I was reading an article

on the rise of incidence in bipolar

and thought i would share my feelings on the topic with you

I think as with most things in life its unlikely that the massive increase in bi polar diagnosis/incidence is down to any one reason, but more a combination of contributing factors...

its possible misdiagnosis accounts for a huge part in this.

Simple time constraints on over worked Dr that just does not give them the time required for an in depth exploration of the nuances in their patients behavior/conditions.

Sloppy/lazy diagnosis with bipolar merely being the quick easy option...

or caring sympathetic but overly cautious Dr diagnosing bipolar "to be on the safe side" erring on the side of caution due to the possibly huge ramification should they be wrong

and i hate to say it but, in some cases, greed its far more profitable to diagnose bipolar than to tell some one they are moody

And of course with the symptoms of bipolar being so widely know now there is that fraction of society that will lie or exaggerate their "symptoms" merely to procure an excuse for miss behavior

or in the case of children parents who will do like wise simply so they have an out... a reason to say their child's behavior is not because they as a parent failed

Another thing to take into consideration is the "seek and you will find" factor... you see what your looking for

Life styles/society/the environment even diet is ever changing it is highly plausible that this or an aspect of this may also explain an increase

The illicit drugs factor is difficult as there is always that chicken or the egg factor... is the incidence of higher use merely an attempt at self medication?

I feel i have to mention that i have had bipolar all my life although of course i was not diagnosed until early teens, medications were fairly ineffective, leaving me foggy, unable to concentrate or create. As i entered mid to late teens i like many others "experimented" with hashish, smoking it socially fairly regularly for around a year or so, iv got to say that although this would be considered the "wildness of youth" it was possibly the least "wild" time of my life... the incidences of both the deep depressions and (rather perversely) the highs mellowed with a greater space of time between them

In incidences where it is said that there was no bipolar before drug use, one thing i have noticed with my bipolar is that with or with out drugs every 4-7 years it "morphs" .. it could merely be a case that for some the symptoms were milder and over looked prior to drug use, and diagnoses after drug use merely a result of a normal progression (morph) of the disorder

All good things must come to an end though and as i started thinking of having a family i stopped using hashish and the bipolar returned as strong as ever and i struggled with it for years, various medications that left me ill foggy or just simply did nothing.

Lithium did once work when i took it well over a decade ago... but... and i know this is silly, the effect scared me, keep in mind i had grown up with bipolar and knew nothing different other than when i was on hashish... so to me waking up in the morning smiling meant, to my mind, that i must be high or manic, no one had explained to me that this could be considered "normal". Happiness with no cause/reason was something i had only ever experienced whilst in a manic state or whilst using hashish... both of which in societies eyes are bad/wrong/evil a sign of mental instability and something to be avoided, and so i ceased using it ...

when questioned years later on why on hearing my explanation a Dr suggested we try it again, this one patiently explaining that happy for no reason was OK but unfortunately the lithium no longer had the same effect

If i may digress from the subject of the article for a moment, something you may find interesting, a number of years ago i developed a few mass's.. one on the thyroid, one on the adrenal gland.... since then the bipolar (curiously) has been minimal, perhaps even milder than when i was using hashish, or when the lithium worked.

From....

..... rather regular periods of mood swinging from the seven pits in the depths of hell

 going through suicidal tendency out the other side to feelings that even death wouldn't help or ease pain, and its flip side of weeks with little sleep and extreme activity (were talking decorating,revamping,remodeling the entire house in the nude in three days kinda thing whilst dashing off 4 canvases and wanting to copulate with anything in trousers)

....To....

