"Bipolar & BiSocial My Life Long Struggle"

 1983 a shy somewhat introverted boy, some who knew him would say emotionally troubled, but sweet changed. 1983 was a life changing year for me, after a couple of years of severely struggling emotionally, bouts of  of depression unnoticed for the out of control mania that left the people who cared for me shaking their collective heads wondering what went wrong with me. I attempted for the first time and as we all know not the last to take my own life. Lucky for me that the ceiling joist in my closet was not strong or I would not be sitting here right now. My parents sent me for a short quiet stay in hospital to see what was wrong with me. A doctor whom to this day because of my mania cannot remember much other than those clicky swinging metal ball thing on his desk diagnosed me as Bipolar 1 . At first everyone sighed a collective sigh knowing finally what was wrong with me, still it my parents in some ways lived in denial that what I had was organic something seen as a defect and soon I learned to hide.

  I became great at hiding my depression and to some degree my mania, I was involved in activites that mania would be seen as normal, listen to punk music got a mowhawk and found a place to fit in it seemed. I still never felt comfortable anywhere and still to this day in some ways I still do not. I keep people at a distance for many reasons, if you are not close I cannot emotionally hurt you and vice versa you cannot hurt me when you leave. This has developed into a separation anxiety and social anxiety. My life to me seemed easier if life was on my periphery only being touched gently.

 Allowing people in has happened when I emotionally trust someone I can let them in and it is about degrees and levels. This all seems to contradict my outward gregariousness and friendliness that most of you know or have witnessed. I am comfortable talking in public, at parties etc, yet it is in my outer rings and what you see is me I am just on the other side of the emotional fence. This can and has lead people to not know what to make of me, it springs what I project, " lack of trust". How could you trust me if I never let you in?

  Now here I am on the web, on twitter getting or trying to know people and letting them in my emotional living room. I write about my life pretty openly I have talked about my failures, personality flaws, mistakes and a whole barrel of other emotional detritus. I am not perfect nor am I evil, I make mistakes based on a mixture of emotional and behavior traits that I am now working on even if for years they were so personally painful and repugnant that I hid them from myself.

 As I strive to open myself up, be a better person and make amends for damage I have done I only ask that if you have seen the good in me and are willing to be patient with me, that the good things you have seen or maybe know will come into focus. Last week I admitted publicly that I had lied to a friend and that when I am stressed or ill. I knew by doing so that I would open myself up for any fallout that that may have. This was one of the hardest things I have every done knowing that it would make me look guilty for everything from kidnapping the Lindburg baby, to the popularity of Snooki. This is a burden that I must bear if I choose to become more mentally sound.

 I am fighting every moment not to disappear into my personal rabbit hole and  live my life alone with people just out of my reach. I do not want to I like people and frankly care about a lot of you. I am just learning how to do it all over again.