my daily walk with Ginny Bug across the family field I noticed this bright streak in the sky. I texted my conspiracy-willing friend JL; his three-year-old daughter said it was an angel. Then I saw six or seven more farther off down the horizon. I called my dad. He said they were probably just airplanes. JL texted me a website wehre you can track planes flying over your area. They were planes, but they still might also be angels.

*

Following the last week-and-a-half's grief fest, spiraling in & out of bipolar spells, I've been putting my now-manic energy toward reshaping this house, my routine, my life to fit one, me. It was intended, built, for two, but that is no longer so. Thus, it is necessary that each item, each choice, each plan is for me, not DS & I. Funny how the fact of her leaving isn't enough to make it such.

*

I read an article today about anxiety in bipolar folks. It separated anxiety as a symptom & anxiety as a coexisting condition. It seems my anxiety is a symptom of my bipolar disorder since it surfaces as irritability in stressful moments only during mood episodes.

*

I finally had to get rid of the dining table chairs DS reupholstered because every time someone would come over they'd say, "Wow, those chairs are cool," & I'd tell the story of DS teaching herself that skill. They'd leave & I'd sit in one of those chairs alone & cry. Even when I posted them on Facebook to get rid of, a bunch of people commented about how awesome those chairs were. Fuck!

*

My friend JC, since finding out of this recent pitfall, she texts every afternoon, "How are you doing today, friend?" I'm a little surprised I don't find it annoying; rather, it is very touching, a part of my mindfulness routine, a moment where I must turn awareness inward, "Yeah, how am I doing today?"

*

​The most impactful interpersonal key might be to honor another's perception of reality, regardless of whether or not it aligns with my own or the true sense of nature. Think I disrespected or hurt you? I'm sorry. Feel that your life is in the dumps, or that the world is against you? What a terrible burden to carry. How can I help to alleviate some of that pressure? See bugs crawling all over you or a ghost in the corner of the room? Whoa, scary, let's get that taken care of!

*

I was talking to SJ the other night about my intense commitment to reason & rationality. I want to be as grounded & reasonable as possible in my life, full reliant on knowledge, information, & processing, as the hallmark of my life. I think it stems from my reaction to my bipolar disorder--an illness whose episodes strip me of all rationality & reasonableness. How emotional, how confused, how ignorant I can easily become is embarrassing at best & deadly at worst. Thus, when I can control it, can make my choices align with my values, I want to do so.

“But what if I'm like a flag factory, that only manufactures giant red flags?” - Maria Bamford

When someone leaves someone for a reason later explained, does anyone hear it? What if I’ve been shouting “You’re making a huge mistake” at the wall since I was nine? Can a family lineage can be any number of things? A particular number of divorces? The ancestral index to fight/flight? Has it ever felt like one moment you’re looking through the magnifying glass & the next you’re the dead bug on the windshield of the Toyota Yaris heading west? What is a dealbreaker for you? Do you put more emphasis on the diagnosis or the symptoms? Is it this simple? What if neither of us committed to me getting better? Have you ever heard of Jonathan Haidt? Do you know what he told us about the social intuitionist model -- intuitions first, strategic reasoning second? Do you remember the Glauconian model -- appearance more important than reality? Where are you coming from? Can we add “I’m doing what’s best for you” to the Mount Rushmore of Bullshit? If your partner is ill, how long do you wait for them to get better & under what conditions? What are warning signs coming from the other end? What are signs a partner might quit on you? What if I told you she said she wouldn’t date someone with a disability, would leave a partner who was transgender? What would others think of me for saving this? What would others think of me for leaving this? What is with all this “conscious uncoupling hoopla” anyhow? Who would’ve chosen “live apart as some weird special marriage” rather than this void? Does it sound weird coming out of my mouth, “I believe in vows?”  Is a mental illness a life sentence? Is mishandling a mental illness a life sentence? How about twice? “Haven’t we all been punished enough?” When someone gives up on you, doesn’t it feel like the world has been given permission to do the same?

​