I WAS HYPOMANIC YESTERDAY. Slept not a bit on Wednesday night and went to see my friend Paddadadster on Thursday morning. I was as excited as a 5-year old who believed Father Xmas had just scarpered back up the chimney leaving a sackload of presents.I met a friend of mine called Tommo who went to school near me. Every time I meet him he has busted knuckles. Today he had a broken arm. He was drinking and talking about being caned. Getting caned means getting off your head but his school was like mine, a former secondary modern (which means rough and that was the teachers not just the pupils) and just down the road from my school. There was a lot of corporal punishment back in the day which is stupid. It was over-used in my Dad's day and banned now so the kids no there is no deterrent. Luckily in my school it was normally just a shoe. I got it for forgetting RE homework. This was the 80s when whacking kids was going out of fash in England, but we were in Wales. Tommo said he got six of the best for smoking a ciggie "behind the bike sheds" (everything exciting happened behind the bikesheds eg at fantasy nonexistent schools getting what the newspapers call "a sex act"). We were both smoking ciggies and laughing. We were laughing about that and about his broken arm which he got for being drunk and stumbling in the dark.
The poor man said he lost his television (electrical fault) and I said if only I'd known he could have had one of mine. I used to have five, now I have at least four. He is one of the coolest people I know, even though he has busted knuckles. Knowing him he was fighting in somebody else's honour. I know Tommy well he is a nice guy.Pinky phoned me raving about her new memory foam mattress. I asked her whether her mental household is mixed sex she said yeah. I said why don't you say at breakfast it takes vagina prints and she laughed her head off.
I'm actually quite depressed today, my body is tired and my brain is acheing I feel like I have done something wrong and am suffering for it. Like I've done some great but unexciting bike sheds crime and my head is caned just the come down without any fun. I used to get bad down after speed and pretty bad after ecstasy. I feel like such an idiot for ever messing about with such drugs. [I haven't taken ecstasy or speed in over a decade with one exception about four years ago when I found speed in a tobacco tin at a bus stop...]
To try and cheer myself up I had a look through the DVDs at HMV. They say laughter is the best medicine and it does work. Meet the Fockers worked. Paddster asked wether I'd tried Little Fockers yet, but it came out over the new year period when I was mentally ill and won't be released until something like April 25 on DVD. I love Robert DeNiro and Barbra Streisand so I'll try Little Fockers. I bet it outdoes mirtazapine as an antidepressant.Sorry I wrote nothing last night as I say I really was tired. Having been hypomanic and up all day I suddenly plummeted down in the evening and just had to go to bed and rest.
Illustrated: six cigarettes could get you six of the best; the cane and the gym shoe (the "dap") only got banned when I was about 16; memory foam ~ could have rude implications if you slept naked on your front...
DEPRESSION VIDEOS. I found these yesterday and put them on my random blog. Perhaps someone will find them useful:~~~~~~~
Dr Kay Redfield Jamison, author of the classic memoir An Unquiet Mind, is a sufferer of bipolar i disorder and head of a mood disorders clinic in Washington DC, USA. She is also author of Touched With Fire: Manic Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. She's talking here about her latest work, about suicide. In her lowest depression, an 18-month long double dip bipolar depression she attempted suicide with a deliberate lithium overdose. So she knows what she's talking about ...
Open University film: Coping with depression. This is really good. It goes through every aspect of depression including drug therapies and drug abuse (part 3) diagnosis (part 2) and the illness and its stigma (part 1).
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11 comments:
Gleds,
I have been struggling heavily with the depression of late, too. I think it's mostly the lack of damn sunlight here in Ohio. We even had snow last night! I'm dying. I'll feel a whole lot better when the sun comes back.
Hang in there. Love you tons.
SB
o my word, i dont know what happened to me. I woke up crap as usual and stayed like that, i cud not move, mum went chemist 4 me first time in 3 yrs. took hamper girl with her first time in3 yrs. i have wept and slept and wept and slept. i cud not stay awake, i tried but my eyes rolled back and slept again, more nightmares. i look horrendous and feel worse.brain ache, yes that too. i dont know y. luckily had done all shopping 4 the birthday 2 moz. was supposed to do all balloons and streamers and lights today, will have to do in morn. i cant have another day like that its her birthday. im scared, im sorry u dont need this, u need encouragement. o well at least u know u not alone feeling like u done something wrong and being punished ;-)
with love
x
SB: my Mum gets winter depression too, which shows that it's related to the bipolar I get. They say genetically I have the full manifestation, she has a partial manifestation. I questioned her closely whether she ever gets hypomanic but it sounds like no. Then again I never got hypomanic till occasionally in my 20s then this full mania thing happens. I'm just REALLY really glad I actually get higher highs than lower lows. REALLY lucky as I don't think I could handle going that low. I go low enogh as it is and I cannot take antidepressants for it as they send me nutty... y'know..!
