Into the Void

How to identify mania:

One way is to make a rough calculation of the percentage of support list email that is yours. Is half the email yours? That’s the support list equivalent of being at a party and running around in a frenzy trying to keep tabs on every conversation.

My personal favorite way to tell is to read my own posts and count how many times I begin a paragraph with the word “I”. If I write a post and every goddam sentence is about me, me, me, then I know that I should be talking to a therapist instead of taking energy from people whose boundaries are too soft for them to say or even think “no” or “you are a boring, self-involved twit.” When folks talk talk talk, it’s because there’s something that they want to say. Not the mush that comes tumbling out in idle chit-chat, but something important and maybe life-changing. OMFG, no, keep talking loud and fast so that you can’t hear it.

In case you aren’t aware of yourself enough to gauge when your thoughts are racing, you are emotionally labile, or you are feeling overly optimistic, grandiose, charitable, attractive, psychotic or whatever else might be part of your mania, then you have to focus on your behavior. Or more specifically to others’ reactions to your behavior.

I realize that gaining some awareness is the first step in being able to reduce your meds, get out and make new friends, do volunteer work or maybe even get job training, and eventually even stop hating yourself and your bipolar disorder. In a way, allowing yourself to be competent and independent is like sawing off the branch you’re sitting on if your continued access to medical care requires that you be sick enough to qualify for it.

Can you imagine being paid to stay sick?

Of course the soul is energy. The body - the vessel we live in - runs on electrochemical reactions that have EM fields around them just like any other electrical conductor does. Halo, aura, nimbus.

“The Egyptians recognized many degrees of immortality. The Ren and the Sekem and the Khu are relatively immortal, but still subject to injury. The other souls who survive physical death are much more precariously situated. Can any soul survive the searing fireball of an atomic blast? If humans and animal souls are seen as electromagnetic force fields, such fields could be totally disrupted by a nuclear explosion. The mummy’s nightmare: disintegration of souls, and this is precisely the ultrasecret and supersensitive function of the atom bomb: a Soul Killer, to alleviate an escalating soul glut.”
– William S. Burroughs & Material, Soul Killer from the Seven Souls CD.

The Clean Fuels and Energy Independence Act

X-Originating-IP: [209.158.227.171]
From: RepGerber@pahouse.net
Reply-To: info@pahouse.net
Subject: Energy crisis demands action now
Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 10:00:13 -0400

Energy crisis demands action now As the war in Iraq continues, energy and fuel costs rise and America’s energy consumption continues to cause climate change, the need for a cleaner and more energy-independent Pennsylvania is paramount. The Clean Fuels and Energy Independence Act, as part of the House Democratic Caucus’s Energy Independence Strategy, would put Pennsylvania in the forefront of the alternative and renewable fuel economy. This legislation would mandate the blending of ethanol, soy and other clean energy sources in fuels. It would establish production and distribution standards to advance the shift to cleaner and cheaper domestic fuel sources. And it would help to stimulate the Pennsylvania economy with in-state production of renewable fuels. Our proposal is likely to come to a vote on the House floor next week and, if enacted into law, would put Pennsylvania on track to produce enough homegrown fuel to replace all the fuel we now import from the Persian Gulf. Clean the environment. End our dependence on foreign oil. Reduce fuel costs. Stimulate Pennsylvania’s economy. Show your support for this important legislation. Contact your representative and tell them to vote YES on House Bill 1202!

Spread the word!

I am utterly appalled by the ignorance of the present energy issues displayed in HOUSE BILL No.1202, otherwise known as the Clean Fuels and Energy Independence Act.

Perhaps the Pennsylvania representatives aren’t aware of the gas crisis in the early or mid-70s where the State of New Jersey had to go to even-odd day gas rationing.

Maybe the Pennsylvania representatives have forgotten the gas crisis in 1978 or 1979 during which lines at the gas station where up to a half mile long. Gas stations sold out their daily allotment by 10AM. People were shooting each other in gas lines in anger and frustration. Increased energy costs caused several years of stagflation, where prices and interest rates went up but salaries didn’t. The average Pennsylvanian’s life savings lost a large percentage of buying power, forcing retirees to go to back to work.

The problems inherent in relying not just on foreign oil but on fossil fuels in general are not new. Any rational, responsible individual opted a long time ago to forego luxuries such as comfort, style or the illusion of safety in favor of reduced emissions and better gas mileage.

Let’s be clear, also, that the United States buys most of its oil from friends and allies. Iraq was once a friend and ally, and continued oil revenue is essential to building a government to replace the one the United States destroyed. It would be wiser to stop buying oil from that notorious Wahabbi stronghold Saudi Arabia.

