Bipolar Express – Living life with Bipolar "Disorder"

Bipolar Express is a soon to be a feature film written and created by a man living with Bipolar disorder. This film will educate and entertain you about bipolar disorder (Manic depressive disorder), bringing to light what it is like to live with this disease and perhaps challenge you to recognize what is "normal".

Mérida mood mambo and a nutritional healing path of Bipolar disorder

Feb 19

Posted by John in Mental Illness, Redefining Bipolar | 1 Comment

Hola (spanish for hi) from the vibrant, beautiful colonial capital of Yucatan state and land of cheap (and good) dental work Mérida, Mexico.

I blew into town a few days ago and have been acquainting myself with the rich history and culture of the area plus getting in plenty of pool and chill time. Yes Nathaniel, it is truly a trip worthy of envy so pack that bag and head on down. I have been  conspicuously absent from the blog as we have been doing heavy traveling and the factors of Internet availability, mood, planetary alignment, hair/nail condition, etc. have not coalesced to get up a post.   Hopefully the gods/Buddhas/ atheists etc. will be more compliant in the coming days.

Just read your last post Nathaniel and have a few banana boat loads of things to address in the very outstanding and very familiar points you brought up.

Who among us hasn’t gone through the exact same thought processes and experiences in dealing with this  “disease/illness”. Personally I believe/have experienced that the disease-afying of an imbalance of naturally occurring elements in the body is a device of the pharma/med establishment to make obscene profits.   As you and I have experienced many drugs/treatments not only don`t work but can cause further harm.  This, of course, is my personal and possibly quite radical view but is based on my long journey living with and dealing with this imbalance.  I would like to start a discussion on a very dramatic change in my being in recent months.

I’ll start from the end of the tale.  Last summer after hiking half of the Appalachian trail (1,075 miles) I experienced a complete mood/physical collapse which has happened on a regular basis for  years, usually every 2-3 months.  Last August, a friend guided me to her naturopathic doctor/nutritionist.  In our initial conversation, she claimed a 100% success rate in helping bipolars/schizophrenics which elicited a big mental RIGHT.  But she had been very successful with friends and I was rather desperate (and passively suicidal) so I signed on board for the ride.  After rather extensive testing I was found to be very deficient in zinc and what she called borderline diabetic, not surprising given my sugar addiction – albeit “healthy ” sugars.  She gave me pretty strict dietary guidelines to follow and put me on a program of supplements.  Within three weeks my mental and physical condition took a very dramatic turn for the good (at least 180 degrees) and for the most part has remained so since.  It`s been four months now which is a huge amount of time for me to feel so good.   I have had some downturns but they last a short time (less than a day) and are usually associated with over activity.  To me this very brilliant/compassionate health care professional has worked a true miracle in my being.  Of course , I had to do the foot work and stay with the program.  Today I feel better and am functioning on a higher level (or at least as high) as I ever have and it seems to get better and more balanced each day. So there you have it, what modern conventional medicine was not able to do for me in over 30 years dealing with this condition Dr. Amy has had outstanding success with in just five months.  Her name  is Amy Blount and she is located in Newberry, Florida and words cannot express my gratitude to this wonderful being.

I, of course, have lots more to say but don`t want to talk adnosum.  Plus it`s getting close to salsa lesson time.  So adios for now.  Happy trails along the windy, twisty road before us.

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The Happiness Factory

Feb 2

Posted by Nathaniel in Mental Illness, Redefining Bipolar, Stream of Consciousness, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

The winter.  Ah, shit – it seems to just drag on so long as I get older.  Not all of us can be in MEXICO this February so we must resort to new and improved methods of finding seratonin, dopamine, and all those other goodies locked in our brains that control happiness.  So what do I do, sitting here all alone on a dreary, overcast Tuesday with only my precious cockapoo Gigi to keep me company?  Where do I look for inspiration and creativity when my initial reaction is to go back to bed and dream about a tropical island?

