See what you've done

photo (c) advocacy for animals

Although you're death shook my beliefs to the core. I’m remembering you being only 18 when you got real sick the first time. Wisdom teeth + Honduras? or was it Guatemala?  Oh, and Yugoslavia to boot, all those horrible vaccinations... Who the hell would ever guess.  If there is anything that I could do is try to convey what a lovely person you were.

So anyone who knew you could remember you with pride in their heart.

How I hope we may know more of what a wonderful person you were, and of how it was out of your control that we lost you.

Your birthday is like a thousand deaths. Thanksgiving is like a knife. Now every year your birthday is to come around coinciding with my depression cycles starting every September. (pattern finally recognized=schooltime.)

Back to my scarily narcissistic self-centeredness, I’ve been thinking about coming out (about being forceably given by pills/incarceration then labeled bipolar by psychopaths) at work a lot more in recent years.

Read the blogs in this webring?. …26.4 kbps internet speed kills desire lately to be online at home. Besides being on it all day at work. Being such a city girl it never occurred to me that there could be such a thing as no grid for high-speed of any kind. Not even 56k dial up. The phone is sketchy enough. I may have thought twice about moving here. But it’s so worth it. I have to say been feeling overwhelming relief lately. Enough of the layers have released that I can actually breathe. Never felt this way before.

Age does my head well darn the hormones to wherever they go even with the downs of aging I’ve never felt emotionally better. YIKES> I hope I can live a long enough old-lady-life that I can actually do some good to humanity. I’m still just happy to be alive. And more easily go into denial of what’s happening in parts of the world, to experience true peace through meditation.

So read the blogs in this webring, in search of bps who are out. Mary's suggestion.

To fight depression I’ve been doing 1 to 1 ¼ hour of exercise every work morning. Get up at 4:30, (to wake up the drugged grog-out) do cardio elliptical then yoga. To start in the dark and end with the light having entered is bliss.

I went cross-country skiing up my street Sunday. It was magnificent. 45 minutes first, then a 2 hour trip. Lots of animal feets in the snow, deer, turkey, fox, my skis. It was the first time I’ve x country skied in yes 25 years. I’ve been collecting the gear since I came up North four years ago, getting the final bindings too late last season. We’ve been having so much snow so far this fall. It’s not even winter yet. I hope we have lots of beautiful snow this winter. It’s been way too long since I had that excitement about snow again. I just hope my body hangs in long enough for me to be an active happy old woman. I don’t know how I’d fight the depression short of maybe a parathyroidectomy. Certainly not an ocular lobotomy thanks to the Universe.  Gahd.

I’ve been frustrated not being able to stay clear of the credit card to make ends meet, but x-country skiing is free. Free. So much more of my environment is wild and free now and I revel in absolute gratitude and bliss in the pines and the Green, and White Mountains. I can see Mount Mousilauk views up the road, and travel to the Montpelier area every other weekend to see my musical man (MMM). I’m free. I must say I’m loving living alone, as much of a financial hardship as it is. I’m going to enjoy the hell out of it for as long as it lasts. If MMM and I get some digs we’ve decided on separate kitchens(as if we could). We are so different the way we live. He leaves stuff a mess to do music and teach Tae Kwon Do, besides his carpentry. Plus the thousand things he loves to do. I’m more of a one-note samba, liking my sparse lifestyle that keeps me going lately.

I just washed my hair in case the power goes out. Another sleety winter snow storm is happening – over night tonight – tomorrow’s commute is going to probably suck. Haven’t heard rainy type weather in a while. Snow can be so silent. I was wishing we could go into bat-ski mode, skis on the wheels so you can blast around faster, and ski-jump out of spills into gullies. I’ve got my trusty little laptop. That’s starved for high-speed, constantly nagging me to download auto-updates for a thousand things - that the connection can not handle. I gotta get off this lazyass and bring this lappuppy to work one of these days…take it to Panera downtown or the wifi rest stop on the interstate. I just want to get home and be far, far away. I love it so much. I am so, so lucky to be so happy sometimes, and not just that constant nagging anxiety
...

Black hole Sept. 16

photo (c) New Scientist
black hole

Virtual trips through black holes
The black hole at the center of our galaxy
Chandra x-ray observatory
apod September 16 pic of nasa day
nasa archive
Ayliagsh ^
from blue moon alpine, to sunday, 13 to 31

Music

Breathe. Think music.







Ayliagsh ^  To me this magical nebula looks like a lion, profile looking left, with the face of Ilya.

Galvanized against it

Never will I take my own life. The hell suicide does on the living is unconscionable.

I love you, Ayliagsh, but damnit, I'm really pissed off at you right now, GOD!

Update: 2018.  Ilya, I know you would never have done this.  I feel you were attacked psychically, it was not your intention, or your fault, I do not blame you.  It was not suicide. May your soul be at peace.

The years of holding it in

I draw strength from you, lady up there in french blue
warrior woman,

nano

The years of trying to hold it in take a psychic toll on a human

it’s who one is and what is wanted that go hand-in-hand

with

I’M DAMNED BIPOLAR, OKAY?

You just can't say
but postal won't ever do
give my soul music now!!!!!!!yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!dance!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
oh my god

the fact that the story of back in the day is sordid and soapy

a stupid young couple all impulsive and dopey

boring depression had it’s ugly grip on all three of us kids

with illnesses that screwed up the startup of whatever we did

bearing down on all three

and the life's blood threatening on the one beautiful young woman

little sister

fear surrounds the coming task of hearing the rest of the word

and that it came out two days before just as Ayliagsh had done two days before, into the wild.

The mind is still spinning, the depression and bipolar is beginning, I feel the symptoms of mania coming on. Dose up with pills, summon up will, fight with all might the potential ill.

Fight it off - will be winning

No longer in denial, don’t care if I fall in the pile, of shit that comes with who I am

Whatever it takes fight off the disease, trying to stave off disruptive bedlam

The effort of control

To seize my mind in the tornado

And keep it battened down

it is possible…

new song Hard Sun

debue'd two days after you took yourself away from us

Gut tied in knots, waves of nausea, try by sighing the pressure and pain from my sternum

Clenched in my gut, this can’t have happened. Ayliagsh can’t be gone. It’s too sad.

Ayliagsh, your blood disease, TTP, threaghtened your life every day.

