Category: Bipolar Disease

(Ex-Representative) Jesse Jackson, Jr.: Denouement

~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 4 Comments

Hoodwinked?  A definite possibility.  Bamboozled?  Most likely.  Hornswoggled?  Should be considered.

Whatever you want to call it, Mr. Jackson Jr. disappeared six months ago; five months ago Mrs. Jackson Jr. read a prepared statement which delicately described Mr. Jackson Jr.’s sudden absence without divulging the root cause.  Mrs. Jackson’s calculated disclosure purposefully neglected any explanation of Mr. Jackson’s bizarre journey from Washington, D.C. to an addiction retreat in Arizona and finally his willful confinement at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.  Someone with considerable influence strongly urged Mr. Jackson to depart Washington, D.C. without a peep and bee-line himself to the addiction retreat in Arizona.  Certain accounts told of Mr. Jackson reaching out to Reverend Jackson who, it was said, immediately went to aid his son.  Upon arrival Rev. Jackson described Mr. Jackson’s condition as serious: weight-loss, insomnia, restlessness, hopelessness, fatigue, and a general feeling of depression.

When I presented very similar symptoms at the pinnacle of my ascension to mania, I was strongly advised to immediately be evaluated by a psychiatrist in order to determine if I was clinically depressed.  Were my self-medicating behaviors indicative of a substance addiction?  Certainly, especially if that’s what you’re looking for.  But a member of Congress with the best health insurance in the country?  Did he seek an evaluation from a psychiatrist in Washington? Is it likely that a psychiatrist prescribed an addiction treatment facility in Arizona while ignoring Walter Reed Army Medical Center or the Psychiatric Institute of Washington?  Doubtful.  Are we to believe that no one in Mr. Jackson’s inner circle was curious as to what other illnesses might Mr. Jackson be suffering when presenting his specific symptoms?

I must admit that a fair percent of public comments insinuate that timing for political gains has been, from the very start, the predominant focus.  His alcohol addiction (reason for in-patient treatment at an Arizona Rehab Center), bipolar diagnosis (reason for his transfer to the Mayo Clinic), and clandestine exodus from Washington (to protect his privacy while en route) is, to his discredit, a shrewd, calculated, and well-executed chain-of-events whose purpose, Mr. Jackson’s representatives said, was to seek the best treatment centers for his addiction and subsequent bipolar diagnosis.  One month passed before Mr. Jackson’s representatives confirmed he was at a HIPAA protected treatment facility.  Then he was transferred to the HIPAA protected Mayo Clinic.  Then he ran for re-election without a campaign: no appearances, no advertising, no lawn signs.  And he won 64% of the vote!  Finally, six months after his twilight departure from Washington, the requested and ultimately expected communiqué was delivered to House Speaker Mr. Boehner in a two-page letter of resignation citing health issues and a federal investigation.

And that’s it.

But. . .if he has an addiction and suffers from bipolar disorder, then his timing couldn’t be worse for his career and the reputation of his family.  But then again. . .if it was all a ruse to buy time and strategize his reaction to the upcoming federal indictments, then his actions were dishonest, cowardly, and ignorantly insensitive and offensive to those of us who struggle with mental illness on a daily basis.  But what if. . .he is an addict and bipolar and anticipating federal indictments?  It’s difficult, even for me who defended him on this very blog, to be sympathetic.  After all, he’s a crooked politician who stole tens of thousands of tax-payers money for personal gain, who then fled under the guise of addiction and mental illness to protected locations for six months, abandoning his job, his constituents, and those who voted for him, in order to clean his own house and strategize his legal response and perhaps a plea bargain.  Oh, and he’s an addict and suffers from bipolar disorder.

Well Mr. Jackson, I suffer from bipolar disorder and face that fact every single day head on. . .I don’t hide behind it. . .and I certainly don’t break the law and then use my mental illness to garner sympathy.

Truth is Mr. Jackson, you’re a coward, a liar, and a thief.  The Illinois politician’s trifecta!

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Romanticizing Madness

~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 40 Comments

I’ve noticed recently a spate of blogs and websites declaring which famous people are bipolar (please visit: (http://pinterest.com/bipolarbandit/famous-people-with-bipolar-disorder/).  This identification of plausible personalities is a definite indication of social change.  To see familiar faces, icons, sport legends, entertainment moguls, and just plain “they’ve-got-it-too” types provides a sense of belonging to a community-at-large which includes not just me, or members of my support groups, but people whose face is undeniably recognizable and never dreamed that they, too, face the same challenges I face.  And there’s a degree of comfort in that.  Secondly, it begins to slowly tear apart the prejudice and educate the ignorant not necessarily about mental illness, but that anyone, their favorite hockey player, their dreamboat actor or actress, their business executive role model, can and do live with mental illness.

