So the West told me I have Tourette's syndrome, Asperger's, OCD, ADD, and something like bipolar.  I go up, and I go down.  The Tourette's is real, not extreme, but I have tics... I just control them, but I have to hold my body like a clenched fist.  I don't tic in public because, well, they would not understand.  I mean, it comes out, sometimes, in moments of frustration I yell and swear and don't even care, and I move my face and jaw sometimes... I have been working very hard to channel and deal with the Tourette's, this excess electrical energy, since I went off meds when I was 17.  I have recently found great relief in music, living in soul and rhythm, singing and walking, are great muscular and mental relief.

My folks and doctors put me on all kinds of, what do you call them, neuroleptics, ten different kinds at least since I was 10 years old, to make me, uh, fit in and not scare the other kids in school.  I don't have those years anymore, my memory is pretty much gone before I was 17.  Thanks doctors and the pharmaceutical industry!  I really appreciate it!  Thanks for the chemical sledgehammer.

Now, I don't blame my parents, because, well, I was quite a handful.  I guess they had to do something.  Shit, I don't even blame doctors or psychiatrists or psychologists or all of them that much either, because they are just doing from their point of view what seems to help people.  Or they're just trying to make money.  This is America after all.  Obviously I do have some bitterness... I'm still working on that.  Hate and anger are just destructive in the end.

The rest of the mental stuff, well, how can I really know not ever having a point of reference?  I can't feel the experience of being in another person's mind... so am I just inattentive and lazy, or depressed because everyone gets depressed, or how is it?  Surely I got patterns and I count and things are a little off for me.  My social skills are pretty good now but I had to train hard.  It's all just a game.  Like Shakespeare wrote, all life's a stage and we're all actors.  I'm a good actor.  I'm good at acting totally human and normal and well-adjusted, but, well I'm kind of not.  Or am I?  My friends tell me everyone feels what I feel, but that pisses me off sometimes because they don't know what I feel and deal with.  Or maybe they're right?  See, the point of reference thing.  How can I know?  I can't see myself from the outside.  Maybe I am total spaz and can't see it.

Like Bob Dylan's grandma told him, everyone walks a harder road than you can possibly imagine.  Something to that effect.  I feel that deeply about everyone... so I guess I am blessed in some respects.  People talk so much shit about each other sometimes, so-and-so is annoying and this and that, but they don't know.  I've heard it said that most people don't develop real empathy until they're 25.  I don't know about that, but the mile in someone else's shoes... I got that hard sometimes.

Really, I'm ok, I think, all things considered existentially (I'm born with many chips in my favor in this country, college education, race, class, privilege, I'm aware of this stuff as much as I can).  But the self-medication with the booze and the smokes is what I've been doing.  Quit the pot recently, shit was making me manic and crazy.  But without the pot it's just like depression a lot of the time... recently I've cracked a couple times and it's drinking whiskey crying by the traintracks, some crazy shit like that, walking around saying "fuck am I supposed to do" over and over again, dark places I can't even fathom... that's the crisis, but most of the time it's like a dark cloud suspended over my thoughts and feelings, like not being able to see things clearly, not myself or my future or opportunities... I have shit going on, but I can't see it.  I don't have the confidence I could or should have... I want to just give up, but I can't because, well, then someone else would have to take care of me and, no, if I can't do it no one can.  Suicide is not a possibility because of how much of a waste it would be and how much it would hurt people that care about me.  I guess I can see that clearly.

But I seem to be walking towards death on the slow road with the drinking and the smoking... I should be walking towards life but come nighttime it's just a hungry ghost feeling, like in Chinese mythology or something, feel like a being half not here, half gone, half ethereal, go and watch the people out and happy and I'm all by myself on the outside looking in at human life, hungry and jealous.  When the sun is shining and I'm doing things, social things, plugged in, working on getting a job and have some success, I am ok... but like I said, come nighttime, I just want to get fucked-up.  I think a lot of people can relate to that.  But I often just want to get fucked-up by myself.  Alcoholism or something right there.

That's part of what I'm working with now.  Hopefully my experience put down so far may touch or reach someone, who knows?  I hardly trust the internet.  But I am yet another in this world alienated from the Western medical system/establishment with their "diagnoses" and "syndromes" and diseases, illnesses, and disorders.  Fuck those words.  I got more order in my mind because of my disorders.  I have to work hard to keep my shit together.  Know what I mean?

I live in SE Portland, Oregon.  Words on the internet are one thing but I love having real conversations in real life, not letters and numbers on the internet, with people on wavelengths similar to myself.  It's not acting when you're actually communicating the real.  If you read this and want to get together and talk about the experience of "mental illness" and the pleasure and the pain of it all, or just your beautiful self please drop me a line if you're so inclined.

ianbunk@gmail.com