" Easy to Hate Not Easy To Love 28 Years of Being Nuts Around People"

When I was 16 I was finally diagnosed Bipolar, and by all accounts and familial witness statements it was about time. My crazy coming out was not some cryptic Zapruder film like moment replayed over and over again by my loved ones and family. It was a wildly known fact.

   I was and still am not easy to Love for most and I am still easy to hate for some but not all. I am sure a lot of people can say that, hell no one is perfect or everyones friend, that is just too creepy to imagine just look and Tony Robbins and you will understand. But I come with a list of optional emotional accessories that would put a new car dealer to shame. Piggybacking on my illness are a whole host of psycho-social issues that makes being close to me at times difficult. I am also very outspoken a gift I received at age 17 from my grandfather once I found my voice and my shyness ebbed away.

 By behavior has left a wake of emotional detritus behind me and I have burned bridges, almost exclusively personal bridges, maybe because my profession tended to attract folks like me and they can tolerate a lot of shit. I am not mean, despite the tenor of my posts, tweets and conversations. I get that a lot and I can be very polarizing, which I am very aware of and a lot of you know. But I am actually sweet, for those who get to know me. But there is the rub, I do not let many people in, I let you in the yard, on the porch but in the house that I am not so good at (See Fear of Abandonment).

  So who the fuck likes me? I was lucky to be married to a wonderful woman over a decade. She hated me too at first when she did not know me and only agreed to a date to get me out of her hair. She was an amazing woman, with a huge capacity to Love, Forgive, Tolerate and most of all a sense of humor. She let me love her first, that was one of the keys, because only then did I open my front door and let her off the porch. I am good at relationships not starting them for that very reason. I am emotionally guarded, it comes from my illness, mixed with social developmental speed bumps etc but what really matters is that I keep people away. Mrs Badger would not take that crap and firmly yet patiently coaxed me open. I did some really fucked uop shit when she was alive and she still Loved me warts and all. I always wondered how anyone could love me, I am a fucked up mess. She did, in some way I gave her something that no one else did, and all my crap was worth it, I was never abusive, I did not yell, and I still do not. I always respected her and laughed at her bad jokes. Still it was not easy, when you are away on a biz trip and you come home to find out that your husband sold all the furniture and then bought all new stuff in a manic Martha Stewart moment you have to take a second to question your relationship decisions. Still she and others stood by me and still do. I am lucky to have some long standing friendships because I am not a easy friend.

    Today in some kind of way I protect others and myself by not letting them off the porch it is by no means altruistic. I dont do anything really stupid and you are my friend my porch friend. All this changed when Mrs. Badger died. My porch got smaller my yard larger and weirder. \

 For almost 6 years now I have been in a self induced emotional exile, fearful that no one would love me, or want to be around me for more than a short while. This has added to my aura of polarization. And it is not easy to change. I am working on this very hard. it is not easy or right now natural for me, but I am working on it. My yard is getting smaller, cleared of debris and some of you are coming inside already.

 I am making new friends and this is trust me on this scary as shit, scarier than anything I have ever done before and I have done and been some scary ass places the least of which is in my own head. So to the people getting to know me and who want to get to know me better. Be patient, gentle, have a sense of humor, and I hope that you will find in me as a friend what others who have known me for years have found. I am not sure what that is, but it works for my wife and others and maybe I can add something to your lives that makes it a little better.

 loving someone is never blind, it is just love. loving someone living with a mental illness is not easy but for some worth the trip. It may not be me, but it could be someone else. This post was one of the hardest I have written as to admit you are easy to like sucks. But the time was right. I hope you all can open your doors and let those screaming people off your porch the noise is driving me nuts.......................

"My Inner Owl Vs. My Darkness"

 Fumbling in the darkness we have trouble navigating around things that are familiar to us, stubbing our emotional toes, tripping over personal detritus all the while we seek light, answers to our lives that will guide us forward.

 I have been trapped in this darkness for a while now, stumbling, bumping into some things repeatedly injuring my soul and heart along the way. Can I still summon my "Inner Owl" which allows me to see in my darkness? I get moments of my inner owl showing me clear paths to light, but only if I accept his brutal honesty. My medical situation mixed with my crazy has left me in a pretty dark space. A space of which I share little, leaving small emotional bread crumbs so as people who care about me can see my outline but not stand next to be in my  darkness.

 I am a frightened and hurt little boy, I hide my fear through my humor, and by keeping people away. I do not want to have people watch me die, as part of me feels that I do not deserve the love of others and part of it is a selfish hurt animal response to being in pain, to hide away. To give myself clearer vision in the dark I must admit my deep sadness, loneliness and almost pathologic drive not to let people in

 Even right now I am thinking of my escape by moving someplace where I know no one and living out what is left of my life alone, with no connections, no closeness, so I can no longer cause pain in others lives. This inner fight is a product of many things in my personality, my being an only child. Which has given be some protection from loneliness, to my on and off battle with low self esteem. I love people but most of the time do not like myself and today is one of those days.

