Book - 15 Minutes At A Time

Biography - Choice/Life

Fifteen minutes. That is exactly what this is. Fifteen minutes at a time in the day and life of another bipolar. Oh no, you might say. Do I have to listen to someone depress me to death before I even turn a few pages? No, you don't. It is simply a unique, insightful, and creative view into life, from a different looking glass.

Over two and a half million and growing are the number of people from young to old in the United States, who are being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Then there are the eighty million plus who suffer from some form of depression. Approximately one in six adults, and one in five children, obtain mental health services in a given year alone. What does this have to do with the price of eggs? Absolutely nothing!

The reality is that I am one very small percentage point of a growing population that is living with a particular form of mental illness, bipolar disorder, formerly known as manic-depression. I have also been diagnosed with ADD (attention deficit disorder), OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), SAD (social anxiety disorder), SMD (seasonal mood disorder), and if you throw in a few more letters I'd be 3-D (three-dimensional).

To put my worry and significance into perspective, throw that percentage point in the mix with the millions of people in the United States and around the world who: have cancer, are terminally ill, have diabetes, heart disease, failing organs, birth defects, addictions, learning disabilities, physical disabilities, cognitive disabilities, rare diseases, experience famine, are homeless, killed in combat, are murdered, disappear, die in accidents, are impoverished, or who take their lives...to name a few.

My place in this world and life with mental illness is put into perspective very simply, when I stop to think about what so many others are struggling through or have to deal with in their own worlds and lives.

It is my situation nonetheless and one which has been a struggle and a blessing at the same time. The symptoms can be many, the struggles horrific at times, and the answers for a cure are nonexistent to date. Yet again I have to breathe in and out, I have to get up each day, and I have to function and live day to day like the hundreds of millions, and essentially billions of others in the world. To me that means being a wonderful father, son, brother, nephew, grandson, elementary teacher, neighbor, friend, and whatever other hats I live with and wear.

I was born in a good family, the youngest of five boys and with two very loving parents. We were all actively involved in sports and my parents could very likely have seen every sporting event each one of us ever had.

We fought and argued as most siblings do. Some fists were thrown, but at the end of the day we were family and would do anything for one another. We had enough variety in personalities to develop a conservative, comical, athletic, and creative team.

My mother was a quiet homemaker who nurtured, sacrificed, and cooked until we fell asleep from exhaustion. She threw in an occasional, humble opinion, but made sure we always had enough and were well taken care of, despite a modest salary that my father worked very hard to provide.

My father was a hardworking, committed family man who was very involved and respected in church, the community, and in our family. If he wasn't spending time with us, or being a devoted husband, he was fixing or building something.

Both my parents believed in a strong family bond, church on Sundays, good manners, and respect of adults and others. If we ever heard my mother swear it would have made the national news, because it just never happened. My father was a lot of fun and easy going, but to get out of line was to face a once broken, pointing finger that curved to the side and subtly warned us to get our act together. Despite being a humble 5'8", he always demanded, expected, and taught respect. We learned many wonderful qualities from both of them.

My brothers and I had our share of issues, got into our share of troubles, and made many life-learning mistakes. In retrospect we were a normal dysfunctional family. As time went on the difference in age between my brothers and I became more apparent, as being on my own became more difficult. From the oldest to myself, we were eleven, ten, five, and four years apart respectfully.

My concern over consistent issues became more apparent in my freshman year in high school. Through extensive journaling I began to see a pattern with thoughts of suicide as an answer to each of my difficult problems. With my brothers gone, a fear of disappointing them, and not being strong enough to handle everything, I fell into a dangerous place of self-destruction.

Emotional failure grew as a part of my personality and I hid behind an obsessive desire to be successful in athletics. Over the course of the next three years of high school I think I matured at a catastrophically slow rate and in essence, continued to deteriorate any self-esteem I had left.

Then when I was eighteen and in my first year of college, I sat in my college dorm bathroom tucked in the corner of the showers, sobbing, with a razor blade to my wrist. Deep within the darkest places of my mind I was alone, feeling insignificant, expendable, and a failure beyond imagination. I desired death and closure. What I didn't recognize at the time was in essence a desire to cry out for help. A place where countless others fall silent, eventually following through on a suicidal path of an irreparable choice.