BUGERLUGZ: maybe our moods are cycling in sync. I felt so shitty yesterday evening it was unreal now I oversleep. I'm not as shitty as I was Tuesday and Wednesday and as I say Thursday was an up. I have been a naughty boy with my meds (not taking them) I believed they were making me oversleep and get depressed now I find Im oversleeping without them so I may as well take them. I'm still antipsychoticked enough for the voices to still be gone so that's probably good.
I was going to say "don't worry about feeling bad" I think you know what I mean. I know you can't help how you feel but its not your fault youre obviously putting a lot of effort into life; its just a mood swing.
Aren't you taking antidepressants? What would happen if you stopped them? You know your mood should not be cycling like this. Baaaaaaaa. I just deleted a page of aaaas because I fell asleep on the A key. So just baaa humbug!
And bring back the cane for those obnoxious kids on the bus who give their schools a bad name in my dad's day they would have got 6 of the best in assembley which is OTT but there should be a fucking deterrent. If I was more together I would have written a piece on capital/corporal punishment and how death sentence isnt entirely a bad thing etc etc I do believe its a kindness to put murderers and nasty people down like sick animals. And yeah naughty kids should get whacked. Even though it was over-used in the past they should fucking get it when they take the piss and kids today do take the fucking piss big time because the know the teachers can basically do nothing discipline wise. Woo listen to Gledwood getting all responsible and uptight and political! Wow I'll be voting Tory next you wait!
I hope you feel better soon.
thanks 4 making me smile ;-)
as soon as i read "what would happen if u stopped taking them?"
(my a/d'S) i checked and i've missed 2 nights! defo not intentionally. was real tired last 2 nights and forgot. shit i bet thats why, well i hope thats y. I best still only take one tonight i suppose. Well that answers the question of what would happen if i stopped taking them. (yuk scary)
i got the cane once, in front of my sister, by headmaster! then she got it after me. tell u y another day. but they not got a clue what to do with the teenagers now, neither have i. stroppy just got excluded again for three days. then dares to come in and have a proper go at me cus i in bed ill for the first time in years. (just what i needed)
I was surprised u went to school in wales, i did for a year, very bad year though as was an anti english part of wales. but I love camping in wales, its beautiful, anywhere near a river, mountains, sea, waterfalls, roll on august . . .
i even burst into tears looking at reggie this evening all on his own.
that should give me something to cringe about tomorrow or next day.
thanks again
x
When I was at school, a girl got expelled for smoking. It was a nice girls' school for nice girls and we never got hit.
My daughter went to see Meet the Fockers when it first came out, in a very arty cinema in Islington, and all the other people thought it was going to be a high-class Robert de Niro film, and were quite disgusted at the farce. This, and the film, struck my daughter as very funny and she kept falling off her seat laughing.
I was in Welsh Wales I'm glad we had compulsory Welsh lessons, though I wouldn't have learned ANY unless I'd gone out and bought "Teach Yourself Living Welsh" which explained what our first-language Welsh teachers who had never LEARNED a language couldn't. They didn't even use words like "irregular verb" just "this is how it is you say this" which might sound really modern and a good way but compared to French and German which I also did the standard of teaching was dire. I learned far more from my Teach Yourself Living Welsh book than I ever did from those Welsh lessons. I got GCSE grade A in the end and we were the first year to get GCSEs (and the last year to get the cane ha ha!)
Tell me the headmaster story some time. Was he being a bastard or did you deserve it (or both?)
Z sorry your comment crossed my last one so I wasn't ignoring you I just didn't see it.
Our school was quite rough (discipline wise) because it had been 2ndary modern. Tommo is older than me so his still was 2ndary modern they were very rough cane/etc wise. Not so much the cane in my day (but they still did use that) but that gym shoe got worn out he probably had to change it every year.
I thought the acting and the script on the Fockers was v good. It's not "intellectual cinema verite" or whatever though, is it!
