August already. At least, at last, the sun is shining. Richard is ironing and singing superbly to ‘La Cage Aux Folles’, and here I am back at the computer blogging again.

Regular readers will have noticed a few changes; for one, June has mysteriously disappeared. I have switched all the posts to private, for good reason. I see now that my thinking at the end of May was a little, shall we say, ambitious. It’s how my brain works: I think, therefore I am… I think. So, sorry to all those still reading and wondering how I was going to ‘manifest millions’ for charity. The thoughts behind it were genuine, my logic flawed. The ideas are all feasible, and I did get some way to starting off, but July has proved that I’m only human, and hospital helped.

Being bi-polar, though I wouldn’t not be, is, most of the time, tough. Like being gay, it’s part of me; defines me. The difficult thing is dealing with the frustration of having an active mind that can dream up all manner of good things, only to find the rest of the brain can’t put it into action. It’s not that these dreams I dream can’t be achieved – they can; just not by me. Well, actually, just not by me at this particular time.

I hate it with a passion that dives deep. I’m an intelligent man with a Mensa eligible IQ, so why do I have to spend the majority of my days only getting out of bed to go to the loo? It’s like having a portly piano with no fucking fingers.

At the beginning of July I had a very bad couple of days, what I now know to have been a ‘mixed episode’. Having been up and down rapid cycling for a number of months, I had an up again after a longer than usual down, and after a good weekend with a number of activities I thought I’d be OK for a while.

And then my thoughts suddenly sunk south. I was in torment, the dark and dismal thoughts wouldn’t waive and by the Monday night, still physically up, I was really scared. I was up and down at the same time. Like flying through the clouds being chased by a great white. I’d never been like that before. I hoped it would all change, but after only a few hours disturbed sleep it was Tuesday morning and I was pensively pacing around the kitchen trying hopelessly to work out an easy way to end it all. By mid-afternoon I was sitting silent on the edge of a basic bed in what was to be for the next few days, home from home. I was in the Abraham Cowley Unit at St. Peter’s Hospital in Cherstey.

Not good. I don’t recommend it and didn’t want any visitors. I was only in a for a few days, but that was enough, and I’m still recovering from the whole experience. Luckily I was self-admitted, or an ‘informal’ as I was referred to as. And believe me, it wasn’t easy getting self-admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Short of jumping in front of a bus, actually proving you have the intent to kill yourself and desperately need professional medical help is at best a little tricky. I’m glad I wasn’t sectioned; I would probably still be there today. Mental illness/health is not an easy thing to talk about – the patient pacing did my head in.

Now you know I’ve been admitted to a mental hospital you probably think I’m a loony, nuts, plain mad or some other stereotypical description. Sorry, to disappoint. I’m just rapid cycling bi-polar II; I have hypomanic episodes where I can relentlessly create all day and not sleep, and these rapidly and relentlessly cycle with extreme depressive episodes where I have to sleep all day to survive suicide. I did meet the stereotypes though: the wild woman, large, leering and laughing loudly; the mumbling military man who’d carved ’999′ and ‘lived’ into his arms. Then there was the garrulous girl with white lines announcing a need for attention, and casualty’s cagey young guy with stiff stitches in his wretched wrists. They were all there, and others. I was locked in an open ward with people the world doesn’t want to believe exist. The secure ward with, I am told, the padded cells (one pink, one blue) was above my head.

Now I’m home I have a new consultant psychiatrist, an excellent woman with an interesting foreign accent I can’t place, and more importantly, a keen interest in my condition and understanding of it. I’ve been referred for Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and have had my assessment with the psychologist. I’ve also been given the number of a someone who runs a support group for people with bi-polar based in Guildford. So, all in all, at least I’m moving forward with understanding my condition and getting help for it. I just wish other people could understand it as well. (Both senses.)

Having returned from hospital, still feeling a failure I hasten to add, I re-routed this blog so that it just pointed to RoomEasy. (A project of mine I’m hoping will provide a much needed income.) Essentially, I gave up, but a few days later I had an email; one of a number of odd and unexpected ones on the same day that just prove there is a universe out there conspiring to do good for you – if only you’ll let it.

The email, a turning point for me, was from a new member of the writing group I have recently joined. The first meeting this young and attractive woman attended was the night I read out one of my blog posts and talked about my ‘mission of manifesting millions’. I also talked a little about ‘cosmic ordering’ and the ‘universal law of attraction’.

“I wanted to send you a quick message,” she wrote in her email to me, sent a couple of weeks later. “Something you said in the meeting really helped me out and I thought you might like to know.” Doubting her ability, she had been in two minds about going for a promotion at work. My writing had given her confidence. “That evening,” she emailed, “I spent the whole drive home putting it up that I wanted this role and that I knew I could do it, and when I got home I submitted my application.”

You’ll be pleased to know she got the job and had emailed me to say thank you.

So maybe I’m not as useless and worthless as I (most of the time) think I am. Maybe I can do what I really think I’m on this planet to do – ie: help others to get the best out of life for themselves – and maybe now I come to realise that the way I’m supposed to be doing this is not by building businesses and paying people, or coming up with the yet another intuitive idea for a winning web site, or for that matter manifesting millions for charity; maybe all I need to do is do what I really love to do… Maybe all I need to do is write.

After reading the out of the ether email I made the decision that the blog had to stay, (Thanks Elle!) even if I didn’t use it for the original purpose that it was created. So, I’m going to use this blog for me: to help me to improve my skills in writing; to help me understand my bi-polar; to help me understand and live the happy long life I really want to live. Sorry (not) to be so selfish, but if I can’t help myself how can I help others? If, as a reader, you get something out of my blogging then that’s a big bonus for me and indeed for you. I love writing; always have done. My bi-polarity gives me imaginative ideas: my creativity is boundless. I’m just going to have to channel it better now and I promise to share my creative writing with you too.

And if you meet me on an up day and I’m talking a lot and very happy with life, then don’t worry, I’m not a mad hatter, just bi-polar. And if I’m not somewhere I should be then just may be I’m on a down day. You’ll probably see it in my blogging too. If there’s no post for a week, then I’m down and probably in bed. Don’t panic. I’ll be back as soon as I can. I’m just learning to live, that’s all.

Well, I guess that’s it for today. My ever-caring Rich (I’d be gone by now if it wasn’t for his belief in me) is still singing superbly. So, to quote Albin from ‘La Cage Aux Folles’, “Life’s not worth a damn until you can say: Hey world, I am what I am.”