I refuse to be defined as mentally ill. It is not my vocation.  I am someone who has a mental illness, but that doesn’t define who I am.  It is a condition of who I am.  I am an artist, an architect, and an author, and I have dealt with my bipolar disorder for most […]

A great pile of aluminum foil-wrapped sandwiches surrounds the manic mother who stands at her kitchen counter atop a pyramid of playing cards in beautiful suburbia.  Bipolar I Disorder could topple her reality, perhaps smothering her in ham sandwiches, but there is a solution in Vraylar, a drug from Forest Laboratories Holdings Ltd, an Allergan […]

Depression, Anger, AND Destruction Depression beginning in anger plagues my life and leads to thoughts of self-destruction. I battle with these three issues everyday. Being bi-polar, depression is a common feeling. Over the past months, as I struggle with physical ailments, the sense of loss and meaningless often overwhelmed me. On August 9, 2017, I […]

I tried to kill myself at Yale University when I was a student there 51 years ago. Returning to the 50th Reunion of the class of 1966, the class I didn’t graduate with, I sought closure to what has always been a painful experience. A friend from those undergraduate years invited me to come. I […]

                       Irritable Bariatric Bipolar Bowel Suicide Syndrome Think of Ibis, the sacred bird that wades the life-sustaining waters of the Nile. Its long beak penetrates the surface for sustenance. Think of the Egyptian god, Thoth, whose human body carried the head of the Ibis. Thoth was the author of all knowledge. Say “ai”, elongate the […]

Frustration Followed By Anger Becomes Depression I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t. The indicators were all there. It begins with the clumsiness, and lack of coordination. I began to drop things: pens, books, and the plastic container of Pellegrino mixed with pomegranate and grape juice. The bottle top wasn’t screwed on properly […]

Breathing is fundamental. No breath, no life! For the past year I have been afflicted with a respiratory ailment, which has grown worse as the year has progressed. At first I was just huffing and puffing a little, then by May 2013 I couldn’t cross a room or climb stars and not be totally winded.  […]

Sergeant John Russell was convicted April 22, 2013, for second-degree murder of five military men at the Mental Health Clinic at Camp Liberty in Iraq. He will probably spend the rest of his life in a military jail. Sergeant Russell is seriously mentally ill. He wanted to kill himself, but after the horrible treatment he […]

I believe that anyone, given particular circumstances, could “go psycho.”  Not everyone agrees with my assertion.  My psychiatrist thinks I am wrong, but did not elucidate why.  Thus I still think it’s true that anyone can “go psycho.” By this I mean anyone can have a psychotic break no matter if they are already suffering […]

  “To see suicide simply as an individual mental illness and homicide as a similarly individual moral failing is to ignore the degree to which both are caused in part, by societal, economic forces.” James Gilligan from “Why Some Politicians Are More Dangerous Than Others”   To see suicide- all suicides- as caused in part […]

A woman with the bipolar condition asked me if I got migraine headaches. At first I said no.  Migraine headaches weren’t something I experienced. Then I thought about pain in my brain and how often I experienced it.  I feel a severe and deep ache in my head when a massive depression is coming.  I […]

Laura’s Law and Kendra’s Law are, for anyone who has, has had, or appears to have a mental illness, scary legislations. These two laws inCalifornia and New York and copied by other states require a person to have psychiatric treatment when ordered by a judge after assessment by a mental health official. This is coercion […]

The California Men’s Colony is not a pleasant place to visit, and the authorities go out of their way to make you know it.  A visit has all the charm of a stopover in a dank toilet room, but this toilet is a difficult place to enter. It took me more than five hours to […]