I’m very frustrated at the AMA med letdown I’m going through.  Nothing is working and they’ve left me out here in the land of the living all alone and still waiting for that miracle drug that may never come.   Where are you, Mr. Wonka?  But somehow – I’m up, writing, even rejoicing in the simple things today.  Love and hope and all those good things have come from some place and holy shit – I feel good!  Are the meds bullshit?  Are they lying to me about this whole bipolar thing?  Maybe I’ve succombed to being a rat in their experiment, accepting a label of “ill” since so many have called me it.  But who isn’t a little bipolar in some way?  Aren’t we members of the emotional human race that feel so many things in one day our mind can hardly keep up with them all?    Now they say I’ve got ADHD as well.  Christ, it never ends.  But I’m starting to really doubt them all, to break free, to run into the waves near Cancun and say “the hell with it all…”

Okay, calming down.  Man I wish I was sitting on the beach in Mexico.  Now that would be a cure for bipolar depression.  Yes, the environment makes a huge difference no matter what they say, no matter how much I adore Eckhart Tolle’ I do believe in the power of the immediate environment and the beach at Mexico is of superior quality to the leafless trees of Tennessee and the cold, unending winter days.

So that’s it.  I’m buying a ticket and going to meet Jaime, Adam and John.   I’m leaving today.  Maybe if I like it I’ll never return.  I’m just looking for happiness afterall.

“There is no life I Know – to compare to pure Imagination.    Living there you’ll be free if you truly wish to be…”

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Bipolar Expressions

Jan 23

Posted by John in Mental Illness, Redefining Bipolar | 5 Comments

Greetings blog brother Nathaniel and everyone out there in cyberland.  I’m very excited (and perhaps a tad hypo-manic)  to be the new blogger on the block and to be a part of this adventurous journey into the world of what the medical establishment defines as bipolar.

Being a devout trans-noncoincidentalist  (a philosphy/religion/belief system)  my travel friends and I established a few days ago, it is without a doubt the appropriate time and place (for reasons that have not yet  been revealed) to kick this off.   I am currently  in the beautiful provincial capital of Cuidad Victoria, Mexico where I arrived yesterday with my techno, genius (at least compared to me),  blog designer, film maker extraordinaire and travel buddy friends Adam and Jaime of Blind Lyle Films. Of course, the renouned film dog, Blind Lyle (aussie cattle dog) is along for the tour and any dropped morsels of food.  (He’s got his own facebook fan page, make sure to “like” to see all his crazy antics). We left Asheville, NC  last Tuesday and crossed the physical/mental/emotional border into the other America yesterday.

On the road again to the other America

A few words (a daunting task given my over active mind) about myself might be appropriate here.  I am your basic “bi” kind of guy: bipolar, bicoastal, bisexual, bi-low sell high, bi now pay later, bicentennial, bifurcated differentialationist (I like to make up things), bicameral, etc. , get my drift (which is actually pretty scary if you do)?   I am a fairly ancient 58 yrs young but look, act, and feel much, much younger , at least in the fabricated, vain reality in which I inhabit most of the time.  Very big (mucho grande in this neck of the woods) mood swings became a part of my reality in my teens and have been a part of the landscape of my being  since.

My major objective in this labor of love is to share with all my personal journey and establish a dialogue into our collective experiences.  My zen training guides me to keep it brief so I will just impart a few pertintent facts about how I deal with  my “illness” (which I actually experience as a blessing today) and fill in the blanks as the journey unfolds.

I work closely with a Naturalpathic doctor/nutritionist,  have a daily meditation practice (which I have done for years),  am an exercise fiend and am very involved in 12 step programs (yes surprise, surprise addiction is part of the package I was delivered).  I do not take meds (but do supplements prescribed by the ND) and most days (for the last three months at least) I have felt wonderful physically, emotional and spiritually.  I also do not advocate (at least during my more balanced moments) any particular path for anyone in dealing with similar life issues.  My objective is to share my experience, strength and hope.  Don’t get me wrong though, I am a highly opinionated, passionate animal and am quite willing to step up to the plate on a plethora of issues.  But the caveat emptor must be implanted here that I received from a zen teacher “don’t believe anything I say because none of it is true”.

Since I want this endeavor to be helpful to all I would greatly appreciate guidance and input on topics and issues affecting our collective lives.  My desire is to build a community around this issue where we can all grow and progress together.  So give me a cyber jingle and we can get this thing in motion………later dudes and duddettes………j

The Field

Jan 20

Posted by Nathaniel in Mental Illness, Redefining Bipolar, Spirituality, Stream of Consciousness, Uncategorized | No Comments

“When you live in the shadow of insanity, the appearance of another mind that thinks and talks as yours does is something close to a blessed event.”

