Past success

honors, achievement, awards

current status
I am now 40 years old/young.
I have a disability, namely "schizoaffective" disorder.
That's bipolar (also, previously, called manic-depression) plus schizophrenia.
I've had this diagnosis since, I dunno, '95 (?) (after college)
http://www.schizophrenia.com/ talks about it.
as Pink Floyd sings, "there's someone in my head but it's not me"

I don't have a job, and I get "unearned income" of 874/mo. from SSA/SSI (social security, disability)
I spend nearly all of it, each month, and have little savings.
My medications (risperdal, zyprexa zydis) help, but I still have symptoms:

1)a voice in my head (either psychosis, telepathy, or both)
2)what I call head-shocks (also referred to as "brainzaps")
3)chest-pains (reduced by exercise, better diet)

I just joined the "Y" near the central public library,
where I go (both) almost every day,
and swim, do cardio, and free weights.
I weigh 216 lbs, and am trying to get to 185
I have 24.8% body fat, and 28.4 BMI
My bmi (body mass index) is in the"overweight" range.
I checked out
-Finding Fitness (by Terrell Owens), and
-Strength for Life, by Shawn Phillips.
I'll get there, although I have to stop with the Ben n' Jerrys.

I also started going to Shambhala buddhist meditations once or twice a month.
I started with the youth group, although I'm out of that bracket.
I have serious problems with my mental illness, and it's dukkha.
I think I have to mentally "change my mind" (literally), to stop
resenting and fighting with what the Dead Milkmen call "the little man in my head"
The voice is driving me insane. I have to not react and ignore it.
Why would telepathy be affected by neurotransmitters, right?

I can't even begin to go to Catholic Mass anymore, it's so ridiculous to me.
But I need friends, and I am a baptized Roman Catholic.
The bible does say (vanity of vanities),
it's all "frustration, futility, absurdity, nonsense", though,
and religion is just as much about community as it is about dogma.
And love "believes all things."
I can choose to believe, then, some things more than others.
just like that quote (from Animal Farm?)
"we're all equal, but some of us are more equal than others"

I'm going to start going to a weekly Kaiser case management group in Oakland,
although I have some reservations about making social connections to other troubled, mentally ill people. The Silence of the Lambs quoted some fictional character as saying "Believe me, You don't want Hannibal Lecter in your head". I (think I) want only sane people in my head.
But then again, maybe Truth and Reality, and thus Sanity, is a bit insane itself.
I remember doing my Eagle Scout Project at the Rec Center for the Handicapped: I felt at one point like I had retarded (is that the right term?) people in my head.

Anyway,
more than 20 years ago-
I won the journalism award in high-school (St. Ignatius College Preparatory, class of '89).
I was in honors and AP english all four years of hs, and was the yearbook editor-in-chief my senior year. I enjoy writing. It helps me clarify and organize my thoughts, and has the added benefit of making me feel smart. Something I've been told I do well. I used to keep a journal, but don't anymore. Maybe I should resume. Or try and get published. I won an alumni scholarship to Cal (UC Berkeley), the Boston College book award, and earned Eagle rank in the BSA. My gpa (weighted) was 4.0, my SAT was 1260 (99th percentile, verbal), which just barely qualifies me for mensa, and I chose to go to UC Davis, enrolling in the freshman honors program, Integrated Studies. I majored in International Relations (I.R.), Third World Studies emphasis. I minored in Spanish. I took an I.Q. test online, and scored 140.

But there are a few facts that take me down a notch -that is, lower my self-esteem:
1) The diagnosis/fact that I have schizoaffective disorder, or, in common language, am "crazy" or "mad." Would I be crazy if the voice didn't make me mad? The insanity, it seems, lies in my response and reaction to it, and less in the voice/telepathy itself. The dynamic of expressing frustration (talking back to it in my head) and trying to reduce or eliminate this mind-control and intrusive invasion of privacy, makes me mad in both senses of the word: angry AND crazy. Maybe it will just go away, eventually. It has lessened considerably, since it started.

2) The bible says, in the New Testament, "Do you not know that you are not your own?" How can wisdom -the supposed word of God- tell us that we are not in control? I feel invaded, controlled, unhealthy, and manipulated for the agenda or agendas of others. I feel like a pawn in a chess game, a puppet whose strings are pulled by unkown master(s) and forces. The travails of being a global telepath? Is everyone a meat puppet, or only schizos like me? 60% of schizophrenic men attempt suicide at some point in their lives, and now I understand why. And spending a billion dollars on a presidential race doesn't help, I might add.

Being mentally ill is it's own form of suffering, of being in hell, a captive audience to a madman in your head, especially, I guess, if you prefer silence and your own thought process to the imposition of the "other". At first, I thought the voice was interesting, a privileged communication, like being on the phone all the time, a special advantage or personal power, that was welcome and enjoyable. I swallowed the red pill. Now, I've had enough. I want out of the matrix. I choose the blue pill (my pills are actually both just white). I want silence, sanity, health, wealth, family, fitness, friends... I guess I even want a job, although I'd have to give up my quixotic quest to read the entire library, lol. I read an article yesterday that said it costs (average) 235k to raise a kid from birth to age 17 (the price of a ferrari). Eek!

It would have to be something I enjoy, though. I'm not about to be "a slave to the money, then you die", or subscribe to "life's a bitch, then you die."

To use the metaphor of another movie, I was an apprentice to the dark side, and now I want to be a good jedi, using the force of light and life instead of darkness and death. I was called a vampire and a dark agent. I wrote up a list of 1000 reasons people kill. I even went to jail for 10 months (as a result of stopping my meds).

There's devil in the details: devil in develop, cult in cultivate, meanness in meaning, hated in death, fun in funeral, and hatred in red hats. okay, sorry.

To be good -that is, in truth, to be GOD- , that is, to love yourself and those around you, as fellow human beings in the same boat as you -fellow travelers on spaceship earth, the global village, fated like everyone else for oblivion and death, requires compassion, a deep sadness, and therefore kindness, being gentle, a good humor, an earnest desire to make others happy, or at least to diminish his or her hell and suffering.

So I ask you, is -as the Beatles sang- happiness a warm gun? Should you, as the slogan says, "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out"?

Or should we do as The Hard Rock Cafe says: "Love All, Serve All", and make a heaven in this life, which is the only life we will ever truly have?

Basic needs met, sustainably..
healthy living -body and mind- (sanity and fitness) with
good food and good exercise
caring friends and family
community and cooperation
peace, security and comfort
liberty and freedom
love and happiness
respect