What is sadness? Internal and external influences with an emphasis on mental illness

As a follow up to my posts on happiness, I'll attempt to provide insight into the often extremely powerful emotion of sadness. I think there's a difference between sadness and depression. Sadness is caused more by external factors. Depression can be existential. It's often chemical, caused by an imbalance. You can be depressed sitting in your home alone for no reason. I don't consider that sadness. Granted, it's splitting hairs a bit but I think there is that difference. Sadness is defined more by things that make us sad. Failures in the material world, failures in love, failures at things that are important to us cause sadness. That comes from our expectations. If we have a more fragile brain chemistry, what are typical, normal, unescapable life events that trigger sadness can shift into the dark, black moods of depression. As a bipolar person, I know that feeling, the transition of sadness (like being pushed to the edge) from depression (which is falling off that edge.) Social standards often play a huge role in sadness. In a given culture, what is valued, what garners pleasurable rewards, or what produces a general sense of self-worth and self-esteem (sometimes all three combined) create our views of what is good (that which we've come to internalize as valued) and what is bad (that which is considered socially out of step.) It is possible (and does happen) that, due to mental illness, specifically emotional illness, a person can internalize "crazy" ideas of what is valued and what is not. Unless a person lives in a society where the mentally ill have dominant influence (and that really doesn't exist), the person can become sad because what they tend to value, which can become very distorted, is not valued by the culture. Even worse, the person with a mental illness is presented with an ultimatum by his/her peers: Either go to a psyche clinic and/or take drugs or you will be ostracized from the culture, a culture which often produces the stigma that a mentally ill person can trigger in ignorant non-sufferers. This can make the sufferer very, very sad. The mentally ill person is a victim of illness but it's an illness that makes the majority of people very uncomfortable. The societal perspective on mental illness is the more sufferers, the more accepted it is. Depression and anxiety, and those that suffer from them, are relatively accepted. They're considered as "not that bad" as far as social condemnation goes. Many famous people have depression and anxiety so this stigma is lessened. Bipolar disorder is much less accepted. Bipolar is much more alien to the majority and much more feared. "Aren't those people violent?" the majority asks. Even those that suffer from depression and anxiety can come to condemn the bipolar. In their need to be accepted by the majority, they can attack bipolar people with as much ferocity as "normal," healthy people do. "We have depression and anxiety but we're not as bad as those people!" they say. I have experienced such things. The sadness that comes from being a member of a marginalized group becomes worsened by being a marginalized person IN that marginalized group! Poor schizophrenics have it the worst. They suffer enormously yet are reviled by the general public. "We know those people are evil!" they say. Serial killers, both real and fictional, are branded as violent schizophrenics. Schizophrenic sufferers, already bombarded with nightmarish delusions and hallucinations, are finished off by the ignorant hate of the general public. These people are murdered inside and out. Being a bipolar person (who has had hallucinatory and delusional symptoms triggered by depression), it makes me VERY SAD to see people suffering worse than I. A strong moral center based on compassion can be both a credit and a burden in this way. The pain of others can exacerbate the chemical fragility of the brains of the mentally ill. This "weakness" adds to the cycle of sadness. This sad worldview, a very real reality to the mentally ill, thus becomes a further descent into the grave of pessimism already dug by the progression of illness. The only way to cope with this existential, ever present sadness is to try and change our perspective. To minimize sadness, one has to destroy or change the views internalized early on by majority opinion. We learn things from our normal peers in school. This is often to hate what we feel inside ourselves. Crazies are evil, we're taught, so we come to hate ourselves because of what we see as that "evil" brewing inside us as we get older and more stressed. We shove dark thoughts down deep, hoping that they'll go away. That we have these symptoms is another source of sadness. We, often fueled by ignorance even in our own family members, thus making our support systems counter productive, come to blame ourselves. We're "evil" and we "know" it. One has to grow cognitively and learn new perspectives or face complete oblivion. It's the only way the sufferer can broaden his/her horizons and gain relief from the total sadness of feeling like a societal burden without mentally detaching (escaping) from reality. Cancer patients are justly pitied; the mentally ill are blamed and loathed. This is how it has been. Will it change in the future? Will we, as a majority, come to see the truth and to accept our mentally ill population as sufferers and not perpetrators? Time will tell. Thank you for reading his far. I'm sorry if I repeated or lapped myself.