This identification is the initial crack in the shell of shame and stigma.  And we (people living with mental illness) didn’t invent the tactic.  For instance, a similar identification of the famous and powerful occurred during the homosexual march toward acceptance and respect.  The exposure of the public’s least likely to be or to have is one step closer to the day when ordinary patients living with a mental illness can disclose their disorder free from the fear of isolation, castigation, or retaliation by pointing to the recently exposed successful, popular, and famous comrades-in-madness.  This identification of recognizable personalities borders on the romanticizing of madness which isn’t that dissimilar to the mid 90’s trend to have a gay friend.

I can testify to the similarities because I’m gay and I’m bipolar and I voluntarily disclose these two details with the same degree of importance as when I confess that I microwave my ice-cream or that I prefer medium starch on my dress shirts.

In the homosexual world your voluntary disclosure is commonly referred to as “coming out (of the closet).” The expression “coming out” was introduced to the gay lexicon first in the 20th century and has permeated the American lexicon during the late 21st century.  “Coming out” was seen as an introduction into the clandestine gay subculture and compared to a débutante’s coming out party.  Today “coming out” is less likely a party and more likely an uncomfortable incident, like soiling your pants in public or getting arrested for peddling questionable pornography.  Their concern is how the homosexual lifestyle will impact them (that is, the collective “them”) and are notorious for their absence of empathy or support.  Some abandon; some think its a phase; some deny; some cover their ears; and some (like my mother) invoked the bigotry of my dead father and wept when she looked at me.  And then there are others — embracing and supportive listeners; honored to have been told; and a few see the courage and witness the honesty and reverse their ill-informed ideas that homosexuality is Satan’s playground.

In 1952 the American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disorder in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) .  In 1969 a week-long gay uprising in New York City started by a police raid in a Mafia owned bar called The Stonewall Inn started the gay movement toward equality.  In 1973 homosexuality was officially removed from the DSM and was no longer considered a psychiatric disorder.


Remaining quiet, covert, dishonest, and shameful simply reinforced the commonly held belief that there was something wrong with homosexuality.  As early as the mid-19th century German’s were advocating the public admission by men and women of their homosexuality as a form of emancipation.  It took another century and countless victims of bigotry, hatred, and ignorance before homosexuals coalesced into a unified voice demanding that the social stigma of being a homosexual be eliminated.  It’s taken another 40 years before more than fifty percent of all American’s believe that gays and lesbians should have the same right to marry as heterosexuals.

I believe that there are great similarities between the long and painful trailblazing required to achieve acceptance of homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle and the eradication of the social stigma people living with mental illness experience on a daily basis.  Both groups perpetuated their own discrimination by remaining silent as society tortured, oppressed, and determined that it (homosexuality or mental illness) was an abomination which must be isolated, subjected to brutal and inhumane treatments, or permanently removed.  The gay rights movement was sparked by one drag queen who was determined that she would not tolerate brutality at the hands of the police simply because she was homosexual.  Her defiance was her voice and her protest was her high-heeled shoe parried in the face of her tormentors.

Will it be your voice that’s louder than the others?  Will it be your courage that’s Tweeted around the world?  Will you be the one that’s still mentioned fifty years later as the voice which shouted, “this is the last straw!”

Which it was.

All thanks to you.

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All We Want Is An Edge

~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 1 Comment

I’m a doper.  Plain and simple.  I take performance enhancing drugs to edge out my daily opponent, bipolar depression.

I am resistant to conventional psychotropic medications which provide relief of mental illness symptoms from the inside out.  That is, they access your bloodstream after roughly six weeks, then their therapeutic effects begin to take-hold; and then (and only then), can your doctor begin the incremental step-by-step titration of your dosage eventually arriving at a suitable degree of efficacy.  So its fair to say that the management of your mood disorder is intrinsic or organic, as your body tolerated and is now escorting the daily ingestion of psychotropic drugs (prescription therapies) on the freshly paved path from mouth to stomach to bloodstream to brain.

