In Search of Silence

I am looking for silence. I have been looking everywhere for a long time.

Not the silence that falls between two people in the middle of a fight. That is fraught with unspoken words, prickly ones in the air like allergens, irritating all the psychic senses. It is a relief when someone finally snatches at the subtext and speaks.

And not the silence of Nature, though a quiet forest is a great relief. But that is a silence filled with living. That is beetles and boughs and rodents going about their business with no regard to the mute observer.

And not the silence of cities, the void that yawns beneath traffic noises and jackhammers, beneath change machines and coffee cups clinking, beneath jukeboxes and beer bottles - the sterile emptiness where no communication is going on, no one is really connecting.

I mean the deeper inner silence of the soul, something that could speak but chooses not to. I mean the silence of a peaceful mind. It is something the mentally ill seldom experience. I haven’t seen it since childhood, myself.

I remember watching dust motes as they danced peacefully in a window embrasure. I must have done it for minutes on end. Just looking, fulfilled and timeless, my mind suspended and turning slowly, like they were doing. Nothing else existed at that moment.

I remember sinking backwards beneath the bath water, eyes open to the wavering fairy light, ears reverberating with the amplified tap of my fingers on the tub wall.

I was not thinking then. I did not have to. Those were good days. But they ended with the advent of hormones, for me. I became bipolar at puberty.

The mystics say that the true center of every soul is a vast and spacious stillness, laced with stars and smelling of forever. I have lain in meditation time after time and tried to reach it, following my breath, counting inhale and exhale, shut off from everything else in the world. There comes a moment when that silence sidles up to me, nudges me softly and whispers, “Stop counting.”

Maybe, for an instant, I do.

Immediately the brain starts screaming in terror. “My God!” it says, “We’ll explode out of our body and disappear! Don’t do it!” And then the yammering starts again, the ceaseless yammering on any subject and none - the aimless, hopeless, pointless gossip of the mind that drove me to meditation in the first place.

I have looked for silence in anti-psychotics, but the moment I seem to grasp it, savor its  texture, I fall asleep. So I search for it in sleep, but I dream and snore. I have listened for it under great music, and sometimes heard it between two beats.

And I wonder if the brain is right, if I really would pull up anchor from my body and sail away if I found that still center. Leaving the chattering brain behind, all by itself in a jar, spinning wave after wave of spurious story, believing itself an ocean.

(Thanks to the women in my creative writing group, who nominated this piece for my blog)

Deborah is a public speaker and the author of Is There Room for Me, Too? 12 Steps & 12 Strategies for Coping with Mental Illness. She is currently recording it as an audiobook and CD set.  Deborah has also published two novels. Her books are available at Amazon.com, Kindle Editions, iBookstore, and other major vendors; or you can order them from your local bookstore. Visit her web page at www.lafruche.net, or see her catalog at www.lastlaughproductions.net. She has also narrated a guided meditation CD with her husband, musician Robert Hamaker. Check out sound samples at www.islandjourneyCD.com.
www.islandjourneycd.com

My Diagnosis

My astrology chart shows Neptune in the 6th House at the time of my birth. In other words, I was born to have a mysterious illness that would be difficult to diagnose. I was 26 when at last someone told me I was manic depressive.

My response was, “Finally! Something that makes sense!” Because I had known for a long time that the world I saw and reacted to was not the same as the one everyone else did.

Insanity, if one dares to use the word, is hard to pin down, hard to tell someone, and usually hard for them to hear, my experience not withstanding. Some people will be told over and over for the rest of their lives without ever believing that it’s true. Hardest of all, even if they do believe, is to get them to start treatment.

Why is this? Why do we find it so hard to believe that the world inside one person’s mind is not the same as that of everybody they are standing with?

I remember long summer gabfests between college semesters. We were always batting ideas back and forth languidly, like a ping pong game where nobody was keeping score. The only point was to stay out in the garage away from the ‘old’ people. Time and again the conversation turned on existence and perception: how do we know that anything outside us exists? How do we know that we exist? How do we know that two people who say “blue” are actually seeing the same color? Maybe their blue is my green, or puce for that matter. All we know is that we are giving it the same name, that we both perceive something.