Nightmare, it has to be, wake up now, my god

Totem Animals

Beautiful Ilya, Amy, Your Just Spirit and Legacy

You Ilya, such a sweet, beautiful, intelligent, hard-working, ...words are just empty to describe how much you are loved forever. A better soul than most. Honor and respect with,for,younameit, you, Ayliagsh, always and forever. You will never ever be forgotten.


Every day, every step with will hands raised to the Universe and back, and hope to pay homage to your strength and spirit. Never mind love and beautiful memories.  You overcame so much your whole life...with adorable elegance, determination and lots of hard work.


With profound sadness waving through a protective numbness saving more roller-coaster rides for the years to come, I love you with my heart and soul.

Ilya Amanda Georgiana Schipoijnakov Hoffman 1962-2007

Ilya, a.k.a. Amy, the Cape, 1980s

She Wore a Raspberry Beret...
https://msdiagnosed.blogspot.com/2016/09/she-wore-raspberry-beret.html

Ilya
https://msdiagnosed.blogspot.com/2014/09/ilya.html

Morris Novelty Trick or Treat
https://msdiagnosed.blogspot.com/2018/10/morris-novelty-trick-or-treat.html

Ilya Amanda Georgiana Schipoijnakov Hoffman 1962-2007 NORTHAMPTON - Ilya "Amy" Hoffman, 44, of 16 Fort Hill Ter., died Sunday Sept. 16 in Northampton. Born in Cambridge, MA Nov. 19, 1962, she was the daughter of Sheila (Karklin) Hoffman and the late Abbie Hoffman. She was educated in the Cambridge area and was a 1981 graduate of Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Hampshire College and a Jurors Doctorate from Western New England College in 1993. Ilya worked for the Dept. of Youth Services, dedicating many years (almost two decades) to supporting young people. Her professional colleagues at DYS were also dear friends. Attorney Hoffman recently took a position with the Committee for Public Counsel Services as a public defender in the Springfield Office. She was a member of the Board of Directors of the Rosenburg Fund for Children. Those who knew Ilya and loved her will remember the great love she gave to her family and friends. Ilya had a unique sense of style and grace. She loved to travel, she loved the sunshine, the ocean, and the beauty of the earth. Ilya was a talented artist and photographer as well as having a passion for music. Ilya loved animals and was an accomplished equestrian. On her wedding day at the Wistariahurst Mansion in Holyoke, she arrived on horseback to meet her groom at the altar. Ilya is survived by her mother Sheila, her husband Eric Olsson, her son Addison, her brothers Andrew Hoffman and america Hoffman, her step-mother Johanna Lawrenson and many dear friends. A Memorial Service will be held on Sunday, Sept. 23rd at 2 p.m. in Lyman Hall, 129 Main St., Northampton. Memorial Donations may be made to Arise for Social Justice, 94 Rifle St., Springfield, MA 01105, Arise@riseup.net. Ahearn Funeral Home (413)587-0044
Published in The Republican on Sep. 20, 2007. 

Into the Wild, Released

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Wild_(soundtrack)
released, Sept. 17, 2007

The Art-?-no - accident - of Being a Loner

Update: July 29, 2018: I am not advocating for the use of any drugs here.  I have become psych meds free, when I lost my job and health insurance in 2010, and realise that if possible it is the best way to go.  

I went on the meds initially to cope with becoming a step mom to two challenging kids, fully intending to get off them after a period of time, which ended up being 19 years.   Over time they make you very sick, physically, and of course in mind and spirit.  What the psych meds did was erase my ability to access my memory, and separate me from my soul.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An 'art' which is not practiced, just natural. I knew something was 'not right' (now defined as simply, "different") in my head, so I learned to keep to myself as much as I could. Not as easy when manic, but first nature otherwise.

It's often seen as being snobbish, but on the contrary it's felt as the overwhelming compulsion to get away. To hide. Predominantly driven by fear. I had panic attacks - my heart raced mad, but they didn't have nomer for it then. It wasn't in the lexicon. That recent bipolar child study, (amazing they have such things now) where the kids 'misinterpret' neutral faces as being hostile. I felt that so extremely as a child, but was quite alone with it back then.

By 7 or 8, it was obvious the earth was being slowly destroyed by man. So no matter how sweet a face was, all us people were a threat. I literally was afraid to be human. To live in abject fear of people, of being a person, of going to school, facing a walk on the street, the simplest of errands...everything was a huge struggle to get through. Agony at the desecration of the earth, never mind deciding what you wanted to be when you grew up. What was the point? If the mushroom cloud blew, it would be gone. It was literally painful to look people in the eye. They had the capability I had - to look one in the eye and see (too) deeply inside them. In a superficial world that didn't fit. Too much information. With this ability I thought everyone else also had, they'd find out i was manic depressive (md) which I had been instructed by what was 'help' back then, had to be kept a secret.

I started to believe I was an alien by ten.

I was diagnosed at 17 in the late seventies and they're still a long way from home now, but they were abysmal then. This was not so long after lobotomies as a standard treatment. Lifelong forced psychiatric (like penal) hospital stays. Institutionalization. Lobotomy by medication. At 17 I was tiny, 90 something lbs. and they rx'd 900 mg. of lithium which immediately made me extremely ill. I only took it in the hospital, along with all the lovely antipsychotics at similarly extreme doses. The month went by gone. I feared hospitals this stubborn one would never be back and it's been over 30 years. None of the doctors could 'help' me. They didn't even treat the depression. Now I hear of a local ivy league ho$pital is a good place if you have to go. My mind is changing about things, softening, and I can look people in the eye once I get to know them.

Nobody knew about childhood mental illnesses back then.

The experience of Memory is largely emotional, which of course changes everything. The very core of your essence is your cognition, your experience of who you are. One thing that puzzles me is how celebrities can be such a thing - one who celebrates oneself. That one would actually like their being was a foreign concept to me - I absolutely hated being myself. Sort of like allergy to yourself. Dealings with people I was obviously 'not right'. All the time, embarrassed. My face flushing, heart racing, always waiting for a time to be alone. Because of the pain. The voices in my head putting me down constantly. It was always there, the ball and chain. When it's around your neck it cuts off the circulation to the brain. I slept for endless years, losing 10 years by 30.

