I have bipolar disorder. I've been diagnosed since 2004 when it was known as Manic Depressive Disorder. I have been of and on medications since then. I'll get so crazy that I get a foot over the abyss before i catch myself and go back on a new combination. It is so frustrating starting so many different combinations where they work for a few months then quit. The side effects range from the benign weight gain to the horrendous impotence. If I could get on one brew that would just work I wouldn't really care what the side effects would be. I have enough kids and walk around as a zombie thinking in my own head most of the time anyway.

My depression cycles suck but easily recognizable to me. I'll look up and wonder when the last time I saw another human being? we live in a time of technology where isolation is so easy to be in but be able to put on a mask of connectivity via text or email. To many times people have bought my lies of just been busy to get together when in reality I just cant get out of the bed.

Depression symptoms may include sadness, anxiety, irritability, loss of energy, uncontrollable crying, change in appetite causing weight loss or gain, increased need for sleep, difficulty making decisions, and thoughts of death or suicide.

My job has changed from being in front of say 300 hundred people a day and being drawn out bit by bit to mostly being able to stay busy physically isolated from everyone else from work. At home its super easy to just get Zoe distracted to leave me in a brooding mood. I don't have anyone to answer to or be honest with about anything going on. In fact I have perfected the art of holding it together till 8 o'clock when she goes down to break down privately.

I started using methamphetamine's as a sort of self medication in 2003. Well first it was just fun but then I made the connection of if i was feeling bad I could use and feel normal. Not even super better just normal. When I'm in the funk sometimes there is just enough clarity to realize how down I am to fear staying down in that pit so I would do whatever i could to drag myself out. then I got addicted and screwed up my whole good plan.

My depression I fear but my mania I long for not so secretly. It's me to the extreme degree.

• Excessive happiness, hopefulness, and excitement

• Sudden changes from being joyful to being irritable, angry, and hostile

• Restlessness, increased energy, and less need for sleep

• Rapid talk, talkativeness

• Distractibility

• Racing thoughts

• High sex drive

• Tendency to make grand and unattainable plans

• Tendency to show poor judgment, such as impulsively deciding to quit a job

• Inflated self-esteem or grandiosity -- unrealistic beliefs in one's ability, intelligence, and powers; may be delusional

• Increased reckless behaviors (such as lavish spending sprees, impulsive sexual indiscretions, abuse of alcohol or drugs, or ill-advised business decisions)

I want to smile so big my daughter jumps into my lap
And I wanna tell her daddy's fine and always plans to be
Then take her in my arms
This is what we'll always see- Blue October, Blue Skies


I have allot of good social traits that when I go hypomania its like being on a Hollywood stage 24/7.
Hypomania: At first when I'm high, it's tremendous ... ideas are fast ... like shooting stars you follow until brighter ones appear... All shyness disappears, the right words and gestures are suddenly there ... uninteresting people, things become intensely interesting. Sensuality is pervasive, the desire to seduce and be seduced is irresistible. Your marrow is infused with unbelievable feelings of ease, power, well-being, omnipotence, euphoria ... you can do anything ... but somewhere this changes.

In the early cycle everything is sparkly with this glow of possibility. I am fun, casual, life of the party, the dancing monkey everyone loves to watch dance and clap for.i get so many wonderful story ideas I cant even write story's I can only write down seeds. Then the carousel starts to spin a little to fast for me. 

Mania: The fast ideas start coming too fast and there are far too many ... overwhelming confusion replaces clarity ... you stop keeping up with it … memory goes. Infectious humor ceases to amuse. Your friends become frightened ... everything is now against the grain ... you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable, and trapped.