Not getting what we deserve: The life frustrations of being mentally ill

As I've written, I'm bipolar. I was a successful student and athlete in HS with successful, working parents in Wisconsin. I had earned success and I had no reason to believe that the opportunity would not be there in the future. I put emphasis on "opportunity." I'm not talking having anything handed to me. I'm talking, due to good health, of being able to work and contribute to society. My deterioration began, in bits and pieces, towards the end of my HS days and mushroomed as I was going to college. I was coping with major depression and anxiety my freshman year but I pressed on. I got good grades my first year (except for Algebra 2, though I worked my ass off.) Over time, trying to cope with a major illness I didn't know I had, I started losing at the game of life. My grades in college plummeted as I became dependent on benzodiazepines to avoid constant panic attacks and antidepressants that may have triggered mania to avoid black moods. I was afraid of my illnesses. Deathly afraid. Here I had been, a success. Now I was fighting for my life against something I didn't understand. My "support" was also very sketchy at this time. My Mom had left home and was living for herself. My Dad thought I was a lazy freeloader after awhile. Not surprisingly, this added a LOT of stress to my life, which aggravated my condition. I became more interested in darker things, from drunken partying to slasher films on TV (which I had never liked before.) I began avoiding schoolwork by my junior year. I avoided it and attempted to cram at the end of the semester. In some classes, I didn't get away from it and I bombed. I just wanted to be happy during this time. I was fighting for my identity and for simple peace of mind. And I was failing increasingly. I had to leave college after my junior year or I would have flunked out. I went from successful student to complete waste in two years. The more I tried to stem the tide, the higher my stress level. I tried drug after drug, desperately trying to find a drug combination that would help correct a chemical imbalance that I didn't understand. I knew nothing about psychiatry and I would be a few years away from trying to learn about it. I just wanted to be happy. I didn't want my life cluttered with an illness. I was 18 when I was first diagnosed with depression. My life was just ready to take off. I had earned it. All the tough times I had in HS, I had earned it, damn it. Now it was being stolen from me by a mental illness. My intelligence and toughness were two things I prided myself on. Now I had problems just getting up to go to class. I never took naps during my summers in HS. Now I was taking one everyday in college because I had to. My energy was being drained from me by the depression. I would be exhausted just sitting there. My symptoms had me angry and my thoughts were angry and aggressive. Instead of listening to gangsta rap just for enjoyment, I was now identifying with the words. I was in trouble and I was only getting worse. I left to live with my Mom and work in Atlanta, then I went back to school. It was during this time that I was diagnosed bipolar. It was devastating. I was minoring in political science with the possible hope of making a difference in elected office. Now that was impossible yet I had gone so far with my minor that I was still taking poly sci courses. I had no future yet I was trapped in the same classes. It would be like a person recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease taking classes about having a strong, well functioning memory. After one terrible year back in Wisconsin, where I was at the brink of suicide twice, I left school again and went to work in Kentucky, where I lived until I was 10. I went back to Wisconsin with the intention of finishing school. I stayed with my Dad for a brief period. He thought I was a freeloader and a loser by this time. What was happening to me was all my fault in his eyes and I was now a failure in his eyes. My Dad, my best friend and confidante growing up, hated me now and I hated him. After another failed work experience, we had a violent domestic dispute and I ended up sentenced and committed. I was a winner in HS. I didn't drink or smoke and I was successful. Now I was convicted of domestic violence and incarcerated in a psyche clinic for 6 months. I had fought so hard to be successful again. I had been on and off and on and off my meds because they made me so sleepy when I took them that I couldn't function. There was a ton of "Why me?" Why all that agony? I became deluded. I started believing in reincarnation and I assumed that I had been Hitler or Pontius Pilate in a previous life. Why else was I suffering that much when my intentions were good? Over time, by age 42, I've become much more stable in my mind and in my life. I'm working on a book, pursuing personal interests and trying for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But I can never work a full time job again. I have before but I can't now. I'm young, just 42, yet the stress is too much and the high functioning is impossible for me. A part time job is possible but hasn't materialized. I try to "let go and let God." If I'm going in that direction, he doesn't want me to work in the public or private sector. A confusing situation? In my case, yes. I have high hopes for my book. It's excellent so far and I'd love to make some money with it to be able to support myself. Right now, I'm on disability and parental help (we're all understanding about my situation now.) I'm all over the internet and I'm enormously curious about life. I'm also still very driven to succeed, whether my health will allow me to or not. I see successful people, many much less talented or honest or decent than myself. They're getting what they want. I use "celebrity culture" for example. So many of these celebrities are useless yet they're getting what they want out of life and I can't? They're stupid and immoral but they're functional. I see that functioning and I get so jealous. It's wanting to run the marathon so badly but being a double amputee. I clench my fists a lot. Avoiding the world would perhaps cause less pain but I'm not a shrinking violet. I'm a jerk and a competitor. I'm still a winner, I hope. I still strive and I still try. It's just all so frustrating. I am being prevented from the kind of success I want to achieve. I'm trying to make lemonade out of lemons but I could just cry at times.

