I have been reduced to not being able to work in the competitive market place, e.g. McDonalds.
I participate in a local mental health group called Bridgeview Club and get to share my troubles, and help others with their troubles.
I run this website to maybe reach a few tough lifers and tell them if you want it, there is hope. But, you will have to give up a lot of your old negative destructive behaviors like I did to stay alive longer. Unless of course you want to kill yourself slowly and try not to take any responsibility for it. I know I once used to think this way. Society sure encouraged me to do it. My close friends did too. Suicide is not easy. Its probably harder to succeed at suicide than it is to slowly drink and smoke yourself to death. Then again, if you end up homeless, their are people out there who like to kill hopeless street people for fun and no profit. Who said being mentally ill and healthy was easy???
Who said being sane in this crazy society was easy?
I remember the days when I could pretend being normal pretty well, I had a real job, I played my father role real well, paid my child support, mowed the lawn, all of it. Then, in 2000 my father died of cancer. That helped trigger a deep spiral in which I started to lose what pretending could not keep. The medication I was on was not helping with my bipolar at all. It was Neuronton. I used to have to drink half a bottle of Vodka every night just to get to sleep. I was making super money as a computer guy, but my mental life was a roller coaster. Lots of coffee during the day, fatty foods at the commissary, just a whole wrong life pretending to be normal. I actually excelled on my job, but I felt like shit most of the time. My masochism drove me to great heights of attempted perfection on the job. I was willing to die for my bits and bytes, just to bring home a paycheck to pay the family bills and be the sole breadwinner. It had to end sometime.
So in September of 2000, on a Saturday, I tried to overdose on time release Lithium I had brought with me, on the job. I figured it was a heroic place to commit suicide. But my body figured otherwise. Before I knew it I was running to the bathroom every 15 minutes, doing diahrea, and feeling like my head was starting to cave in. Then I changed my mind. Decided I didn't want to die just then, and started to drink gallons of water and coffee. I figured if I flushed my system I wouldn't overdose and be found in the internet lab at Best Buy Corporate, a deadman. So, between doing my job fixing Java code in the Rational Rose scripts that had recorded wrong, and running to the bathroom, I hoped and prayed that my body would hold up under the overdose I had just tossed it. Later I found out I could have done permanent damage to my kidneys, lucky there, and my liver would have taken a big wallop as well.
So what are the economics of keeping us mentally ill people alive, anyway? Blog me on myspace, go click on that link to it, or email me at [email protected]
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