Stephen Fry - A Conservative Guardian of the Status Quo?

We all hold Stephen in the highest regard for his courage &
wit, his intellect is of the highest order of open mind we know.

Is our beloved Fry a Liberal Minded Free Thinker, or an Arch Conservative?

Imagine my surprise when a recent post on the Stephen Fry.com forum was arbitrarily deleted three times?

Curiously a comment congratulating him on taking over as president of the charity MIND, posted on the 6th of November is still awaiting moderation?

One wonders if our fair Stephen is aware of these constrictive, conservative reactions made in the guise of his good name?


Those Self Appointed Guardians of the Status Quo?
Unfortunately for those of us forced to take the journey of mental illness beyond the hallowed walls of mainstream medical opinion, this is an all to familiar reaction to our alternative comments and our recovery wisdom. In support groups all over the internet and elsewhere anyone who dares to question the common acceptance, is shouted down and shut out almost without exception. "Your dangerous," is the most common reaction to anyone pointing out the unscientific foundation of psychiatry's DSM IV, while pointing to any kind of alternative view, even of the scientific kind.

Metamorphosis: Evolution & The Eternal Now?

A Tortured Genius?

The Metamorphosis is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It is often cited as one of the seminal works of short fiction of the 20th century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western world.

Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops after birth or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and differentiation. References to "metamorphosis" in mammals are imprecise and only colloquial, but historically idealist ideas of transformation and monadology, as in Goethe's Metamorphosis of Plants, influenced the development of ideas of evolution.



Chaos Theory Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the butterfly effect. Can the nature of chaos and the butterfly effect be understood by the thinking mind alone? And what is the TRUTH about Nature, about Metamorphosis & Evolution?

Examples:

My Anniversary October

“We’re in a freefall into future. We don’t know where we’re going. Things are changing so fast, and always when you’re going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. And all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It’s a very interesting shift of perspective and that’s all it is… joyful participation in the sorrows and everything changes.” _Joseph Campbell.

As October passed away its now been a full 12 months since I returned to Thailand after seeking support from family and friends, towards the end of a six week un-medicated psychosis. I was very tired after riding the waves of emotive energy that manic-psychosis evokes for such a long period, unassisted and mostly alone. There had been many days during that October when emotive illusion blurred the objective lines of an everyday, normal sense of reality. In a trance like state similar to that which we feel when woken from a lucid dream I’d acted out impulsive energies with manic posts on the-icarus-project website and posted the same links on Stephen Fry’s site too.

My Grandma & Her Eternal Metaphors

Grandma!

'What!'

'They told me I’m crazy again, said I’m freaking mad!'

'Why?'

A Choice of Reason or Reaction?

Recovery: A journey tasked by the trials of loss, misconnection, despair & hope's resurrection.

"Curse the mind that mounts the clouds in search of mythical kings and only mystical things, mystical things cry for the soul that will not face the body as an equal place, and I never learned to touch for real down, down where the iguanas feel." _Dory Previn.

God Dam! This dark pit of woe within this crushing depression;
“For myself, the pain is closely connected to drowning or suffocation-but even these images are of the mark. The pain persisted during my museum tour and reached a crescendo in the next few hours when, back at the hotel, I feel onto the bed and lay gazing at the ceiling, nearly immobilized and in a trance of supreme discomfort. Rational thought was usually absent from my mind at such times, hence trance.” (Styron, 1990).

Again, William Styron’s words ring notes of identification as he describes his experience of depression, and I’m awed by his ability to paint such poignant pictures of the human condition. Who can forget the amazing scene from the movie “Sophie’s Choice,” as Meryl Streep is forced to choose between her son and her daughter, as to which one will face the gas chamber outside those gates of hell at Auschwitz concentration camp. How does any woman make such a choice or any Fascist Intellectual so loose connection with humanities heart, its soul, and force it upon her? Dissociation, the Devil’s own device perhaps?

Could she ever really say how she felt in that awful moment, could she ever consciously acknowledge the instant of that action. That awful reality of, “Take my little girl - take my baby - take my little girl.” Perhaps nature has a way of saving us from such awful realization, removes the reality of searing pain by the minds conscious distance from the felt sense. By degrees of dissociation? The Devils own device, or the reality of our unconscious nature? Is our conscious awareness founded on a hidden mechanism of dissociation, of denial?

