Bipolar Questions #6

Besides making sure I took my evening medications - making sure my sleep area is quiet, dark, a good temperature, eat a yogurt, put on my sound machine, and if necessary take an Ativan.

Q: What are you looking forward to? Small or big thing.

Honestly, I need to pick up a prescription I am out of.

Pears?

the fruit?. I suppose they are okay, though not my favorite

is their anything you do that embarrasses you or people around you?

Yes, emails and texts when manic.

How often r u depressed?

Not that often. It's more that sometimes I have days when I'm irritable and sad about the world and country's affairs, but that passes quickly. If I counted the number of significant depressions in my life, I'd say they number about six. Some only weeks long and others longer. Only two particularly disabling ones. If I count "mixed episodes" or just bouts of anxiety that brought my mood down, there were many more than that. I'm more often elevated in mood (mild hypomania to full blown manic). The milder hypomania months far outnumber my depression months. Honestly, I'm fairly good at putting pure depressions behind me. Some of my mixed states (some with psychosis), on the other hand, have been traumatizing to various degrees.

Q: How much have your hypomanias/manias affected how people around you feel about you?

They all ran away...

Last circus u attended?

Maybe five years ago there was a cirque at navy pier I got discount tickets to, but I haven’t been to traditional circuses with animals since very young because I feel bad for those animals...

If you could change one small thing about your life, what would it be?

See kids more.

Fave flower?

Tulips

Do you like bees ?

Yes.

Been stung by a yellowjacket?

Those are the ones that die and leave the stingers in, I believe? I think many times as a child. I believe my father is allergic to those specifically. He has an epi-pen.

I'm going to try to get this question I tried to ask before, correct today:

Would you rather be stranded on a desert island or impossibly snowed-in up lost in the mountains?

A desert island

Would you rather be stranded on an island with a panda or a wild cat?

panda, I think

if you could look in to the future and ask just 1 question, what would you ask?

Will my dream of rearing a grizzly bear from a young cub come true?

Would you rather be stranded on an island with a grizzly bear or a wild cat?

Cat--at least there could be a small change of survival, if it is like a cheetah, say, or cougar, maybe. Cheetahs actually do great with most people as well as with labradors.

Scariest nature event in your life ever?

An earthquake I felt when living in the Bay Area of CA. It was actually not a big earthquake, but the epicenter was in Berkeley, where I lived then. It was also the very first earthquake I ever experienced. Growing up in NJ, I had experienced a number of nasty storms (including hurricanes). I think that when you've experienced many, it's not so scary anymore. I remember that night when the earthquake came, a whole bunch of young neighbors cheered like it was some fun event. Meanwhile, I was afraid to take a shower for a couple days, for fear another quake would happen when I was naked in there. I did experience another even worse earthquake, when in Taiwan, but I was severely depressed in bed. I was so depressed that I pretty much didn't even care or even get out of bed. That time, the bed I was in literally slid from one side of the room to the other, and back. The floors were slippery tile. I don't recall aftershocks. If there were, I don't remember them. I don't think I soiled the bed, but I likely stopped eating. I had stopped going to my job, or even calling in sick. My apartment mates must have told my boss, who came, along with some Taiwanese teaching assistants, to take me to the hospital. I only vaguely remember being there. I never told my parents, or anyone else I knew, about the experience.

Q: What was one of the braver things you've done in your life?

Wow--scary stories, both, BD!!!

Sawing through the sternum with the sternal saw all by myself as a resident for the first time with the "big" doctor still up on the 6th floor. Just a week before, one of tje finest cardiac surgeons in the hospital had inadvertently put his own saw int the left ventricle. Not recommended. So scared.

Name one of your heroes and why.

rosie jones, because despite her disability, and despite her problems with speaking, she's now a really famous comedian/ advocate for disability rites. I admire anyone who can make something of themselves even with their problems.

how much time per day do you spend outside?

I’m going to pass on that.

Do you forgive people easily?

Yes, automatically now.

Do you like Steve Martin, or even know who he is?