 So as my inner owl says there is light in love and openness my dark self who lives in my minds shadows says just run and isolate as that will stop your pain, because it has in the past. I miss "ME" a lot and fear he is gone forever and no owl anywhere can see light in my kind of darkness. Anyone have a flashlight?

"Relationship Structural Engineering or How to Mend Bridges"

 

pic from www.tdot.state.tn

  
Sometime in our quest for self discovery we leave in our wakes a crumbling social infrastructure of broken or in alot of cases personal bridges of disrepair. We pass through the lives of so many people on our journey, some we remember, so we do not and even some we had harmed or had harmed us. Also we neglect alot of our social bridges taking them for granted thinking they will always be strong and be there to carry us when we need them. This is not true, if left un- tended un -cared for these bridges fall apart.

   Now that I see that my life is what it is, I sit and think about these bridges, the ones left, taken for granted, the ones that I crushed like Godzilla in Tokyo and have decided it is time for a infrastructure upgrade. I as you all know can be a asshat, I have in my past treated some friends poorly or worse taken alot of people for granted. I intend to change this starting today.

  It is not easy for us to mend these relationships, sometimes we forget what we are mad over or we are ashamed of how we acted. In the cases of taking some people for granted it is as easy as a phone call... not a e-mail or a facebook poke or a tweet, get away from your digital shield and actually talk to someone.
 See and own your place in a disagreement, let it go it is poison in your well. If someone you care about harmed you, well maybe they have changed, maybe they need to re-build as well.

 This is cheap therapy folks and it will only free your soul. If the bridge cannot be mended, ok at least you inspected it first. But you may rebuild a old relationship or save a current one. Time to inspect our lives because with a poor foundation nothing will stand not even ourselves..........

"The Stigma of Crazy or No I Do Not Bark at Squirrels"

Nuts, Crazy, Insane, Shitzo, Bonkers, Not Quite Right, these are a few of the terms people use to describe people living with mental illness and by no means the only ones there are hundreds if not thousands. No other illness has so many adjectives, don't believe me just try and find other names for Diabetics. So why this? why my condition? Why is there such a stigma on Mental Illness?

 I have felt the sting of the stigma of mental illness, have felt the nervous disconnect the mistrust people have with someone who is living with Mental Illness. It comes in many flavors kinda like a Baskin Robins of Stigmata. We have all seen the severely schizophrenic homeless who wear tattered clothing and have conversations in with the voices that their brains produce in their heads. Some will laugh at them, a lot of people do, others will cross the street to avoid them. Most never try and talk to them like the humans they are.

 Part of the stigma of Mental Illness is that we are all bad people, who are delusional, manipulating not to be trusted. Why is this, I feel it comes from many places so I will list a few for you;

1. Lack of Knowledge: Most people just plain do not understand Mental Illness and have a problem connecting chemicals in the brain with behavior / mood. There is little info or attention given to crazy, we do not have ribbons, or runs few to no celebrity faces, so we are a unknown and what we do not know scares us.
2. Media: The media does a poor job of portraying people living with Mental Illness, we are more times than not seen as Murders, Abusive, Thieves, drunks, addicts and general well crazy folk. Show me one character in the media who is living with Mental Illness in a positive way.
3. Past Experiences; There are lots of us who had a Bipolar parent, spouse or sibling that may have harmed us physically or mentally. The so-called family black sheep who is looked at with pity and or scorn. These folks have a axe to grind with everyone who lives with a mental illness and generally puts everyone in the same straight jacket.

I am very open in my life about my living with Bipolar, I generally tell anyone whom I am getting to know that I am. This is a double edged sword or should I say maybe triple edged because I get three usual responses. the nope stay away, the ok I will let you in but you are still crazy and that scares me, and finally the who cares I like you anyway it is part of who you are.

 There is even  a "Caste System" of socially ok crazy folk and the really sad thing is this caste system is also followed by other mental health patients and professionals . The people who suffer from anxiety disorders or low level OCD and manageable depression are at the top. They are the safe, the harmless, we all feel for someone who has anxiety or depression. Then we move on to the Major Depression & Major anxiety-OCD they make the world a little more uncomfortable. Next on the stigma plate are the scary ones, Bipolar ooooh it is like a boogyman, to some real fucking crazy and they walk among us almost invisible ready to pounce. Then the bottom of the caste system  are the people living with schizophrenia or anti-social disorder they are seen as less than human by both the general public and alot of professionals.