Then tricyclic antidepressants came along. Wow was that a change. I could start to see the sun behind all the black clouds angrily swirling around everywhere, with people just oblivious. It took years to heal. I still live a life imprinted mostly solitary.  But that was temporary.

I hope any other kids diagnosed with bipolar can successfully avoid the struggles kids like me had with drugs and alcohol, with no known therapy or psychiatric drug help that actually helps. They shouldn't have to suffer. Bp can be managed. Sure shit happens and can be out of your hands. Yet symptoms can be ameliorated, creatively. Whatever works for the individual.

For me, yoga and exercise, cats, garden, a powerful will to live, a beautiful area. True peace to be found. The true solitude in the pines I always craved. A long road healing. Gratitude. A growing desire to share knowledge.

Audioslave

I can go on forever about this. I communicated (in my mind) with a singer and through publishing that first personal website I started in '03. (sorry, dude)  But their (1st) album literally put a spell on me. For over a half year. I fell deeply in love with Chris, I imagined he was right there with me. (Hallucination, what can I say? I could smell him.) It was so intense, it went on for months like a huge tempest of excruciatingly intense emotion. (here's the original) I could sense him as if he were in the room. I love him spiritually forever.

This jewel case of theirs up on the shelf faciliatated my finally leaving a terrible marriage. My life is so ruled by peace now compared to that. It was a terrible tornado before. Now it's just a ride on a magic carpet. Unpredictable, but incredibly blessed. Alive. Morillo blasting a multi-dimensional fabrication. I almost died toward the end, one night that ex tried to smother me and the idiocy of his killing his mind with drink finally forced me to get out of there, another increasingly violent alcoholic black-out. I don't drink any more at all, feel so much better, even found another drummer ;) that I fell deeply in love with, this one a person in the real, and Mr. Right. I have so much gratitude for these men of Audioslave. I have been given life, essentially freed from spiritual suicide induced in '89.

After leaving a mushroom burst of psychic desire for the earth to survive and smart ones to figure against global warming and the destruction of earth and her kiddies. It's unfolding before my heart. Behind my eyes, other lives continue to swirl around my head. I'm able to seem somewhat normal and function. Even found a good job. I look to the skeye with hope, gratitude, a full heart and a steel sheild. I love Hugh Manatee again.

Chris.

under your spell out of hell, from self imposed suicide back to life

Take your prognosis and

No one can tell you how to think. What they all say is taken with a grain of salt as we are our own last word.

Fatty acid tied to depression and inflammation
Tue Apr 17, 2007

Omega-3 may be good for your mood
Wed Mar 14, 2007

Fish oils, vitamins, herbs helpful for depression
Fri Nov 24, 2006

So, the voices in my head

Psychics Who Hear Voices
Could Be On to Something
photo (c) The Atlantic

When not manic (as close to what 'normal' would be I guess) there is one internal 'silent' voice in my head running commentary (used to be hostile, neutral these days) on every thing - all the mundane boring stuff and all. I hear my voice refer to me in the third person.

What's bizarre is that I just realized how used to it I've become. As if it is just a natural occurance...go ahead and try to convinced me it's not.

The Hearing Voices Network is a great concept, it casts a much more dignified light. Just because we have hallucinations does not mean we are psychotic. Halla____ing-lulia.

Mania does cause psychosis. It becomes much more than just hearing a voice. You hear many. It gets creative. It gets intrusive and can be really distracting. Harder to keep under wraps.

How to Live With Hallucinatory “Voices” Without Drugs
photo (c) Smithsonian Magazine

July 29, 2018 update:  Hearing voices may be attributed to many things and are NOT necessarily mental illness.

The “That’s a Lie” Program
Keyholejourney Blog – exploring mind-opening concepts
It is the Archons??
http://msdiagnosed.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-thats-lie-program.html

Definitely a rabbit hole.   Using wireless technologies being only one possibility.  Or one could possess extra sensory perception, and be tapping into a myriad of frequencies, whether knowingly or otherwise.  

Gives us a bad name

Ok, here's another incident (Virginia Tech) where some deranged lost soul shoots and kills people. It is another tragedy to add to an alarmingly growing number of kids murdering kids. It kills me the suffering these folks are going through.

Then the reporting on the mental health questions, analysis, etc. And my eyes drop to the floor as I perhaps overly-educatedly talk about it with people.

Yes, this guy was mentally ill. He was also, conversely, deranged. These two things are separate. Some people have both problems. Many of us learn to manage our mental illness issues well, and we wouldn't hurt a flea, ourselves, nor anyone or anything. And every time some deranged person who either refuses to get help for him/herself or is being manipulated by the PTB hauls off and pulls some horrible crime against humanity/animals, the rest of us folks that work hard to manage our mental illnesses often get lumped in that hideous group of nut cases that hurt others. The deranged. Not to be confused with the mentally ill. It burns me every time.

There is survivor's guilt

Another nor'easter. It's April 15 already. Just like life. Another storm on it's way, inevitably.

There is survivor's guilt.

I always had the luck of having someone that has taken care of business if I got real sick. Cover the rent and some bills a few times while you get back on your feet again. Year, after year, after year. Not that you get so sick every year. Or that you lose your job either because your are sick or have some other major life stressor happen that triggers an episode of the illness, catch-22. I always crash and burn off the hypo- or full blown mania. Hypo mania was never anything I could ride for long with any lasting success, as some do.

I'd be homeless if I hadn't had people that could help me. Parents, or husbands, or whatever help that might float the boat when I went down. So what makes me so f******g special. I have a home. I have pets. Why do I deserve to have a roof over my head, to eat and be warm head every day. And what for? What did I ever do to help anyone else? Besides my ill-fated attempt at being a stepmother? Why do I deserve to still be surviving and to even have a place, never mind a place at all, to live? I question deserving this privilege. I feel like someone else could have helped the world much more than I have and they should have had this help to keep the homelessness at bay and be kept off the streets. It would have been better for the greater good.

And I'm so stubborn. I'll keep keeping on until the last possible day that I could live. I'll never, ever take my own life, I'll only struggle to live and be as healthy as possible. I confirmed that vow when my late father-in-law died. I'd never do to anyone what suicide does to the people in that person's life. It took years for the conviction to really set in that what killed him likely was not self-imposed suicide.