....now days ... i get a little blue sometimes and have occasional bursts of inspiration, got to say with such a drastic change i find it hard to believe the occurrence of the mass's and decrease in bipolar are unconnected (although i do doubt it will become a popular cure lol)

apologies for the length it seems i have a lot to say on bipolar

a really bad doodle in really bad taste

been a really crazy weekend

lack of sleep and over medication produce  the worst doodled ever

in the worst possible taste

were it better executed it would probably insult the vast majority of groups/sects out there

thankfully its crap

so... i thought id share it anyway

disclaimer

this was a twitter comments inspired doodle not based on any of my own opinions

"Fuck its getting too crowded here"

"if Rapunzel turns up next shes fucking fired"

yeah i know dont quit my day job

update

sooooo... iv been kinda bad at the blogging thing huh and i should of updated but damn things got a bit crazy this way

so here's the short update... thankfully they decided not to operate on his back and he got out of hospital a week later, complete with brace and strict orders to remain bed bound... so as you can imagine i didn't have much time to blog.

between tending him, the house, and my own crappy health i was rushed off my feet and pretty much collapsing into bed when ever i could (gently of course so as not to jar him)

leaving me feeling some what like this

my boys did offer to high tail it from ohio to help but i figured they were better off not interrupting their work schedule in case i needed help down the road and needed to bum money off them :-)

seriously though the financial ramifications over all this have been stressful as hell

 very very sweet of them to offer though

month later and hes finally up and about out of bed, though with a lot of assistance and the back brace

few months more and the brace was about to come off

when..........

he had to have his gallbladder removed

the thrashing about in pain set thing back a little

another hospital visit... and so much for avoiding an operation

...

back home some recoup and finally the brace came off

... hes now in physio and looking forward to being able to get back to work

can i please now make time to have a nervous breakdown?

seriously though i don't know how i would of made it through this with out the love support and encouragement of my kids

with out them my poor fella may of had to suffer through this on his own, there is no way i would of been able to accomplish everything that had to be done with out the emotional support from them

p.s....kids... fer the many phone calls from me where i just phoned up and burst into a bubbling heap of tears.... sorrrrry.

that was kinda embarrassing but you guys were great thank you.

ThanksGiving part two

but first i got to tip my hat to my home land
in honour of ST ANDREWS DAY



so now to continue ...

we left off with me heading to the hospital

damn that trip seemed to take for ever

i was slowly building up ever more horrific images in my mind

hubby number two had had an Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm about a year before id gotten ill

which was a scary time, and that had him hooked up in a very nightmare inspiring i.c.u unit with tubes flowing in and out of him, bleeping machines that kept screaming out alarms, and his skin just hanging, looking like a flaccid pasty, dough.

I swear he looked like a corpse, not the kind you see in funeral homes but the type you see on horror movies .. the kinda that turn into bloody flesh eating zombies

(course if id know then what i know now, and if id realised what an abusive git he was going transform into, i would of been unhooking half of the tubes and wires there and then and saving myself from a lot of pain later on down the road)

any way

i kept getting flashbacks to that kind of image except instead of hubby number two it was my latest victim laying on the bed looking deathly pale... and yes i know i was letting my imagination run away with me and hell i know panic was just exaggerating crap ... but shit i had no "real" info to go on so my mind was filling in the blanks, ya know i get the feeling my mind really doesn't like me very much

the poor Craig's list driver

(complete with bodyguard companion)

 kept turning on the radio.. possibly in an effort to hint that should perhaps cease my constant stream of nervous inane babble ..

he was of course far to kind and polite to tell me to shut the fuck up, you know i knew i should, but just couldn't.

we get to the hospital and they say lots of nice kind soothing reassuring things, all of which went totally over my head at the time cuz hell id worked myself up into a state, i pretty much threw the money at them,

not in a rude way you understand

but in a

"i cant think straight and i don't got a second to spare"

kinda way.

 i ran into the hospital... kinda wondering if at that point the Craig's list guy +1 breathed a sigh of relief to be getting rid of the crazy Scottish lady

(brief intermission whilst my mind wanders off for a second)

"dashing through the ward

like a woman ready to slay,

oer the floor we go

rushing all the way...

