Somewhere Over the Rainbow, I've Lost My Damn Mind: A Manic's Mood Chart (9 page)

But I’ve picked myself up and I’m here with no fear asking you for more

Finally standing on my own two legs, looking dead into your sight

And letting you know that I’m the one here who’s looking for a fight

Oh and that girl you had me chasing through my mind

Racing so fast that I thought I stopped time

Well I gave her the most important thing you took from me

See I gave her the choice on how involved she wants to be

In this insanity that they call you and me

And now suddenly it’s all clear to me

I’m becoming the man I was always undoubtedly destined to be

Standing before thee on my day of judgment

With Christopher on my left and the Good Witch Glinda on my right

I’ve made peace with the Man upstairs so you know whose back He’s got in this fight

We’ll see how you like living within the shadows of the darkness of your fear and your fright

Because once I possess the light, I’ll pass it on to illuminate the night

And this simply means that I’ll take my vengeance once when we meet in the afterlife

So listen, because the only sound you’re bound to hear

Will be my chant in the night as I march towards our fight

Oooooh weeeee Oh-Oooooooooh Oh!

I’ll be marching with a chip on my shoulder and another one on my knee

I’m the man behind the curtain sent here to make all believe.

Session

JP: This is addressed to your mania, but you have it listed as a depressed mood. Why is that?

DT: Whenever my depression starts to send me down a hole, I try to use something to fight back. When I wrote this, I was fighting depression and looking for something to pick me up. For whatever reason, it helped to recite this whenever things looked bleak.

JP: So who’s the girl?

DT: Well, that’s kind of tricky.

JP: See, girls are so difficult, Derek. You should just follow my lead and give them up.

DT: Thanks for the advice, JP, but I’m going to stay on my team. I already have the equipment you guys play with.

KEY TERMS:
FOOTLONG BRAT, GAINER, FAMILY, FRIENDSHIP ILLUSIONS

Submitted on 3/4/11

Blue

“
DO A GAINER STEVIE! DO A GAINER STEVIE! DO A GAINER STEVIE!”

You could hear this chant being screamed at the South Chuck pool while I was growing up. It was my brothers and I standing at the deep end, yelling up at the high dive for our pool hero to do a back somersault and get us drenched from the splash. I had no idea at that point that in a mere fifteen years, I’d be carrying my childhood pool hero up to his honeymoon suite from the hotel pool in Vegas on the day of his wedding, suffering from possible heat stroke, alcohol poisoning, or a little bit of both. Don’t worry; we got him a footlong brat for the elevator ride up and made him close his eyes so he wouldn’t see the bride before the wedding and ruin everything.

Growing up in a small town could at times feel like just like a family, and Stevie from above was like our older cousin, entertaining us up on that high dive during the summers. I’ve met friends along the way in college and vagabonding around the country, and unfortunately, I’ve lost touch with the majority of them. I don’t think I’m different from anyone else in regard to seeing friendships kind of drift away naturally. I don’t mind this because I know it’s inevitable, but losing friendships for reasons that are nearly unexplainable to me is tough.

BMD has undoubtedly put people in my life that I could not replace. The support I’ve received over the past few years has blurred the line between family and friends. At the same time, it has taken friendships from me that I never thought it possible to lose. I’ve witnessed friendships dissipate right before my eyes for reasons that I still have trouble comprehending. I have spent countless hours dwelling on people I felt had abandoned me.

At these times, I become infatuated with what I think I have lost, under the illusion that my friends walked away from me in my direst time of need. The truth of the matter is they were never my friends to begin with; they were my drinking buddies (nothing wrong with that, I loved to drink). I always seem to have a difficult time determining the difference between my friends, who are basically family, and my drinking buddies, who are only acquaintances. I suppose I just want to have as big a family as possible which includes my friends, and that just can’t be a reality. Some people plain don’t care; that’s all right, but I really should stop giving a shit about them, too. While BMD hasn’t been a picnic, it has taught me some valuable life lessons, and one of those lessons is: there’s nothing like good family and friends.

I think I’m starting to come out of depression (finally, you bitch) and beginning to enjoy life a little more. It’s harder than it sounds at times; give me a break, I’m bipolar. I had a couple of options to “celebrate” this coming-out party, which included heading back to Vegas or heading down to A-Town to visit some Southern family and friends. My last Vegas trip was a blast (Shay and I saved the wedding, no thanks needed) but Southern belles come first (or not all when they seem to be with me). I haven’t seen Rhett (not a Southern name at all, I still heart it though, sis) since he was born, so I’m making a trip down South next week to “celebrate,”
which means it’s going to be off the heezy fo’ sheezy
you can find me up in One Tweezy
.