Just like I vowed never to bear children after I was ms. diagnosed with BP at 17. There were times when I was young that I might have, if I had a husband that worked a job.  Better that I ended up never bringing a child into this world with this gene pool. I wouldn't do that to anyone, much less a child. So I'd adopt, which I sort of did by becoming a step-parent. And so stupid was I when I did that, thinking that I could help a child no matter how messed up they were by their own family / genetic problems. Too bad it took me so long to realize that I was my own problem, and had not overcome.

No redemption here, just the only purpose to survive because I have family and my rare, yet steadfast, friends, and just to fight back against evil. Take Great Aunt 'Althea'.  Roses to her.

Great Aunt Althea

Rose, 'Are you the brown one?...Are you Jewish?'...Great Aunt
had a way of blowing your mind...(1977)
(update) I didn't figure out we were underground jews until 2019.
Yup, that is what happens when Father
let the me figure things out for myself.
Autism Spectrum = Aurtism Spectrum
I also figured this out in 2018.
I know, I know, am eye D.U.M.B. or whah?
not any more

Aunt 'Althea" had been a brilliant mind, medical student, studying to become a doctor in the 50's. She had a manic depressive related breakdown, in her twenties, and her father had her lobotomized. She was institutionalized the rest of her life. Her sister, our 'Bubby, would bring her home to spend the holidays with us.

Althea was tall and had girth to her, with a bobbed hair do, horned rimmed glasses, possessing a mysterious intelligence behind her (?wounded?) views on stuff.  (She really loved my father.)  We'd all kind of try to interact with her quick while being nice to her - then scoot away as she ,,,kind of ... admittedly intimidated a little sometimes.  It became a ...kind of... fun game for us to do the 'try to be nice then scoot, thing.  Would bring the Newsweek magazine a few inches from her face to read, and seemed to read at the speed of light, animatedly moving her face along the pages, scanning at top speed, taking only a few seconds on some pages but seeming to take it all in. She'd ask really weird questions and cared mainly about over eating and drinking. Bubby had to make sure she did the simplest things.  Poor Althea.

Thing is, we all loved her, especially because her sister our Bubby did, who us kids adored of course and looked up to, what kid isn't thrilled to have a grandmother dote on you smiling.  Bubby Florence had a very strong, deep heart.  (We were heartbroken when it was her time to go, and especially for Althea.  She and her sister succumbed relatively soon after one another.)

Althea had a way to come up to you and ask in a very 'ad alta' (top of the) voice, 'oh, are you the brown one?' Or 'the 'blue' one, or whatever the color of your eyes or hair were. This was just another reinforcement of the (internalised) terror of could happen to one if anyone found out you too were manic depressive.  Even if it had happened a few generations before, that sick kinda stuff has been known to be perpetrated by some leftover sickos posing as docs.  All kindsa horror stories about it, yada yada yada but there were real life Nurse Ratchets still hunting the night shifts of hospitals for us kinds of folk even in my day (70s).

Althea had a conventional lobotomy, I think, but her eyes were wall-eyed, like it could have been ocular.  I don't know. There were more terrors lurking out in reality... 'nuff said.  Poor Althea.

We loved you very much even though we were a little intimidated by you, old girl.  Here's a bouquet of roses to your memory, 'Althea' ~ Great Aunt Rose

If anyone finds out

twisted

I've been working since mid-teens, and always had to (try to) keep it secret that I'm bipolar (bp), at that time manic depressive. And at school, which had been impossible at times when I was wigging out to space and back.

Keeping a secret is like poison. Especially for a kid. Makes it hard to look people in the eye, especially as a sensitive child. Not that it's my fault that I'm bipolar, nor that it's such a bad thing necessarily, it's just there's stigma and prejudice, and yes, it can be a pain in the ass to deal with employees, friends, girlfriends, that are bp, etc....

Always terrified of being found out, rejected. Blackballed, made so miserable that you have to go get yourself another job, or whatever. Always putting walls up around you so people can't get in. Where most people work towards building relationships/network, I'm trying to hide and NOT know anyone.

Bee Peers

Where am I? Far, far away, floating, a foggy night, wondering what just happened and where things will go next. What was that? The memory thing has always been a real hardship. Memorization is what gets you places in this day. Memori$e and earn. There's a big chunk blown out of my skull. There is a huge deficit - a gap, where a slice has been stolen from cognition. Gets you right where you live. To constantly be compensating, trying to hide that you are in a way mentally retarded. Playing an act. (regardless of how bad the acting can be at times.) In essense, lying. Having to carry around a lie sucks really bad. Not being free to show too much of who you truly are. 'Oh, I'm a bipolar, alright as rainy yessiree Bob.' Yah, like you can ever tell anyone that you're bipolar. Especially at work. If I get the SLIGHTEST hint that I'm getting manic I don't care what happens, I'm taking a few sick days and zoning out on Abilify. Damnit - manic episodes are disruptive to your jobs. You can get blackballed at work. There is still a lot of stigma. What really disturbs me is that kids now are getting diagnosed like crazy, and all kinds of diseases esp. obesity. That this generation it is being said will have a shorter life span than their parent's generation before them for the first time in recorded history. Not that I'm bitter. Seriously, I strive to let go of the anger of having been sick all my life. What else can I do? Anger is like a chronic disease, that you have to try to stay well from. Being in denial isn't ideal, but in a pinch it can keep you from falling out of the tree you are compelled to stay climbed up on. I just can't dwell on the decades that this illness has taken from me. I feel totally blessed, because I see a world that is unique, with my own imaginary friends, and that the earth is so beautiful and there are even sweet real people on the planet. Life just gets better in the gaining of experience. It compensates for the body getting older. I have learned much of creating my own conciousness. I love after work coming home and living alone. It is a peace I have never experienced before. (Not that it doesn't scare me silly sometimes.) Nobody bugging me...I forget the time sometimes, just dilly dallying around getting fun out of the simplest things (hanging out with my cats writing blogs.) I guess they're saying now that the hallucinations are part of what affects the memory of us BP'ers. Bee Peers. Does a bee pee? What peers to bees have? Wasps? 'Bumblebee-Honesty, Pure Thinking, Willingness and Drive' What the h*** am I babbling about? The other night it was windy, and I heard voices again. I hear them, they seem to be outside. Mostly men's voices, I fear it less and less, the older I get I realize that there is nothing to be afraid of. It does startle sometimes still though, esp. initially. I don't remember particularly what they said last night. There are times when I remember clearly what the voices say. I will have to try to blog some of these experiences. I have landed in a foreign land anyway, out in the country in the boon docks now, and many of the sounds are those that I've never heard before. The little owls make such a sweet noise. They don't startle you awake, but they do their hoot in the night. Hootin-'n-hollerin'. There are some large owls (Owl-Clairvoyance, Magic, Astral Projection) that make a he** of a sound. 'wwwwwwwoooooooooaaaaaappppppp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Make you fast get inside. Amazing, nature. The first time the turkey flocks blessed me - I was just floored. I'll never forget seeing the pheasant run past the window (twice), and the deer crossing the common, at work. I looked up animal symbolism for pheasant, and it said 'Pheasant: Symbolizes warning and concealment.' Yikes...I wasn't long for that job...

