During my 20-minute Rotary talk thother day, I said that creativity and imagination are often a by-product of our bipolar illness. I briefly mentioned that when a person is diagnosed they need to learn all about their illness as a roadmap in successfully managing their illness. I've had incredible good fortune in being medication-respondent so the roadmap I developed for myself worked out quite well. Naturally, I teach this to others at New Directions and the smart ones follow it.
Life is fleeting. Get with it!
I also mentioned that I proposed the ideas of free classes to the powers-that-be at the Bucks County Office of Mental Health and the Montgomery County Office of Behavioral Health, over and over again, to no avail. I even tried to get funding from Magellan who of course never called me back.
After New Directions got our first grant in 2001, for the humongous amount of $35,000 (I was on Lamictal at the time and was literally suicidal!) I was buoyed with the confidence of having people take my ideas seriously.
We had a powerful board of directors including a top bipolar researcher (who later dumped us) and I suggested that we form The Bipolar Foundation, a national organization like The Kidney Foundation that was an authoritative source on all things bipolar.
I got no support from the Board. One member asked me then and there if I were manic! I guess he wasn't used to thinking on a large scale. I was aghast that no one supported my fantastic idea.
I'd forgotten all about this until I received an email yesterday stating that The Bipolar Foundation, headquartered in the UK, is hosting its bienniel conference this week in Pittsburgh, home of the terrific work of the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Psychiatry, Paul Keck etcetera. The board member who dumped us is presenting a paper.
Also presenting is the DBSA, an organization that New Directions no longer belongs to. I had lobbied at a local conference on bipolar to give a brief presentation of the importance of support groups in managing bipolar disorder but they were not interested.
All a person can do is try!
I added the Bipolar Foundation conference website to our New Directions website for people interested in learning more from the plethora of papers that will be presented there. Wonder if it's raining in Pittsburgh the way it is right now in Willow Grove, PA.
Just wanted my followers to know that I was in the vanguard of great ideas that would be carried out by other people a decade after I thought of them. At 63, I'm content being an armchair quarterback and letting others do the hard work.
Me, I like sitting barefoot and letting the cool breeze tickle my toes.
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