Bipolar: My Story - Part 1

I am a bipolar person. I learned this, officially, when I was 22. I had felt it for years, though I had no idea what it was. As psychology is not taught in high school (at least, not when I went to high school from 1987-1991) as a serious discipline and my parents were not educated in the subject, I, like most people my age, went about my business. That meant my day to day affairs. Like all young people, school was my job for virtually my whole life and functioning in that environment was my responsibility. The focus was on getting the job done. That meant good grades, good behavior, success at sports (really success at everything) within reason. While my parents preached this success to me, they were also much more relaxed about it. "Don't work too hard," was what my Dad frequently said, not because he was lazy or wanted me to be but because he didn't want me to be stressed at the day to day routine that life was. I, however, from a young age, was temperamental. I believe that part of my genes came from my grandfather on my mother's side. Growing up, I always took myself and everything that happened to me deadly seriously. When triggered, I had a ferocious intensity about me, a competitive streak. I had to win and not only win big. I had to dominate or it wouldn't matter. This streak could be extremely vicious and out of control. When I was in an intense mood, it was usually overwhelming. My brain would light fire and burn for awhile. By the time I was 18 and the stress of leaving home was rapidly approaching, the fire seemed to burn hotter and hotter until it became an existential rage. My school years were successful and I wouldn't be necessarily be angry at anything in my world (though I often convinced myself I was.) LL Cool J's "Mama said knock you out," was how I felt in growing regularity. I got into hard core rap because they were intensely angry, though they, in their minds, had a societal reason to be. I didn't, yet I was full of rage anyway. I knew something was wrong but I didn't know what. Right around that time, my parents separated for good. Though I had always been a somewhat morose person, getting down for what often seemed like foolish reasons, I had never been in a tailspin like the one started when my parents separated. We had moved out of state when I was 10 and I had been greatly abused by the kids at my new school. I cherished my home life in compensation and lived in dread for the approaching time when I had to go to school to be attacked. Though being insulted and, conversely, learning to insult others, was my day to day life, I had some friends though I was never near what would be called popular. When my parents separated, my mother started to tell me all kinds of terrible things about their relationship. As I was a freshman in college and my life was just taking off, this parental instability preyed greatly on my mind and affected me at school. Prodded by my increasingly unstable mother, I went to a psychiatrist and was diagnosed with depression. This started my journey to diagnosis, every psyche drug in the book, eventual learning and my striving for moments of mental and emotional clarity, acceptance and freedom from pain (which is a constant fight.) I saw my college life, friendships, personality and health plummet to near incompetence and complete lack of functioning as I tried to figure myself out amidst near constant family criticism. I failed miserably several times in many things I attempted, suicidal in my mind many times and at the edge of attempts a few times. I was completely lose emotionally for many years until, after leaving and going back to college several times as I tried to "get my head straight" as I called it, I was so sick I literally stopped going to class in 1996, hanging out with some friends for the next few months, living in terror of when I'd have to tell my father that I had had to quit on school. He was emotionally abusive towards me when he found out, treating me like I was deadbeat (my Dad is a Republican) who was just a lazy bum. Just before I told him, I was committed to committing suicide beforehand but I couldn't do it. I soon checked myself in to my first clinic. I had no insurance and my father paid for it, angry as hell the whole way. This was in the summer of 1996. As much hell as I had gone through, my most hellish years (and moments of triumph), were still to come. I will continue with that part of my story later. Relating a few things I have experienced has made me very, very tired and very, very sad. I want other bipolars and people with other mental illnesses to draw strength from my comments. I very much want to help others like me. Those that have been through hell and are possibly experiencing such things now, I can only offer my love and support from a distance and in spirit. I wish there was gold at the end of every rainbow (including mine) but it is hell having a mental illness and our futures are always uncertain. You are welcomed and constantly loved wherever you are. I would help physically if I could but all I can offer is care over cyber space. I care. As only one human being, I am always with you with love and understanding. Please be strong and hope.

What is happiness? Internal influences

My previous post concerned the external influences that affect our happiness; now I'll comment on what is, perhaps, an even stronger determinate of our happiness, namely internal factors. Such questions are really only an extension of "nature vs. nurture" and "experience vs. reason." They're questions of how we relate to the world and the world relates to us. With progressive discoveries in brain science, psychology and philosophy (to a certain extent) have turned the focus of addressing questions of humanity inward. No longer are questions of metaphysics (such as how a "God" impacts our lives) the most pertinent. Questions of what happens outside our world seem almost primitive in the world of modern science. That said, nature, more than nurture, has been the primary focus on explaining who we are and why we are who we are. Biology and how it affects brain chemistry are vitally important to how we see the world, how we see ourselves and how we feel in general. Emotions have been linked to the brain's amygdala, the walnut sized ganglion (had to look that up) in our mid-brains. As a Romantic, I'm annoyed at the prospect that the awesome power and beauty of human emotions are perceived by science as coming from a "ganglion" (whatever that is) the size of a walnut in our brains. So boring! Still, I accept whatever is true. If our emotions are purely physical, coming from the mid-brain, then so be it (although it's more complicated than that.) Regardless of how they're created, emotions are very complex and are an enormous part of what makes us human. So how does our internal makeup impact our happiness? How we express emotions depends on how they're produced in our brains and how they're affected by the external world. Mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder greatly impact how our emotions are produced and, more importantly, are regulated in our brains. Personality disorders like borderline personality also have huge impacts on our moods and feelings. In the grip of such illnesses, emotions can become delusional and elusive. The individual can enter into escapism and never return. This can create a false happiness which can thrive as long as the individual never leaves the fantasy world. In our real world, this is, of course, impossible as we can only survive by suspending our disbelief for brief periods. The physical science of the brain will always drag the healthy individual back to the physical realities of the world around us. From a purely scientific perspective, that science of mind, neurotransmitters in our brains, govern what we think and feel. How that brain chemistry is then developed by our contact with people and other external factors dictates how we feel. Simple as that. And, scientifically, this is reasonable and, as human research continues, no doubt, biologically true. However, cold, bland, wonderful science doesn't stand a chance of winning the battle over emotional perspective when it comes to combining emotions with abstract imagination and creativity. Our creative imaginations take emotions in hand and explode them into colors, fictional worlds that take us beyond the stars, moments of human drama that inspire us to strive and give life meaning. In short, emotions in the hands of science are dull and lifeless. Combined with imagination, emotions are priceless, the reason why we're alive. If we don't feel and express our emotions in ever more complicated patterns, we become empty robots, devoid of color and life, only capable of thought. No matter how brilliant and developed our thoughts become, it isn't enough. We have to be artistic; we have to paint and be moved by paintings. We have to draw and be amazed by what we're capable of creating. We have to produce music and revel in the beauty of the melodies. Like thoughts and emotions, our creative energies also come from within. Bring them all together and we are human, we are whole. Emotions, especially, become how we motivate ourselves. This is true human happiness. We feel it inside. We are complete.

