What is fun?

Here I find myself, papers scattered around- my assignments and my notes. My thoughts feel like they are shuttering, I can’t understand this chapter, I am lost. And I feel scared.

It makes me stop. And I have to ask myself, what’s happened? It has been weeks… endless weeks of nonstop studying. I grew tired of doing research for my essay but the only other thing I could think of doing was another homework assignment (due in over a week).

And now I’m stuck. My brain doesn’t know what to do. I am too burnt out to write the essay but I am stuck on this physics chapter. The Ritalin I’ve been abusing is nagging at me to keep going. But I realize that some part of me is very weary.

The therapist applauds me for my determination, motivation, and hard work. Even when I suggested I might be hypomanic.
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Self Control

Hello all, this is drunk Quinn. But don’t discount me now- I have some things to say and being drunk shouldn’t turn you away. I want to explain myself, my drug use and bipolarity. Specifically I want to discuss self control.

There are two opposing parts of me. It is slightly difficult to explain. I am both very in control of myself and very out of control. I am incredibly impulsive, I can’t stop myself in many situations, but if there is one thing I cannot stress enough is that I know exactly what is happening and the consequences of it.

Tonight I went out drinking with my friends. I was essentially a “third wheel” but this is my little group of friends- just the three of us. I don’t have any friends I hang out regularly with until I met them. I talk to a few people but we never hang out. These friends I actually hang out with. And tonight, we went drinking at this pub.

I had been there before. I had to drive and I had class early the next morning. I figured just one drink would be fine. I was wrong. After they closed I had to sit in my car for quite a while until I was “safe” to drive. I had one drink, a Mai Tai, and I was gone. It is rare that I get that drunk. I learned though. That drink at that pub will do a number on me.
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How Far Would You Go?

We are quick to judge someone who abuses drugs. But shouldn’t we evaluate what led them to use such methods in the first place?

The first time I smoked weed was because I felt depressed and wanted to feel anything else. I didn’t know I was in a depressive episode at that time.

I no longer use it, I actually rather despise the substance.

But it is not the only drug.

I want to feel guilty about abusing my psychiatrist’s trust but I am not the type to feel much remorse.

The powder can work better than the whole. Your nose may ache and the initial rush is so heavy you feel like your heart will explode out of your chest. But I found if you balance the drug with another… then you can excel.

In a way, it is typical cliche college student. They say a ridiculous amount of college students abuse stimulants but I’m not sure of how accurate that is. I have yet to meet any who do but then again- I don’t have many friends and I’m sure it is not something most will announce to the world.

It is not something I do that often, at least not anymore. It is something I do when I’m desperate. I felt so stressed out that I couldn’t function- I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t get started- and the seconds were ticking away.

The pressure to never fail. Not a single class. You want to go to grad school, don’t you? You want to be a success, you want this career because for some reason you have equated it to happiness.

You’d do an awful lot to get this, wouldn’t you?

There are some who would go further than I am. Sabotage their peers even. I am not so devious.

Shouldn’t I feel bad that I have to use these methods at times? I should but I don’t. Like I said earlier, I’m not the type to feel guilt. Would I feel more accomplished if I did it the “right” way? Eh. Maybe. But I’d probably see no real difference. Either way I got the work done- that’s what matters, right?

I’m driven to these methods by expectations. Expectations that were put on me by family and by myself. Ever since I was little it was like my whole life revolved around my future career. Was it my fault? I don’t know. My siblings are all older than me by quite a bit. When I was old enough to start having a good concept of the future, my siblings were all determining what they wanted to do in this world. It made me ask myself the same question. And for as long as I can remember I have had a career goal. I revolve my life around it. But I don’t want to. I want to be happy and have fun.

So I come to be between a rock and a hard place. I can either spread out the time spent studying by not going out drinking or I can get it done in one night by working excessively (and perhaps with a little help) and go drinking.

I’ve done this to myself. I feel trapped in a world where career is everything. But to get to career, I have to get through college. And let me be honest- I hate college. Or at least, I hate the pressure. The deadlines, the high marks, everything. I wish I could learn in an enjoyable way. But let’s face it, I hate my major. I love my minor. Both are useless unless I can get into grad school. I’ve given up on med school, which is what I have completely devoted my college classes towards and it is too late to go back. I am shifting my goal but it doesn’t exactly align with what I’ve done.

What a mess.

Stability… does that word even truly apply to me, ever? You would think so. But I don’t think so. I am always a little up or down. Always have some unhealthy addiction. Am always a little self destructive.

Tonight I used unethical means to get some school work done.

But will you judge me before you even consider what made me want to?

Don’t call me lazy. But if you want… you can call me desperate.

-Quinn

The Medical Marijuana for Bipolar Lie

UPDATED

Everyone seems to have a friend who has been helped by medical marijuana. When my wife had chemotherapy, we had it as a backup in case the anti-nausea drugs did not work for her. Glaucoma is a disease with medical research backing the effectiveness of medical marijuana. But the medical marijuana industry goes beyond what is proven by science. It welcomes those who use it for many other diagnoses despite the absence of peer review studies. In other words, if you can get a doctor or a nurse practitioner to write you a script, you can get high legally for any disease you can name. And the worst of the lies medical marijuana prescribers and retailers let fly is the lie that marijuana helps the symptoms of bipolar disorder.

Here is my full disclosure: First, I do not oppose legalization of marijuana provided it is regulated at least as well as alcohol. There need to be laws governing its sale to minors, bans against driving under the influence, etc. But other than that, I have no problem with seeing it available as a leisure drug. There’s considerable evidence that the liquor industry does not want this, but alcohol is worse than cannabis in some regards. Second, I have smoked marijuana. Here is where my strong feelings about the subject come from. When I was in college, I was talked into toking by my peers. They did not force it down my throat, they did not blow smoke into my lungs, they did not deceive me in the sense that they told me things that they knew were not true. I started using the drug by my own choice.

