On the fringes, a Bipolar Memory

I suppose you won't simply accept the response that I thought it was a neat picture, huh? (You've got to admit that it is though!) All right, you got me. Yes, it is there for a reason. You have to bare with me though. It is kind of involved. (Not really, I was just trying to keep up your interest!)

Bipolars and Possums have something in common. Nope, not our beady eyes, or the course grey fir, or our pink noses. Nope. Give up?

Really! So quickly? (Boy are you gonna feel so silly you missed it.)

Are you ready?

Okay, what happens when a Possum has taken it's fill of attention from another animal? It simply shuts down. It plays dead.

A possum, once it has shut down, will lie there. You can polk it with a stick, drag it around, (Naw on it if you are an animal, or just really hungry) and the thing will just lay there, motionless. The animal's senses have overloaded.

Yup! Just simply has had enough, and for it's defense, shuts down. Possums have really sharp teeth, and nasty claws. They could be very dangerous if they fight back, but instead, they shut down as a first line of defense.

A Bipolar can shut down too. (Except we don't lay down and play dead, and really hate being poked with sticks. We won't even go into being gnawed upon!) From experience, I can say that there is a point that I shut down, mentally, but not physically. The dangerous thing is that disconnection. The disconnection of mind over body.

Although a Possum seems to be, well, dead, the creature is far from it. The creature, by instinct, knows that acting dead will discourage harassment from most creatures. A possum may appear dead, but is still in full control of it's body.

A Bipolar, under the right circumstances may not be so lucky. In a bit, you will understand what I mean.

Oh yah, I forgot. Possums are not exactly animals most folks find appealing. That is to say, in order for them to survive successfully, they need to live on the fringes of a town, for the most part. Yes, they can be seen from time to time in the middle of town, but for the most part, they are nocturnal. They come out in the dark and they stay on the fringes of the general population. Their survival depends on it.

When I was young, I too found peace and solace on the fringes. I found that being in the mainstream was far to much for me. I couldn't handle being in crowds, or in situations that placed me in a position of having to deal with being in contact with more than two people at a time. Maybe three if I was comfortable with them, maybe even four. But more than that? Fugetaboutit.

I was better off in the fringes. On the edge of society, you could say. I felt safe there. I kept pretty much to myself, and hid on the fringes.

At the ripe old age of Fourteen, I had learned this lesson from my peers. They were the ones who sent me to the fringes in the first place. I simply never fit in. I found myself more at ease with adults than with kids my own age. Kids my age were more worried about who liked whom, and to much homework, and all the normal stuff kids at fourteen fret about. My mind was in a completely different place. (Where? I haven't a clue.) I don't remember

I will tell you about an experience in which demonstrates all that I have stated above. A case where my mind shut down, but my body kept going. An experience that, when combined with a few other incidents ended my public school days.

I was, as I stated, fourteen, and in seventh grade. Junior High School is what we called it. I found myself on the fringes of the other students. Basically an outcast. I was different, and worse, I had a temper. However, I also found that there were some others on the fringes. A couple kids who were from broken families were out there, as well as a couple of others who for one reason or another were ostracized by the mainstream student body.

Now, these other students, though on the fringes themselves, became quite close, and though I never really fit in with them, they at least acknowledged my existence! For that reason, I found that I fit better with them then any of the others. They smoked, I smoked. They ditched, I ditched. They did, and so did I. I found a niche, and by doing so, I found myself treated much the same as they were by the teaching staff, and the school system in general.

On one particular day, I found myself in math class, bored out of my skull as usual. I hated the class because I had already covered the material we were reviewing the year before in the advanced math course I had taken in sixth grade. I disliked the teacher because I knew him from several years earlier as he was a classmate of one of my siblings. I thought he was a moron then, and my opinion had not changed. (Still hasn't.)

We had been given a quiz, and after finishing, I looked around the room to see most were still working the problems. Since I was done, I sat, looking out the window, daydreaming.

A loud crack brought me back abruptly. The teacher had hit my desk with his pointer, which startled me. My reaction was something like:

WHAT?!?

Yes, I yelled but what do you expect. He startled me.

He struck me on the arm then and told me not to raise my voice at him. I had a reply. (Something quite glib if I remember correctly) Some thing about the size of his rear end and his rather chubby frame I believe.

I remember receiving a crack on the head by the stupid pointer and that is about it.

My mind shut down. I can remember it to this moment, because it is the last I remember until my parents showed up at the hospital. I was fourteen, handcuffed to a gurney with a policeman sitting in a chair at the end of the bed.

MY mind had shut down, and my body didn't.

As the story was relayed to me by the doctor who now had joined my parents and I in the hospital room, I could only listen in disbelief. Evidently my response to the knock on the top knot was verbally abusive to the teacher, and was followed by another rap on the noggin.

To make a long story short, I threw the math teacher out the second story window. I was told I looked out to see that a large yew bush had broken his fall, so I grabbed a few desks and tossed them out at him for good measure. Yes I snapped. To this day, I only remember waking up in the hospital.

Talking to other Bipolars, I have found that one thing is true. There comes a point with which we just can't take any more in. We just shut down. The information in our minds needs to be sorted and filed. Things need to sift through the processes we use to distribute the information we absorb from around us. When there is too much stimulus, we just can't pull it all in and continue to function. Be it stress, be it information, be it negativety.

Understanding that we have limits to which we can tolerate is part of the battle in keeping ourselves from shutting down. Controlling situations before they happen can mean the differance from having a good day and having a bad one. The differance from shutting down and slipping into a depression, from shutting down and losing control, or from shutting down and coming out of it on the Manic side. Understanding is the key to our survival.

Until next time, happy Bipolaring!