The Music of Trance State Mania

Recovery: A journey tasked by the trials of loss, misconnection, despair & hope's resurrection.

“When the white eagle of the North is flying overhead

The browns, reds and gold’s of autumn lie in the gutter, dead.

Remember then, that summer birds with wings of fire flaying

came to witness springs new hope, born of leaves decaying.

Just as new life will come from death, love will come at leisure.

Love of love, love of life and giving without measure

gives in return a wondrous yearn of a promise almost seen.

Live hand-in-hand and together we’ll stand on the threshold of a dream.”

(From the music album, This is The Moody Blues)

“Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the
notes and curl my back to loneliness.” _Maya Angelou.

Truth! Perception? What is Really Perceiving Itself. Inside You?

The Man in the Mirror

Recovery: A journey tasked by the trials of loss, misconnection, despair & hope's resurrection.

"I'm Starting With The Man In The Mirror.
I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways."
_Michael Jackson.

From my very first experience of psychosis, questions about belief have plagued me, “is psychosis a sickness similar to cancerous cells within the body or a need for emotional growth, for continuing development or perhaps a spiritual experience that seeks a higher sense of self?”

For three decades I questioned my belief system, “do I suffer from an organic illness during psychotic episodes, a complex disease, or am I trying to evoke a better sense of myself, a desperate need to shift into a predominately positive state of being?”



“Is the common feeling of increased wellness during the early days of a manic mood swing, the body/brain re-adjusting to the growth processes nature intended at the time of conception? - Like how an acorn contains all the oak tree will be unless its natural growth is thwarted somehow.” Some people ask whether the positive aspects of psychosis represent a spiritual crisis seeking deeper, intuitive insights? While others see its negative aspects, like nightmarish hallucinations and hearing voices as a clear and obvious sign of a biological illness.

Nature's Madness: A Mental Illness Memoir

Recovery: A journey tasked by the trials of loss, misconnection, despair & hope's resurrection.

I'm finding nature in my madness states?

OCTOBER 2011, BANGKOK, THAILAND.

"Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared
to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly
wherever and to whatever abyss nature leads,
or you shall learn nothing." _Thomas Huxley

This new bed sitter room with its dressing table mirror encapsulate my life somehow, as if chance and circumstance provide a compartment for timely self reflection. The God dam mirror keeps implicitly prodding me in some indefinable way, its symbolic presence urging me to dig deeper, to go inside and feel the actuality of my past, not pass over it with the distancing metaphor’s of my objectifying mind. I’m trying to write a memoir of my mental illness experience and recovery here. Yet for weeks I‘ve struggled with words that seem only to effect a distance from the inner nature of my madness experience.

Sunday Service - Not Same, Same?

Sunday morning here in Thailand, and we go to the local Temple to give alms and pray to Lord Buddha.

'Same, same, you country?' I remember being asked on the first of our ritual visits.

'Yah! Sunday morning, same, same,' I replied in a that Germanic toned Thai-English accent, which underscores our personal language/culture barrier.

Looking at the photo and recalling this morning's visit begs a thought? "Is this Sunday service ritual same, same everywhere?"

Of coarse a first glance reaction is, "Looks nothing like any Christian Church service I remember."



Every Sunday morning my girlfriend and I make the trip to a local Buddhist Temple and I sit watching Thai people, and a handful of farang's (foreigners) give alms and donations for the poor. I watch people be blessed by a monk and pray to Lord Buddha for luck in the eternal fight against karmic forces. Less formal than a Christian Sunday service, people wonder in and out of the main Temple building, taking whatever time they wish to perform any number of traditional rituals.

St George & The Dragon - Spiritual or Psychotic Experience?

I was nervous of coarse as I waited for my turn, the young singer song writer was in session at the moment. We’d talked about being courteous and cooperative in front of the Judge, about playing the norm’s game.
‘Yeah but that lawyer of mine is a bitch man! - She’s in on it with my parents and that fucking witch doctor psychiatrist.’