Today was like being in a paper bag...

Very strange day, hope I didn't seem as really weird to people at work as I felt.

BBB - As much of a Bitch Being Bipolar is...

gnarlesbarkley.com

“Men have called me mad,” wrote the 19th century poet Edgar Allen Poe, “but the question is not yet settled whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence – whether all that is profound – does not spring from disease of thought, from moods of mind exalted at the expenses of the general intellect.” http://www.patienthealthinternational.com/features/3118.aspx ~ There must be a reason for this albatross... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_believed_to_have_been_affected_by_bipolar_disorder ~ Many people believe that in order to be a truly creative genius one must suffer from some kind of madness. In today's article I'll discuss the connection between bipolar disorder and creativity genius. http://www.creativity-theory-and-tools.com/bipolar-disorder-and-creativity.html ~ ...Variability confers huge advantages: it enriches our cultures immeasurably and is a key factor in the further evolution of human societies. Yet, as an evolutionary imperative, it also exacts a high price. It is often the cause of serious injustice and marginalizes from society those whose conduct or inclinations are judged to be deviant from the norm. Paradoxically, this may benefit art and hence contribute to cultural evolution... http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/293/5527/51 Are Genius and Madness Related? Contemporary Answers to an Ancient Question http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=164902206 An Old Idea About Genius Wins New Scientific Support http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CEEDB113FF931A25753C1A965958260&sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=all Bipolar & Proud [ENHANCED] http://www.amazon.com/Bipolar-Proud-Cledus-T-Judd/dp/B0002IQHWK Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament http://www.amazon.com/Touched-Fire-Manic-Depressive-Artistic-Temperament/dp/068483183X ESSAYS ON SCIENCE AND SOCIETY: Artistic Creativity and the Brain http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/293/5527/51 The bipolar artist http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=6739

Salute! to your health

Vincent Van Gogh, Self-portrait, 1889

'Manic depressive' all 45 years, with psychotic symptoms starting at 11 and a diagnosis at 16 with a month of forced hospital. Currently considered 'high functioning' by the docs. Stubbornly hold down work, have stayed out of hospitals since, despite the annual disruptions of depression and mania, and operate 'opposite to emotion' enough (during any psychosis) to seem relatively normal most of the time to the community. We seem to be at an important juncture with bipolar studies that are now coming out. They've just developed a similar test animal model (! manic mice) that has helped them see a circadian rhythm gene link, and they've expanded their diagnostic criteria of BP that makes this disorder much more common (a larger group) than previously. Good potential for our futures managing this disorder. Three interesting articles: Circadian Rhythms May Influence Bipolar By: Psych Central News Editor on Wednesday, Mar, 21, 2007 http://psychcentral.com/news/2007/03/21/circadian-rhythms-may-influence-bipolar/ Medical News Today Bipolar Disorder: Understudied And Much More Common Than Previously Reported Main Category: Bipolar News Article Date: 18 Mar 2007 - 13:00 PDT http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=65380 Screwed up body clock may be the root cause of bipolar disorder Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2007 (EST) A new study by scientists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, US, has found that the bipolar disorder commonly known as manic-depression, may be due to a screwed up body clock. http://news.sawf.org/health/34830.aspx

Child Bipolar Misread Neutral Faces as Hostile

photo credit

These articles have been blowing me away. R.E. 'LINKS' in right-hand column.

With now 35 odd years of experience having bipolar, I was 'child onset' and there was no explanation or help for this symptom of what was utter terror of people for me. It was painful to look strangers in the face. I have since overcome a huge part of that reaction, but to this day I still have struggles with putting the act on that people don't freak me out.

I believe that bipolars are actually more evolved humans. If you think about the state of the world over all, is it no wonder that as bipolar kids we sense hostility from 'normal' (socially accepted) people? /with that said, it is often a wrong interpretation to see people's faces as hostile when they do not have that intent/ The sorry state of humanity's stewardship of the earth is hopefully changing for the better and we are evolving as a species, but up to now the human race has been hostile to this planet (and at times each other)!

Isn't it true that depression is a normal reaction to the current state of affairs worldwide? Our brains components are structurally different. Emotion.  The heart.  Magnification of emotion, among other anomalies, might be a trait of advanced evolution?

Scooter Libby you lying sack of s--t

photo credit

you and your nasty war mongering cohorts, GUILTY!!!!

The Radio Talks to Me

Yeah, I must admit to this long standing delusion that includes the radio talks to me. Again, the intensity of this and other beliefs waxes and wanes in overlapping cycles.



The synchronicity got frightening at times during the indescretion of youth. Music has a power that can not be denied. It has consumed me, and has been my companion. It has understood me when no others could and helped keep me alive.

Bipolar Medication Deadly Maze

Tyrannosaurus Rex Dinosaur skeleton.
Symbolic of why I call Rx Trex,
because of the
pharmaceutical industry's Tyranny on true health.
image attribution: ScottRobertAnselmo
[CC BY-SA 3.0
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],
from Wikimedia Commons

latest update, 'Don't Let a Thief in Your Mouth to Steal Your Brain'

Love Lewis Black sometimes and HE KNOWZ IT!!!!!  I promise to you all through that latest skit of his on Trevor Noah that I hereby have given up on alcohol for the duration, despite the aches and pains that are coming on with age 57.  Next year?  58.  WoW.  The deadly T Rex is in cahoots with Satans minions.  Believe you me.  Most know.  More will.