It's like having a heart on fire to it catching your entire skin. Early on I would catch myself on the party train at a velocity that scared me so I started to drink heavy to slow the train. My dad was a alcoholic growing up so drinking made me nervous at that amount. So I turned to painkillers i stashed from migraines or car wrecks to bring me down.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I really just wanted to self medicate this thing in my head I never planned on over doing it to form a addiction.My twenties were a lab experiment in self medication gone horribly horribly wrong. I didn't know I had a organic disorder or that it had tripped a genetic switch where I go from a social casual user to a addict. I went from a pickle to a cucumber somewhere in the blur. From birth I had a huge problem being a alcoholic i just hadn't drank yet. I honestly think that God allowed me to start drinking to save my life. i had a disease with no obvious symptoms well at least to me.

"God forgives, man kills" -Chris Claremont, The X-men

After a maniac cycle I feel like Bruce Banner or Ben 10 when they loose the mojo and they drained back to puny mortals. So drained on all levels physically, mentally, emotionally, and worse financially. Just joking not about the money I'm always broke but the worst part is the spiritual demoralization that set in. Everything else just regenerates back to normal. 

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus". Romans 8:1

I first found healing in learning from others that what I did with the symptoms wasn't curing the disease.

Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. - AA Big Book

I am hellishly difficult to live with most of the time because I am broken on so many areas. A really good friend texted me  "i hate when you get in these moods." My brother was honest and loving enough to tell me "i want to say something to sometimes about what your putting out but i just don't understand'. Brothers me to.

I took cultivating Disciple at Stonegate last month and it kinda broke it down real eloquently. We are born into these meat suits flawed as heck. Genetically disposition for bad eyesight, baldness, diabetes, alcoholism, and yes bipolar disorder. We are limited mentally by the limited information and experience that we have gathered only up to today's point.   Most of that is twisted by the filter we have form biased perception how we see that information as it comes in. Then to make the trifecta of crap we are born spiritually dead as enemies of God. 

What great news! No wonder I have failed so often to such a magnificent degree. I equate to a 10 year old with my finger in the levee when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. How many times have I sat in regret and told someone honestly  " If i could change I would" and tried to but ended up in the same spot. God is the healer and He makes house calls still.

But it's not easy as a snap of my fingers. Recovery from the grave takes time an that blows chunks. i mean it looks good on paper but walking it out is rough.

In a monomyth, the hero begins in the ordinary world, and receives a call to enter an unknown world of strange powers and events. The hero who accepts the call to enter this strange world must face tasks and trials, either alone or with assistance. In the most intense versions of the narrative, the hero must survive a severe challenge, often with help. If the hero survives, he may achieve a great gift or "boon." The hero must then decide whether to return to the ordinary world with this boon. If the hero does decide to return, he or she often faces challenges on the return journey. If the hero returns successfully, the boon or gift may be used to improve the world.- Joseph Campell, American psychologist, from Hero of a 1,000 faces 

I get to go see one of the sage's in my life on November 20th in Lubbock. Justin Furstein fronts a band called Blue October. He also lives with Bipolar and is recovering from addictions and a host of other things. The thing he schools me on is just being honest about life. He writes songs across the emotional spectrum and own up to the struggles, the triumphs, and the failures. I want people at my BBQ of life but only when I'm doing steaks not when its just hot dogs. I need to be a student to a sage who teaches I don't have to be sane just honest. in a dark world I'm looking for a light ahead on the path ahead. when it's pitch black from a distance a madman with a swinging at his own demons looks like he's waving my onward.

Peg and I saw them 3 times in Austin and the last time we saw them was 10 foot away on the Pick Up the Phone Tour was at Dos Amigos. It was all about suicide prevention which is just hysterically sad to me now. It will be well I don't know how its going to be. it will be the first time seeing them without her so I imagine my heart will explode when I lose myself in the music and reach for her hand its not there. But I feel I need to go as a simple declaration of life for me. To go and see another survivor being honest about being insane at times but not ashamed or imprisoned by it either. 

I wanna be that ocean
I want to shine like that
I want to smile so big my daughter jumps into my lap
And I wanna tell her daddies fine and always plans to be
Then take her in my arms
This is what we'll always see- Blue October, Blue Skies