Like many creative people he could throw a temper tantrum like a hurt two year old, when challenged by the emotional dynamics of relating. Left alone to his own unfathomable process though he could join words together like a magician, a real witch doctor. Another beguiling poem or a beautiful love song.

‘People don’t understand man! - They just want us to be normal, square fucking pegs in square fucking holes.’ Jason had complained loud and often over the last two days.

bipolar disorder suicide ideation

I'd been thinking about using a rope, when the aftermath scene of who would find my body came to mind.
"Would it be the Princess or the cleaning lady?"
"I can't do it here!" I told myself. Then I started thinking about doing it somewhere I couldn't be identified, no documents found with the body. I thought about taking a trip up country, to the other end of Thailand, thinking if I found a rural area with limited police resources, maybe they'd just cremate the body and forget about it?


"Be better for the Princess and my boys back in Australia," I thought, "I'd just be missing."

BIPOLAR- Swings & Roundabouts?

Whereabouts am I today? - Is the answer in my posture?

The swings & roundabouts of life have particular significance for us bipolar's. The merry go round of mood swings making hopeful progress difficult to gauge on any particular day. HOPE seems to be an ingredient of wellness, as vital as oxygen, water & food? Hope for a future free from torturous mood swings being a particular concern for us swingers. Whereabouts am I today? Is an all to frequent question of self doubt, when our judgement has a history of being affected by body state moods?

How I do Dissociation?

Prince Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) - Prince of Self Awareness

How I do Dissociation? Its a bold title I know, with an implicit promise that I can tell you exactly how I do dissociation.

Of coarse I can only say how I think I do dissociation and try to articulate the reality of my self awareness.

Yesterday I posted a article entitled "How do YOU do Dissociation?" I started with a statement about an emotionally painful incident and how I been unable to recall it without a sense of numbness so typical of dissociation.

The very next line "What exactly is Dissociation," is typical of how I do dissociation by using intellectualism - the distancing from core emotions with emotionless thoughts and words.



The picture above is my favorite Buddha pose, the closed eyes and tension free facial expression resonate deeply with me. To me it's an expression that represents the epitome of calm self awareness, of being completely comfortable inside your own skin. Once a week I accompany my girlfriend to the local Buddhist Temple and watch her perform rituals of selfless giving and prayer. Often I sit gazing at the giant gold Buddha statue and imagine him sat at the entrance to that ancient Greek dudes cave.
The Oracle's cave with its timeless advice engraved above, "Know Thy Self"

How do YOU do Dissociation?

Wow! Where did I just go?

Its been almost ten months since a particularly brutal experience of rejection with my oldest son. I remember walking around for hours draining the energies of anger and rage the encounter stimulated. I did my best to avoid amplifying those negative emotions by not replaying the episode in my mind. A few months later though when I tried to recall details and write about the family dynamics involved, a foggy sensation filled my mind as numbness overcame my senses. Only in the last week have I been able to face the memories with any clarity of mind and emotional recollection of that day.


What exactly is Dissociation?

BIPOLAR - The Recovery Road

Reaching for a Rainbow?

"The more conscious you become, the more aware you become of how unconscious you've been." _Patricia Sun.
Recovery seems to be a process made conscious through hindsight, even though our pressing desire is for something to happen right now! Becoming conscious and content with the process of improving self awareness has been a lesson hard learned and automatically forgotten in recent days.
The stress of moving house and high fatigue, saw me drop back into an old unconscious pattern. For over a week now I have been stuck in the bipolar trap? A dissociated mind held hostage by my nervous system? My old all or nothing bipolar response to challenge triggered an unconscious stress reaction.


My mind is not as conscious as it thinks it is?

cure bipolar disorder

I Can't Cure Bipolar Disorder?

Cure Bipolar Disorder? Should I dare to consider myself recovered from a lifelong mental illness? Or am I just in remission? Cure bipolar disorder internet searches suggest bipolar is generally considered as having an illness of the brain like diabetes or even cancer. Considered from a medical disease model the word recovered converges with the word cure and the medical model suggests we cannot cure bipolar disorder.
Wikipedia tells us: "It has been noted that the bipolar disorder diagnosis is officially characterised in historical terms such that, technically, anyone with a history of (hypo)mania and depression has bipolar disorder whatever their current or future functioning and vulnerability."