(the ha ha ha that's usually inserted here in the original song would possibly be as a result of total hysteria in this case)"

sorry bout that it just popped into my head ..

any way to continue on 

i was expecting some crap about getting in to see my latest victim because i don't have that stupid bit of paper that says I'm legally bound to him...

 (not through his lack of trying to get me to agree to marriage i hasten to add)

but any way i stormed through the doors into the reception area ready to do battle if they attempted to pull the legal next of kin crap on me 

(i had heard many horror story's of that happening to folk over here)

but sigggh of relief they didn't try it, but instead very speedily directed me towards where he was

(not sure if that was down to procedure or whether id just scared the crap out of the poor soul

I'm a damned scary sight when i bristle)

i practically ran through the damned security doors and was speeding through the halls so fast i damn near fell arse over tit... walked past where i should of been going then on out through some other security doors ..

(which of course wouldnt let me back in)

at which point i figured id better take a deep breath and calm myself the fuck down ...

(feel free to strike meditation pose and chant OMMmmm)

so ... lets try this again .. more slowly... and i walked the whole circuit again, picking up some rather odd looks as i do ... this time i actually him

no tubes other than the i.v ... huge sigh of relief that's got to be a good sign right?

neck brace .. kinda worrying

moans of pain... bloody terrifying

seems conscious .. good sign

now fer some damned reason I'm kinda nervous about approaching the bed, not sure why, possibly i was scared of what id be told

after deep breath and bracing myself i get to his bedside .. and I'm not sure who breathed the loudest sigh of relief my latest victim or myself.. he looked damned glad to see me, i felt kinda awful that he'd been going through this on his own it must of been bloody scary as hell for him

 he doesn't do well under stress

holding his hand i get told he has a fractured spine

theres a phrase you don't want to hear

you get immediate flashes of wheel chairs and so forth flying through yer head.

(oddly enough no one mentioned concussion, from the way he sounded as he spoke both when id heard him on the phone and now I'm kinda surprised they didn't mention the possibilities of that)

his face was flickering between agony, and fear and bizarrely enough remorse .. poor sod was as worried about the truck and his job as he was about himself ... i didn't know whether to hug him and try to comfort him or slap the crap out of him and scream fuck the truck and the job its you were got to be concerned about

i reassured him the company knew

(they'd gotten back to me and i had been requested to keep them informed)

and that they had their side of things under control

as you know the rest of story is going to be hours of waiting wondering, paranoia and brief flashes of hope

finally a Dr appeared and gave us a little more info

the scan he'd had before i arrived had shown a compression fracture on the L1 vertebra

his vital signs were good and there appeared to be no other damage...

(huge ass sigh of relief and damn near collapsed with the weight of stress being removed)

they were assessing whether or not to operate ....

what ? huh? back the fuck up... w.t.f operate????

so much for relief

damn

its that bad????

now im willing to conceed that i might of just had unussaly crap experiances with health care here but....

fuck operations here are only done in extreme cases int they? hell iv got tumors popping up like daisys and they wont opperate yet.. and they want to opperate on him?

so now iv got images of his vertebra being so badly fractured its likely to dissintegrate

"were going to admit him mean while"

whoa wait a minute this is America they don't admit they never admit

unless yer like one stage from deaths door... fuck they discharge you from the er here even if they've just had to ram yer innards back into your abdomen ...

hell only reason they kept last hubby admitted in i.c.u fer any length of time was because he developed a bloody infection that could kill him, other wise he'd of been out after a day or so.. heck prior to op he hadn't even been admitted, even though they told us the AAA was a ticking time bomb that could explode any time(the added caveat of .. oh and if it does you have three minuets to get him to the hospital wasn't too fucking reassuring either i can tell ya) 

now they are telling me they want to admit my latest victim shit its got to be bad right????