What is Happiness? External influences

I'm hoping to do a series of posts where I take a different emotion and analyze exactly what that emotion is and means (if I'm successful.) So I'll start with happiness. Happiness is what? Firstly, let's consider the exterior. What makes us happy in the world? Happiness by external means can be considered in different ways. Firstly, there is the kind of happiness that we hopefully all feel and that is parental/sibling happiness. Beyond ourselves, this is the first kind of happiness it is possible to experience. Psychologists say we have to be held and we have to experience positive emotional feedback. If this is attained, as infants, we live with an early, unconscious kind of pleasurable state that can only be termed happy because the opposite of positive early development can only be deemed unhappy. As youths, without the conscious experience that comes with age, we can only exist in one of these two states as we're not learned enough to know shades of gray. As we grow older, we begin to experience ourselves. We begin to realize what we think (even if we don't yet know how or why we think it.) As we're taught things, presumable life lessons, by our parents and teachers, we begin to set our thoughts against the background of these concepts. As we're not yet mature or aware enough to be strong in ourselves, we naturally compare what we know of ourselves against these qualifications. A powerful, early state of happiness or unhappiness is created in these moments (assuming the young person is in a relatively normal social world.) If the young person's thoughts and feelings match up with what is considered good in their environment, the person is happy. It is like passing through a gate while traveling through a world the traveler doesn't understand. The traveler is happy when the gate opens and the traveler is able to continue. If the young person's thoughts and feelings do not harmonize with his or her surroundings, only emotional stress can arise. If validation is all the young person can value, then clashing with the accepted standards will create emotions such as confusion, unease, fear, panic, perhaps anger or other such emotions. A strong, intelligent, older person can rationalize (and even embrace) these kinds of emotions as being part of life. The mature mind can cope but the younger mind can't seek such refuge of the experienced and will feel the stress and pain that the possibility of dislike or rejection will create. Such a state of being cannot be considered anything other than unhappy. Only a young masochist could possibly be happy in such moments of painful emotion but that is the product of an emotionally malfunctioning brain. The possibility that the young person receives mixed messages both from early teachers and parents should also be considered. With age, the young person can see these realities as being part of the gray area of human reality but can only become confused by such mixed messages at such a life stage. As the young person grows older, he or she, through often painful experience, begins to process information from their environment both at home and at school. Peers become vitally influential and parents less so. A diverse educational process allows the maturing young adult to see life being lived from many different perspectives by seemingly different people. The young adult, if experiencing doubt about their sexuality or other important emotional issue, may find succor at this moment by realizing that there are people in the world just like them. This will lighten unhappy feelings of confusion and doubt. At this point, the maturing adult becomes not quite happy with HAPPIER. The maturing adult now lives in a world of differences, different people and different things. Their emotional burden is less but they realize that there are people in the world who dislike who and what they are and always will. The maturing adult learns that you can't please everyone. There is no such thing as total and absolute acceptance. This creates the opposite states of awareness that the world is full of potential friends and potential enemies. Young adults at this stage begin to pursue and find their friends and create their social groupings of like minds. They find their social happiness in groups of similar people. Popular people hang with the other popular people. Outcasts find each other. People with similar creative interests or favorite sports teams or similar unconscious insecurities socialize together. A truly mature adult would then grow to not only include those in their own social grouping but will try to make friends with people in other groupings. Unfortunately, this is often not the case in our often ignorant, frightened society. Many in our world stay in their like minded social groups and never leave them. Popular kids continue to aim high and achieve a higher social status than others. Outcasts grow to hate the world. People with similar religious beliefs grow to hate others with different beliefs, etc. Such social distinctions are based on fear, whether it be the fear of the unknown or the fear of the other person and that fear, being an unpleasant emotion, cannot make the sufferer happy. Narrow world views cannot be happy unless the individual's conscious mind is either ignorant to ways other people think and feel or is constantly fed data designed to keep the individual in a sense of social stagnation. Certain preachers telling their followers about the horrors of other religions only, without telling them positives of the other person's faith, is an example. The preacher's intent is to keep the lay person in the flock by telling half truths designed to keep the listener firmly in that social grouping. The follower is then socially stagnated as they are only active within one circle of people, no matter how large, that think and feel the same way of things. If an individual is stuck in such situations, he or she can only be considered socially happy if they are oblivious to all outside their realm of consciousness. That, however, is not the real world. The real world is loaded with many different things and many different people with many different styles and cultures. Only by experiencing the real world in all its shades can a person strive to achieve full happiness in the external world. All that is true has to be considered. As I am not married or have children, I'll end my dialogue on external influences that affect happiness at this point. I'll continue with the idea of happiness as experienced via internal influences. To go with my previous thoughts, an internal way of perceiving social happiness can be derived by ones mental attitude. Accepting the world for what it is and enjoying the differences can be modified to the view that, yes, the external world is full of differences but we, as people, are all similar underneath. In such a view, we become Disney's Small World in a way that can make us feel happy as we are content that we are all flesh and blood down deep. Such perceptions, those that come from personal awareness, education and possibly an introverted mind will be discussed in my next post. Thank you for reading this far.

Sugar: My dynamic pleasure and my addiction

Since before I can remember, I've been addicted to sugar. I remember eating almost my entire bag of candy at Halloween (and I had a big haul.) I remember pouring sugar on my already sugared cereal, eating the cereal, drinking the milk then spooning the sugar off the bottom into my mouth (about a quarter inch of it.) There were times that I sank into depression as a child, aggravated by OCD. I would get seriously depressed at animals being put down or even sad moments in movies. I would get down and stay down and not be able to get the sadness out of my head. My parents were great to me and my sadness had nothing to do with anything in my world. It was chemical and I "treated" it with sugar. My sugar addiction continues to this day (I ate an entire key lime pie today.) No matter what I try, I can't eliminate large amounts of sugar from my life. The cravings cause me pain and I alleviate them with the sugar (mostly processed) then the pain kicks in again and I can't resist it. Not having sugar makes me depressed and I eat junk for comfort. It's a burden, often pleasurable, of course, as that is the nature of sugar. Like caffeine, it gets me out of ruts. I feel the pain. Epicurus would be concerned for me but I don't know what to do with it. I'll probably never quit large amounts of sugar. I hope I don't eventually get diabetes.