I never found it much of a stretch to believe that my head was different. After all, I’d been told over and over again that I was too sensitive - that I was uptight - that I was too serious - that I was way too dramatic - no matter what the stimulus, someone somewhere would say my response was too big, too little, or flat out wrong. Yet I was only reacting naturally to what I saw and heard. Obviously they were seeing, hearing, feeling something different. Theirs was a blander, less upsetting world, without tricky double meanings and barbs in every casual glance.

With time, with medicine, I learned to react less, to pretend to be less upset and in pain. Within a few decades, I was able to convince the most exacting critics that I was no longer scary and abnormal. And now, with 40 years practice, I have come to understand that everybody’s universe is different, that no one lives on the same planet, that our entire lives are a holodeck geared to the needs of just one person. The miracle is that any of us see anything remotely the same. And language, a shaky tool at best, is often the only thing that allows us to think we have so much in common.

Deborah is a public speaker and the author of Is There Room for Me, Too? 12 Steps & 12 Strategies for Coping with Mental Illness. She is currently recording it as an audiobook and CD set.  Deborah has also published two novels. Her books are available at Amazon.com, Kindle Editions, iBookstore, and other major vendors; or you can order them from your local bookstore. Visit her web page at www.lafruche.net, or see her catalog at www.lastlaughproductions.net. She has also narrated a guided meditation CD with her husband, musician Robert Hamaker. Check out sound samples at www.islandjourneyCD.com.

Info for the Bipolar

This week I just want to tell you about a resource, International Bipolar Foundation. They’ve been around since 2006, but they’re new to me. The website address is exactly what you would expect it to be: www.internationalbipolarfoundation.org. They are involved in supporting bipolar education and research, and enhancing various support services such as housing. Such enhancement includes support groups per se, if you happen to live near San Diego, California. They also list some interesting sounding online communities to check out.

I am impressed by their monthly newsletter, which is full of ideas, tips, news about bipolar people in the public eye, and updates on the latest research in the field (see my previous blog for a sample topic). You can subscribe at: http://conta.cc/eyK0ra.

They also have a book, Healthy Living with Bipolar Disorder, which you can get FREE as a pdf for the asking. It’s also available on kindle for $1.99 - there’s a long URL but if you type the title in Amazon’s book search box it comes up right at the top.You can also get a hard copy, but for that you need to pay shipping, which comes to $12 U.S. and $25 international. I’ve downloaded this book, and I have to say what I’ve read is quite factual. There is a good section on the drugs commonly used, how they operate, what their drawbacks are, and even how they work in the body if that is known. They don’t stint on including side effects, either. If what you want is solid information on standard treatment, this is a good place to start. And what can you lose when it’s free, right? (If what you want is more practical, how-do-I- LIVE-with-this advice, though, you’d be better off reading Is There Room for Me, Too? Just saying).

Here’s their snail address, and I’ll add their link to my list on the right:

International Bipolar Foundation
8895 Towne Centre Drive, Suite 105-360
San Diego, CA  92122

 They host lectures and post them on the website the following week, hold webinars, have a buddy program, speakers bureau and outreach and referral program, anti-stigma campaigns, and more. Seems to me with this much activity, they must have something you could use... if bipolar is your thing, check them out.


Deborah is a public speaker and the author of Is There Room for Me, Too? 12 Steps & 12 Strategies for Coping with Mental Illness. She is currently recording it as an audiobook and CD set.  Deborah has also published two novels. Her books are available at Amazon.com, Kindle Editions, iBooks, and other major vendors; or you can order them from your local bookstore. Visit her web page at www.lafruche.net, or see her catalog at www.lastlaughproductions.net. She has also narrated a guided meditation CD with her husband, musician Robert Hamaker. Check out sound samples at www.islandjourneyCD.com.

Punishment

A new study out of Canada, published in Pediatrics, shows that people who are physically punished in childhood are more likely to develop mood and personality disorders. They are also more likely to abuse alcohol and other substances. “Approximately two to seven percent of mental disorders in the study were tied to physical punishment,” reports the International Bipolar Foundation newsletter dated July 8, 2012.