 How do we change this Stigma? I blog about my crazy as personal way to beat it down. I speak about Mental Illness in public and my openness or self outing of my mental illness is also a way of breaking this stigma. But more needs to be done, we need a run or two maybe a walk. we need a ribbon and celebrities to come out of the Crazy Closet and profess their "Mad Pride". Because we are not less then, we are not deserving of discrimination, or to be treated as criminals because we are ill. Would you put a diabetic in dirty hospital ward because he or he stopped taking their insulin? Would you cross the street to avoid someone with MS? Or maybe you would not be friends with someone who had Hypothyroidism. I know these sound silly but it is no different. No one with Mental Illness did anything to contract or bring on their disease it just happened.

  Please join me in working to lessen the Stigma of Mental Illness because it is the right thing to do.

"E.C.T. From Myths to My Reality" My personal journey with Mental Illness

pic courtesy of  msnbc.msn.com

As many of you know I have spent a life battling Mental Illness in the form of BiPolar Disorder a mood disorder characterized by extreme highs and extreme depression. After years of struggling and taking so many pills and combinations of pills to treat it seemed that I could not find a good balance between health and having any personality that was non-medicated I reached a turning point.
  Over a year ago I once again slipped into the black shroud of major depression, a depression that became or always was resistant to medications. I was in a hopeless place not wanting to live, yet unwilling to give up I sought out help. One of the benefits of my life long battle is that I am self aware of my illness, especially when I am depressed, so I went to hospital on my request and with the guidance of my Dr..
 Soon I feared the same medication merry go round which would only offer me temporary refuge from mind.......

 E.C.T. ( Electroconvulsive Therapy ) which was first introduced in the 1930s and became used widespread in the 50's is a treatment in which they use electricity passed through the brain to induce a seizure. Even from the beginnings it was apparent that ECT worked quicker, longer and more effeciently than medication for treating resistant or severe depression and bipolar disorder.
 But in the early days of ECT like very early surgery they did not use anesthesia the patient was awake, it was painful and caused severe memory loss.  Most of us connect ECT with Jack Nicholson's character in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" a scene of barbaric torture ending in a mercy killing. In 1978 after much controversy ECT was for the most part stopped.
 In recent years ECT has made a comeback, now done in a operating room under anesthesia ECT is now seen as a good treatment for resistant depression.

  This brings me again to the beginning of my post. I am in hospital with a unyielding depression. The Dr. in the hospital during a meeting with me brought up ECT. My head spun and out of my mouth came, "No FUCKING way are you shocking my brain!" This Dr. whom I now can say saved my life both physically and in a amazing quality of life kind of way explained how modern ECT worked.
 He asked me to watch a video that showed the treatment. He explained the possible side effects, like short term memory loss. He also informed me of the difference between bi-lateral and uni-lateral ECT.

Bi-Lateral ECT: electrodes are placed on both sides of the head and the electric
                         charge is sent across the brain. this type of ECT causes the most
                         memory loss.
Unilateral ECT: One electrode is placed on the side of your head and the other
                         on top of your head. Much less or no memory loss.

  I spent two days stressing over my decision, do I risk loosing  memories or worse, my mind was reeling at thoughts of being the BC Provincial vegetable. But i knew what my other option was. Meds lots of meds and the fear that soon I would be back where I was at the moment, wearing a set of green hospital PJs and paper slippers.

 I agreed to ECT, was I scared? Hell yes for the days leading up to my first treatment I was crazed with images of me sitting forever in a corner drooling only speaking of cheese and not knowing who I was. The night before my first ECT i could not sleep, afraid I would die or worse loose who I was. Morning arrived, and they took me to the recovery room of the hospital, placing me on a stretcher they put in a IV line, the Dr. but jelly on my temple and the top of my head and i met the Anesthesiologist. He explained that they would be injecting a strong muscle relaxer so my body would not move when they induced a seizure and a general to put me to sleep. Soon I felt the warm fuzz of the meds and I was out cold.
 I woke up in what to me seemed like minutes but was really 5 to 6 minutes of being under. Surprised that I felt no pain, knew who I was and what i talked about with the nurse before ECT i was relieved.

 They scheduled me for 9 treatments over a couple of weeks. It was around the third ECT treatment that I began to notice a difference in my mood. I was able to smile a bit again and the thoughts of dying left me. By the end of my 9 course meal of electricity by depression was gone, I suffered no memory loss and i felt great. My meds were reduced to a third of what I was on prior and to this day I have not had a depression or mania relapse.

 ECT is still a controversial treatment, surrounded by fear and for some people i know memory side effects. What I do know is that it worked for me and my quality of life since has been great. I do not think without it I could be going through what I am in my life at the moment without sinking back into depression. I am grateful for my care I received in a involved, collaborative respectful manner by my healthcare professionals.

