A North West View

So how do you get to the point where the wheels are flying off the your manic high, especially when you are supposedly supposed to be educated on your disorder.  For me that is at once a complicated and in ways a simple question.  It is complicated because there are so many warning signs to be missed or to be shoved under the rug, and yet so simple because it is rooted in the fact that your brain is saying that everything is fine and there is nothing to worry about, when in fact if you value your mental stability and balance, like I do, there is very much to be worried about.  This is not just so abstract question that I ponder in my mind like an artifact displayed in a case at a museum, it is something that is a very real part of my life and something that I am living through at this very moment. 

So You Tube has created a hash tag to help celebrate pride month (especially in the wake of Orlando), I thought that I would do a blog post in the spirit of the prompt as I have not had time to make a video, and I am not sure when or if I will.  However I still want to show my pride, not just as a gay man but as a person in general, as I think that all of myself sort of melds together.

As someone with a mental illness that is various levels of out, depending on the platform and situation.  for example on This blog, YouTube, and Tumblr I am fully out about my bipolar. On Google+ and Twitter I am sorta out, as I will post articles and things about it.  Then we come to Facebook, work and most of my social life where I am not out about it at all.  In those realms people have a general idea that I have some sort of mental issue simply because they know me and have seen some examples of it, but don't know what it is, or how serious it is.  In a lot of those areas of my life there are people that say things that really annoy the heck out of me as someone that has a mental illness, then there are things that just the general public say too. So in this blog post I thought that I would share some of those things.

So there was a new story that involved a school disciplined a child, but that is not what the point of the post it, it is about one statement that has been bugging me in the back of my mind for two days. And has me wanting to write a post to get my opinion in when ti comes to mental illness/health,  it is the fact that the mother instead of trying to turn the moment and the assumption it brought her son too, she decided to hold a press conference about it. During which she said"had been traumatized" ...  "being a impressionable kid who watches TV he sees padded rooms thinks crazy people go in padded room so when you place him in a padded room you think he is crazy"   What got under my skin is for one thing is did not even try to work with her child to turn it into a teachable moment that "Crazy" people do not need to be put into padded rooms,

As has been floating around the blogosphere (more in depth here and here ) and news yet another gay teen has tragically taken their own life.  One could easily spend pages and pages condemning those who bullied and ostracized him, the teachers, principals and school that did nothing to stop it, the pollutions and social opinion makers who spew such toxic anti gay filth from their mouths on an almost daily basses, and how they have the blood of his death and deaths of many more before on their hands.  Yet no matter how true that is those that are easiest to blame and those that hold so much responsibility are also the ones that don't give a damn ether, yes they may fain dismay, shock or regret for a few moments but then before one can even blink their eyes they will be back to their despicable ways.  Yet this tragic loss also brings to light so much more nastiness, nastiness that is if not even more despicable at least as despicable as that which lead up to this...

Like I said I was probably going to do I am going to be spending some time doing, I am going to be talking more about the recent events in my personal life as well as some other issues that I am facing and choices and all that other good stuff that I am going to be having to make and things that I am going to actually have to come to terms with.  To save some time and to avoid needlessly repairing things I will simply drop a link to the last pos t so that those who have missed it can get caught up, and so that I can pick up right where I want to start anyway, I would also like to direct you to a post from Bryan at Gay Family Values  which after reading his brilliantly written post has inspired me to open up some more and to share more as well.