Well, duh. I could have told them that, though I didn’t know the numbers. I’ve met very few psychiatric patients who can boast a happy childhood.

Something happens to a child when their parent or guardian hits them. The world turns upside down. This is the person who is supposed to protect you. They are your safety. They probably also claim to love you, and you love them back. But there they are, hurting you on purpose. Chances are they are claiming it is GOOD FOR YOU. Maybe even, “I only do it because I love you.” Love equals pain.

That is enough to screw up anyone’s head. At any age. So what does it do to someone just learning how to think?

I remember well how that kind of punishment worked. First there were the accusations, building to fury; then slapping or spanking, usually in front of the other kids and mom; and then the deadly Lecture. Looking back, The Lecture might have been the most poisonous part. Because, while I stood there, in pain and probably crying, they told me that this was all my fault. If I only wouldn’t [fib, yell, break something], it would never happen (See? All you have to do is be perfect.) But my parents LOVED me. They only did it because they LOVED me. Now, come give Daddy a hug and say you’re sorry, and try harder to be good. So then I had to hug the person who had just hit me, and tell him I loved him.

Am I the only one to whom this looks sick and twisted? Is it any wonder our minds get bent?

I cannot tell you how many victims of horrific physical punishments have told me as adults, “I deserved it.” Beaten wives sometimes think that, too. That doesn’t make it so.

Later in that same article, a psychologist who shall remain nameless was quoted as saying, “For younger children, spanking may be suitable as long as the child views spanking as a motivational tool, for their behavior and overall good.” As we used to say in Monopoly: ‘Go to Jail. Go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.’ He has completely missed the point! A child’s love does not know from “motivational tools.” What a child understands, at a very visceral level, is that pain is not love. Once you’ve convinced him that pain IS love, you have set him up for a lifetime of rotten relationships and confusion of all kinds. Now we know that includes mental disorders.

What the researchers found was that in a sample of 35,000, 16% of un-hit persons over 20 experienced depression, but 20% of physically punished persons did. And 30% who had not been hit abused substances, versus a whopping 43% of people who had been physically punished. This is AFTER omitting serious abuse from the figures, and correcting for things such as race, income, and level of education.

What can I tell you? Hit a kid, warp a mind. The numbers bear me out.


Deborah is a public speaker and the author of Is There Room for Me, Too? 12 Steps & 12 Strategies for Coping with Mental Illness. She is currently recording it as an audiobook and CD set.  Deborah has also published two novels. Her books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, Kindle Editions, iBooks, and other major vendors; or you can order them from your local bookstore. Visit her web page at www.lafruche.net, or see her catalog at www.lastlaughproductions.net. She has also narrated a guided meditation CD with her husband, musician Robert Hamaker. Check out sound samples at www.islandjourneyCD.com.

The Uses of Anger

I recently had a remarkable experience, one that is still going on, and one that I can’t say I entirely understand. But it shows me the remarkable power of anger. I have always had plenty of anger; it is one of my worst symptoms, in fact, which I work hard to keep within rational limits. I seem to have centuries of it, and it boils and swells without reason. It has ruined many a good relationship. I never knew before that it could have any good uses.

Background for this story: I appear to have a pinched nerve in my hip. It happened very suddenly, I have no idea why, and I have never had any trouble of this kind before. So I left it untreated until more than a week had gone by and it was obvious even to me that it was not going away by itself. The urgent care doctor gave me a Motrin prescription. That worked beautifully for exactly one day.

Unfortunately, my husband and I had to drive out of state the next day, and by the time we arrived two days later, I was in so much pain I had to be helped to a bed, where I stayed for three days straight. I could not so much as walk to the bathroom, five steps away from the end of the bed; I had to crawl and sometimes I screamed. I tried for two days to get my home doctor to call a prescription in to my local Walgreen’s, some sort of pain killer so I could sit up long enough to sit in a wheelchair and get to a local medico. Long story short, they refused.