 Mental Health carries a stigma, people are scared or just do not understand it. I write about it to share with others that living with it can be ok. That it is like any other chronic illness and just needs light and compassion shined on it. If you do suffer from depression or know someone who does seek help because it is there. Also be open to treatment options. Yes ECT may not be for everyone but it is another tool in the battle to regain life in the darkness of depression and bipolar disorder.

Merry Christmas from The X-Mas Badger

Hello all time for my 1st Annual Holiday blog posting, if I am alive or not in prison next year I hope to follow up on a theme.
  The holidays have always been bitter sweet to me, from my rabid jealousy of my non Jewish friends over x-mas trees and holiday cheer, to what to me was a loss of x-mas with the lose of family & friends. Hence the X-mas Badger, he arrived this year to spray the world with his bah humbug musk. And welcoming others to join in his anti x-mas weaseling.
 But alas you all tamed the Xmas badger. Well not completely he will still roam in search of booze, women of questionable moral fiber and cheese. But he was moved this year by the support of friends and strangers alike.
 As most of you know I have Cancer, basically a cancer hat trick one turned into three different varietals. I hit the healthcare lottery.
 One of my visiting friends is of a rare type, and scares the musk out of the X-mas badger and myself. But fret none of you. I am determined to fight, and with humor and grace ( the only kind of grace I can muster. if you know me you will understand).

 So here is my Holiday gratitude list:

1) My Family, we may not be big but we are close & I love you so much I cannot even say.
2) My long Time friends, again distance may separate us but it has never severed our long time connections.
3) to my New Friends, I could not be making through these holidays without you. With unselfish warmth you have welcomed me into your homes and lives. My heart is truly full with your kindness. But a hooker would still be nice.

The X-Mas badgers wishes you all a joyous happy holidays & new year. If I could give you all anything it would be you being able to feel the love and support that you all gave me this year. So it is ok to embrace the X-mas badger in all of you, some more than others but I digress. I mean embrace life, love, fun & happiness. Follow you hearts, dreams, and stomach and you too will be full.

Merry Christmas,

The Happy X-Mas Badger.

100 things you may or maynot know about me part 1

1) I have been married twice. Once to a Borderline Personality Disorder, Bulimic, abusive women and again to a magnificent partner in crime, friend, lover, lousy cook, compulisive sock folder, and amazing artist. And best of all she loved and enjoyed crazy me.

2) I live for food! a devoted carnovore and dedicated locovore ( food from withing 200 miles of my home)

3)I currenly listen to mostly female singer song writers ranging from Nanci Griffith, to Kate Rusby to Patty Larkin.
4) I love dogs especially border collies, as they are smarter than most of girls in Kitts and wear less lululemon.
5) i am owned by a oratorically offensive Yellow Nape Amazon Parrot named Randell.
6)I will steal the skin off of extra crunchy KFC chicken
7) I have a un-natural fear of crows and clowns
8) I am Bi-Polar and proud
9) obsessed with everything odd and disturbing on  the web.
10) I live on a boat
11) I am both very social and shy
12) I believe that dogs were placed here to show us pure love & and cats to show us pure codependency.

13)I have a huge crush on Flo the progressive Insurance commercial girl
14) Born in Montreal General Hospital and have loved poutine ever since
15) Does not understand love less marriages
 16)Have now been to every continent next goal visit every dollar store that actually which everything is actually dollar, from China and covered in lead paint.
17) I have met Bill Clinton
18) I have got drunk with Chelsy Handler (and possibly snogged her)
19) Favorite Sandwich "The Patty Melt soon to be followed by the :Monte Cristo

20)  I own a snuggie
21)I have tried and failed at Internet dating
22)Has been known to drink way too much but still keep it classy
23)  Still believes in Love
24) Is find funny women sexy
25) I really do like people

Yippie for my first post

After abandoning my last Blog like a 15 year old girl dumping her love child in a dumpster behind Walmart I am back...

The voices in my head said they needed an outlet on the internets.. So here I am, soon you will be able to follow my very diseased mind as I fumble and struggle with the world I encounter on my daily voyages. As a journalist, liberal and devote Bi-Polar man and frequent world traveler ( i am still amazed that I am allowed a passport and access to business class seats on a plane) I see the world through a pharmacutically altered mind. So sit back, leave your political correctness at the door and enjoy. feel free to comment, scream, laugh give me topics ect. But I draw the line at LOL cats, offers of religious cures for my lovely bi-polarness, Nigerian money scams or used underwear from young republicans.
I always welcome gifts of Beer ( preferably Belgian ), Badgers, donations to the NDP, Petions to stop the proliferation of Yam Fries, photos of couples who are wearing matching clothing, anything anti hipster, or a promise not to vote for Stephen Harper when we have another national election.