Meds suck. They work until they don’t. I can never know how much I need to work on myself versus how much (and how long) to accept and rely on meds. I addictively rode the ND Pride bandwagon straight out of a solid relationship. What to do now? Can hardly make decisions for myself but don’t like listening to others. Tough spot.
I did meet a drug cheater & All Canadian football player from U of Western Ontario & also recall being a fringe player on a National Championship Basketball Team ..
My high school team were perennial ‘losers’ as befits a rural high school of 250 students.. in Erin, Ontario .. we competed with students from Acton, Wiarton, Elora, Kincardine & Milton School For The Deaf .. ie CWOSSA - Central Southwestern Ontario’s B Schools ..
well .. enjoy the “hahahahaha’ re a sport named basketball.. I call bullshit
& you have have zero idea what I took from your essay.. aside from either presumption, assumption, arrogance ? Superiority ? The mood you were in ?
I can speak or interpret your language & whatever ‘you found or took from the game of basketball’ - perhaps even enhance it via my personal experience & observation
Your dire need & visible cries for help.. sting me to my very core
& yet you care nada - none of my empathy, curiosity, awareness
You ‘know nothing’ of my path .. athletics - life - reality..
hell man.. you have no idea if I shoot lefty or righty .. or ambidextrous
We can still exchange views .. & not a problem for me..
duh - no harm no foul.. but I do take numbers.. deliver receipts
Why don’t we start over.. & you get the ball first ..
"Your dire need and visible cries for help...sting me to my very core." Why wouldn't you first respond with that empathetic response instead of vague insults about my "sportsmanship"? The essay is about my mental illness and how it has affected me in the past and continues to affect me. If you want to talk about mental illness in particular and in general then that would be interesting. Otherwise, you're just talking basketball. I'm also happy to just talk about basketball. I love the NBA but don't much watch college ball anymore. I retired from pickup hoops at age 50. Returned at 55 but was beset by nagging injuries and seriously declining athletic ability, so I retired again. I miss it. I played basketball at least once a week since 1976.
.. I’m not considered vague by many .. & thanks re the prompt reply..
& yes. I found your essay truly disconcerting to say the very least !
What If I’d been assigned typical man on man coverage with zero knowledge of your particular DSM-4 or 5 Mood Disorder as described by you ?
My competitive interscholastic basketball career ended when our Head Coach informed me I’d be red-shirted to save a year of eligibility as I had little hope of unseating incoming recruited veterans .. that I was green as grass was indisputable - with a 40% foul shot & hopeless jump shot weighing in at 165 @ 6’ 3” BUT .. a ‘project’ & defied gravity above the rim
Coach suggested a job opening in Maximum Security he’d been notified about re an experimental Grant program for ‘someone who could run with the wolves’
& that it might stand me in good stead .. ‘Yessir.. thanks’ & met the Prison Warden next day.. life moved on Sherman.. next came an offer re Working with Drug Addicted Juves.. then with emotionally disturbed juveniles.. then we got pregnant.. I was gone from farm life by then.. but worked nights.. and was a glimmer of talent re seeing life via an SLR camera.. This while I’d become a crack bartender trained by the best of the best
My son was three when I was submarined at Toronto’s new Central Y playing ‘who’s got next’ age 35.. nothing new to me.. lost count of broken noses, torn ankles, lost teeth, many of which delivered by teammates .. my family never sat behind our bench again during my JV games upon seeing my nose parked under my ear by a teammate & our trainer repositioning it somewhat.. c’est la vie + the surgery that followed was brilliant.. I took a blind pass to it next practice coming around a screen to crash the boards.. & nobody’s touched my black irish nose since..
We can pickup the game later.. I suggest .. never a worry
I never knew a mom or dad .. have a big sister though
cool .. tom .. 🦎🏴☠️ & born in ‘51 - toronto canada eh
Nov 26, 2023·edited Nov 26, 2023Liked by Sherman Alexie
Reading from my bed, fully clothed (though not in basketball gear) and yes, struck with paralyzing bipolar depression after summoning the hypomania to make it through the back to back to back thanksgivings I had lined up for me this year.