And that’s when I came apart. At first, I cried in despair at the prospect of more and more pain without hope of reprieve. But after a while, it turned into a tantrum against whatever powers may be. “I hate you!” I yelled over and over. “You have no right to do this to me! There is no excuse!” This went on for quite a while. I need not elaborate, I suppose. We have all been angry at “Them” one time or another. And then I sort of turned a mental corner. I found myself shouting, “I don’t accept this. You don’t have the right to do this to me. I take away that right. You no longer have my permission to do this to me! I forbid it!”

And I sat up. And I stood up. And I walked.

Now, I am not saying I “got well.” I still have a pinched nerve and it can be damned painful. But I have never been as completely helpless again since that moment. It is as if the anger burned the terror of pain out of me: the worst of the muscle spasms that were torturing me ceased. I can walk small distances with a cane, and I can sit up awhile though I am not terribly comfortable and eventually have to lie down again. But I am not bedridden.

My husband did not find this remarkable: he merely said, “You took your power back.”
Yes, that is exactly what happened. But who knew my ‘power’ included the function of my nerves and muscles? And who knew that the anger I’ve feared and restrained all my life could ever do positive work?

I have decided that unbottling my anger is very effective for my health, and intend to do it regularly from now on. I can’t work it out at the gym right now, but I can beat on my husband’s drums, yell and shout when nobody is here, hit a pillow and all that jazz. Keeping it in didn’t help; let’s see what letting it out will do.

I am open to all comments and conjectures about this odd episode.

Deborah is a public speaker and the author of Is There Room for Me, Too? 12 Steps & 12 Strategies for Coping with Mental Illness. She is currently recording it as an audiobook and CD set.  Deborah has also published two romantic comedies. They are available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, Kindle Editions, iBooks, and other major vendors; or  you can order them from your local bookstore. Visit her web page at www.lafruche.net, or see her catalog at www.lastlaughproductions.net. She has also narrated a guided meditation CD with her husband, musician Robert Hamaker; check it out at www.islandjourneyCD.com.

It's A Pity



When I was first diagnosed, I asked my therapist what my greatest risk would be. I expected some spectacular answer, like, 'don't eat beef or you'll run over a cliff'...instead she looked me straight in the face and said, "Self-pity".

Busted.

Even if I didn't try to make others sorry for me, I often waddled in neck-deep pity for my poor little damaged self.

No one can blame us for sometimes feeling pretty sorry about this mess we didn't ask for. Sometimes. But beyond that, it's like poking an infected tooth. Why do it? Do you like pain?

For instance, sometimes I get very boo-hooey over the American Dream as portrayed on TV. I'll never meet that standard - I can't work enough to earn that salary. And it's not my fault! And it's not fair! Why can't I have fashionable clothing and a huge bank account and unlimited credit? Why can't I have a car that reminds one of a panther and streaks along curvy shore roads?

I have special trouble with this whenever I hit a decade birthday. I think, ‘I should have this by now. Ordinary people do. Ordinary people can work 40 hours a week. They can learn new skills and switch careers if they want to. Ordinary people finish school by the time they're 30 and find a partner without worrying about when to betray their Dark Secret.’

Well, OK, all these things may be true (notice I said may be). I may have spent 30 years learning to live with my disease while other people were using that time in other ways. And occasionally this does make me sad.

But is it true that I am deprived?

First of all, I have never hankered after the forty-hour week and settled career. I have always wanted to be a writer. So the chances are I would not have spent those years climbing the corporate ladder even were I free to do so.

Secondly - and you already know this - the advertising machinery of this country is not a trustworthy measure of what we 'should' be, or by what age we 'should' be there. Advertising is to make people want the product, buy the product, make the company some profit, and keep the good old economy going. That is its purpose. Not your purpose. Not necessarily in your best interests at all.