As it is written, HOUSE BILL No.1202 will have no effect on Pennsylvanians’ driving habits. The bill provides no incentive for individuals to use less gas or to pollute less. There is no mention of the paranoid trend towards larger vehicles that occurred after 9-11, as if the family car is a bomb shelter rather than simply a means of getting from point A to point B. There is also no mention of the windfall profits American oil refineries have made by basing manufacturing overhead allocations that did NOT increase on the increased cost of the raw material. The emphasis in HOUSE BILL No.1202 on biodiesel technology trivializes or ignores viable alternatives to the internal combustion engine, much less the development of proposed new alternative energy technologies. There is absolutely zero mention of the effect continued reliance on fossil fuels will have on carbon dioxide levels in the air we breathe. There is nothing the bill about addressing the soil depletion that will occur if current farming practices are continued while implementing biodiesel technology.

HOUSE BILL No.1202 is an short-sighted, agrarian solution to an industrial problem. In fact, the solutions outlined in HOUSE BILL No.1202 are exactly the solutions that high school ecology clubs were promoting in the ’70s. These solutions are so archaic that to implement the bill as written would be to set energy policy back 30 years. The result of HOUSE BILL No.1202 will be to push Pennsylvania back into the the Dust Bowl era. A post-modern technological solution that addresses multiple social, financial and geopolitical facets of the energy problem makes far more sense to any reasonably intelligent Pennsylvanian.

Iraq Pennsylvania Persian Gulf climate change energy crisis

Recently someone challenged me to

Try looking at other things moods do that are related to thought, but aren’t thought. How they change things like memory, attention, and perception.

Like whether you are motivated to work on having a life in spite of the bipolar disorder? Whether you take a small failure and read it to mean that you can *never* succeed?

I think the answer is this:

We have moods. *Everyone* has moods, ours just swing out farther. Accept it and get on with your life.

I’ve been having some problems the last couple of days, not sleeping and feeling the “raccoon eyes” again. In the middle of that I made the bad decision to stay at work late since I was having luck with a problem there. Symptoms - racing thoughts, “body armor” meaning all-over tension. A building up of toxins. I was too hyper to use my biofeedback program, couldn’t even do the first task. Bah.

Last night I took an antipsychotic. Today I’m stumbling around and every few minutes I have to lie down wherever I’m at until the dizziness passes. How the *fuck* do you people who take that crap every day manage? HA! I bet you think that’s a symptom of bipolar disorder, not a med side effect!

I have things to do. So I point myself in the right direction, gathering supplies a bit at a time. My next task - after a very strong cup of coffee, which is brewing now, will be to varnish the picnic table. It’ll take longer than it would otherwise but it will get done. Yesterday I did some body work on my ‘88 Toyota pickup so that it will pass inspection.

This is where the less motivated bipolars jump up and tell me I’m not disabled. I could have gone on SSDI in late 1999 or early 2000. It would have been easy to stay on high doses of meds and get money for nothing. It just wouldn’t be me. I took the summer off and spent a big chunk of my savings going back to school to get my engineering degree instead. And learned reiki to give myself another tool for managing the illness.

The point? Yeah, hard to stay on topic when you’re stoned out of your gourd on psych meds. The point is that you have the moods. Yippee. There have always been bipolars and many of them accomplished great things in spite of it - or more likely *because of it*.

If you are a failure, it’s not because of the disorder itself. It is because of the choices you’ve made in your life. You can’t change the mood swings, but you *can* change everything else. Change is scary, even for non-bipolars, so don’t blame that on the disorder either. You deserve success - however you define “success” - so make the changes.

So quit focusing all of your energy on having bipolar disorder and start focusing it on having a life.

Or don’t. Your choice.

Coffee’s ready. Excuse me, I have to get some things done today. It would be easier if my head didn’t feel like a bag of rocks.

Technorati: bipolar+disorder medication+side+effects moods SSDI biofeedback bipolar

This is the first post in the new category Meta, which will be, of course, blog entries about blogging. The purpose of this post is to clarify my own opinions and practices with respect to advertising.

Dear Leslie,
Thank you for participating in the Edelman/Technorati blog survey. We conducted this study to:

• Better understand bloggers’ attitudes towards corporations and PR firms
• Help clients understand why and how they should engage the blogosphere

Technorati contacted tens of thousands of active bloggers via email, blog posts and the networks of discussion and links those posts generated. The survey generated 821 responses during the week of September 26, 2005.
[..]
Thanks again for participating.
Richard
Richard Edelman
President & CEO, Edelman
richard.edelman@edelman.com

My answers:

