Clark - Snapshots: Chronicles of a Bipolar ADHD Earth Traveler

Snapshots:

Chronicles of a Bi-Polar ADHD

Earth Traveler

Snapshots:

Chronicles of a Bipolar ADHD Earth Traveler

Lee R. Clark

Copyright 2016

Inside Im Going a mile a minute

Concentration - Forget it

Thoughts swirl like a merry go round - I just grab at them as quick as I can

Focus - yeah right!

Attention to detail - yeah right!

Repetition - yeah right!

Uncertainty

Fear

Hopelessness

Lack of Sleep - Fear of Sleep

Faster, Faster, Faster

Cant stop, wont stop, dont want to stop. HELP ME

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Emily my wife. While we knew each other for about three years before we were married, and we discussed much about each of our lives, Emily never received a full picture of me and my life. Im writing this book in large part to provide a picture of my life so that she can better understand me and have a history of my life should she ever need to share that with someone else.

Im also writing this book for my family. I come from a very dysfunctional fragmented family whose history is not known by any of us. By sharing my part, I hope they can use it to fill in their pieces and gain a better understanding of their life and in so doing create their own snapshots. To my four older siblings, because, for the most part, you came in and out of my life, many times you were merely vague recollections (almost ghosts), many of my snapshots may not fully reflect your involvement or adequately reflect those time periods. If I was trying to paint an accurate history of my life and life events, I would have contacted you to fill in the pieces. But that is not my intent. These snapshots reflect what I remember, their impact on me, lessons I learned, and the interconnectivity of all of them. I hope you understand. Your omission is not intentional.

Finally Im also writing this book for fellow Bipolar ADHD Earth travelers. As Ive gone through life, Ive learned that these labels have at times defined me, inhibited me, and prevented me from knowing who I am and what I can be. I hope that sharing my story will be able to assist in some small way other Earth travelers in their journey and in so doing help them build bridges to overcome the walls that others put up for them.

Introduction

Chronicles of a Bipolar ADHD Earth Traveler

My name is Lee. I am 63 years old. I have lived a very diverse and at times challenging life. I am currently married and live as a retired educator, advocate, veteran, and life traveler.

What follows, is a chronicle of my life. It is not my memoirs. It is fragmented and sometimes disjointed, but reflects key snapshots of my life from my earliest memories to where I currently am. I have learned that each snapshot of my life built upon the previous snapshot but did not dictate what or how the next snapshot would turn out to be. Many of my early snapshots are fragmented and reflect recollections to the best of my ability and are the result of numerous conversations with a great therapist who helped me re-create memories, feelings and emotions. They are truthful recollections, are not enhanced nor are they embellished. These early recollections are merely snapshots of my life which give a foundation for the reader to see the impact of early childhood influences. Later snapshots, reflect more accurate reflections that I hope can provide a clear or clearer picture of who I am and how I came to be. They are not intended to make me look bigger, better or more than I am or was. Hopefully, they will, however, provide the reader with a clear albeit fragmented picture of my life and in so doing, one can see how life events can drive and influence but not determine future influences.

As I previously stated, I came from a dysfunctional family and environment that had many forms. I suffer from mental illness, Bipolar Disorder and ADHD. My family influences and my diagnoses, however, as influential as they are, do/did not define me nor did they limit me from achieving goals, aspirations, and happiness especially later in life.

As I share my snapshots, I also hope to share some of the many lessons I learned as they occurred and how I integrated them throughout my life. Some snapshots are about life events, some reflect life experiences, some are reflections of my thinking at the time. My purpose for writing this is to share with other Earth travelers what I experienced, what I learned, how I used what I learned so that I would not be a slave to my early childhood environment, my mental illness, or any other individual factor which can be viewed as debilitating. These snapshots share my developmental growth and experiences, my emotional growth and experiences, my personal growth and experiences, and my spiritual growth and experiences.

I also wish to note that I was not diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder or ADHD until I was 40 years old. At that time I was pricked and prodded by a wide variety of psychiatrists and therapists using a wide variety of approaches from a wide variety of disciplines. Almost every approach used the medical model, addressing Bipolar Disorder and ADHD as a disability that must be cured or contained. These disabilities were either a result of a genetic deficit, environmental influences, emotional trauma, or some other targeted factor. I went through each of these therapies with little or no success until I found a psychiatrist who understood that through each discipline, one could make a treatment plan that truly addressed the issues and concerns found in the individual. He believed that there were genetic related issues impacting the brain and chemical functions within the brain. He believed that psychotropics were necessary to address this issue. Without becoming chemically balanced, the individual would have difficulty making rational decisions or see the world and all that was within it in a rational way. He also believed that significant environmental events could trigger or exacerbate this chemical imbalance and must be addressed by the individual so that one could see their impact and then determine how that impact was going to continue to affect their present and future. Once, at an appropriate chemical therapeutic level, the individual could examine his or her emotions and determine how to maintain them at a rational level and on and on and on It was through this approach, and my ability to be an active participant in my treatment that I was able to see what Bipolar meant, its impact on me, and how I was going to use it . I will discuss this in greater detail at the conclusion.

Professionally, I spent my whole career as a social worker and as an educator. I worked almost exclusively with dysfunctional parents/families and high risk students (frequently labeled socially maladjusted, socially delinquent, emotionally disturbed, behavior disordered, antisocial, sociopaths, just plain bad kids I choose to call them disagreeable scholars). Having an inferiority complex, I also spent many years getting educated. I have two Bachelors degrees, two Masters degrees, a PhD, and did postdoctoral work at Harvard. With all this education and my personal research I also became a personal expert with regard to Bipolar disorder and disagreeable scholars.

My purpose in stating this is to make the point that, in my opinion, most psychiatrists and therapists use a cookie-cutter approach to treatment, miss the mark, and have a deleterious effect on those diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. To be labeled as having Bipolar Disorder is the same as labeling somebody with dyslexia. It is so generic that it does very little to drive treatment. Bipolar Disorder is so varied in terms of etiology, intensity, manifestations, and responses to interventions, that no single treatment, therapy or psychotropic prescription can fit all.