so now I'm back to being terrified .. course what i didn't realise at the time was him being on workmans comp meant a better standard of care.. i really wish id known that at the time cuz the prospect of him being admitted scared the crap out of me more than the prospect of a possible operation

so hes wheeled up to the neurology ward ,... that's one scary term .. neurology it has a kind of your screwed inflection to it

now i got to admit from here on in i kinda lose track of time and what days what but we were there from around mid day thanksgiving till mid day Sunday..

hes thirsty as hell but on nil by mouth in case they decide to operate...

hes fading in and out thanks to morphine

when hes awake hes in huge amounts of pain and still freaking about the god damned truck and his job ... seriously w.t.f

I'm keeping to myself that I'm not only freaking out about him his health his possible recovery and future mobility .. but I'm also trying to figure out how to get the car back, how the hell to pay the rent, and the rest of the bills .. cuz i know damned well that hell even if by some miracle jobs not lost he sure as hell wont be able to work for months

nurses drs and the neurology guy all drift in and out of the room taking vitals examining him and so forth and a plan is arrived at ... after a certain amount of observation and if they are happy with how hes doing they are swinging towards seeing if he can tolerate a back brace first, if he can then the plan is to let nature do its thing and allow the body to fix its self .. this will take longer but if it works will give a stronger more reliable mend than surgery would, and with less risk.

surgery's not off the table yet, but is looking a little less likely

now they let him drink and allow for the possibility of eating, until they make up their mind for definite .. its evening by now,

they remove the neck brace... pheeeeeeeeeew that thing scared the crap out of me merely by implication.

hes over joyed at prospect of eating .. fucking typical guy

lol though to be fair being that this all happened before sunup and he hadn't eaten since before work the day before i guess we cant blame him there

this is getting rather long again huh and iv got shit to do and a fella to tend to so i guess we will be moving to a part three

Thanks Giving part one

so this post is a fairly serious topic today but i shall endeavour to be as light hearted as possible under the circumstances ....

as some of ya might know my latest victims a truck driver

usually he drive's straight trucks or flat beds,

he can drive the more traditional tractor trailer types but generally has confidence problems so avoids them like the plague

this company though decided they wanted him on the big ass dump trucks. even after he explained how nervous he was with them
.. so ..
things were going really well

the company was supportive, understanding and patient.. they really did encourage him, and reassuring him that he was doing well

he's been working nights, me being nocturnal its been kinda handy fer me, though hell fer him

(though his last job was nights too so he was kinda acclimatized)

bout week ago he got phone call from a certain someone

 "ohh iv not heard from you in a while and was wanting to know if you had lost your job yet"

... am i alone in thinking WTF ...

O.M.G

DAMN

way to go with encouragement

gee i wonder where my latest victims confidence problems come from lol

any way thankfully my latest victim didn't let this shake him

(not visibly at least)

and things continued going well at work

right up till early a.m thanks giving morning

long before sunrise i got a panicked phone call from a stranger telling me my latest victims truck had turned over and was currently residing in a ditch
the stranger had helped my fella out of the truck, and phoned for help
 the paramedics were now tending him but every one was unsure as of yet which hospital he was getting taken to

(many thanks to this stranger who stopped to help, i wish there was some way to repay them)

as you can imagine the cold ice hand of terror started grabbing at me

this (not) masked man did try passing the phone to my latest victim but as you can imagine the conversation was not too coherent nor reassuring ... between howls of pain he slurred that he was hurting but fine,

(fine??? w.t.f ?? so screaming mid word perfectly normal huh its along the lines of a nervous tic is it???? or perhaps sudden onset of touretts syndrome?? )

any way he went on to say the truck bed which had been locked down had decided to raise up mid transit... (i guess that's what happens when you mistake viagra fer hydraulic fluid)

and the truck had flipped after hitting cables

all he can remember is sparks ... but hes fine

(so by now im getting horrific flashes through my mind like this)

(or worse)

BACK THE FUCK UP ... CABLES ???? SPARKS????

so were talking about ya narrowly missing being fucking electrocuted??? but yer fine though huh .. ohh sweet cool some one give me a fucking valium

after some more screams he tells me hes going to phone me when he gets to what ever hospital they decide to take him to, but hes fine so don't worry....
but
seeing that by this time he was slurring and kinda fading/rambling so bad I've got to say i wasn't that reassured

phone gets handed back to our noble hero stranger, who then asks if I'm ok .. aww wasn't that sweet of him ... of course my own personal feelings at the time were .. to hell with how I'm feeling how is my fella, really, does he look bad ..