Bipolar Recovery

Bipolar Recovery - Beyond Manic Depressive Cycles
Beyond manic flights of mind and depressive crashes within the body?
Here is a method based on gaining critical insight into the unconscious activity of your autonomic nervous system.
Activity that stimulates the sensations, behaviors and mental anguish of your bipolar condition. Knowing the essential role your auto nervous system plays in every second of your experience, will give you real feelings of self control.

Critical insight will help you to feel your way into better balance of mind and body. Sensing feedback within your auto nervous system, will bring you real control over your emotional energies.
Not control by will of mind, but control through knowing you can let go of internal tensions which stimulate your bipolar condition.

This method is based on three keys elements.

1. Critical Insights.

2. Felt Awareness Practice.

3. New Mind-Body Experience.

Beyond Our Crisis Periods - We Can Learn to Manage Ourselves Well!

bipolar condition

Brain or Nervous System Condition?

The hidden neurobiology of the bipolar condition?
Bipolar disorder, or manic depression, is a medical illness that causes extreme shifts in mood, energy, and functioning. These changes may be subtle or dramatic and typically vary greatly over the course of a person’s life as well as among individuals. Most people generally require some sort of lifelong treatment. While medication is one key element in successful treatment of bipolar disorder, psychotherapy, support, and education about the illness are also essential components of the treatment process. Is bipolar an illness like diabetes or cancer and will specialists find a "mental illness" gene? Or has a more holistic understanding of human development uncovered the biology of the bipolar condition?

bipolar mood swings

Why do I have this awful feeling?

A Down Spiral Day, Today. Dam! Bipolar Mood Swings?
The mood swings of bipolar disorder can be profoundly destructive. Depression can make you isolate yourself from your friends and loved ones. You may find it impossible to get out of bed, let alone keep your job. During manic periods, you be may be reckless and volatile. Picking up the pieces after mood swings can be hard, WebMD.
I slipped two days ago, fell off my new diet wagon treating myself to fat saturated fast food & ice cream. The old pattern claimed me for its own early this morning and like my previous bipolar mood swings, there is a war going on within me now?

Today I'm not lost to my bipolar mood swings though?

famous bipolar people

There are so many famous bipolar people? Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of U.S. suffered from severe and debilitating and on occasion suicidal depressions, as recorded by Carl Sandburg in his comprehensive six-volume biographical analysis of his life. “A tendency to melancholy” Lincoln once wrote in a letter to a friend, “let it be observed, is a misfortune, not a fault.” The most amazing part of his story was the sheer determination with which he willed himself to overcome his serious affliction and still achieve all he was able to achieve for our young and troubled nation at war with itself. With so many famous bipolar people in history, our reactive judgements towards the so-called mentally ill, are pathetic in this 21st century. Isn't it time we grew up a little more?

bipolar delusions

Hollywood Hype or Reality?

Bipolar Delusions have no purpose? - No meaning?
Delusions are false beliefs that are firmly held.
Types of delusions include:
Delusions of grandeur; the false belief that one is famous or publicly important or is a god.
Delusional jealousy; believing a spouse or partner is unfaithful when it is not true
Persecutory or paranoid delusions, believing one is being followed, spied upon and secretly listened to, etc.
Delusions of reference; thinking that random events contain a special meaning for you alone.
Bipolar Delusions are clearly a sickness of the mind?

managing bipolar disorder

How to manage your mood disorder?

Managing bipolar disorder requires making certain adjustments to lifestyle and self awareness. Like recovering alcoholics who avoid drinking or diabetics who take insulin, if you have bipolar disorder, it’s important to make healthy choices for yourself. Making healthy choices helps us to keep mood episodes under control and feel more satisfied with our lives. Managing bipolar disorder involves taking responsibility for our level of self awareness about our sensitive disposition, and finding our way to the most helpful information for our particular beliefs.

bipolar self help

Mindful of Internal Process= Balance?

