Into the Void

The Bipolar Planet has made it to the 21st century. Social Networking is all the rage, and though The Bipolar Planet has provided a private email list for over ten years and a web page for 15 years as of May 2009, I’ve resisted wandering. Ok, here we go… Become a fan at the official Bipolar Planet Facebook page.

I found this in my drafts folder. I have no idea where I was going with it or who I was answering.

I hear that they are studying drug-induced coma as a treatment for mania. Granted, sleep is a good prophylactic for bipolar. It’s just too, too creepy. The end game will be to stack comatose mentally ill off in a warehouse somewhere. Didn’t Robin Cook write a chilling medical fiction about something like this?

How much sleep does it take? Are they researching conversion tables to translate hours of coma to days of sleep?

There’s a good section on sleep and bipolar in Dr. Fieve’s latest book, Bipolar II: Enhance Your Highs, Boost Your Creativity, and Escape the Cycles of Recurrent Depression.

There was also a chapter in the first edition of Goodwin and Jamison. Incidentally, Manic-Depressive Illness Second Edition is out.

It’s rather disheartening to hear that the researchers are repeating the same old studies over and over instead of exploring new treatment options that would enable us to go back to work instead of turning us into mental cripples by reducing our IQs and impairing our short-term memory. And then stigmatizing us for having cognitive deficits.

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| Bipolar Planet Bookstore
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To visit your group on the web, go to:
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Experimental interface to the Bipolar Planet mobile community on Winksite. You can access the site directly from your mobile phone at http://winksite.mobi/bpplanet/m.

Want a free Bipolarplanet.mobi QRCode t-shirt? Be one of the first 5 people to join the mobile community then pop back here and leave a comment. I’ll need your email address so I can contact you for snail mail address – don’t worry, your address won’t appear in the comments.

Technorati: mobile+community mobile+phone cell+phone .mobi QRCode free+t-shirt

It’s here, The Bipolar Planet® – Mobile Edition.

Since I got a data plan with the new cell phone I’m doing a lot more web browsing. My last cell phone had wireless so I didn’t bother with the data plan. Hmmm, it had a touchscreen too, and Windows Pocket PC rather than Windows Mobile phone edition. And was the size of a brick instead of the size of a candy bar.

Think about it: there are **scads** of middle-aged women driving around with handhelds looking to steal your bandwidth. Some of them want your files, too. Lock that wireless router, folks, especially if you share the C: drive on your home network.

Anyway, I’ve been spending more time on the mobile web and, well, sometimes you just have to say WTF. I got a .mobi domain and am distilling the entire planet into it. Sort of.

I’ll be adding content over the next couple of weeks. I’m evaluating chat sites now. This one looks ok.

Bipolar Planet® Chat
Chat with bipolars from around the world right from your mobile phone. This site is public and unmoderated. For more privacy, sign up for the email list instead.

In the name of the Turtle…

It’s the Bipolar Planet® email list! Email other bipolars – share files, pictures, and your unique take on life.

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VODKA – p.i.n.k. Spirits – Vodka Infused With Caffeine and Guarana – Mixed Drinks – P.I.N.K.

My shrink recommended I try a new beverage called “P.I.N.K.” Well, I think he was recommending it. I didn’t exactly get stern warning out of the conversation. I picked up a bottle today and brought a sip or two to enjoy while polishing up a couple blog entries for publication.

Errrrr, well, it was actually more like a mug of the stuff. The mug shown in the picture is the Pendulum Resources mug available at the The Bipolar Planet® Manic Mall.

So what the heck is P.I.N.K.? Well, it’s 80 proof vodka from the Nederlands pumped up with guarana and caffeine, the equivalent of 1/2 can of Red Bull per 1-1/2 oz. shot, but without the awful sweet vitamin-y taste. It is very expensive at $45 per bottle, very trendy, trés chic, and utterly unremarkable tastewise. The liquid isn’t colored pink, only the bottle.

This stuff must have been created with the manic in mind.

Count me in.

P.I.N.K pink vodka guarana energy drink vodka caffeinated vodka Red Bull manic Red Bull Bipolar Planet

Great news! Two new bipolar t-shirts in the [tag]Manic Mall[/tag]. The first one, called “Crazily is…” is the [tag]Chinese[/tag] characters for [tag]bipolar disorder[/tag] cut-and-pasted from a [tag]medical[/tag] site in China. A back-translation on babelfish tells me that the Chinese have an interesting perception of us. Interesting as in the ancient Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.” Click the picture to see the shirt, “Crazily is [tag]hot-tempered[/tag] the depression!”

The second t-shirt should have been the first shirt, since I was researching it when I came across the translation above. It inspired me to create the Official Bipolar Planet® World Tour 2007 [tag]t-shirt[/tag].

Well, I was looking at an Israeli search engine that links to [tag]Pendulum[/tag] Resources and got curious. Is [tag]manic depression[/tag] a world-wide problem? Do some cultures accept “eccentric” behavior more than others do? How did they treat manic-depressives before lithium? I am very curious about it. A very quick trip to world-wide googles helped me find dozens of ways to say “[tag]bipolar disorder[/tag]” and “manic depression.” It really is a Bipolar Planet®.

Update 5/1:
Someone pointed out to me that I didn’t include the English words for bipolar disorder or manic-depression. Oops! I thought it went without saying that English-speaking countries are nuts.

I suppose I’ll go in to work today for an hour or so. The ADHD got the better of me of Friday and I burnt out at about 5PM. But before I go in, I think I’ll surf the Internets.
Let’s see who is linking to me. The Bipolar Planet has been in existence since 1995 but has only been at this URL for a couple of years. I don’t advertise very well, I’m afraid. To see who links to me on Google, I type link:bipolarplanet.com. Try it for your site.

Google has news feeds!
Manic Digest looks kind of interesting – though I don’t see the linkback. Look at her cute little pout: I’m thinking high drama. Could be worth following.
Of course I’m listed on the Pendulum Resources Bipolar Pholks page. Pendulum was the first ever bipolar web page, formed as an information repository for the email list of the same name.
I’m glad to see that BPSO has found my new address. This is the absolute best place on the web for SOs of bipolars.
Ah, yes, Soberrecovery has found me too. They have an excellent collection of resources for addiction.
Oooh, slipped to the 8th page on Bipolar Central.
Here’s one I haven’t seen before, Bipol-art.de. I’ll have to send them some of my tragically untalented artwork.

Technorati: ADHD Bipolar+Planet BPSO

I could have gone on SSDI in 1999. I chose not to. Instead, I went back to school for one more semester in the fall of 2000 and finished up my BSES at 42 years old. I’m not sure whether I’m experiencing a slow decline or whether I’m just having a couple of bad years. But I’m going to work for as long as I can. Maybe next time I’m out of work I’ll apply for SSDI. And maybe I’ll go for my master’s when it happens. Who the hell knows?
I want to be my best, whatever my best is. I expect everyone to be the best they can around me. I understand physical and mental limitations. I don’t understand not trying.
Anybody who wants a Hallmark card can go to Eckerd’s and buy one. That’s not what the Bipolar Planet is all about. That’s not what I’m about.
To quote Timothy Leary, “The future of the human species is to learn how to use our brains.” We are the ones who can do this, but it comes with a price tag.
So are you ready to join the Bipolar Planet?