Somewhere Over the Rainbow, I've Lost My Damn Mind: A Manic's Mood Chart (12 page)

Since I can remember, my family has been involved in racing in some form or another. Sponsorships, pit crews, dates, fans; you get the point. While a majority of these may have been in the ARCA series, I think the link to NASCAR is close enough. Our seats for the Brickyard were in the penthouse (not as glamorous as it sounds, turns out they’re just on the top of the grandstands) going into turn one across from Johnson’s pit. From our angle, we could see all of the front stretch, turn one, into turn two, and a short distance into the back stretch. I know I’m losing most of you, so I’ll get to the point: our seats were amazing. Not because you could see so much of the track, but because the beer was only like ten steps to our left, and the bathroom was back and like five steps to our right, perfect. Because Cousin Carl (he’s really not my cousin) was running in the middle to back of the pack most of the day, I needed to find a way to entertain myself. I found it in the bathroom.

There are a few behaviors that occur in a men’s bathroom that I have always found unusual, odd, and flat out hilarious. One of these is when a grown-ass man uses the public urinal and pulls his pants all the way down to his ankles. Let me tell you, as the guy pissing right beside the grown-ass man, when he pulls this stunt, it brings about a feeling that is almost indescribable, but I’ll try. For some reason, I start out feeling embarrassed for the bare-ass fellow and then confused, as I wonder how in the hell he never managed to notice the whole time he grew up that no one else pisses with their pants completely down. Then I feel uncomfortable for staring at this grown man’s bare ass, all the while trying not to laugh at the whole situation.

Since shirts are optional at NASCAR races, I walked into the bathroom to see a fully naked grown-ass hillbilly standing at the urinal, pissing and smoking a Red. (That whole thing was pretty much a lie, but how amazing would that have been?)

The second behavior I simply call Stall Guy. This is when a guy waits in the bathroom line but refuses his turn and signals to us others to use the urinal (or three-man trough in Indy’s Speedway case) so that he can wait for a more secure and comfortable stall. As I mentioned, Carl wasn’t running real well, so I had some time to kill and decided to pull a stunt. I waited in line until it was my turn at the trough, and it just happened to be at full capacity with three men deep, so I knew my trap was set. The man at the far end finished up, and being next in line, I signaled to the man behind me to take the empty spot. He thought I was a Stall Guy; it’s a known behavior in men’s bathrooms. Next, the spot closest to the stalls opened, and the next guy behind me jumped in after observing my signaling with the previous man.

The 750 or so horsepower engines’ noise bounces off the metal grandstands in the speedway, making it damn near impossible to talk during races, even in the bathroom. Everything had to be communicated through signals; of course, until I got to the trough. The middle spot opened, and I jumped right to it, started pissing and tried to start conversations with the two guys I signaled in before me on my left and right. You want to talk about uncomfortable situations: the looks on these hillbilly’s faces as they realized the Stall Guy deliberately waited in line to get in the middle position between them in the trough, and then my trying to talk to them (or “hit on them” when they retell this story) was as great as a fully naked grown-ass hillbilly man standing at the urinal, pissing and smoking a Red. Maybe not, but close.

TBC . . .

Session

JP: Kick the tires and light the fires, boys!

DT: Are we flying jets or something, Maverick?

JP: Rubbin’s racing!

DT: There you go, Cole Trickle.

KEY TERMS:
SMOOTH CRIMINAL, LOST, PUSS, 2.6 PERCENT OF POPULATION

Submitted on 8/26/09

Green

I never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I’m actually excited for school. Don’t get me wrong; I used to get pumped to go to Miami View Elementary and check out who was in my class from the class assignments posted on the front doors at the end of summer, but that’s a bit different. I’ve recently started classes here in The Nasty for my graduate degree, and for the first time in a while, I’m happy. Stubby and I headed out to lunch yesterday, and we were talking about how as long as you are doing something you enjoy, it doesn’t seem like work.

I’ve talked about how bizarrely unpredictable this world is. One more piece of evidence: growing up in South Chuck, I never would have thought that I’d be able to live around the world and across the U.S. BMD has totally changed my life, sometimes for the bad, but mostly for the good. I’ve started over from scratch, and I’ve learned some valuable lessons and a lot about myself along the way. Today, I feel more like myself than I have in a long time. There’s nothing fun about totally losing who you are.

Since my episode, I’ve looked at my journey back to myself as having some bumps in the road, and then at times being smoother than a criminal (my favorite MJ song; still a fan despite his legal issues, I think). There are too many things that I know I enjoy to list, but I can tell you of three that I absolutely do not like or have a desire to try: motorcycles (I’m a puss, I guess), shooting something dead (double puss), and going through depression again (just the word depression sounds awful).

Now, for the motorcycle and shooting something dead activities, I’ll go ahead and group them together under P for puss, which allows me to write about them at the same time. My brother, stepdad, mom and aunts are motorcycle enthusiasts, so it should run in my blood, but it doesn’t. I have never been on a motorcycle, and despite the attempts of the fam to have me take a ride on one (something weird about two guys on a bike that doesn’t sit right with me, I’m not sure of the proper hand placement in this situation and not too thrilled to try and find out) I never will. I know that I have zero, nil, nix, nada, naught need to be on a bike (I bet you liked that alliteration).