Robert Pirsig

If I had a hundred million dollars I’d be on the first plane first class to the Hawaiin islands.

If I had a lifetime of free sushi I’d feel guilty about the rape of the ocean but I’d eat it four times a week anyway.

If I had superman’s powers I would eliminate money from America and party my ass off.

If I was God I’d destroy the world and start over.

A chimpanzee could get a driver’s license in TN if he showed up on time and sober.

“Look in my face, look in my soul – I begin to Stupify…”

Jesus was the ultimate liberal.

When we die our souls must pass through what I call THE FIELD and in that arena all things that are not of God are stripped away.  Every trace of fear, anger, hatred, evil are shredded from you quickly and the more good you have done in life, the less it hurts.  No negativity is allowed in the true Kingdom of God and this field is the temporary price we pay for committing acts that hurt others and ourselves.  Hitler and Stalin’s souls have a lot to be taken away from so their stay in THE FIELD is more painful and some souls chose to go the other way when they see the light of God’s goodness.   But all are offered this chance of forgiveness in THE FIELD.    It serves two main functions.  One is justice but with forgiveness.  The other is it cleanses the land of Paradise from the infected and rotting spirits that inhabit all of us in some way from our time on this insane asylum called Earth.

Male orgasms are hilarious in terms of how dramatic and physical they are.  Pornography is at least as humorous as it is arousing.   “Ooooooooooh Godddddddd I’m gonna’ cum!” as if it she didn’t know that already by your carnivorous convulsions and loud moaning and sped up hand movements.

David Sedaris is hilarious.

I see Angels around me all the time.  I see the invisible world that lives in front and around us all the time.  This is not mental illness.  It is real, trust me.

I’m scared to think of how much feces the state of Tennessee produces in one hour.

I don’t feel Steven Tyler has any business judging American Idol.

If I came back as an animal I’d be an aardvark  simply because I like to say the world aardvark.

I would make a fantastic rich and famous person and be great on talk shows.  Hollywood needs me desperately they just simply don’t FUCKING know it.

“When a man lies, he murders some part of the world.”  Merlin – Excalibur

That makes me a murderer, what about you?

I lust and look and lie and wonder WHY on high God said goodbye and let us run this place without him oh welcome aboard Bipolar Express John Swart hope I got that last name right have a cold one for me down in Mexico (if you drink which you probably don’t)  and I keep thinking about the connection between thought and words and imagination and masturbation make make make create and laugh a little more cause’ it is truly the medicine we need to make it through and build up strength and stop -

and enter the field.

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There will never be another Northern Exposure

Jan 7

Posted by Nathaniel in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Just a quick dedication to the show that has gotten me through many lonely nights.  Thanks to Joel, Maggie, Maurice, Ed, Holling, Shelly, Marilyn, Ruth Ann, Adam, and all my other friends in Cicely.  Somewhere in the back country of Alaska you all are always alive and well to me.

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Golden Days

Dec 23

Posted by Nathaniel in Spirituality, Stream of Consciousness, Uncategorized | No Comments

If you can use transcendental meditation we could fly away from this place out to the February Sea so cold so dark daring dragons leap to find us but keep going further farther further farther to the place where the clouds are breaking and children are playing in the summer sun son of God laughs in Heaven trying to reach him in vanity so move sit still move now faster faster I can feel your love climbing to the rooftops of the world shouting inspiration to those lonely valleys where dogs bark and tires screech in the distance hold on a minute…

What is the whisper you’re giving in my ear?  “Hold on, hope is coming…”

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The Unseen Jungle

Dec 19

Posted by Nathaniel in Redefining Bipolar, Spirituality, Stream of Consciousness, Uncategorized | No Comments

This is a call to be Urban Shaman’s for all you living in mediocrity and dreaming of adventure.  That your life itself is quite possibly a dream – as layers of reality unfold to this magical place of knowing that all perspectives are a little different – well, let us drink to that and say a prayer for the dying.  As I down my meaty, juicy soy product saturated in sugary tomato gravy I can’t help but wonder what the movers and shakers are doing right now – jet setting to Fiji to attend a seminar on the art of “oneness” while sipping Margarita’s by the Sea of Tasman.  Fuck, wish I was with them we’d reuptake our SSRI”s till they juiced Ecstasy out of our brains into a sea of eternal happiness – no more pills or praying required just keep dancing the Tequila is pure agave and the sun is coming on strong while the fools drown in therapy and the mystics might make men yet of wasted warriors become the land the open air the perfume is resting on the serpent’s back ready for all to  inhale.

