That seemed to be a passing psychobuzz. Chalk it up to my extreme mood instability. I don't feel quite as ecstatic anymore. I don't feel bad, but I've definitely come down from where I was at. A yo-yo in my head. Up and down and up and down. While there seems to be much more down than up lately, the up is still pretty good. The amplitude of the waves is large, I wish I could just adjust the range up a little higher.

The question is "Is the up enough to make the down worth it?". I get the feeling that I will probably decide it is not, but at this moment I am unable to definitively pass judgement. From my self-distanced prospective, looking at where I've been at lately and where I'm likely to go, I'd probably check myself in if I had any trust left in the psych system. But I don't, so I'll take my chances on the outside. Hopefully I'll find a way, but I seem to be drifting more and more off.

I've left reality behind and it feels good. No drugs (at least for now), no gimmicks, just madness. Sure, I'm aware of my surroundings. I'm not hallucinating - too much. I can still manage to whip up a nice curry as will. But everything that was bothering me is gone. Not here right now. I don't even really remember what it was. Sure, if I want to I can go chase it down, but fuck that shit. I'm good at dissociation, and it's high time we used it to to make ourself happy. It's a crazy sort of happy. Manic may be another word for it. Everything is happy right now. Of course my constructs may come crashing down tomorrow or even tonight, but right now I don't care. But I don't care. We will sit on the floor with my cane and cackle. It's all funny. Everything is. We are chattering and being many and one. Switching persons, switching phases, switching reality, switching being. Maybe I'm not really anymore insane. Maybe my feeling more insane is simply an illusion of my already existing insanity. I feel as if I'm flying in a sea of bananas and I don't want to dry off.

Child psychiatry researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a small group of preschoolers who appear to suffer from bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness. The findings, presented this fall at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, highlight symptoms that distinguish bipolar disorder from other mental health problems in very young children. Diagnosing bipolar disorder in children is difficult because the manic phase of the illness can be confused with the more common attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The confusion arises because mania and ADHD both involve hyperactivity, irritability and distractibility. These issues may be even more difficult in young children who display some of these behaviors and emotions normally. However, Joan Luby, M.D., an associate professor of child psychiatry, found mania symptoms, as defined by psychiatry's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV), did not occur in healthy preschoolers and that three main symptoms distinguished bipolar disorder from ADHD in preschoolers: elation, grandiosity and hypersexuality. ... Researchers are comparing how well different medications and medication combinations work in making bipolar children between the ages of 6 and 15 feel better. Qualified participants are randomly selected to receive either lithium, a drug commonly prescribed for adults with bipolar disorder; valproate, an anticonvulsant drug that has been related to improvement of manic symptoms in a few smaller studies; or risperidone, an antipsychotic medication used in adults with schizophrenia that also is being tested in children with autism. full story

Now that they've gotten a couple drugs through the door, they're going throw the lot them of them down little kids' throats. I don't know how anyone could not see that there is something inherently wrong with giving kindergarteners antipsychotics! I'm sure having tardive dyskinesia in middle school will help their mental and emotional wellbeing immensely. The people doing this are monsters. They have no soul, at least none that I recognise. It doesn't take a doctorate to figure out that the first thing you do with a preschooler that displays "hypersexuality" should not be to drug them into submission. These kids can't say no, someone has to stand up for them! This can't continue. What the fuck is wrong with people!

When I arrived home from the asylum, I found a letter stating that I had yet another overdraft charge. I seem to be utterly incapable of keeping track of my balance and the $25 fees add up. I decided that I should just cash my SSDI check instead of depositing it and handle things in cash. I headed out to Arlington center, and only fell once on my way there and was able to get up quickly. I did end up sitting on a bench for 15 minutes shortly thereafter waiting to regain my coordination.

My first stop was Leader Bank. There I was told that since they are not publicly traded they are exempt from being required to cash treasury department checks for non-customers. No luck. I went on to Bank of America. There I was told as a non-customer I had to have two forms of identification for them to cash the check. I only had my licence with me. Strike two.

I decided to try my luck at Cambridge Savings Bank. I knew my account was negative there, but I hoped they would cash my with just one form of identification anyway. The teller told me the system wouldn't let her do it because my account was overdrawn. I asked by how much, and it was only $3.76. Aparently I had a little over $20 in the account when the overdraft fee hit. Seeing as the amount was so small, I told her to take the $3.76 out of the check, cash my check as a customer with one form of identification, then close my account. She did, and I'm now done with banks (except what will be my monthly trip to cash my check).

-----

purpleglitter drove me to my therapy appointment at 5:15. I signed in at the front desk and waited. 5:30, no therapist. The receptionist paged her. 5:45, no therapist. The receptionist paged her again, then noted that my appointment time was actually at 6:00 and not my normal time, and that's probably why my therapist wasn't responding. I had things to do, so I just left.

-----

purpleglitter dropped me off at the corner and went up to her house to bake merryperseis's birthday cake. I fell heading from the corner to my house, spilling my Monster. Several people asked if I was okay, but no one called anyone on me. I got back in the house and ended up lying in bed for some stupid reason and fell asleep. I drifted in and out of sleep and seizure for a couple hours, having nasty dreams that everything was getting worse and that I was being locked away forever. Finally, merryperseis came into my room and helped me out of bed. I ended up falling on the floor in the hall and sat there until I felt balanced enough to go down the stairs.

-----

recoiling, purpleglitter, and iamacliche were downstairs and we had quite a wonderful time celebrating the anniversary of merryperseis's birth. Towards 1:00 I started feeling very twitchy again, and couldn't really get up from the couch. All the non-residents of the house_of_clocks had left, and merryperseis had to go to purpleglitter's apartment and pick up my meds, my Metamucil cookies, and mazzycat's tuna for me. I was planning on just crashing on the couch, but did eventually make it up to my room and to sleep.

-----

Everyday is an adventure nowadays. Some moments I feel so elated I could fly, others I feel suicidal hopelessness, and others I'm simply on the ground. I have some very difficult moral choices to make. The kind where there is no good choice and I must find the one that is least wrong.

Another day today. Another day again. Days just seem to come one after another these days.

I freaked out earlier about what was apparently just me reading people wrong. I went off and headed to a place in Somerville were I was going to let the commuter rail hit me. I kept blanking out on the way there, and it was very confusing. I saw two car crashes today since I got out of the psych ward. One right in front of the house_of_clocks and the other on Mass Ave in Cambridge as I was walking to Union Square. I made it as far as porter then I had a spell and ended up on the ground and skinned my knee when I fell. A couple people were asking if I was okay, but I couldn't really walk right or talk to well. I kept telling them not to call anyone, but the guy called 911 anyway. Luckily Glenn and dicotomygrrl drove by and saw me. dicotomygrrl jumped out and rushed to help me. I told her that the guy had called the cops and she said she'd help me get out of there. Glenn pulled onto a nearby side street and dicotomygrrl helped me get into the back of the van and we were gone before anybody that might take me away arrived. purpleglitter and merryperseis were very worried about me, and purpleglitter came and picked me up at the Magic Dragon and we drove around and had egg salad and went to trader joe's. I feel bad that everyone has to worry about me. I keep flipping between deep suicide death want feeling to delirious dancing mood. I think I've completely lost it. My mind has snapped. i don't want to go back to the place. They are mean there and they want to make me a zombie and they don't believe anything i say. I want to stay out. I want this rollercoaster ride to end, it's making me dizzy and it makes everyone around me worried and sad.