Epicurus and Bipolar Disorder

So how plausible is Epicureanism to a bipolar sufferer? IMO, to use the expression, "It's nice work if you can get it." A life of stark asceticism (discipline) is very, very difficult, especially in today's world loaded with so many dynamic pleasure temptations. I think most of us live lives of moderation but it's moderation based on balancing both dynamic and static pleasures. We're happy when we're at peace but we're also happy with the occasional indulgence. For Epicurus, the occasional indulgence was some cheese with his bread. For us today, it's often dynamic pleasure, usually drugs of one kind or another as our society is loaded with them. I'm not different. I'm a caffeine addict. As a bipolar person, I feel the need to use caffeine to both get me out of mental funks and to burn fat off my body. In that way, I love being revved up. I love my peaceful moments but I could never stay in that zone for long. Such is addiction, no matter what it is. Caffeine use, as we all know, leads to very powerful, often painful withdrawals. Epicurus wouldn't have tolerated such pains. I'm also a sugar addict and I'll talk about that in my next post. For a bipolar sufferer, drugs can exacerbate symptoms of both mania and depression. I know this yet I keep using caffeine. To me, the idea of having a dynamic mentality beats being "saner." I'm reasonable and not greatly symptomatic but I do like having my brain and body revved up and ready to go. I know what mania is and I don't consider getting revved up to be mania. In that way, I'm keeping a dynamic pleasure as static as I can. I don't let it get out of hand and I know when to stop (when something could get dangerous, which is why I stop.) That's for caffeine. For sugar, I have no limit. I'd eat all the sugar in the grocery store if I could. Long periods adhering to the ideas of Epicurus can be invaluable to a bipolar sufferer as they are moments of mental calm accompanied by peaceful stability. However, like I wrote above, it's nice work if you can get it. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 22 and couldn't accept it until years later. By that time, I had developed a litany of coping devices for my symptoms. Sugar was always the biggest one. Then in college, I binged drank once a week and used and abused benzodiazepines every minute of every day for three years. When it comes to an Epicurean lifestyle, I lost that battle before I was even aware that there was one. That said, I'm much more insightful and lucid about my illness today and I have Epicurean moments that I never used to pursue, much less achieve. That means being less materialistic and less hurried in life. It's stopping to smell the roses (literally) and feeling the happiness in the moment. It's having good friends and being good to them. With me, this has come with age and experience. Epicureanism is attainable to a certain degree, even for bipolar people. INO, it's only attainable with medication and therapy. There is no peace without the proper healthy choices. Epicurus would agree.

Epicurus

Now on to one of my favorite philosophers, Epicurus. Little is known about him and his literature, some 300 volumes, is completely lost to us (though fragments by other writers remain.) He was born around 342 BC and grew up in Samos in modern day Greece. He was the son of a poor Athenian colonist and suffered from chronic pain throughout his life. He said he began studying philosophy at age 14 and he shared his ideas with those who came to hear him speak in a garden near where he lived. The chronic pain he experience greatly shaped his philosophy. By not being distracted by money or good health, he was able to form his ideas based on what aspects of the "good life" he believed should be pursued. He was an unfortunate and pursued how he could live a better, happier life. His idea was one picked up later by the utilitarians. Life is best lived pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain. For Epicurus, it wasn't a random ideology that he found interesting. He HAD to do it or he would be in such pain that he couldn't go on. This view of human behavior harkens to both Buddhist philosophy and practical measures designed to recover from addiction. Epicurus defined two types of pleasure: Dynamic and Static. Dynamic pleasures are those born from a cycle of pain. We crave something and we satisfy that craving. Later, we feel the craving again and spend our time trying to satisfy it again. The pain then occurs again and we're caught in the pleasure/pain cycle. This is not the path to happiness in the opinion of Epicurus. he pursued static pleasures, defined as non-hedonistic things that make us happy. They're pleasures that stay in a middle ground area (and are, thus, static.) Living a life of moderation and staying in a happy zone was how Epicurus lived. Epicurus' pleasures included conversations with good friend and children, simple meals of bread and water (which he took great pleasure in) and living a life virtually free of materialism expressed by this demand for only enough money to stay alive on. Free of fear, he faced death joyfully. It is being free from what most people define as pleasure, the hedonistic pursuits such as drinking too much or having too much sex or eating to excess, that Epicurus considered anti-pleasures. In that way, his views fit the Buddhist ideas of meditation. Not letting our minds drift, staying happy in the moment and being at peace in that happy zone. It is also the only ideology for a recovering drug addict. Abstinence from the dynamic pleasures of drugs are the only way an addict can recover and find true happiness, the happiness that comes from the freedom of the pain of withdrawal.