Poncho would be the killing-things enthusiast in the family, or hunter if you want to be a dick about it. Don’t get me wrong. I have no problems with hunters, other than the fact that hunting was an excused absence from school growing up; what a country! But it’s another one of those experiences I could do without and feel I lived a pretty full life. I take Ron White’s philosophy that if you have to get up early and it’s cold, wet and dark, I don’t want to do it. Despite my disdain for these recreational activities, I do understand the appeal to those who partake in them. This next one, I don’t know anyone who likes it.

For the longest time, I looked at depression as someone being down on their luck and maybe needing to just look on the brighter side of life. I couldn’t have been more off on that assumption (made an ass out of myself just like the old saying goes). Since I can remember, I’ve always been a pretty lighthearted fellow who never got down or felt anything but happy. Even in tough times, I’d try to look for the positive. TPO, Team Positively Optimistic member here. I don’t know if it was my mind and body trying to put themselves back into balance after my episode or what, but I went through depression and it was the worst time of my life.

The feelings of worthlessness, of being pathetic, of hopelessness, and pure disgust at myself were almost more than I could handle. I may get a little annoyed with my mania from time to time, but I would take it over depression tenfold; I know I couldn’t live with it. I’ve read that with BMD cases, a majority of females are on the depressed end of the spectrum, opposite of me, and my heart goes out to them. They are stronger than I could ever be.

I’ve learned from all of this that judgment, while it may be an implicit function of being human, is something I have to work on overcoming every day. It’s beyond unfair to cast judgements about someone or something that I cannot, and more than likely am fortunate enough, not to have to experience (whether that be a single occurrence or a regularity in daily life). I would ride a motorcycle with three men at the same time while picking off squirrels with a .22 (or whatever the hell you shoot with a .22) before I’d make the choice to go through depression again.

Session

JP: Just for a little bit of clarification, I’ve put together some statistics about bipolar disorder that I’d like to share with you.

DT: Holy shit, you made a hand-out? Above and beyond, JP!

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Bipolar Disorder Statistics

Who is Affected by Bipolar Disorder?

• Bipolar disorder affects approximately 5.7 million adult Americans or about 2.6 percent of the U.S. population age 18 and older every year. (National Institute of Mental Health)
  

• The median age of onset for bipolar disorder is twenty-five years (National Institute of Mental Health), although the illness can start in early childhood or as late as the forties and fifties.
  

• An equal number of men and women develop bipolar illness, and it is found in all ages, races, ethnic groups and social classes.
  

• More than two-thirds of people with bipolar disorder have at least one close relative with the illness or with unipolar major depression, indicating that the disease has a heritable component. (National Institute of Mental Health)
  

   
  

Women and Bipolar Disorder

• Although bipolar disorder is equally common in women and men, research indicates that approximately three times as many women as men experience rapid cycling. (
  Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
  58,
  (
  1995): [Suppl. no. 15])
  

• Other research findings indicate that women with bipolar disorder may have more depressive episodes and more mixed episodes than do men with the illness. (
  Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
  58,
  (
  1995): [Suppl. no. 15])
  

   
  

Economic Factors

• Bipolar disorder is the sixth leading cause of disability in the world. (World Health Organization)
  

   
  

Suicide and Bipolar Disorder

• Bipolar disorder results in 9.2 years reduction in expected life span, and as many as one in five patients with bipolar disorder complete suicide. (National Institute of Mental Health)
  

   
  

Children and Adolescents

• Bipolar disorder is more likely to affect the children of parents who have the disorder. When one parent has bipolar disorder, the risk to each child is 15 to 30 percent. When both parents have bipolar disorder, the risk increases to 50 to 75 percent. (National Institute of Mental Health)
  

• Bipolar disorder may be at least as common among youth as among adults. In a recent NIMH study, one percent of adolescents ages fourteen to eighteen were found to have met criteria for bipolar disorder or cyclothymia in their lifetime. (National Institute of Mental Health)
  

• Approximately 20 percent of adolescents with major depression develop bipolar disorder within five years of the onset of depression. (Birmaher, B., “Childhood and Adolescent Depression: A Review of the Past 10 Years, Part I,”
  Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
  , 35, no. 11 [1996]: 1427-1439)
  

• Up to one-third of the 3.4 million children and adolescents with depression in the United States may actually be experiencing the early onset of bipolar disorder. (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 1997)
  

• When manic, children and adolescents, in contrast to adults, are more likely to be irritable and prone to destructive outbursts than to be elated or euphoric. When depressed, there may be many physical complaints such as headaches, stomachaches or tiredness; poor performance in school, irritability, social isolation, and extreme sensitivity to rejection or failure. (National Institute of Mental Health)
  

   
  

Getting Treatment for Bipolar Disorder

• Success rates of 70 to 85 percent were once expected with lithium for the acute phase treatment of mania; however, lithium response rates of only 40 to 50 percent are now commonplace. (Surgeon General Report for Mental Health
  ]
  )
  

• Participation in a Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) patient-to-patient support group improved treatment compliance by almost 86 percent and reduced in-patient hospitalization. (DBSA, 1999)
  

• People with bipolar disorder face up to ten years of coping with symptoms before getting an accurate diagnosis, with only one in four receiving an accurate diagnosis in less than three years. (DBSA, 2000)
  

• A gender bias exists in the diagnosis of bipolar disorder: women are far more likely to be misdiagnosed with depression, and men are far more likely to be misdiagnosed with schizophrenia. (DBSA, 2000)
  

• Nearly nine out of ten people with bipolar disorder are satisfied with their current medication(s), although side effects remain a problem. (DBSA, 1999)
  

• People who report high levels of satisfaction with their treatment and treatment provider have a much more positive outlook about their illness and their ability to cope with it. (DBSA, 1999)