Bipolar self help led me to manage bipolar disorder without medications after improving my education. After 30 years of bipolar experience I now view bipolar disorder as the natural response of a auto nervous system seeking natural balance, not a mental illness.
Education into my own neurobiology has led me understand the role of my autonomic nervous system in my bipolar experience.
Bipolar self help has led me into a level of self awareness beyond a reliance on medical support.

signs and symptoms of bipolar disorder

Symptoms or Internal Affects?

Signs & Symptoms of Bipolar Disorder.

External behaviors observed by others?

There are only two sub-types of bipolar illness, which have been defined, clearly enough to be given their own DSM categories, Bipolar I and Bipolar II.

Defined by objective external observations that describe behaviors not what bipolar is internally?

Behavioral Symptoms or Internal Affective States?

mental illness stigma a compass of shame

Unconscious Shame Reactions?

Mental Illness Stigma is entwined in the compass of shame which binds us all together. Shame is the emotional force which shapes society. Shame is the glue which keeps us together in structures of social order, underpinning social rank and status.
At the North end of the Compass is Withdrawal. At the East end of the Compass is Attack Self. At the South end of the compass is Avoidance. And at the West end of the compass is the Attack Others pole.

bipolar mania

A Face - The Mask of Consciousness?

Mania is the signature characteristic of bipolar disorder and, depending on its severity, is how the disorder is classified. Mania is generally characterized by a distinct period of an elevated mood, which can take the form of euphoria. People commonly experience an increase in energy and a decreased need for sleep, with many often getting as little as 3 or 4 hours of sleep per night, while others can go days without sleeping. From Wikipedia.
Recently I have learned to manage mania differently?

A Quantum Dreamer?

Objective Reality or Complex Dream State?

Is all a dreaming creation when imagined at these fundamental levels of a universe perceiving its own existence through YOU?
What! You might think?

What does any deeper reality have to do with the daily grind of a labored survival? We need to make a living and help support the family?

bipolar anger

Bipolar Anger & Moods

Bipolar Anger & Its Muscular Stimulation?

Anger was about Movement before the Mind Evolved?

Anger is Stimulated by Muscular Feedback Signals?

Anger is a Survival Instinct - Rage its most Intense Form?

To Control Anger - Feel the Instinct Stimulating the Mind?

Moods Muscular Actions Affected by Dissociated Mind?

I went for my usual walk yesterday in the early evening, thoughts swirling about people on facebook who's philosophy I disagree with. I felt a familiar tone of combative confrontation in my thinking, as scenario’s of face to face conversations filled my mind. This is an old habit of mine stemming from childhood and emotional identification with my father. Even after several kilometers and close to an hour into my walking, the same anger toned thoughts of confrontation filled my mind.

Sensitivity & Psychosis

David Bates 27/12/1951

I was in born in Crumpsall Hospital Manchester, while my dad was watching Man City play football (soccer.) More important than life, birth and death, is football. "You need to get a grip, a sense of perspective our David," he would later tell me. My mom is small and had much trouble delivering it seems, and in those days a harsh life bought less than careful nursing and even less in Doctoring. Dragged out with metal forceps my head so disfigured by the long labor and mechanical delivery, I was whisked away to a mechanical crib. Mom didn't see me for a week, another week later she was back in full time employment again. Who can truly say what affect early life experience has on any child? Certainly nature is kind and allows us to forget, no conscious memory springs to mind.

Fear Filled Mental Anguish

Its not easy to accept the notion of muscular tensions as the primary source of all our mental anguish? The powerful unconsious stimulation of approach & avoidance muscular postures.

Understanding that such approach & avoidance responses apply just as much to our internal enviroment as our external circumstances, allows better awareness of this primary stimulation.

Take the thought of an unconscious animal nature a step further and insensitive responses to the traumatized come into view?


Try relaxing the muscles of your face, your tongue, the tensions of the jaw & around the eyes & be aware of spontaneous shifts in the depth of breathe. As the your focus turns to awareness of body sensations, the grip of intense dissociation eases within the mind & as the muscular system relaxes the minds activity follows?

Affective Psychosis - Mania, Myth & Meaning

Does Bipolar Psychosis have Affective Purpose?

Can we Define What Causes Organic Psychosis?

Is Psychosis a Lucid Dream in Manic Depressive Disorder?

Does the Icarus Myth have Meaning in Mania & Psychosis?