The following morning I packed a bag and headed home to do one of the most difficult things I would ever do, and that was to share this with my parents. Undoubtedly it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. This marked the official transfer into the manic-depressive world now known as bipolar disorder.

What many people don't understand however is that it doesn't just go away. It can be years of continued struggles, adjustments, and reconditioning of your previous thoughts. I tried for so long to describe to people what was going on in my mind. I could only describe it by saying, "In my mind lie a box and a silent world, that I try desperately to escape from, every moment of everyday." It finally came to me to draw fifteen pictures of a faceless figure in a clear box and the fifteen different emotions that I would go through over the course of one day. Some emotions were less frequent than others, but there were usually more of the severe highs and lows. It put my thoughts into perspective and helped me to understand where I was each day.

Then there is the unavoidable and always present debate over medication. The questions are raised: is it really necessary? Are there alternatives? If so, what is the best medication? What works? What doesn't? Are you taking it regularly? And the list goes on.

One of the greatest challenges of being on a medication is being consistent in taking it. The reality for many bipolar people, and myself is that the medication which brings normalcy to heightened emotions, takes away the much-needed manic and euphoric highs that are so often sought to keep going. Thus, a brutal pattern begins. The act of purposefully going off medication to get the desired manic and euphoric highs until the inevitable crash into depression, and the overwhelming circumstances return.

In nineteen years of rediscovering and relearning I had embarked on a path of how to quietly survive my dysfunction and create a world that I could safely live with. Through seventeen counselors, six different medications, and thousands of pages of journals, writings, and poems later, I now live with a silent lucidity and greater piece of mind.

It was only through a strong faith, unconditional patience, and incredible support from family and friends that I am here to share my experiences. The significance of this is evident in much of my writing, and becomes more obvious as the subject of each poem speaks to the emotions and situations at that particular time of my life. There are so many things, so many events, so many chapters I could write about, but don't need to. There are many great books and stories of people out there with bipolar and mental illness who have succeeded through adversity. I wanted to tell my story through a different view - from inside the box.

We all face our own demons, our own struggles, our own trials and tribulations, and we all handle them in the best way we are capable. Outside of that, that is the beauty of friends, family, professional help, and faith in a higher power. Again, to each person those variables will differ slightly.

Nonetheless, our lives and experiences make us what we are and who we are. I use writing as my way to vent, explain, heal, cope, live, and grow as a person. The following poems or writings were written over the last sixteen years and are the real-life growth that I have experienced in the last thirty-seven years. The poems have matured over time and have become more personal as I have grown and continue to grow as a person. They are not right or wrong, just another view into the world through another's eyes. I have tried to express my view of life as it manifests itself inside my head, heart, and soul, as the experiences became a part of my everyday world.

I hope at the very least it may open some eyes to similar experiences, empathetic thoughts, new understandings, the possibility of helping others to question themselves, or to give help, guidance, and hope to those who may need it.



Choice - Life


I am to live
I wonder all the wonderful things that lay ahead for me
I hear praises, encouragement, hope, and love
I see the flattened walls that used to bind me - as a path to new beginnings
I want to help thousands...no millions how to see life from outside the box
I am to live


I pretend that polarity is a gift and not an impediment
I feel hope and faith that moves mountains
I touch hearts that have screamed and longed for a voice that could
bring vision to their unexplained worlds
I worry that there are many who have yet to reach for help
I cry purely in happiness for freedom from the box
I am to live


I understand that people find themselves inside the box at some time, as 'none' are immune
I say it's all right to be in the box, but recognize when it's time to get out or reach out
I dream that people will learn to see polarity's box in others, so that fewer and fewer fall to the darkest places
I try...every second of every day to do the best I can in this world...the least we can ask of ourselves
I hope that people will have learned that emotions are three-dimensional
I am to live


(Written: 1-19-01)


CHOICE (LIFE) LEVEL 15

Choice to live represents a healthy step toward living life outside of the box. It illustrates a person looking at their life positively and with new choices that are healthy and productive.