Okay, I just wrote a whole long post about my fantastic bipolar talk yesterday at the Upper Moreland Library in Willow Grove, PA. As posts go, it was moderately boring unless you were really interested in the subject.
And then - guess what! - I accidentally deleted the whole thing. Do you think things happen for a reason? Do you believe in the meant-to-be? There was NO REASON for this post to have been deleted. The world is not better off b/c it was deleted. I am not happier b/c it was deleted. I am frustrated and my neck hurts from sitting here so long.
Scuse me while I go and eat some black grapes to help process my feelings.
All right, I've stopped sulking. Sort of. Scott and I saw Frost/Nixon today. Great film, based on a play. People in the audience were breathing with a sort of desperation b/c it was so dramatic and they felt so sorry for Nixon, he was utterly pathetic in his impossible-to-hide belief that he was above the law. He was truly a sad Shakespearean figure at the end who saw what his beliefs had done to himself, his family, and his country.
I always had an abiding affection for the man, such a lonely soul, so sure he was right, when he was terribly terribly wrong. He outlived Pat and her pinched terrorized face.
Highlights from the talk:
I spoke first on - what else! - bipolar disorder and depression. Talya Lewis followed me and talked about her favorite illness, borderline personality disorder. I told her afterward I was shocked about her gifts as a speaker. SHE'S AS GOOD AS I AM!
We filled the room. At 2 minutes before our talk, there were less than 10 people there. Then, at 5 after the hour, it was like a dinner bell went off and they all started filing in.
Never for a minute did I flag in my belief there would be standing room only. We'd done mammoth PR work.
Honored guests included:
-a psychiatrist, orig. from Nigeria, who's the medical director of a state psychiatric hospital outside Reading called Wernersville. He wants to bring us to his hospital to talk.
-Pennsylvania State Rep. Tom Murt
-Ada Fleisher, my right-hand woman, from ND
-Blanche, an 84-year-old mom of a bipolar friend of mine
-an attractive woman in her 40s who was involuntarily hospitalized by her husband and discovered, as a result of Talya's talk, that she herself has some features of borderline
-about 8 members of ND. I had no idea they were coming and I WAS OVERJOYED. They like me. They like me.
-one of the doyennes of a leading family in Bryn Athyn who are intimately touched with bipolar disorder.
I couldn't believe it when I saw her. Exhibiting my usual carefully concealed impulsivity, I called out in the audience, Anyone here from Bryn Athyn! Yes, it was she. Long ago when I was nervous, I was called out to do a home intervention for one of their members. I did not know what I was doing, believe me, but they were never the wiser.
When we finished our talk, about 14 of us trooped down the sidewalks to Manhattan Bagel for a post-lecture meal. I paid for it with my credit card, but a very kind gentleman said he'll pick up the tab for us.
Glory be for the kindness of good samaritans. I'd given him a copy of my 24-page handout: Yes I Can: Living Well with Bipolar Disorder in which the following poem was printed. Undoubtedly it was the poem that endeared me to him:
THE LAST MANIA
When you don’t need it anymore,
when it’s imparted its last
gifts of manhood and of shame
When its hands cuff your neck
with a forest fire of remorse
and they march you off
quicker than a red fox vanishing
and you can barely glimpse
its sun-sequined back
too glossy for the mortal eye –
Then, finally, there’s nothing left,
no one left to call
or shower with your gifts or laughter,
you’ve used them up
one by one
each of the many faces
you thought were yours forever.
So they buy you a trailer
and stick you inside,
the better to sleep away your princely dreams.
A dog twitching under a glass table
couldn’t resemble you more.
You rise up and stand on a box and
with your one good eye
squint through the narrow window
that gives on the grassy field outside
and sing.