Session

JP: Drinking buddies huh? More like “My Buddy”; look at you and your cute little doll:

DT: Ha-ha-ha, I did love that damn doll. But for the sake of further damages to my reputation and manhood, can I have any other pictures you may have taken from my albums while I was in the bathroom?

NORMAL

(GREEN)

ABSTRACT:

THE NORMAL SECTION OF THE MOOD CHART IS CONSTANT FOR THE ENTIRE SECTION. GREEN WILL BE USED TO REPRESENT ALL THE ENTRIES IN THIS SECTION. THIS MOOD IS CHARACTERIZED BY NO IMPAIRMENT, WITH THE ABILITY TO WORK THROUGHOUT. THIS SECTION CONSISTS OF TWENTY-SEVEN ENTRIES WITH GREEN REPRESENTING EVERY ENTRY.

GREEN

(NORMAL MOODS WITHOUT IMPAIRMENT, ABLE TO WORK)

KEY TERMS:
LOST, TOMMY TOUGHNUTS, “EVERYTHING,” CONFUSED

Submitted on 6/23/09

Green

What a bizarrely unpredictable world we live in.

This was about the only phrase I could come up with while pondering life the other day and trying to describe the everyday events and circumstances I’ve experienced in the past year and a half or so of my life. At this time of pondering, I was driving back from an interview process when I started to recall where I’ve been and what’s been going on since I “thought” I knew what life was all about. Not eighteen months ago, I had everything figured out. I was on the fast track to success.

As soon as I had graduated from college, I packed up and left the small-town life of Ohio for the big city of A-Town. I had received a great apprenticeship opportunity with an industry- leading telecommunications company, with seemingly endless room for growth. I was on the fast track, making my way to the top, moving all along the way from A-Town to Denver and on to my next stop in San Jose. I thought I was Tommy Toughnuts and I had the whole world figured out, but then I woke up in a psych ward.

To be honest, it really did feel like that, like all of a sudden everything I thought I knew and understood about life and the world was completely gone. Prior to the Denver psych ward, I had been spending the first couple of months in 2008 planning my relocation to San Jose, to start a new position that was essentially a promotion. Sure, I was feeling higher than ever before, but I simply thought that I was excited to be moving and starting a new job in a new city by the beach, like I’d always dreamed of while “cornfield locked” growing up in Ohio. I was in that part of my life when I figured I knew what it took to be successful and happy, and I was just living it.

Less than three months later, I was living at home with my parents, jobless and completely lost. I was unable to take care of myself anymore and didn’t know where to turn or what to do next. My life felt like it turned a 180 on itself, and I was completely confused. My episode had started sometime in the middle of January 2008 and didn’t end until the middle of June that same year. During those few months, I thought I had lost “everything.” But the crazy thing is that I’m not upset about it. Sure, this time last year, I was devastated, but now I’m happy it happened. I’ve realized you can’t appreciate or know what you truly have until you think you have lost “everything.”

Session

JP: I’m a little confused by your last statement. What exactly do you mean?

DT: Well, I just meant that what used to matter so much in my life back then might not be what’s important to me anymore, and that’s a good thing. For instance, I spent so much time invested in my career that it took away from my personal, social and family life.

KEY TERMS:
DANCING BEAR, HANGOVER,
UNBREAKABLE,
SELF-ESTEEM

Submitted on 7/2/09

Green

It’s 1 a.m. this past Thursday morning (that’s Wednesday night for you time-challenged peeps, don’t feel bad, I’m in the same boat with ya) and I’m standing beside a guy dressed like a bear, dancing on a bar with a beer in my hand and a buzz in my head. There are so many things that are not right with this situation that I don’t really know where to start; the guy dressed like a bear would probably be the best place. I’m looking around and decide it’s time to leave. I know I’m going to pay for this tomorrow.

Just three hours prior to the dancing bear incident, I was lying in bed, knowing I wasn’t going to do anything that night. It just wasn’t worth it the next day. I’m not saying that going out in The Nasty isn’t a good time, but I’ve learned that whenever I venture out, I end up indulging myself in some adult beverages, and they like to play with my mind later. I’m not trying to downplay anyone else’s hangover, because I’ve seen some of my good friends fight the good fight against the alcohol demon the next day and feel nothing but bad for them. However, after I drink, my next day is more than likely filled with rapid mood cycling from BMD, sending me on a whirlwind of a day.

See, I spend a decent amount of my time trying to figure out this BMD I’ve been handed, and that entails a lot of control battles. I’m sure everyone has had some sort of sports injury throughout their life that lets them sort of relate to this (and if not, you’re more than likely the inspiration for Bruce Willis’s character in his worst movie ever,
Unbreakable
, and I pity you). With that injury, you always have downtime when you are simply unable to run, walk, write, turn your head, lift something or whatever the case may be. During this downtime, you can lose trust in whatever you’ve injured and lose belief that you’ll ever be the same again.