The Practicing Phase of Self Mastery in Self Realization?

How Chaos Seeks Order in Highly Complex Systems?

Catch the Gap & Feel Your Mind

Why does meditation calm the mind?

Mirror neurons & the motor cortex fire the impulses of muscular action.

Muscular tensions & their feedback to the brain fire the instinctual mind. There is no insight in this objective paradigm until you feel the source of your own mind, down amongst those chemical impulses of freeze, avoid or approach reactions.

Study the Golden one's timeless postures, his ageless advice about reality and the genesis impulses of thoughts & mind. Until you feel their source, your thoughts will remain the me that is avoiding I.

Fear is the first impulse in this avoid - approach, objective paradigm.

Catch the gap between the spark & the flame at the bottom of each exhaled breath?

Can you look & see where his hand is? Can you feel it? Until we all do, we are still Monkey mirror neuron See & Monkey mirror neuron Do, in this highly reactive Objectivity. Always remember that chemical impulses are millisecond fast in this FREEZE/FLIGHT/FIGHT reality.

Remembering fear always come first gives way to Maximum Joy:))

Avatar! The 3D Movie & Your Brain/Body?

'I See You!' What does it Really Mean?

Wow! What a Movie! Has Jake become the new 007, ’The names Sully, Jake Sully’ & is “scoun” now a buzz word for moron. Have countless Princess Neytiri’s screamed in the bedroom, ’Sa’Helu! Make the bond Jake, make the bond.’

Avatar has something for everyone no matter what need the individual brings to the movie, from kick ass adolescents and romantics to concrete literalist critics and even wise old spiritual warriors.


There are layers to this movie that speak to the level of insight, awareness and experience of every individual movie goer, having it‘s subliminal affect on all who watch it. As some have noted it’s the closest thing yet to a lucid dream, with it’s immersive 3D technology, and as wise historians know, lucid dreams and madness have had more impact on human history than we dare consciously admit, or are we just blinded by instinct?

Unconscious Reactivity & the Pre-Tense of Intelligence?

The Motor Act comes first not the mind. The minds activity is 'Hindsight' not Insight or Foresight. Its an after the event process. All physical actions stimulated by thoughts are 'simulated' affect not the spontaneous flow of natural 'innate' affect. This is the unconscious issue in 'affective disorders' that objective thinking cannot come to grips with.


"The motor act is the cradle of the mind - The capacity to anticipate and predict movement, is the basis of what consciousness is all about" __Charles Sherington


"We are exquisitely social creatures. Our survival depends on understanding the actions, intentions and emotions of others. Mirror neurons allow us to grasp the minds of others not through conceptual reasoning but through direct simulation. By feeling - not by thinking" _Giacomo Rizzolatti

meaning and mania

Icarus Myth a Metaphor of Mania?
The Flight of Psychosis & its Fall

Is there meaning in Madness or a Meaning of Mania?
In the civilized world, our common understanding of meaning and mania is overwhelming associated with mental illness and the use of psychotropic drugs to manage such altered states of conscious experience. An understanding fostered by our modern day belief and faith in science with its medical model of disease. A disease perception inline with the medical profession's duty of care towards people who appear to be so obviously sick. With its focus on abnormalities within the organism, the medical profession has performed proven miracles of repair and cure with an enormous range of human ills, except when it comes to the human mind were belief and faith still rule and ultimately confuse the day.


An everyday example of the sheer power of belief and faith can been seen in the placebo effect , now more clearly defined as "affect" by neuroscience research into the hidden neurobiology of our conscious states. This curious placebo affect crops up in every trail for the proven effectiveness of any psychotropic drug, ultimately confusing research results seeking dependable cause and effect outcomes.

what causes bipolar

Does Bipolar Involve the Brian Alone?
Or a Brain/Body Nervous System?

What Causes Bipolar Disorder? From: bipolar.about.com
When we look for the cause of bipolar disorder, the best explanation according to the research available at this time is what is termed the "Diathesis-Stress Model." The word diathesis means, in simplified terms, a physical condition that make a person more than usually susceptible to certain diseases. Thus the Diathesis-Stress Model says that each person inherits certain physical vulnerabilities to problems that may or may not appear depending on what stresses occur in his or her life. Durand and Barlow define this model as a theory "that both an inherited tendency and specific stressful conditions are required to produce a disorder."

living with bipolar

Funny Bi-Polar Bear what you doing
there! Eh? Alone again? - Naturally!