Bipolar Disorder and Scepticism: Part III

Part III: My last subject as it relates to Scepticism and bipolar disorder touches on those bipolars that choose a Sceptical viewpoint as their way or living. Namely, bipolars who think that doctors and their medications are conspiring against them, that they don't need any medications and that it is the medications that are making them crazy and not a brain disease. There is a large and tragic community of bipolar people in the cyber world that fall for the ignorant ideologies preached to them by anti-psychiatry "truth tellers" and phony bipolar "prophets" (who often have books to sell.) These suffering bipolars choose ignorance over knowledge, easy answers over hard realities. They are seduced by people who tell them how evil psychiatrists and medications are (it's a conspiracy) or that bipolar disorder is somehow a normal phenomenon not to be evaluated or treated. These "prophets" (some bipolar and others just anti brain science) ignore personal and societal moral responsibilities in their desire to attack people, those in the medical profession, who genuinely help people with bipolar disorder to improve and live happier lives with happier moods and experiences. No, I'm not talking about "happy pills," I'm talking about medication that RELIEVES painful and powerful brain storms of the bipolar. I'm talking about MEDICINE that treats ILLNESS. I'm very sad to say that it's still very much a process in the bipolar and medical communities to get intercommunication and a successful, long term doctor/patient relationship. It is so much an inexact science that it's practically a minefield between where we are when bipolar first sets in to where we need to be when we're taking our medicine and pursuing healthy options for living as healthy a lifestyle as possible with bipolar disorder. There is often ignorance from parental and school groups that need to be supportive, doctor/patient miscommunication that can lead to drug addictions and traumas that destroy a sufferer's peace of mind to just not knowing enough to feel good no matter how hard you try. I've experienced all of these things and I know. Too many bipolars bury their heads in the sand when it comes to taking their illness by its horns. This often comes from fear, fear of being bipolar due to stigma or fear of its devastating effects or fear of medications and what they do. There is also some genuine fear that is medication based as certain medications are narcotics and others, wrongly prescribed or in incorrect doses, can actually trigger or worsen certain symptoms. There are also powerful side effects to drugs (weight gain is the killer) that lead many bipolars to stop their medications. THIS MUST NOT DETER US!! I have had many horrible situations with medications and doctors and have been on and off many different medications for reasons from my own personal ignorance to the side effects of weight gain and nausea and dry mouth and sedation and fatigue. THIS MUST NOT STOP US!! It has been incredibly difficult for me to find peace and that doctor/patient relationship that I've talked about but I've managed to attain some level of stability on those issues. I've made a ton of mistakes and I'll make more and it's just so hard. It is not easy for a bipolar in this world but we must do what we can to win our fight our fight with it!! Footnote: I'll be pursing topics that relate to bipolars that are at more personal levels and are independent of classical philosophies in future posts.

Bipolar Disorder and Scepticism: Part II

Part II: Now, how does Sceptical philosophy interact with bipolar disorder? Is it a good system for bipolar people to study and adhere to? My answer is a resounding "No." Firstly, the idea of Sceptical philosophy is knowledge, itself, thus a bipolar person (or anyone else) couldn't learn it if they were using a Sceptical thought process. It's the "Just Do It," ideology. Secondly, a Sceptical (meaning the philosophy) viewpoint is a terrible one for a bipolar person. If no knowledge can ever be learned, then scientists wouldn't exist; for a bipolar person, that means brain science and those that study it wouldn't exist. No knowledge means no psychology or psychiatry and, worst of all, no medications because no one would have a clue how to make them. Ignorance is the deadliest weapon against a person with a mental illness. Bipolar disorder exists, it's physical. There is an imbalance in neurotransmitters (albeit, a current view of psychiatry and not a proven theory.) The brain physically breaks down over time. If a fire is burning our house down, we can ignore it but it is still doing to burn down around us. To me, a Sceptical view would ignore that fire (as it would take knowledge of what a fire could do to be afraid of it or know how to stop it) and would also ignore the brain malfunctions that are responsible for bipolar disorder. Scepticism is ignorant; bipolars must be vigilant. Though Scepticism is freedom for some, it is not for us unless we consider it freedom from the realities of our lives (more on that in a minute.) An ignorant bipolar is a suffering bipolar. Not suffering in a sense that we all suffer in life from petty things (a stomach ache or cold) to the moderate things (a bad work review or school grade) to the traumatizing (the death of a family member or family pet.) These are pains that all humans go through and bipolars are no exception. Bipolar suffering is another level of suffering. It is suffering that most humans don't have to do simply because they don't have the genetic makeup necessary to make it happen. The bipolar sufferer is tormented by depressions that are much more savage and longer lasting then normal depressions, super speed (and troubling) highs that are out of control and mixed episodes which are the zenith of suffering as they combine the powerful, intense mood storm of the manic phase with horrible blackness and pain of the depressive phase. I've had a few mixed episodes and I can only describe them as me wanting to kill myself so powerfully and intensely that I felt like I was in a tornado of desire to die. It's the worst feeling I've ever had (and I've had psychotic breakdowns of epic proportions.) To relieve suffering, the only way to go for a bipolar sufferer is to be empowered to learn as much about the illness as possible for personal identification of symptoms and to be open to psychiatric care and advice. We need a "brain practitioner" in ways other people don't. I know from experience that the illness hurts. It's very, very painful to have your brain ripped apart in two directions at once (high and low) or to have them both meld in that hellish tornado I talked about. For the bipolar, ignorance is withering pain.