1. The primary reason I blog is to Create a record of my thoughts. The secondary reason, of course, is to occasionally engage like-minded readers in conversations on a topic.
2. I post Every few days. I tend to post in bunches when my cognition and energy are up.
3. I write about companies or their products Less than once a week. I usually share by email with friends. No reason I can’t cc: the blog.
4. Yes, I would like samples to write about in my blog. I occasionally do this on another web site, specifically with books related to bipolar disorder.
5. I am contacted by bona fide companies or their reps Daily or almost daily. I’m only counting contacts from real businesses, not spam with a fake email address.
6. I most often actively interact with Product teams. These people are more likely to engage in dialog than PR people, and they’re usually pretty enthusiastic.
7. Companies usually contact me with Form email. I don’t generally finish reading an email that isn’t written to me personally. Oh, I can tell if vendor is using a mail-merge program.
8. Messages that come from an outside PR group generally go in the junk folder unread. These groups are less concerned about a product’s reputation and more concerned with whether they can sell me one. I trust them about 1 out of 10. Eudora has a very nice integrated SPAM filter.
9. Messages directly from a company are more likely to be read, and I’ll even pull them out of the junk bin if they contain solid information - technical details - about a product I’m interested in. I’d say I trust them 6 out of 10.
10. I have wondered whether to correct inaccuracies in a way that draws regular readers’ attention to the change. Perhaps Leave the error but append a correction is the best way.
11. If I post misinformation, I’d like a company rep to Post a comment. On web pages they must use the contact form.
12. I like to talk tech with Mid-level employees who work on research and development.
13. A blog endorsed and produced by a company is Occasionally trustworthy.
14. A blog by an employee is better, Somewhat trustworthy. Although they must toe the corporate line, they are more likely to talk about their experiences using the product.
15. I trust technical data from Company web sites. I rely on friends for product reviews.

What does all this mean?
Well, it means that the line between advertising and reality is blurring. We must decide right now whether to become whores for the products we use every day.
TAGS: Edelman, spam, corporate whore

Caveat: I’m an electrical engineer. Do not construe this to be medical advice.
It is NOT.
I have chosen to use allopathic meds as the basis for my treatment, and I will not change my mind - at least not until after menopause! But with my pdoc’s blessing I am allowed not only to take supplements, but to choose them myself. I don’t take the supplement-du-jour, I wait until they’ve been proven out and people have been using them for a couple of years.
I am taking:
SAMe, mitochondria food. It has been proven effective in mood disorders and my psychiatrist suggested this one. A couple of studies showed some anomalies in mitochondral functioning in bipolars, probably mediated by the cell rather than in the mitochondria themselves.
The mitochondria, small organelles within each of our cells, provide the main source of energy at the cellular level. They use glucose and oxygen to modify a molecule called Adenosine Diphosphate (ADP) and change it into another substance called Adenosine TriPhosphate (ATP). Coincidentally our cells break down ATP for energy, and so the mitochondria are still with us. Without them, we’d very quickly die.
Incidentally, mitochondria are symbionts - they are foreign, they even have their own separate DNA. Fascinating stuff. They must have been parasites that infested our prokaryote ancestors.
Pantothenic acid - another mitochondria food. I’m going to choose between this one and SAMe at some point.
Lipoic acid - necessary in utilizing Essential Fatty Acids (EFA). You’ve heard the fuss about Omega-3s and Omega-6s. EFAs are an effective single supplement for bipolar disorder. There has even been preliminary information relating ADHD in children to low fat diets. Your brain is over 60% fat.
On the topic of evolution again, there some evidence that the sudden brain growth that resulted in our species was enabled by an increase in EFAs in the diet. It’s likely that this level of EFAs wasn’t available when we came down out of the trees and into the grasslands. However, the level of EFAs needed could have come from seafood, from our protohominid ancestors who found a seashore environment.

Well, the news is full of fun stuff today. The press could do so much good if they directed their energy into improving the world.
Man faints, dies after seeing epidural. Ok, I can almost see this. The needle is three inches long and marked in stripes to indicate depth of penetration. It looks kind of like a skeeter’s tweeter.
US reporter jailed in CIA trial. This one is tricky. Background: Joseph Wilson was confronting Dubya over the questionable evidence he had presented to justify the rape of Iraq. To retaliate, someone told a NY Times reporter that his wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA agent. Nobody knows how many people have died because she was outed - she was in a sensitive overseas post. Furthermore, the reporter who is being jailed, Judith Miller, doesn’t even know who the leak was! The issue here is whether the press has the right to keep sources confidential.
G8 calls for new climate dialogue. There are only 5 people left in the world who don’t accept the awful fact of global warming. All of them are in the White House.
The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Christian Doc Speculates Why Americans Rank #1 in Mental Illness. Have you talked to God today, Ma’am? He can save your sanity.
Drug Kingpin investigated for “doctor shopping”.
Ah, here we go… Mars picture of the day.
Soccer moms on dope. “We don’t see families torn apart. We don’t see the violence. We don’t see the robberies and the burglaries,” he said. “Meth is definitely worse on society than ( marijuana ).” Huh?
Ever wonder why we went after Iraq when so many of the 9-11 highjackers were Saudis? Here’s a profile of the gentleman that Dubya knows as Uncle Bandar.
Armor Plate your iPod. Clever devils, those Japanese.
This one’s from MemeMachineGo! It’s about the recent eminent domain decision by the Supreme Court. The one that allows your town to bulldoze your home if they can increase their tax revenue by giving the land to someone else.

Technorati: Joseph+Wilson Dubya Iraq Valerie+Plame Judith+Miller Mental+Illness Uncle+Bandar eminent+domain