Living with bipolar is an isolated out in the cold experience.
Friends and family can't understand and with time quietly drift away, the distance between us seems to reflect my fragmented soul, its loss and lost sense of home.
Why does my heart set fire to my mind, those Icarus heights I climb, only to crash into the cold, cold sea. Isolation?

Sing now Harry, please sing! Click Here
"Baby's so high that shes skying, yeah she's flying afraid to fall, I'll tell you why Baby's crying, cuz' she's dying arent we all".




Oh, I've got something inside me,
To drive a princess blind.
There's a wild man, wizard,
He's hiding in me, illuminating my mind.
Oh, I've got something inside me,
Not what my life's about,
Cause I've been letting my outside tide me,
Over 'till my time, runs out.

bipolar affective disorder

What Exactly is a Bipolar Affective Disorder?

Does Affective Disorder mean Emotional Disorder?

Are Symptoms of Mental Illness Affective States?

Are Innate Affects involved in Affective Disorders?

Are Nine Innate Affects the rootS of all Emotions?

Is Bipolar a brain disease or a nervous system disorder?

AFFECTIVE DISORDER?
"What exactly is bipolar affective disorder?" Its a question Iv'e been earnestly researching for four years now with most psychiatrists answering, "its a chemical imbalance in the brain but we don't know exactly how or why it occurs." When I ask what exactly is meant by an affective disorder the answer is often "it just means a disorder of emotion." The same kind of vague "we don't really know" reply comes when we ask for an explanation of how a bipolar disorder chemical imbalance is a disease like diabetes?

bipolar disorder chemical imbalance

In here our Objective Logic fails?

Bipolar Disorder a chemical imbalance in my brain?

Given that the activity of the brain is electrochemical in nature, a probable chemical imbalance of some kind is highly likely, although the cause is still subjective conjecture, despite the recent advances of our technological age.

It would be nice to see the brain in object terms as the clockwork view in the chosen photo implies, yet recent advances in understanding the neurobiology of the brain show us a complex evolution that has more in common with chaos theory and quantum physics than the old clockwork cause and effect way of thinking most of us grow up with.

bipolar illness - bipolar awareness

Illness or Denied Instincts

For 25 years I believed I had a bipolar illness in line with the long standing model of medical disease, only changing my belief after much study into the neurobiology of human development with its increasing awareness of complex brain and autonomic nervous system interactions.

Interactions in which emotions affect our metabolism and help organize the brains early development while simultaneously affecting the maturing nervous system. Systems theory is now changing our understanding of human behavior and the biology of affective disorders. A new bipolar awareness has changed my belief in bipolar illness to a disorder rooted in the autonomic nervous system and initially organized by the negative affect/emotions of traumatic experience.

Recovering from mental illness

Bipolar Disorder mental illness recovery? Recovery as a concept is about the process of building a meaningful life as defined by the person with a mental health problem themselves. There are four key processes suggested: Finding and maintaining hope The re-establishment of a positive identity Finding meaning in life Taking responsibility for one’s life

books on bipolar disorder

Good books on Bipolar Disorder

If any of these books on bipolar disorder interest you, a purchase through the links below will raise 15 percent for this blog through Amazon Associates or you may wish to search for books on bipolar disorder at Amazon.com

Another Bipolar Digestion Day

Diet, Digestion & Depression?

It was a big night out, the end of Songkran celebration in Pattaya where we'd gone to see old friends, and the food just kept coming. The first time in almost a year that I've eaten western food too, and today the old bipolar rhythm has set in.

More attuned to my biorhythm's these days I feel the metabolic energy needed for digestion, the tension of sympathetic - parasympathetic nervous system activity involved and the old sinking feeling.



That reptilian part of my brain wants me in the undergrowth, maybe basking in the sun, but definitely not moving. Heavy digestion work had become coupled to the FREEZE response through my early life experience of trauma.