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A Fragile Mind

I want to take Xanax the way I used to. The irresponsible and reckless way. The dangerous way. The way I don’t advise anyone to ever take it.

I want to drown out how awful I feel. I may have taken a quarter off, not to heal my broken wrist but to mend my manic mind, but I am still fragile.

I took an incomplete in a class, but I have to finish it sometime. And that deadline is right around the corner. I am not prepared and I do not have the strength to care.

Part of me is giving up, ready to fail a college course for the first time. Ready to ruin my future as a psychiatrist or psychologist. But part of me is still squirming to hold onto my dreams, to finish this class, to stay in the game.

Just listen to the online lectures, take notes, and memorize everything. Yet I can’t even tell you the names of the diseases I’ve learned, let alone their symptoms or treatments.

This should be an easy class, even an enjoyable one, but some professors know how to make even the most interesting of subjects into a nightmare.

Maybe the mania is gone, a vague memory where I was someone possessed by the need to vandalize, pop pills, and stare at Christmas lights. But I’m not stable. I’m always a little up or a little down.

I don’t think it is possible for me to be perfectly stable. It’d be like trying to balance a coin on its thin side in a windstorm.

My bipolar is and never will be the productive type. Some people go manic, and get everything done. Me? I destroy everything I can, myself included, and I want the world to see that. And the depression? It just doesn’t care enough.

I go to two types of therapy right now. One for my wrist and one for my mind. It has taken months to repair my wrist, but the evidence is visible, I’m always going forward, I’m always improving.

But the mind isn’t like a broken wrist. I’ve been going to therapy for years and yet I can go backwards. Some days I even fall and break all over again, as if I never healed to begin with.

When I was hospitalized at 19, another bipolar patient took me by the shoulders, looked at me very carefully and warned me- “You’re already so young to be in here. It’s only going to get worse. Be careful.”

And maybe you’d think he is wrong for saying it’ll only get worse. But he wasn’t. It has gotten worse, just in a different way. Yes, my youth is an advantage. Getting help early on may have saved my life more times than I know. But he was right- It’s gotten worse and I do need to be careful.

But what is being careful when it comes to your mind?

-Quinn

The Hidden Side of Gia Carangi

A cult has grown around the memory of dead supermodel Gia Carangi, mostly due to the movie of her life with Angelina Jolie in the title role. The film explores many facets of her troubled personality including her drug use, her obsession with her lover, her bisexual promiscuity, and her death from AIDS. Her problems, we are led to believe, stemmed from her drug use which made her irritable, anxious, depressed, hyper, and in the end terminally ill with HIV.

Many have speculated that Gia was bipolar. This could be a strong post-mortem diagnosis given her interludes of manic behavior and severe depression. A Gia Carangi fan site says

Gia frequented New York’s jet-set night spots, such as Studio 54, and developed a heroin problem during the latter part of her life. Because of Bipolar Disorder, Gia experienced extreme mood swings and would walk out of a fashion shoot if she didn’t feel like doing it. She constantly medicated herself with heroin. Carangi made several attempts at fighting her heroin addiction, attending rehabilitation centers multiple times. In 1983, she was profiled on ABC’s 20/20 magazine, in a piece focusing on the dark side of modeling. In June of 1986, she was diagnosed with HIV, becoming one of the first famous persons to be diagnosed with the disease, and also the first famous female diagnosed.

The makers of Gia completely overlook the possibility that Carangi’s eccentric behavior was driven by an organic brain dysfunction. None of the semi-fictional “interviewees” alludes to bipolar disorder though likely symptoms are depicted.

Why is this angle on Gia’s life ignored? In the post-Nancy Reagan “Just Say No” era, a certain anti-romanticism has developed around the drug culture. Many find it far easier to blame irresolution as a friend leads one down the wrong path than to admit a deeper dysfunction. It is more glamorous to be a drug addict than a sufferer of a mental illness. Many of Gia’s fans could buy into the myth that people with mental illness cannot contribute meaningfully to society as Gia did.

A few months ago I read another one of those articles which disputed Kay Jamison’s contention that Vincent Van Gogh was bipolar. The author argued that based on recent evidence that showed that Van Gogh had not committed suicide, Jamison’s diagnosis was wrong. The writer ignored all the letters and accounts of his bizarre behavior including his cutting his ear off as a message to a lover, reducing his end of life depression to grief over the death of his brother Theo. I finished the piece with the impression that she just didn’t want to acknowledge that bipolar was anything but a completely debilitating illness whose sufferers could not give the rest of the world anything of value. That the article appeared in a magazine that prided itself on its skepticism — truth-seeking — saddened me. Because this was the latest instance of its subtly disparaging those with mental illness, I have since ended my subscription.

We think better of drug addicts than we do of the mentally ill. This may be the main reason why Gia’s heroin abuse is seen as the root of all her problems when, in fact, it may have been a symptom and an attempt to curb the wild manias and low depressions that afflicted her. We cannot know for sure because Gia died before seeking treatment. Rehab programs don’t have good records of identifying those who live with conditions like bipolar and schizophrenia, rooting everything in the relationship the addict has with her or his drug and those around them. Gia’s biographers have mostly retold her story as a fable about her undefined weak character. If we are honest, however, we will not allow Gia’s memory to serve such a shallow purpose as merely warning people away from drugs. A far more potent message can be sent about the importance of recognizing mental illness in ourselves and in our loved ones. What if Gia had been put on a combination such as lithium and lamotrigine? If our intent in retelling her story is to save lives, let’s make sure that we put our focus on the right cause.