Thirdly, what is the good of thinking this way? Why moan about what I've missed? If I must look back, why not look at what I've achieved? As of this writing, I am in my 22nd year of recovery. I am no longer afraid to go out in public, or afraid that if I don't watch out I'll do something awful to the ones I love. I have a job that I can believe in. I have people in my life whom I respect and love, and they respect and love me in return. Would I really trade that in for a Lexus? And in the end - long after anybody normal would have thrown in the towel - I actually found that great husband and nice house in the suburbs - at 45. So you never know. Is it really time to give up yet?

Fourthly, and most importantly, this self-pity is based on a false premise. It assumes that everyone without my disease is happy and normal. Or at most, they have only minor problems that don't stack up against mine.

It's just an illusion. The longer I live, the more I find that everyone has some burden. Some of those burdens are incredibly awful. Just because you can't see the crack doesn't mean somebody’s not broken. We have not been specially picked out for grief and suffering. The human race is a sort of Special Olympics, and everyone gets a suitable handicap. This is ours.

We all get in this funk sometimes. It’s natural. But the best way out is to start counting what we do have. It adds up fast. Start with being able to read, and having access to a computer. That puts you ahead of much of the world, and that’s just the start. Go ahead, try it, count your blessings: 1,2,3...

Deborah is a public speaker and the author of Is There Room for Me, Too? 12 Steps & 12 Strategies for Coping with Mental Illness. She is currently recording it as an audiobook and CD set.  Deborah has also published two romantic comedies. All three books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, Kindle Editions, iBooks, and other major vendors; or  you can order them from your local bookstore. Visit her web page at www.lafruche.net, or see her catalog at www.lastlaughproductions.net. She has narrated a guided meditation CD, “Island Journey,” produced with her husband, musician Robert Hamaker; available on iTunes, Amazon, CD Baby, and many other venues.

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Taking it Slow

I’ve been trying to think of what to write about next, with little success - which is why you haven’t heard from me. After all, I’ve been writing this blog for 3 years now, and how much good advice does any one person have?

So here’s a thought: how about if you suggest some topics? I did get one suggestion already: to write about panic attacks. The problem is, I’ve never had one, and have no tips to offer. So if any of you are good at dealing with this symptom, please leave a comment below or email me at lastlaughpro@gmail.com. Perhaps we can have a guest blogger on the topic.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I want to make a pitch for living life a little more slowly. This has been one of the more important life tactics I have adopted since my diagnosis. I can stay pretty level-headed if the pressure is low - if I am not rushing, multi-tasking, or trying to do too many things in a day. I am less insane if I do not live at the insane pace of modern life.

Granted, there are times when a lot needs to get done. But even so, it is best to do one thing at a time. I honestly think multi-tasking is a crock. Instead of doing one thing well, then going on to the next thing, we end up doing several things badly because we are not paying full attention to any of them. As often as not, we just waste more time fixing the mistakes we made because we were distracted. Calm down, already. Life comes to us one moment at a time. Our minds are less fevered when our activities do, too.

I have found that if I make more than two appointments for any given day, it is a mistake (the number for you might be different, but it’s worth finding out what your limit is). Perhaps it’s my Anxiety Disorder, but just knowing that all those demands are stacked up ahead of me like fences to jump makes me feel squeezed and unhappy and nervous. When will there be time for me? When will I breathe, or make any spontaneous choices?

I understand that some people are constituted differently. They want structure, activities lined up like dominoes, never a dull moment. If that is your makeup, do what suits you best, of course.

But otherwise, if you are disabled and cannot work full time, what’s the big hurry? The one glorious thing our condition may give us is TIME. This is a priceless gift. It cannot be bought, bargained for, or restored. It is irreplaceable. Take a deep breath and enjoy yours.

Deborah is a public speaker and the author of Is There Room for Me, Too? 12 Steps & 12 Strategies for Coping with Mental Illness. She is currently recording it as an audiobook and CD set.  Deborah has also published two romantic comedies. All three books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, Kindle Editions, iBooks, and other major vendors; or  you can order them from your local bookstore. Visit her web page at www.lafruche.net, or see her catalog at www.lastlaughproductions.net. She has narrated a guided meditation CD, “Island Journey,” produced with her husband, musician Robert Hamaker; available on iTunes, Amazon, CD Baby, and many other venues.