"I'm fine, but I'm bipolar..." (Carrie Fisher)

Bipolar disorder can be a great teacher. It's a challenge, but it can set you up to be able to do almost anything else in your life. (Carrie Fisher)

By now you know I get a devotional every day from the Purpose Driven Life. This was in today's:

"Eugene Debs, who ran for president of the United States as a third party candidate in 1912, had this to say while campaigning:

As long as there is a lower class, I am in it.
As long as there is a criminal element, I'm of it.
As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free." (John Fischer)

It made me think about the former vice presidential candidate that just died. Good old whats-his-name, the one who had to resign his candicacy when he revealed he'd been admitted to a mental hospital for depression.

Thank God I live in a time where even Newsweek magazine thinks depression in men is important enough that they have a cover story on it. (Not that I've read it, but I think I will now, and I hope that guy is mentioned in it, for historical reasons.)

Yesterday on the bus, I worked on a few surveys for a study I was in a while back. When I finish them, I'll get $45. That will pay for the bus ride yesterday, thankyouverymuch. I am forever frustrated at the literature on bipolar that comes across my desk to review DDC numbers. Which is probably why I'm not out there looking for information, since what I see is so pedantic, so not helpful to ME. BJ keeps telling me I should write a book, and I will, eventually...

Anyways. I've been diagnosed with bipolar for over seven years now and was very surprised to see these as options on the survey, and thought, wow, are these bipolar qualities? Because they sure are things I suffer from, and had I known that was a bipolar quality...well, if you don't know why you do what you do...

Here are the statements:

It is important that people admire me.

When I get new ideas, I must tell people at once and at length so that they admire me.

If I notice something new, I must make every effort to think about how it connects with everything else.

There might be more, I still have at least three more packets left to work on. But wow! It is important in my tiny mind that I am admired. I do go on about new ideas. I do make every effort to connect things in my life to each other. All these things are crazymakers in my life.

I'm still on the therapist hunt. There's a possibility with the place downstairs from where I see my psychiatrist. It would combine group therapy and individual therapy, depending on how well you were doing. (If you're doing better, group. If you're not so good, individual.) I have never really liked group therapy, since I've never met anyone with bipolar that I liked. Isn't that horrible? It makes me feel like I must be this prima-donna that thinks she's better than everyone, which I suppose is sometimes true, but I hate that it could be...

They say that if you don't like a person, it could be because you see yourself in them.

This post is losing its steam. But I had to at least, you know, get these thoughts out, since I have to see how new ideas connect, etc. etc.

Go, and have good mental health!

And ugh, I've come back to an apartment that is so cluttered it's shutting me down, and I'm still taking decongestants every four hours.