(do i really want to know if he does look bad right now .. would it help to know?)

 

the company hes with has a no phones at work policy ... the passer by had phoned fer ambulance/paramedics what ever they bloody call them here... but no police had been called at that point.. truck has no qual com unit so guessing company didn't know

mental rush around the house to find number of company to inform them, not that i knew much but i could at least tell them there had been an accident go look fer yer truck.

really beyond listening to how supportive they were to him on switch to big trucks and listening to him recount the daily on the site accidents or breakdowns (involving others not him) i hadn't paid that much attention to company details .. like fer instance

fucking phone numbers .. or bloody boss's names... or even fucking location.. so now I'm kicking myself and tearing the place up looking fer a business card or wage slip or something anything. meanwhile waiting nervously for a phone call from him telling me where he is...

 finally i think to look at preprogrammed list of numbers in the phone .. well yea duhhh (i really wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box that night)... ohh lookie a number that hes listed as work ... duhhh .. of course though theres no damned answer there.. but i do spot a name on his list that i recognise from him talking about work ... lets hope they are still on the same shift ... there not ... ooops really sorry to call you before sun up but .....

there that jobs done.. fella said he'd pass the info on to the company for me, and he at least had the correct numbers.

I'm shaking like a leaf by now but still got crap to do so lets put of the nervous fucking break down fer now and try and push all these horrible images out of the mind

 

still no call from him .. what if hes passed out before he gets there, i know paramedics got his name so fuck it ill start phoning around the hospitals myself, i don't know the system over here i don't know if they will call me when he gets booked in ..

first hospital i call i get put on to hold... with those bloody automated messages "thank you for your patience" ... hmm is it only me or could they of thought that message through a bit better, being a hospital that could be taken the wrong way

third hospital i call I'm getting kinda frantic when they say nope no accident victims brought in tonight... so ... "could you tell me please though, when some one gets brought in... is it common policy in the states to phone the next of kin" ... answer from them "ohhh only if they are dead on arrival" ohhhhhhhhhhh well FUCK THANK YOU FOR THAT LITTLE PIECE OF HORRIFIC THOUGHT ... SHIT

next hospital called at least didn't scare crap out of me and actually had couple of suggestions of how i could find out where he was, even though police hadn't been informed when i spoke to him they had perhaps been informed by now so try phoning the highway patrol... or try fire brigade they might know.

 

hang up .. phone rings .. given prior information to i want to answer??? ... 

pheeeeewww its him my latest victim ..

(by this point I'm thinking... if he says I'm fine again I'm going to fucking strangle him cuz i know damn well hes not) .. poor sod sounds like hes in hell, but hes able to tell me where he is

now .. whilst i thoroughly enjoy being a hermit there is times where it is damned inconvenient .. i know no bugger that i can call to get me down there, his family is the other side of town but not the type to give me a lift to the hospital, or be very gracious about being called before sun up. 

taxi time ... "what do you mean 40 dollars .. 40 FUCKING DOLLARS err yea ill get right back to you on that" ... sod it Craig's list ride share .. 28dollars.. pheeeeew... yea i know cost shouldn't matter at a time like this, but in the trucking game an accident usually = lost job no matter who if any is to blame.. there will be bills to pay, food to buy, extra expenses because of accident... medication