I’m glad you resurrected this from the archives.
Euthymia is such a fuzzy, sun-bleached mood. I know the rue that accompanies it. But its merits are obvious when the recoil from mania’s high energy kicks you to the edge of quitting literally everything.
I think I can shower now though. Thanks! Maybe that’ll start the upswing back toward balance.
Your writing of your bipolar life always touches me. Maybe once before I shared of having two daughters, now in their 50s, that live with bipolar. Everyone has their own experience with whatever ails them, but your bold out there writing helps me to know my girls in a deeper way. Keep the archives open!
The mirror we look into as we get older can be frightening and enlightening. Frightening in that I wonder how any of us have survived. Enlightening because the will to survive for whatever our reasons are so monumental. A powerful and heart wrenching story of what you have and continue to go through and (as always) with just enough of your brilliant humor for levitation.
To be able to share this anguish and acknowledge your fury is profound. I wish my father had had that kind of epiphany. He too, was a bipolar basketball player. He used his mania/fury on crazy schemes and deleting our family resources.
Thank you, once again, for insight into bipolarity. I find I can love the flawed man my father was, a bit more.
I bought thousands of dollars worth of emergency food and water in a manic phase. I spent way too much of my own money making a movie in a manic phase. Ugh.
I don't have bipolar but somehow what you say about it resonates so much with me.
And with cannibalistic ferocity, you still survive.
I’ve was diagnosed as bi-polar
also, its really not in control
Of self, Sometimes thinking I could do anything and then plunging to darkness, hiding in my room. Something I wanted to ignore, never share.
My wonderful husband didn’t understand but stayed with the bucking bronco I was.
Now i am an elder who marvels that I survived the horror of it all. 🙏
Thank you for writing, sharing. I keep benefiting from it all.
Thank you. I hope you find some peace now and again.
I’m so happy you are still among us and writing your heart out. Love you.
Thank you, Mary.
Oh, wow. This is so powerful. You know, your vulnerability is such a superpower.
Thank you, Amy.
Meds suck. They work until they don’t. I can never know how much I need to work on myself versus how much (and how long) to accept and rely on meds. I addictively rode the ND Pride bandwagon straight out of a solid relationship. What to do now? Can hardly make decisions for myself but don’t like listening to others. Tough spot.
.. i have some info for you .. re your basketball ethos
think it might not please you much..
where ‘sportsmanship’ entered the picture - ?
a complete mystery .. yet basketball is a game
last I looked ..
That's what you got from the essay? Hahahahaha
yes .. .. I’ve never read anything like it ..
I did meet a drug cheater & All Canadian football player from U of Western Ontario & also recall being a fringe player on a National Championship Basketball Team ..
My high school team were perennial ‘losers’ as befits a rural high school of 250 students.. in Erin, Ontario .. we competed with students from Acton, Wiarton, Elora, Kincardine & Milton School For The Deaf .. ie CWOSSA - Central Southwestern Ontario’s B Schools ..
well .. enjoy the “hahahahaha’ re a sport named basketball.. I call bullshit
& you have have zero idea what I took from your essay.. aside from either presumption, assumption, arrogance ? Superiority ? The mood you were in ?
I can speak or interpret your language & whatever ‘you found or took from the game of basketball’ - perhaps even enhance it via my personal experience & observation
Your dire need & visible cries for help.. sting me to my very core
& yet you care nada - none of my empathy, curiosity, awareness
You ‘know nothing’ of my path .. athletics - life - reality..
hell man.. you have no idea if I shoot lefty or righty .. or ambidextrous
We can still exchange views .. & not a problem for me..
duh - no harm no foul.. but I do take numbers.. deliver receipts
Why don’t we start over.. & you get the ball first ..
.. it’s how I play the game 🦎🏴☠️ You ?
"Your dire need and visible cries for help...sting me to my very core." Why wouldn't you first respond with that empathetic response instead of vague insults about my "sportsmanship"? The essay is about my mental illness and how it has affected me in the past and continues to affect me. If you want to talk about mental illness in particular and in general then that would be interesting. Otherwise, you're just talking basketball. I'm also happy to just talk about basketball. I love the NBA but don't much watch college ball anymore. I retired from pickup hoops at age 50. Returned at 55 but was beset by nagging injuries and seriously declining athletic ability, so I retired again. I miss it. I played basketball at least once a week since 1976.