I do not, unfortunately, enjoy the luxury of a pharmaceutical boardwalk.  My only relief is applied, like decoupages; like Zorro camouflaging his true identity with a mask, my mood is masqueraded by the uplifting properties of dextro-amphetamine salts which I ingest daily.  And while I experience my mood lifting like those Macy’s Parade balloon characters twenty minutes after ingestion, there’s a nasty bill to settle, a sheer cliff from which to fall, like the one from which Louise (Susan Sarandon) and Thelma (Geena Davis) launched their 1966 Thunderbird, and I drop like a lead balloon headlong into the Mariana Trench of despair and depression.  In order to avoid the cliff’s stifling fatigue I must remain dutifully conscious of my mood, and when it dips I must immediately swallow my next dose.

Each additional step of relief, each concomitant dose keeps me afloat like a life-jacket.  But it also hoists the height of my eventual crash higher still.  And predictably the rope snaps and my wakeful attention drops like a grand piano, crashing to the ground and splintering into a million irreconcilable pieces.

I’m in the company of fallen sports legends like Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds, and Jose Canseco. We’re all guilty of willfully taking drugs designed to better our performance.

I am different in one respect: I’ve never beat my opponent to win the jersey or title or championship.  My opponent is bipolar depression and who has, unfortunately, all the bragging rights.

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You Can Remove A Gall Bladder Faster

~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 1 Comment

I think my mother coined this adage:
However long you think it’ll take, or, however much you think it’ll cost, double it!

Is it age? Competency? Vim and Vigor?

How come we never see Martha Stewart experience the notorious exploding bag of flour, or Ty Pennington experience driving a wood chisel through his hand?

Oh no, both Martha and Ty have everything they need in tidy little bowls at the ready.  (Those tidy bowls are tidied by twenty-something “producers” whose job it is to produce tidy bowls.  But doesn’t “producer” sound impressive?  (We used to call them “gophers” or “grunts.”))

Here’s a litany of tasks I disgracefully muddled through (thank God it was in the basement) in order to complete a “quick and easy do-it-your-self-er” project:

1.  Pry speaker box from cabinet;
2.  Continue to pry (with pry bar), indifferent to salvaging speaker box wood;
3.  Prying now escalates to demolition – just get the damn speaker free of the damn box!
4.  Wipe sweat with t-shirt, clean speaker of dirt and dust, ignore collateral damage at corner of room (friendly fire if you please);
5.  Scout in-house scrap stock for suitable material for speaker front;
6.  Select 3/4″ furniture-grade plywood
7.  Measure width between interior faces of ceiling joists; transfer measurement to plywood;
8.  Make cut on Makita 10 in. dual bevel compound miter saw (it’s like a day at the spa. . .);
9.  Measure circumference of speaker grill; place speaker gill on plywood and trace its circumference;
10.  Locate much loathed power jigsaw; locate much loved cordless drill and place 3/8″ fractional brad point bit into chuck;
11.  Drill pilot hole (to start cut with loathed power jigsaw);
12.  (WORD OF CAUTION: Remove dentures, lose fillings, eye glasses, and any item which might fall out/off during 7.5 magnitude earthquake);
13.  Place loathed jigsaw blade in starter hole, aim at the traced line, hit the safety and the trigger;
14.  Attempt to steer teeth-chattering, grip-jarring jigsaw along your traced line;
15.  STOP!  Back the jigsaw out, aim at your trace line, and hit the trigger;
16.  PAY ATTENTION!  Your cut looks as though you were blind-folded!
17.  At long last your cut ends where it started, but the hole is hardly round, resembling the road up to Pike’s Peak;
18.  Wipe sweat with t-shirt, locate dovetail saw, “trim” plywood to reshape cut to circular shape;
19.  Locate the four-in-one hand rasp and file; use curved rasp end to reshape details of cut; then use curved file end to smooth cut and edge surfaces;
20.  Locate sanding block and affix 80-grit sandpaper to begin smoothing and shaping; next affix 140-grit sandpaper and sand all surfaces;
21.  Locate mineral spirits and clean wiping rag; pour generous amount of mineral spirits onto rag; wipe all surfaces of wood with mineral spirits soaked rag; let wood dry;
22.  Locate speaker and check for fit in cut-out;
23.  Locate appropriately sized “L” brackets; choose between wood screws or bolt and t-nut to fasten wood to “L” brackets and “L” brackets to ceiling joists;
24.  Chose bolt and t-nut fasteners; root around in bolt drawer like a boar looking for grubs trying to locate correct length and diameter bolt to fit t-nut;
25.  Grab (what is now) the warm bottle of Sprecher’s Root Beer, pop off top, and almost drain bottle; emit improper and gauche oral yet non-vocal expression;
26.  Frustration beginning to simmer, forced to settle for two differing pairs of bolts for t-nuts; chose smaller wood screws as other fasteners;
27.  Place “L” brackets on “ceiling facing” side of wood; mark drill holes; remove “L” brackets;
28.  Locate screw and bolt gauge to determine correct drill bit size (different drill bit sizes: larger for bolt and t-nut; smaller for wood screw);
29.  Secure workpiece to table and drill holes at marked locations;
30.  Locate the four-in-one hand rasp and file; use the flat file end to smooth surface area around drill holes; turn workpiece over and check for tear-out; smooth areas;
31.  Locate t-nuts; place in larger holes on face side; locate hammer and pound t-nut into hole until flush with face surface;
32.  Place “L” brackets on workpiece and fasten to workpiece with bolts and wood screws;
33.  Check watch for time of. . .Jeez, that late all ready?
34.  Climb short ladder, place wood at eventual location, drill pilot holes for fasteners in ceiling joists;
35.  Locate ratchet screwdriver and wood screw fasteners; drive fasteners through “L” bracket holes and into ceiling joists;