Freeze Response:  If the fight or flight is not successful, then at the point of recognizing defeat and impending death, the animal goes into a state of helplessness and hopelessness, physiologically the freeze response.

Bipolar Disorder Instinct?

The Power of Instinct in Bipolar Disorder?

Trapped Survival Energies in Disordered States?

The Social World & Instinctual Energies?

The Autonomic (Animal) Nervous System?

Do You Really Believe the Theory of Evolution?

No Bipolar Depression Now

You Cannot be Conscious of Your Brains Neural Activity?

Your Autonomic Nervous System’s Triune Stimulation?

Objectivity can Only Rationalize this Hidden Motivation?

What is this Hidden Stimulus to Bipolar Depression? 

Tuesday 12th April 2011, I wake fatigued and hung over after being up till 4am, so I’m paying the price now of with physiological state.


I fell into an old habitual work pattern yesterday and now those primitive neural networks in my brain have me in autonomic conservation/withdrawal mode, which I would have worried into a depressive mood in times gone by. That was before I educated myself in the latest neuroscience on brain and nervous system activity, and now I know how much physical state can stimulate my bipolar thoughts.

My Bipolar Disorder States

Bipolar Disorder Altered States

Born in traumatic circumstances and suffering from infantile Asthma I never got to access the social world in the way that would have made me feel comfortable inside my own skin, and satisfied my metabolic needs of vital social interaction. Instead I lived a life of bi-phasic engagement and withdrawal stimulated by, my twin branched autonomic nervous system (ANS), patterns of behavior energized by my mammalian instincts for survival. My social interaction with others had always been effortful rather than spontaneous, and based largely on a mimicked simulation of affect rather than the spontaneous affective states available to humans through the newly discovered third branch of the ANS.

Peak Experience or Psychosis?

Peak Experience or Psychosis?

It was the 8th October 2010, psychosis had peaked the day before, in a delusional state when I associated a passing Buddhist procession with Jesus entering Jerusalem. As always in my 30 year experience of these altered states of awareness, I was extremely euphoric, spiritually enthused with intense feelings of universal oneness. Heightened senses with feelings of unusual calm, brought sensations of harmonic attunement with nature, the trees, birds, every wisp of wind on my skin and a eerie feeling that I was ‘affecting’ a resonant harmonic balance in the atmosphere surrounding me, or visa versa. It felt like, whenever I stilled my mind, and matched heart and breath with rhythmic nature, I could touch a oneness with all the usual sense of separation dissolved away.

The Wise Man and the Whore

Written at the Height of Psychosis

A wise man once walked the pre dawn hour practicing his walking meditation and he chanced upon a woman sitting by a Bodhi tree, instantly aware, this creature's ill reputation.


‘Hello young Sir,’ said the woman, drawing not a flicker of response, and oh! So intrigued by his calmness and handsome face, she moved to cross him with temptation.

Ripples in Bipolar Attachments

"The Face in the Water?"

“Marching to the promised land. Where the honey flows and takes you by the hand.”

Its one of my favorite songs by Genesis and its been stuck inside feedback loops of heart and mind for over a week now. Do you ever get that kind of thing with your favorite songs?

I mean it’s not every minute of the day of coarse, yet it keeps spontaneously springing to mind, like I’m wondering in and out of the sound proof room where its on constant playback, only the verse’s I remember though.
Is it just my quirky brain?


“The face in the water looks up. And she shakes her head as if to say. That it's the last time you'll look like today.”

My Last Manic Episode - Maybe?

My Last Manic Episode - Maybe?

Could there be Purpose in My Manias?

To Reorganize my Autonomic Nervous System?

Can Systems Theory Explain the Chaos of Mania?

Can I Integrate the Experience with New Insights?

Changing Unconsciously Conditioned E-Motivation?

It is just over six months since the beginning of my last manic episode 17/9/2010, and just like my first in February 1980, it was triggered by LOSS. I had lost an intimate relationship, a potential life partner who had gone the way of five others, in another classic confirmation of the damage done by affective disorder. Only time will tell of coarse if the six weeks of hypo/hyper mania will be my last, yet something has definitely changed, with no autonomic descent into depression despite the highest and longest mania of my life.