I took damned it to hell Lorezapam, and you know why.  It was the anxiety took a hold of me yet again.  Sleep issues with the new life for the duration anxieties.  I was lying to my health professionals at that point by drinking as damned much as I damned to hell pleased behind their backs.  Never Again.  No more psychia-trix to choke on and no more Alcohol, as it is the slippery Nemesis that always ends up drinking me.  It's a put-0n.

OMG.  Gulp.  Guzzled the Lorezapam pill down with beer that I always end up guzzling and I actually lost the voracious appetite that comes with my numbing Alcohol abuse at that moment.  Love that shit too much sea.  Trying to not spill all the beanpot here.  But it's necessary.  It numbs ancestral pain.  I had started taking the Deadly T Rex again, just then, for about a week.  I was self-indulgingly in a foul mood getting home that night, and popped a Lorezapam, very low dose.  NOT SAFE!!!  Warning Will Robinson!!!  With sucking down a beer!!!  Deadly Terrorism that is legal.  Rx.  I don't even remember being possessed to take all the pills I could find in what remained of my collection.  Thank gahd it's all gone now and I have relinquished any remnants to DudeZ0.  He is very extremely disapproving of my taking them because he knows when Rx gets its hooks into me I'm at risk of suiciding myself.  I dig.  Parasitic Greed is Big Pharma.  Bluefangs.

Now both of our constitional rights were unlawfully by Universal Law and for DudeZ0 the Absolute Just and Truth through thier own damned laws.  Christ!!!!!!!  May the ACLU chapter help us cause we need it!  But only if we help ourselves by asking.  Lewis helps me out here.  ;)  Love all goode.  So does the dang TV now that I think of it just not the back end bamboozling, despite the tone and of arguing it all Politically and adeptly may I add?  His second family.

'Lost control of a killer' the Alchohol and Legal Drugs are My Nemesis Truthfully.  Even a jellyfish will tell you that, Machine Gun, Jimi H.  ...and as the beloved group Prof Professes hilariously and hooked me in to thier hilarity.  Love all of those kids.  They are my new adopted community of kids long distance for the duration.  Protection love and light all around the Label.  And all goode people for that Auntie Matter.

Hurricane anyone those few years ago nearly swiping Fla hurricane Michael...what???!!!  I heard she was hiding out underground with Gah and I was moved through fear to call her and it had been 4 years...?  I was never agining again...  A year later we are trying to be more of a good family.  I have to live in truth and have a mouth to match especially with them.  I have put my foot down with the two that are my family and we only communicate now in writing.  I refuse to fly for the duration.  It's all good, through toughlove.  I have to stick to this or my unpretentiousness messes them all up.  I have to live in as much of the truth as I huwomanly can to survive.  Surf vive.  :)  This is it and I get that and try to be Just grateful.

Two girls.  Wisdom Teeth.  The demonic destruction by Darth Vader and the Stoopid Elf and co for the insurance Twin Towers.  Gahd.  Trump Card Check Mate.  Jezuz Davinci.  Is that code??  Ferguson.  OMG.  Coolness!  Scary and cool at the same time.  With all the joy.  Eyes open.  Sheilds Up.  As much as possible going forward.  

'The Professor they used to call DudeZ0 in his home town of NH, Manchestah's first son, birth records sealed that year in by the church and especially doctor who maimed the child drunkenly that New Year's Eve night before he was first born by the young mother...  Poor kid they've been gangstalking him from before birth as well just like me.  I hate to admit we are not all that alone that way and THAT MUST END so be it so it is.  Anywho.  I was in that room that used to be occupied occasionally by the former woman Terrora of the Death Club.  Probably not a good idea but there is no choice. 

I am eternally grateful to him, believe me, despite our issues we are struggling to live with.  This is a huge sacrifice for this Amazing self made man who any who care should all owe a debt of gratitude for my life saved from the 31 Sunday debaucle.  His exes including the late (Terrora was the lying suicidal lifestyle=alcoholism and drugs transfering her father's abuse onto him, poor guy, just like the Wall family did to me.)  Sorry that is the truth of the past.  DudeZ0 and eye are in fact Twin Flames.  We must stay together at all times.  It is true.  It is part of the pact of  survival for the duration.  Despite both of our former demons that we grapple with.  We love each other very deeply despite them.  'These woods will grow to disarm us, -'kin.  I pray for us to learn to get along better living here in this land boat circa 1962. Co dependent.  Anyway.  Here comes the snow dump.

'Don't Let a Thief in Your Mouth to Steal Your Brain'

I will try hard now to join the crowd and recede among it.  Eye realises that the big picture is not about me at all, again I am but a pawn, serve or suffer with Neptune so prominent.  Yikes, and Hickory Dickory Dockery, Fe`!

Bee welle all one goode peoples!


Sept. 23 2015 Note: This was written a long time ago, got booted out of the health care system Halloween 2010.  I have become so sick from the medications to date that I can't get back on them - I have tried...If there were only some sincerely good research on meds/treatments that are not too prohibitively expensive for the average person...but sadly, and it's truly a CRIME:  Big Business, Big Pharma.


Early January 2019 update: The more years I achieve sobriety from those horrible drugs the more I get memory and some health back.  They caused me permanent damage.  More and more I realise how deadly those drugs are. I recently took some anti-anxiety medications and ended up hospitalized, not funny, no joke, and Never Again.  Personally, detoxing off them is a big part of survival. The medications are at the foundation of what causes (I conclude that it is a) syndrome that is labeled Bipolar Disorder.  There are many pretty good critical resources to explore if curious about what is a 'psychiatric survivor'.  There are many of us out there.
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This is the original post.  I forgot to mention that how sick one gets on those meds, for me it destroyed my gut, memory and caused permanent developmental disablement.  Not that I needed any more of that on my plate.

February 2007
I froze starting this post as I just had to change doctors and I haven't been documenting it clearly. I'll actually have to try to remember, oh no, not the 'r' word...

Lithium 900 mg = totally depressed, sick, went off immediately and have stayed off medication from 1978 to 1992. I had to start taking meds because I was struggling trying to go back to college, (getting sick and failing,) and had just become a shotgun stepmother to two profoundly behaviorally challenged kids in 1992. Have been hooked on them ever since. They actually helped me to learn how to begin alleviating much of the anxiety over the decades, with a lot of work. And getting blasted out of a bad marriage. - The second time it was a cd that blasted me out of hell, but that is another story.