36.  VOILA!  What a beaut, eh?  Ty Pennington’s got nothing to worry about.  Next time I think I’ll opt for the Cholecystectomy (gall bladder removal).

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Deconstruction: Or, The End Is A Great Place To Start

~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 2 Comments

I was never known to have an aptitude for or interest in any kind of creative expression which involved my hands (with the exception of typing).  My friends are surprised by my newly discovered passion for woodworking, and they’re especially surprised that my knowledge has been self-taught.  But it’s less about knowledge and more about three things: 1) Curiosity; 2) Failure; and 3) Experience.

I think I’m a builder by nature.  There’s no proof; actually there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary.  Many friends are flummoxed by my very recent interest in woodworking.  Frankly it’s just a different way to express my curiosity and creativity.  I’m drawn to puzzling problems and paradoxical possibilities.

But I’m also impatient, prone to cutting corners, and okay with outcomes expressed by “good enough,” or “that’ll do.”

Why do we dream dreams we want, but are incapable of achieving?  Because we plunge headlong into a project long before we fully understand the knowledge or practical training required. It’s only when I encounter a surprise obstacle do I understand the depth of my ill-preparedness.  The obstacle can’t be avoided; it requires immediate attention (which in turn demands research and reading and materials) which dampens the initial excitement like a toy that breaks after 10 minutes.  Setbacks are a normal part of any project, but patience and an understanding of how your project is assembled helps in the long run.  

My self-education in woodworking stemmed from a pen stand a carpenter built into an exquisite barrister bookcase.  When I enquired if I might procure a pen stand from him, he replied in, what I was certain a foreign language:  All you do is put a half-inch core box bit in the collet of your router, adjust your cut depth, make sure your fence is square and both the in feed and out feed halves are aligned, check your speed, adjust the feather boards, and hit the switch! What?!?!? I sat on the internet for two hours deciphering his email.  Eventually I located the things he referenced and purchased them absolutely clueless as to what one does with them in order to produce the aforementioned pen stand.  I had decided to entertain my curiosity, put up cash betting that I could figure it out, and enjoyed for the first time in 20 years the brazen self-assuredness and absolute impunity (which, I bemoaned was carelessly frittered away by clodhopping, trust-funded youth).

But I’ve been bemoaning wrongly.  It’s not that youth squanders audacious and foolhardy behavior, but that I, when the significance of adulthood grabbed me by the throat and squeezed, surrendered my curiosities like possessions to a customs officer, and drifted farther and farther and farther still away from the entertainment that life could be.  That adventure was supplanted by decades of slick marketing campaigns which led to the acquisition of goods the commercials told me I’d like.  And then, Kaboom!  One hell-of-a-manic-episode and like the iconic Chaplin tramp, I was thrown out of the club and into the street.

And feeling just as I did when my older brother told me to get lost when he didn’t want me to tag along with his older pals, I finally understood that life only looks the way it does, because that’s how I look at it.

So today and a year of days before today I’ve promised to listen to my curiosities, promised to try things I haven’t done, and promised to fail as often as I can because failure assuredly makes curiosity laugh.

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