I bet a dose of insanity is more pure than the fine art perfection.

Can you feel me I still have life inside the drums are shaking the party is starting but far off in the leafless field of trees the violence reigns down from the relentlesss sky and God sits idly on while a dog shivers in the cold and a heartless owner will not let him free.    There is no pure way to say it is all to much to take in.

Lets grab this moment in all its pure agony and beauty and call it love and set it free then rush back to the madness and watch it unravel under our feet in sickening soft actions we take to push and pull and rip the meat from the bone and savor the finest Pinot and cry in that scene that means so much to you.

“We are such stuff as Dreams are Made are our little life is rounded with a sleep…”

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Bipolar Express the Movie

Dec 19

Posted by Nathaniel in Spirituality, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Hello those few brave sould who may be reading this.  I have missed you, missed your eyes skimming over the screen at my words, thoughts, rambles and rants and raves and really wondering what is going on out there in the land of the living.  And thus it was… so,  again, welcome.

So Bipolar Express is changing shape and form and length and God willing, my friends at Blind Lyle Productions are going to turn it into a feature-length production instead of a web-series.   Hank and I have been working on the script and it is quite exciting to be a part of something that I hope and pray becomes much larger than myself.    My friends Jack, Samantha, Tim and Sanko are in for the ride of their lives and we all look forward to showing you the soon to be movie!

Memories keep coming and new dreams unfolding and life goes by faster and we all dance harder to keep up.

“Lead me On, lead me on, to the place where the river runs into your keeping…”

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The Violent World of OZ and Cindy Sampson’s Loneliness

Jun 20

Posted by Nathaniel in Redefining Bipolar, Stream of Consciousness, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Sitting here watching Broken Flowers thinkin’ bout’ all the trillion trillion things happening right now as I write this the joy the suffering the way Obama looks at himself in the mirror shaving wonder how the hell he sleeps at night might we dance together today under the sunny skies of North Carolina my heart is singing and the thought of the thought of the thought of happiness of good friends of “Golden Days, Golden Days”  then you know it’s up to me to take you away for a moment why don’t we do that…

A young woman walks into a Midwestern bar out of loneliness and a break from her smelly apartment.  As she enters – the eighteen drunk, insensitive males look her up and down as if they were inspecting meat at a factory.  The grunting can be heard a mile away and Cindy ponders the notion that his  really big  cock just got a little bit harder looking at her – is both repelling and enticing in the worst of ways.  She can feel it, being subjected to this carnivore delight, the animalistic and primitive way guys rip the soul out of women and reduce them to ass and tits.  They down another Bud and strut with the simple pride of being part of the man-clan.   ” Fuck you if you don’t want in...”

“I believed in fairy tales,” she thinks to herself and goes to the bar to order a beer.  Goddamit, a spider is on my back. And that spider knows what is coming.  It bites her on the shoulder as a reminder of life’s pain, the unending cruelty of physical sensation going either direction, pleasure or agony.

“I believed in true love, a Prince to rescue me, God, everything.”  The lustful eyes are saturating her, fucking her from the imaginations of lonely men just three feet away.  Jesus, am I the only girl in here?  FUCKING SPIDER!