Bipolar Disorder and Scepticism: In three parts

Part I: This post will be heavy on the bipolar perspective and somewhat less on the philosophic side as Scepticism is more of a non-philosophy than anything, more of a refutation of the views of philosophers to that point though a system of doubt had been around since the first day of the first philosopher. Scepticism is an organized doctrine of the doubting perspective. Sceptics maintained that no one perspective is more or less important than another and that knowledge is impossible because our senses that perceive such knowledge could be faulty. Its the "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" ideology. The beliefs of wherever I have been are no better or worse than the beliefs of where I am now so I should respect both equally. To Sceptics, that meant performing the rituals or expected behaviors of wherever they are at the moment whether they believe in those rituals or not. Russell uses the example of genuflecting at church even if you're not a religious person. This idea of subjectivity is very much at the core of modern liberal social ideology that maintains that we should respect all world cultures as equal with none considered superior than the rest and that we should be respectful of such cultures and the people of different identities that comprise these cultures. Modern liberal thought tends to stop short of having a view that one culture is as good as another, however, and is more concerned with valuing all cultures instead of devaluing them which is the Sceptical approach. Knowledge can't be proven so there can't be an individual orthodox belief system of truth therefore nothing to compare it to or judge it on. Russell says it appeals to the everyman (and it does) because it destroys the foundation for intellect and educational achievement, namely knowledge and strips information of any value. In that way, Homer Simpson can be as smart as Albert Einstein on the logic that neither of them knows anything. I must admit that I enjoy this idea because it's an easy ideology; let's not try to learn anything because none of it is worthwhile anyway. I also dislike this idea for the same reason; it's an easy ideology; knowledge can't be gained so why bother? Let's not learn anything. Let's not apply ourselves and try to figure out the world around us or the mysteries of humanity that all humans are (or should) be driven to try to answer. In this way, it's an anti-philosophy whose subjectivity is closer to Sophistry, though the Sophists valued wisdom and knowledge like philosophers. Knowledge is a key area of study for philosophers. Sceptics didn't want anything to do with it.

Bipolar Disorder and how it relates to the views of Classical Philosophies

My name is Jeffrey Riley and I am bipolar.  I was first diagnosed in 2005 when I was 22 years old.  I had a conservative upbringing and neither my family nor I were prepared for my diagnosis.  From my graduation from HS all the way to the present day (age 41) , I have struggled with the illness mightily at times.  Thankfully, for the last six or seven years, with the help of medication, some wonderful mental health professionals, and my own hard work, I have achieved a relatively stable level of competence and clarity of mind.  I am writing a fiction book chronicling the tales of four mentally ill young people (ages 15-20), namely their stays in a mental health clinic, what they did to get there, and the things out of their control (parents, symptoms, etc) that contributed to the breakdowns that put them in there.  The book draws on some of my own personal stories along with various contrivances.  The story also includes narratives of some of the types of mental health professionals that work in these clinics.  That said, I have experience in mental health clinics, run-ins with police when I've been my most symptomatic and a laundry list of medications I've taken over the years.  I also have learned much about the symptoms of bipolar disorder from research (I'm an amateur psychologist.)  Bipolar disorder and those that suffer from it are issues that are very close to my heart.  I have a college degree and a love of philosophy (though I'm not an expert) and I want to write essays from my perspective in this blog about how the views of certain classical philosophers apply to those people today that have bipolar disorder (including me.)  I came to this conclusion when I was reading on the Greek classical philosopher Epicurus and I couldn't help thinking about how his views on what comprises a good life relate to those with bipolar (and other mental illnesses for that matter.)  I want to help those with bipolar (as well as making my own opinions known), and I think posting my insights in a blog will be fun and possibly helpful.

I want to write on comprehensive philosophical subjects including the best lifestyle for bipolar people, whether it be the moderate and ascetic life freeing human beings from pain that Epicurus preaches, to the relative disconnection from society and its perceived evils that Cynics preached to the integration with indifference of the Sceptics to the attention to duty and the spirit of responsibility of groups like the Stoics.  I will also comment on Pre-Socratics along with the 'Big Three" of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle where their views are applicable to bipolar people.  My main goal?  To write on the best possible way for bipolar people to live, contribute to society or achieve mental and emotional peace (or both.)  What is possible for the bipolar sufferer?  What is realistic? What is preferred?  What if a bipolar sufferer chooses to forego all the above questions and perspectives to achieve a different way of facing society and living their lives?  These are the questions (and many others) that I want to comment on and I hope I can create an interesting and insightful dialectic to anyone who happens to read it. After the Greeks, I'll probably comment on the Existential philosophers (my favorite group) and other more modern minds.  I will also attempt to comment on how bipolar people and views of political philosophy intersect though it isn't my main goal.  In my view, people with mental illnesses are not welcome by the general public in political matters so I don't want to write endlessly on a subject that I feel largely doesn't apply to the bipolar.  ALL of that said, I'll be posting some comments soon.  I'm a huge fan of the opinions of Epicurus; I also like the Cynics and Sceptics so I'll be starting with those schools of thought.  I hope that anyone who reads my blog will find it entertaining, stimulating and thought provoking.  My E-mail address is below if anyone wants to contact me for whatever reason.

wwwocls@yahoo.com

I'm new to blogs and I don't know my way around yet so there are several features I'll need to learn (such as if someone can just message me through the blog or not.)  All comments relative to bipolar disorder and/or it's relation to philosophy are welcome.  If you are a person with bipolar disorder and you would like to chat with me about it, excluding philosophy, you are more than welcome.  As I've written above, I have a lot of experience with the ups and down of the illness and will help if I can.

Bipolar Disorder and the Cynics

Note: Most of the source material for my post come from "A History of Western Philosophy" by the great Bertrand Russell.  Other source material may come from Wikipedia or other sources.  My information on the Cynics comes from that section of Russell's work.

Note II:  I am long winded so I hope the reader will approach my writings with forbearance.  I also mix tenses too often so bear with me there, too, please.

