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.