Bipolar Medication History

I think they have me categorized as the non-specific bipolar. Or whatever it is.

In 1978 they put me on 900 mg lithium. I was so sick and so depressed that as soon as I got out of that first and only hospitalization (forced a month imprisonment) for that first acute psychotic manic episode. It was quite traumatic. I suppose I should describe how they use to treat us. I have no idea what they do now. They started with luring me to the hospital without telling me I'd be incarcerated fro a month. When I kept raving and wouldn't sleep they strapped me to a gurney and shooting my butt with 900 mg Thorazine - a lovely traumatic experience that helped keep me stubbornly out of looney bins ever since. I don't recall resisting the thorazine in the first place the bastards.

1978
Lithium = 900 mg for a 90 lb. 17 year old kid you've got to be kidding me - immediately upon release of hospitalization went off all meds.
Thorazine = you've got to be kidding me while in the hospital...
----------
1992 -
Stellazine for antipsychotic = knocked out for days. Did calm the psychotic symptoms but make me catatonic.
Zoloft = side effects didn't like it.
Wellbutrin - seems to be keeping me from slashing my wrists - it's a joke, ok? - have been on it from 1992 to date.
In attempting to avoid lithium, as it causes thyroid disorders, weight gain and most importantly for me, depression, I tried many of the anti-epileptic meds.
Tegretol = as soon as started taking it, rash all over body (no anaphylactic shock), emergency room.
Neurontin = after 9 months developed systemic reaction, which they thought was carpal tunnel. Had to wear wrist braces, numbness and pain from neck to hands, hands falling asleep, making it hard to rest, general feeling terrible. Took another 9 months to feel 'normal' again.
Depakote = was fine, except after several years developed huge extremely painful sores in mouth that were large and lasted a month. As soon as they would go away, more would show up. Turned out a dental hygenist (thank god) looked up Depakote and Wellbutrin and they both can cause these miserable mouth sores. Went back on lithium.
2006
Lamictal = tried it but made me very dizzy and nauseous daily even after a few months. Went back on lithium.
Was given Respideral but never tried it.
Abilify = have tried it before and didn't have reaction so will take that as needed for psychotic symptoms. For when I start feeling 'good'. Too happy, too productive, too much writing, too little sleep etc. It's great starting to get manic, it sucks when it goes too far.

Covert Hallucinating

Techniques on the practice of integrating hallucinations without freaking other people out, are helpful. The bp may benefit from teaching himself how to do 'opposite to emotion'. Tricky part is releasing fear. Once you are having visions/hearing/feeling things you may have little control over it, so take it's hand. Instead of trying to stay in Control, try working with it. Having understanding and acceptance of hallucinating phenomena can be at times a gift. Hallucinations serve a purpose. If they become terrifying it's problemmatic but it may be ameliorated and even conquered. One can get so used to them as to not often appear obviously mentally 'ill' to others. This is key to releasing fear, as when some others who have no experience see one acting mentally 'ill' (reacting overtly to hallucinations) the tendency is that they become afraid of or annoyed with that mentally 'ill' person. And of course fear begets fear. We all have a responsibility to be sensitive to the affect our behavior has on others, and with psychotic folks it's just a little more challenging. I have utmost respect for folks schizophrenic as they have hallucinations much more strongly, and more like all the time. I also have the utmost respect for drug resistant bps or anyone else who experience hallucinations on a more involuntary basis. I imagine it's true for most that if we are able, we avoid having psychotic symptoms in the first place. It's like the dreams of being sucked into the ocean always had recurring daily for many childhood years. After a while, you succumb to the terror and learn to breathe underwater. Then it starts getting interesting, walking around on the bottom of the ocean. Hallucinations are a curse, and your private gift. If you can weave the experience into some kind of art, it helps dramatically. I personally believe that at times I'm intuitive (clarvoyant) in addition and so some of what I experience is also natural phenomena. This can cause intense confusion at times, especially when I was young, unguided and inexperienced. Sensing energy fields, spirits, other planetary beings, communing with the universe itself, the earth and nature, human beings as a collective. For me Hallucinating doesn't happen consistently, as neither does sensing any of this stuff. It seems to be involved in overlapping cycles personally, and is of course influenced by the environment. Learning to recognize these and other bp symptoms, by recording them and trying to find a pattern (over years) (organization more of a challenge when manic.) If you like to write, date everything. Thank the advent of computers for this reason, but they are not mandatory. Emotion is a power unsurpassed. Most animals experience their own. Bp amplifies emotion. How about these ideas? Practice imagining to ride it like a wave, learn to surf it. When you are alone or with those that it does not distress, let it all hang out, talk to whatever you see and hear. Stay centered, try to not allow yourself to become afraid, and destructive behavior is to be avoided in every way. You are loved, by god, or the gods or whatever you choose to believe or not in. We share this planet, the stewardship of the earth, and we are all responsible to one another on the higher levels of sprituality. Of course we are all individuals, part of a larger organism. Acceptance is the infancy of loving. So you're a little unique maybe. Isn't everyone in some way? I had pain in my heart for too many of my years. Healing was a long, mostly solitary road. Isolating can be a natural 'coping' mechanism, but too much of it can become not good for sick puppies. I've just now discovered bp blogs and I feel wonderful about it. It's like you're a little note floating around the air and suddenly you're in a sweet orchestra, and you can hang. Reading these fascinating diaries are slowly blowing me away. I feel like I'm finally with my own.

Year 11 'Child Onset Bipolar' Labeled

No.  Just turned eleven when the hallucinations began. The first day of sixth grade, in stupidville snot town, assatwoshetts...cringing, (despised school) sitting like a brick in homeroom and a huge sound/visual burns a path down from the back of my head to the bottom of my vision. I was already completely terrified, hated being forced back to the States, totally unaware of what the hell was happening, and this just escalated. Talk about blowing your mind.

That study that just came out about kids interpreting neutral facial expressions as hostility and reacting with fear through some deformed part of the brain. I totally relate to that. I was like that since a tiny child - painfully shy. It was painful to look strangers in the eyes till about 27.