Instead of starting with Epicurus, I'm going to start with the Cynics.  As Russell writes in this lead in, different time periods and different social situations produce different perspectives into which philosophies are channeled.  The Greek city state of Athens had, due to it and the other Greek city state's military victories over the Persians, enjoyed nearly a hundred years of prosperity and power.  During this period, "Pre-Cynics" Plato and Aristotle wrote extensively on politics and their ideal of the perfect, just, forms of government based on Plato's ideals of a moral utopia and Aristotle based on his form of perfect logic.  That said, Plato and Aristotle are massive individual subjects worthy of several enormous posts and their philosophies are too complex for me to write on at the moment (and would take a ton of study beyond the few basics I know.)  I mention them here because they wrote on politics at a time when Athens lost the Peloponnesian War to Sparta and Athenian power would never be the same.  Plato and Aristotle are more products of this waning power and have what would be considered largely optimistic world views of the proper form of society and government.  Another major philosophical school, what would become known as the Cynics, went in the other direction, creating a profoundly pessimistic philosophy as pertained to society and whatever form of government happened to be in charge of it at the moment (in this case, "society" meaning the fading power of the Greek city state under the increasing power dominance by the "barbarian" Greeks, the Macedonians.)

The first Cynic (before the term was used) was Antisthenes, a follower of Socrates.  Antisthenes got the ball rolling for Cynic thought by laying a foundation.  In his view, the only proper life was one of simple goodness, which could be attained by the simple man.  He grew to become disillusioned with high minded, evolved philosophical thought and began to preach what many would consider a more lowly existence.  This has elements of the ideas of the much later Transcendentalist Americans.  Go back to nature, forego materialism and work on the problem of personal happiness and social morality.  It is the philosophy of a defeated people and can be compared to the later realities of agrarian Europe after the Western Roman Empire fell.  Advance Roman civilization declined in the hands of barbarian conquerers and the citizenry of what would become Europe de-evolved into much more simple farmers.  However, in this instance, such a change in societal behavior occurred due to the ignorance of the people that flooded in after Rome fell.  Educated men like Antisthenes (and, later, men like Thoreau) went in on purpose but make no mistake: They were complex men who believed in an easier way of living, not simple men whom daily existence would have become a hassle whether it was simple or not.  For Antisthenes, that meant no government, no major materialistic pursuits, no organizations like religion, no private property and no luxury amongst other things.  He was an unrealistic purist in this way but put action to the belief that humans are best off when there are as few societal impairments as possible.

The greatest Cynic was Diogenes.  He (whether on purpose or not) created the name "Cynic" by his wanting to live life like a dog (as he said.)  "Canine" means Cynics in Latin.)  Diogenes was another moralist who believed that life is best lived if it is lived simply with as few social institutions and obligations as possible.  His philosophy was very Buddhist in application.  Freedom from desire, including not just social institutions and materialistic goods but from basics like food and shelter, was the right path, the moral way to go.  Diogenes' way can be summed up best by the story of when Alexander the Great came to visit Diogenes when he was sunning himself in Corinth.  The most powerful man in the world asked Diogenes is he needed anything.  "Yes," Diogenes said.  "I need you to get out of my light."

Finally, to how all of this applies to those with bipolar disorder such as myself.   Cynicism was very much a minority philosophy and so is the community of bipolar sufferers.  Cynics eschewed society as a source of moral corruption and tried to live apart from it.  Bipolar sufferers often see themselves as strangers with their fellow humans, a group long persecuted, and often strive to live apart from the majority for the same reasons as Cynics, namely that life would be happier if its lived apart from the majority.  I have felt all of these things before and continue to, more or less intensely, on a frequent basis.  Like the Cynics, many bipolar people are pessimists.  Why try to enter a society in which we're doomed to failure?  I feel doomed to failure because I can't function properly in a high functioning world.  If I can't keep up, shouldn't I detach and try to find happiness away from the high functioning?  What good would it do me, a bipolar sufferer, to bang my head against the brick wall of people that I'm just not like?  I'm happier when I act as an individual pursuing individual goals of personal welfare and morality that have nothing to do with how other people see things.  In this way, me as a bipolar person couldn't be more like a Cynic in the desire to be happy apart from what we consider society as bipolar people are a distinct minority in a majority based environment.

The criticism of the detachment of a bipolar person from society is that it's just not practical.  When I say detachment, I don't mean a personality disorder like Avoidant or Schizoid.  I mean the conscious decision to separate in the pursuit of happiness.  That said, we just don't live in the era when a frontiersman and a wagon train could head west for farms and greener pastures.  Society is more interconnected than ever and detachment can offer little relief from trouble because we would still be stuck in a mechanized, black top world whether we try to get away from it or not (except for people who own rich farm land in Montana.  They can get away)  As far as food and other means of support, begging used to be a much more noble way of living.  Jesus and Diogenes were beggars who taught on street corners and Socrates was supported by his wife.  Begging in a materialistic culture is damned, pure and simple, and carries an enormous stigma.  That's a big problem with Cynicism and a huge problem for those with bipolar disorder, the vast majority of whom are not philosophers who want to beg and teach on street corners but people who want to work and function happily with others but are often handicapped to do so.  I have many days when I can barely function with my illness and I'm posting in blogs and trying to write a book to find my place in the world.  If I went into the wood to get "back to nature," I stand as good a chance of survival as I do being socially integrated: About equal.  The bipolar sufferer needs societal help.  That means psychiatrists and medications.  Yes, bipolar people need them to function at all mentally or the bipolar sufferer will usually slip into psychosis or manic and depressive episodes at the first hint of major stress.  I need society.  I need, no, have to have good people in the mental health profession to help me or I'll go insane.  I think that Cynicism can be practiced from time to time and we all do so when we go to a nature park or a church or meditate in our quiet time.  As a perpetual philosophy, it's a detachment from real world troubles which offer no solutions to the life problems of a bipolar person.  In that way, Cynicism, though an attractive ideology for those bipolar people who do not choose to go to doctors and take their medicine, is impractical for those seeking relief because that can only be attainted through cooperation with society.