You know it's follow up to Meet the Parents which is probably a little less childish and yes they do milk the word "Focker" just about as much as they possibly can without being truly tacky..!
I've watched it about 20 times (not concentrating, it has to be said) it was in the wake of my last "breakdown" when I was putting myself back together and I just couldn't focus on anything, so it was very good and laughter really is a cool medicine ;-)
Wow, beating a student at school in the 80th ? even before in the 60th, the teacher would have been lynched by the parents !!
Laughter is indeed the best remedy ! I had a rough weekend behind me which knocked me out ( see it also happens to me) and I got so furious, that I was furious, that I got even more furious. Sounds crazy but it is like that. Since I have been with my 3 friends to the Carnival and have laughed so much, I feel good again ! Now the next Tsunami can come !
If only you could find people to laugh with and stop to analyse yourself too much !
You make me think of a cat who observes a mouse the whole day and night. The cat is one half of you and the mouse the other !
Gattina: yes they still beat children in British state schools up until about 1987 or 1988 when it was banned amongst much publicity. The problem now is there just is no deterrent to these kids. In my day nobody was seriously rude to a teacher ever, they knew they would go to the headmaster to get whacked. I'm not for whacking kids every day but it should be there was the last straw type thing. Now they just put kids on a 3 day holiday and tell them it's a punishment. The parents won't take time off work so the kids hang out down town!
I think Tommo is about 10 years older than me so he would have been at school in the 70s when it was even harsher. Up until the 60s and 70s and exceptionally the 80s you had secondary modern schools and grammar schools. The secondary modern schools concentrated on teaching practical subjects and the discipline could be very harsh by today's standards. There usually was one teacher who did the corporal punishment and only the headmaster did the really severe stuff with the cane. We were all terrified of this teacher. It makes me feel like I come from another age as I don't think kids today understand that some of our teachers really were scary. I don't see that you can have a scary teacher without a cane at least hidden in the cupboard. The culture has changed so much. Now we have POLICE down town outside McDonalds keeping order because the school kids are so unruly. That's why I say I don't agree with hitting the kids but what can you do when it's got so bad kids are stabbing each other in one very famous case about 20 boys chased a boy into a shop and stabbed him at Victoria station which is a huge railway station serving a lot of south London.
I avoid doing the self-analysis except where I think it might help. That's why I don't want to do counselling. I've done it to death and it's rolled out as a knee-jerk response. I'm tired of counselling. I decided to find out about this illness I'm supposed to have because it would be irresponsible not to, being as I obviously have the IQ to grasp what it's about but like you say I'm not into brooding on it.
When Im depressed I don't tend to think "I'm not depressed" I more think "I'm pissed off" or "I'm really exhausted" and I use comedy to try and raise my mood.
I'm OK some days when the manic mood comes instead I felt absolutely Lovely on most of Thursday. Again I don't "analyse" it really but I have to be aware I'm "hypomanic" just to keep myself in check. Otherwise if I'm not careful I will go in a record shop and spend £50 I can't afford on DVDs like I did a few weeks ago. I'm lucky I have so many really good films I now have stuff to watch when I'm a bit down.
Thanks for your support Gattina I appreciate your no nonsense attitude. I know you know about depression. I haven't got it really bad it's just that I'm OK for a few days (even high some days) then I go down and feel really pissed off with myself for letting that happen.
Next week I have an appointment with a new Mental Health team who will deal with my case including the methadone, so wish me luck with that I'm 50% really terrified and 50% really glad that FINALLY I get treated as one person with 2 problems instead of the care being scattered. Know what I mean!
The Fockers is one of the funniest movies ever. I have seen it several times and still laugh until tears come.
Caning kids over here would land a person in jail. My father used a belt on me a couple of time, and I still remember that. It was traumatic.
They banned whacking kids with anything (in sstate schools) in the mid/late 80s but it was too late for everyone in our year.
It would be illegal now because you're not allowed to leave a mark on your own kid if you hit them and you can see what that cane would have done to someone.
I still think they should bring it back kids are so obnoxious nowadays they need a few whacks and I can't believe I'm saying this.
I don't believe in judicial whipping or anything (except for burglars) but I do belive in the Death Penaldty I reckon most prison inmates want to die at some point in their sentence so the state could save a fortune in prison bills just by killing off inmates who volunteer for it. Or does this sound really screwy. I don't know whether my politics are Consrvative or Liberal. Honestly I don't I'm like a Death Penalty Liberal.... know what I mean!
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