.. I’m not considered vague by many .. & thanks re the prompt reply..
& yes. I found your essay truly disconcerting to say the very least !
What If I’d been assigned typical man on man coverage with zero knowledge of your particular DSM-4 or 5 Mood Disorder as described by you ?
My competitive interscholastic basketball career ended when our Head Coach informed me I’d be red-shirted to save a year of eligibility as I had little hope of unseating incoming recruited veterans .. that I was green as grass was indisputable - with a 40% foul shot & hopeless jump shot weighing in at 165 @ 6’ 3” BUT .. a ‘project’ & defied gravity above the rim
Coach suggested a job opening in Maximum Security he’d been notified about re an experimental Grant program for ‘someone who could run with the wolves’
& that it might stand me in good stead .. ‘Yessir.. thanks’ & met the Prison Warden next day.. life moved on Sherman.. next came an offer re Working with Drug Addicted Juves.. then with emotionally disturbed juveniles.. then we got pregnant.. I was gone from farm life by then.. but worked nights.. and was a glimmer of talent re seeing life via an SLR camera.. This while I’d become a crack bartender trained by the best of the best
My son was three when I was submarined at Toronto’s new Central Y playing ‘who’s got next’ age 35.. nothing new to me.. lost count of broken noses, torn ankles, lost teeth, many of which delivered by teammates .. my family never sat behind our bench again during my JV games upon seeing my nose parked under my ear by a teammate & our trainer repositioning it somewhat.. c’est la vie + the surgery that followed was brilliant.. I took a blind pass to it next practice coming around a screen to crash the boards.. & nobody’s touched my black irish nose since..
We can pickup the game later.. I suggest .. never a worry
I never knew a mom or dad .. have a big sister though
cool .. tom .. 🦎🏴☠️ & born in ‘51 - toronto canada eh
glad you resurrected it from the archive; poignant description of what it was like for you that I can viscerally grasp and it has a great last line.
Thanks, Jill.
Goddamned beautiful essay. Thank you.
Thank you, Chris.
Reading from my bed, fully clothed (though not in basketball gear) and yes, struck with paralyzing bipolar depression after summoning the hypomania to make it through the back to back to back thanksgivings I had lined up for me this year.
I’m glad you resurrected this from the archives.
Euthymia is such a fuzzy, sun-bleached mood. I know the rue that accompanies it. But its merits are obvious when the recoil from mania’s high energy kicks you to the edge of quitting literally everything.
I think I can shower now though. Thanks! Maybe that’ll start the upswing back toward balance.
Your writing of your bipolar life always touches me. Maybe once before I shared of having two daughters, now in their 50s, that live with bipolar. Everyone has their own experience with whatever ails them, but your bold out there writing helps me to know my girls in a deeper way. Keep the archives open!
Thank you, Roger. I wish you and your daughters well.
The mirror we look into as we get older can be frightening and enlightening. Frightening in that I wonder how any of us have survived. Enlightening because the will to survive for whatever our reasons are so monumental. A powerful and heart wrenching story of what you have and continue to go through and (as always) with just enough of your brilliant humor for levitation.
Thank you, Michelle.
To be able to share this anguish and acknowledge your fury is profound. I wish my father had had that kind of epiphany. He too, was a bipolar basketball player. He used his mania/fury on crazy schemes and deleting our family resources.
Thank you, once again, for insight into bipolarity. I find I can love the flawed man my father was, a bit more.
I bought thousands of dollars worth of emergency food and water in a manic phase. I spent way too much of my own money making a movie in a manic phase. Ugh.
Oh yeah, that movie making can eat your dough up! (Loved "Smoke Signals").
Thanks!
Thank you for this poignant, brutiful honesty.
Thank you, Holly.
Check out on You Tube: NAMI Ask the Experts: Advancements in Research & Treatment,it's really worth it
I shall.
I TOTALLY GET YOU
Ha! Thanks.