The tattoo infested bartender looks up – terrified as what unfolds.  The old red roof of Fred’s Beer Barn begins to rip apart as a distraction that simple men cannot fathom ignites upon the Nebraska night, carrying in its funnel a hundred corn plants and one pathetic scarecrow.  The wind of the F-3 Tornado is like ten freight trains off the track and headed for a cliff,  sucking up wood and steel and drunk, horny, overweight men into the night sky of Omaha.  These “men” become boys quickly and shriek in terror as two of the regulars, Frank Simmons and Ted Slavinsky  – are sucked up for a ride into oblivion they have only had nightmares of, despite holding onto wooden posts and their beer bottles, like a sacred ornament they will die to defend.  Their overweight, beer and meat filled bodies are ripped to pieces as they see their wasted lives pass in front of their eyes in one American instant.  Ted once had a thought that was truly original he believed, and the moment before the cyclone devours him, he realizes how stupid a thought it really was – to serve Beer in vending machines.   It was a fuckin’ good idea at the time… He ponders quickly as the two hundred and fifty mile an hour wind rips his  fat, worthless body to bloody pieces, smashing him repeatedly on the pavement in front of two schoolgirls.  They no longer believe in Fairy Tales either.

And Cindy Sampson keeps drinking,  taking in the shock and horror on a night she really just wanted to be held on.  The men who moments ago were plotting ways to defile her body in unmentionable ways are taken away to certain death,  and she thinks to herself that this tornado may make her a true believer  in the Almighty after all.  The bar area is miraculously not hit by the funnel and she looks and looks at the chaos and looks again, holding tight to her St. Pauli Girl and the notion that to die by a tornado is a glorious death and should be savored.   This “Finger of God” may take us away to some other world, she thinks, a world no man could ever give me.

Maybe I should jump in the eye and see where it takes me – away from this mediocre life where the most exciting that that happens to me is ordering extra sour cream on my bean burrito at Taco Bell.    I’m Cindy Sampson and I want a goddamn adventure!

Though it was not Cindy’s night to die, the singing goes on from cloud to cloud as the harmonies of Mozart and Mr. Vivaldi open up the glittering passageway to that far off place, but so close that you could whisper and infinite souls hear you through the madness.  The voices of Cindy’s ancestors who followed the road of truth and fell short are waiting with all she ever thought, felt, dreamt, hoped for, and loved   The twister is gone and people have gone with it.  Fred’s Beer Barn has no roof now.   The weather looks nice on the horizon.  Cindy can now see a meteor shower light up the June skies over Tornado Alley.

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I hate to be so SERIOUS, but I just watched ZEITGEIST Addendum

Jun 18

Posted by Nathaniel in Redefining Bipolar, Spirituality, Uncategorized | No Comments

Wow.  I mean holy shit, fucking, unreal – as in I WAS SAYING WE NEED TO GET BEYOND MONEY FOR YEARS. (it’s all about ME, don’t you know that yet!) Looks like these guys are ahead of me and propose a RESOURCED-BASED ECONOMY instead.  This is the cool part if you haven’t watched ZEITGEIST – which you should because they say let’s combine all the good parts of our technology and combine them with our Planet to live in what some would cynically say is idealistic Utopia.  I think we need some serious idealism after watching this last oil spill.   Replacing boring, monotonous factory and assembly line, spirit-killing jobs would be robots that could do them faster and not get exhausted.   Zeitgeist, which means “The Spirit of the time or of the ages,” is a two-hour documentary that covers everything from 9/11 and explosions in the towers to religion, thousand mile per hour mag-lev trains,  to the evolution of our banking system in America and its power over the world.    Okay, this isn’t one to watch stoned with your beer-buddies or a date.   There aren’t a lot of “lough out loud” moments going on here, although they did hire Tony Danza to play Jesus which was an odd casting choice as he is far too buff to be my messiah.

Part of the film goes into the above mentioned ideas which branch off into THE VENUS PROJECT,  the child of Jacque Fresco, a 90-something architect who has devoted his life to that idea that we can live on the beautiful world without the neurotic need to possess land and control others and define ourselves by our checking account balance.   He talks about ideas that are more Christian than any one I have ever heard in church, although proposing all men were thongs on Thursdays is one I think we should vote on, as well as his obsession with asparagus and ostrich racing.  Just kidding.  I’m thinking that mental illnesses might begin to disappear in a world like this because I’d have nothing to bitch about any more and that would be a huge problem.   Where would we go, what would we do…

A new spirituality would arise out of a greater community and new freedoms of time, health, and creativity.   I never thought I’d say this, but maybe science and technology could be the genesis of finally, finally discovering God on Earth.

(You can watch all two hours sometimes without having to reload)

And check out this site:

http://www.thevenusproject.com/

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