GRAY BALLS OF FIRE

Ever see the poorly conceived television commercial for Capella University, where an old lady in a wheel chair is teetering at the top of a flight of steps about to take an unscheduled ride to the bottom?  All the while the voiceover is talking about your ailing professional career?  Then the camera zooms in on the constipated looking octogenarian about to take a concrete header and the announcer says, “And then it hits you.  Capella University,”  as if their degree will keep granny from tumbling down the steps in a great ball of gray hair, sagging skin, misapplied lipstick, metal, rubber and wheel chair spokes.

MY CAPELLA MOMENT

A few weeks ago I had my “Capella moment.”  I was sitting in my 2011 Mustang 5.0 outside San Jose California, inert in a freeway traffic jam enjoying my coffee and listening to The Dandy Warhols sing “Minnesoter.”  Then it hit me.  Instantaneously a woman texting while driving her SUV slammed into me at 40 something miles per hour hurling my car into the one in front of me and then rebounded me backward to hit her again like a super-ball.  Literally when the smoke cleared, my Pony was DOA with flaccid airbags, glass everywhere, no visibility in the front or back due to the twisted metal and all I could do was wonder where my coffee and sunglasses were.

MY FORD FORTUNE COOKIE

After five minutes and nobody coming to my aid, smoke started coming out of my air conditioning vents so I bailed out on to the busy four lane freeway.   Still unaided, cars were just driving around this “inconvenience.”  I walked back to the SUV who ran into me.  The middle-aged Asia lady was on the telephone but glad I was OK.  I thanked her for her concern.  The car I was pushed into was barely damaged and the male Asian college student driving was preoccupied with missing a crucial college exam.  He did ask if I was OK.   The only person who seemed to care was the California Highway Patrolman who couldn’t believe I walked away unscathed.  I was injured though, he just couldn’t see it.

The driver of the flatbed hauling my dead Pony to its final resting place gave me a lift to the San Jose Airport so I could rent a car and get back home to San Francisco.  I thanked him, climbed out and watched him drive away with my prized possession contorted  and bleeding until it disappeared into the traffic on the freeway.  And then it hit me;  My car is gone.  I’m all alone at the San Jose International Airport.  I have little cash and no credit cards.  And, I was about to spend time with the three people I despise the most:  An attorney, an insurance agent and a car salesman.   Fuck Capella University.

WITH A GUN

The depression didn’t take long to set in.  When I finally made it back to San Francisco, I got into bed and hid under my blankets for days.  All I could think of was if I got out I’d kill myself.  I wanted to use a gun so I couldn’t screw up not taking enough pills, as I had in the past.  With a gun all you need is the gumption to quickly pull the trigger and it’s over.   A week earlier I had been assaulted over a parking space, had my car unfairly towed costing me $850, paid hundreds of dollars in bogus parking tickets, filed for bankruptcy and finally was able to get a neighborhood parking permit worth it’s weight in gold.  Now I just fell down the proverbial steps in the wheel chair to my demise.

Actually, I was pushed.  Nobody can have luck this bad.   I was convinced of it.  Someone or something was doing this to me.  I didn’t know why but if I stayed in bed I was safe, unless the house caught on fire.  The Bipolar jinx was alive, well and inescapable    All the negative forces in my life converged and took one big shit on me.  I wanted to die before the next act.

WHERE SUICIDE RESIDES

Well obviously I’m out of bed and I’m not dead.   Everybody keeps checking to see if I am still suicidal and I keep explaining that being Bipolar means suicide never leaves your mind.  It just becomes a manageable thought you can push to the side when things aren’t directly blowing your life to pieces.   When things get bad it shoves its way to the forefront and takes over your mind, offering up helpful suggestions on how to rub yourself out.

My psychiatrist ended up raising my Effexor dose to 400mg and has me taking an extra 1mg of Lorazepam each day.   I don’t know if it’s making a difference.  I am still convinced nobody can have as bad luck as I.   Even dropping off the rental car turned into a fiasco.  They couldn’t find the car for three days after it was returned and accused me of still having it, even though they had they keys and rental papers.  Am I a magician now?

A BERLIN SPECIAL

A couple of days ago I went back to work newly medicated and slightly calmer.   I had bought a used car.  Financing it with a bankruptcy was like walking over hot coals while banks chucked poisonous spears at my neck and torso.   But as I drove my new used car through downtown San Francisco enjoying my coffee and listening to NPR, then it hit me.  A German tourist opened her car door into traffic and conveniently clipped off my diver side mirror, giving it a Berlin special.  She caused $1,900 in damage to my 2002 used Mercedes-Benz.

I firmly believe life is a bitch and then you die.  And if you’re Bipolar everything is magnified ten times bigger than life.  You can become unglued about every little thing that happens, or you can roll with it and save the hysterics for the really big stuff.   Sometimes you have to fight to maintain your composure.   But if you are going to stick around you have to take it one day at a time.

INCH BY INCH.  PIECE BY PIECE.

I always thought “take it one day at a time” was a stupid English colloquialism I’d wanted to shove up the ass of anyone who dare say it to me.  However now I think it was written specifically for Bipolar people like me.   If you look at everything that’s wrong and unfair in your life all at once it’s going to consume you.   But if you just do the best you can each day and worry about tomorrow when it comes, life is suddenly a little more manageable.

So if you’re Bipolar and the world is taking you apart piece by piece, deal with it as it comes… In pieces.  Capella University will not come to your rescue with a degree to make it all go away.   It’s a rebuilding process.  And it takes patience.

And then it fucking hit me again.  I am the old woman in the wheel chair at the top of the steps.  Fragile and teetering on the precipice of losing control.  I can either wait for a strong gust of wind to push me over or slowly wheel myself away from the steps.   But I do have the control.

THE TRUE MEANING OF CAPELLA

Whenever I see it I marvel how Capella University’s advertising campaign makes no sense whatsoever.  They never explain how a degree from their school relates to an old woman in a wheel chair sitting precariously at the top of a flight of steps.   And then it hits you.   They teach the lost art of armor suit-making.  If the woman were wearing one, it would protect her from the fall.  If only they could teach me to make one for my mind.