America lends new horror to accidents as well .. not only do you have to worry about your loved ones you have to worry about keeping the roof over there head through recovery cuz theres no grantee that theres going to be any help.

so hes conscious .. this is America so probably will be a patch up and discharge ... though of course this may take 24 hours to accomplish...

flask of coffee.. check....

book for him to read to stop him worrying whilst waiting.. check

fuck food they probably wont let him eat any way and i seriously don't got it in me to make a pack lunch

enough tobacco for 5 thousand smokes check.. (that should tide me over till taxi gets here)

my pain killers.. check (last thing we need is me being admitted as well, and Dr's tend to panic if ya yelp and fold over clutching yer abdomen, I'm guessing wouldn't be too good fer my fella to see at this point either)

fuck it swallow a handful of "precautionary"pain pills to be on safe side

it would possibly be a good idea to lock the door on the way out huh duhhh

O.M.G wheres my key.. im a hermit i don't go out on my own .. when i do go out its with him and we use his key .. where the fuck is mine ... house is already torn up with draw contents sprawled every where from looking fer works number.... frantic search through the scattered debris... no key... dump out the few remaining draws that escaped previous search ... my house by now looks like a disaster zone, if any one walked in they'd think id been burgled.. fuck it ill sort it all out when i get home... ahhhhh finally the key

double check its the right one

randomly pick up crap and throw it in the bag cuz it might be handy at the hospital ...

pace wildly through the destruction ... where he hells the Craig's list guy ... did he understand my accent ok?(i had trouble with his accent) did he take down the correct address? could he of miss heard me?

 

phone rings i jump out of my skin

its the Craig's list guy, hes at the gates of the complex .. sag with relief

i swear it felt like an hour waiting for him to get from the gates to my door

he had some one with him in passenger seat ...

i quipped that despite Scots reputation he didn't have to bring some one along for protection we weren't really that dangerous, well not usually any way .. and only under certain conditions.

 

thanking them both profusely we head off to the hospital with me apologising for dragging them out of their beds ... the poor souls had to endure me babbling inanely and randomly as i fought back terror, tears and flash backs to when last hubby was in i.c.u with god knows what tubes coming out of every orifice and scary bleeping machines

........ to be continued

back to bipolar

"warning bipolar whine" if yer looking fer my usual wise cracks or humor they int here so

"run away, run away"

yep i know i usually dont do this but ...

one i promised myself i would be honest about bipolar

two only folk likely to read this particular post will be folk looking for bipolar info so in the interest of "sharing".....

ever had that feeling that every thing was thin... like everything around you is empty, shallow, banal and meaningless as though you're just observing life not participating.

not depressed just empty

unconnected

not suicidal but thinking death might be an end to the tedium of existence should it happen to present itself as a possibility

(hopefully after having the opportunity to tidy up, because oddly enough you dont want folk to think you live like a pig)

im not stressed, hell dont even have money troubles, there is no family crisis, in fact things seem to be going well

remember the 5 year all clear? with the qualifier... if you do im sure you saw they called me when i was visiting the boys wanting follow up tests... well they all came back good to go as well, had the final follow up the other day, so not even health concerns with that lately (they did do another T whatever the fuck marker test thingy but i get the feeling that was a just fer the hell of it kinda thing)

maybe thats it maybe i thrive better during crisis, for once things seem secure, safe, stable... maybe im just not equipped to handle those circumstances .. maybe i need to "have to be strong for their sake" and with out that being needed i got nothing, no reason, no purpose or maybe im waiting fer the other shoe to drop,

hell maybe just the pain and tiredness getting to me (but thats not like me fer this length of time)

fucking odd dont you think

cant concentrate, need constant mental stimulation, but cant settle on shit.. i just want life to go the fuck away and leave me the hell alone

then of course i feel guilty for not "enjoying" life and appreciating how "well" things are going

any way .. if ya can relate to that and you think you're alone ... you're not

now back to our usual programing