It's been 34 hellish roller coast years since that day in sixth grade, but still kicking, having learned so much. I accept the hallucinations now, even embrace them. See 'Covert Hallucinating' post next. At first it was bewildering - in a constant state of terror. Panic attacks, racing heart, blushing. ptsd?

Now, can actually either hold on for dear life, or enjoy them. There is this hallway room in this old ivy school that has wooden walls and in the last century it was a dining or ball room. When I walk through there get the strangest feeling, like there are people from the olden days all over the place in bustles and victorian outfits, smoking cigarettes. Now, it's totally strange and I feel so self conscious walking through there - can see them, it's such a head trip, it's comical. I love the diversity of the students there, it's been such a long time that I've taken that breath of relief. There are some real putzes that go to that school as well. Hated school. Try, get sick, lose the year and start over, and over and over, with nothing but the debt and trying to forget bad memories embarrassed as hell of my own behavior.

It's been a long crazy road.

I digress...have come quite a ways and want to give some pointers to bipolar child onset kids. A little experience with bipolar goes a longer way. Always had this dream to help kids - but alltheseyears afraid of coming out and blackballing myself from getting work, getting ostracized, etc. And also the awesome responsibility of trying to teach precious kids, when I was and am still a mess for so many decades. What a kick in the butt. Carrying around secrets hurts your heart*Chest pains. Bipolar child onset can be heartbreaking if you don't have good help, and a little luck. It takes a special education, which these kids can sometimes be gifted in ways that can be utilised to compensate. And these kids can at times develop or have other complications as well. Could some suffering be ameliorated, please?

Want to somehow help kids. How about by helping their care givers? My mind reaches out to the universe, for the greater good, so be it, and so it is.

1st Post - Cheers!

photo (c) collective evolution

2018 Update:  I do not advocate taking medications.   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Pandora 'blessed' with bipolar child onset, here's to hope for staying well. This post is a first ever for this sick puppy. The intention behind this blog is to offer any type of 'hope' for anyone struggling with bipolar, in any way possible. Just a few surfs in this webring was all it took for me - blew my mind and made me feel like I could join the human race in some way, at last. I will proceed with respect for the possiblility that someone may read this. I do not intend...to offend.

future post wish list:

@an item called 'Medications' where I will list and edit all the medications I've tried and how they effected. Medications work differently for everyone but maybe similarities can be drawn.
@an ongoing list of for managing symptoms.
@another ongoing post: chronological onset info - breech birth to 11 year old psychotic symptom manifestation onset to teen diagnosis...to middle age
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I want to utilise this blog to help manage this illness. And to remember things. Writing has always helped and ultimately, if I can help myself and such a thing is possible - be on the road to
fulfill a dream of helping other people with this painful disorder. Connecting with people in any way would be a good thing - I'm an isolator, a loner which is a double-edged sword.

Last night I went to sleep with an annoying song from a tv commercial in my head - something about money (surprise) - thinking *stop* (a new technique is to envision a stop sign to halt obsessive negative thinking - it's helping thank you therapist). This Valentine's snow day to two feet blizzard morning I wake up with this song in my head - specifically these lyrics on waking:

Follow the lines and wonder why
There's no connection.

I had no special fondness for or knowledge of this song although I like it, but haven't understood what the lyric words were, or who the artists were, only that the song had become familiar as of late. It is one of those songs like a memory, this one from the eighties.

Googled the lyrics and it's The Shins, 'Phantom Limb'.

These lyrics explain exactly what I have been feeling lately, having come down off a perennial manic episode, which in recent years I have identified as usually triggered in September and occuring through January.

Last winter I was spared a manic episode - a new job, new relationship, new martial art in spite of a bad foot and renewed hope. This winter an increasingly stressful job leading to chest pains (mild 'panic attack' symptoms), then a falling back into drinking. This year I'm convinced that alcohol is the main ingredient to trigger an eventual episode. 93 days sober, I hope for ever.

I've got to get stronger - wiser to stop the manic times. It always happens when I'm overly challenged at work (or school), because I need to think for that. I resist taking weekends out of my life to lobotomize on antipsychotics as the end of a mania historically brings on what seems like inevitable resulting depression. I get addicted to writing prolifically and needing less sleep - actually having some energy. I've learned to identify 'hallucinations' better, be more intrigued and less afraid. But sacrifices have to be made to stay 'well'.

The 'remedy' to mania, antipsychotics take days to recover from living in that sudden dead fog of brain inactivity, loss of creativity and total lack of energy ...I have a new antipsychotic
- Risperidal, which substituted three other meds, older antipsychotics like abilify and seroquel, xanax for anxiety or panic attacks and all three strengths of sleeping pills, chlorazepate, sonata and ambien. (that is over the years of managing different levels of symptoms - I mostly took as needed and resisted that as much as possible) I dread taking any new drug that first time - one never knows how it may affect and (one should have people around to help) if an immediate reaction should occur. On the list of posts in the right column here I will maintain a posting called 'Medications' where I will list all the medications I've tried and if they were effective or not. Medications work differently for everyone but maybe similarities can be drawn.

Think I'd like to learn more about this song I woke up with. The mind blower is waking up with that song while I turned on the radio at 5am it was on, synchronicity always piques my imagination ;)
------------------------------
THE SHINS
"Phantom Limb"
Frozen into coats,
White girls of the North,
Fire past one, fire the one,
The are the fabled lambs,
A Sunday ham,
The ancient snow.

And they can float above the grass,
In circles if they tried,
A latent power I know they hide,
To keep some hope alive,
That a girl like I could ever try,
Could ever try
So we just skirt the hallway signs,
A phantom and a fly,
Follow the lines and wonder why
There's no connection.

And weakened falling eyes,
In cheap shots from the tribe,

And we're often in Marcus' porch again,
Another afternoon with the gold head tunes,
And pilfered booze.

We wandered through your mama's house,
And the milk from the window lights,
Family portrait circa ninety-five,
This is that foreign land,
With the sprayed on tans,
And it all feels fine,
Beat it circa slime,
So, when they tap our mundane heads,
To zombie-walk in our stead,
This town seems hardly worth our time,
And we'll no longer memorize or rhyme,
To fall along in our crime,
Stepping over what now towers to the sky,
With no connection.
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