Oh, yes. In my Hub, So, what's wrong with being Bipolar?, I told you we would talk about how hormones, made up of the natural chemicals that make you, really screw up a Bipolars day. (Or at least something reasonably close to that.) Since there were few suggestions, I suppose it is okay to start there.

We know that hormones control many, make that all, emotional responses you feel throughout your day. It controls, for example, the surge of adrenalin you got this morning when that idiot cut you off on the expressway. (For a quick reminder refer to the stain in your lap.) The old "fight or flight" reaction. A source for tremendous strength or courage in extremely stressful conditions. (Also the reason for the blank stare many "Heroes" from tragic events display while being interviewed, and the "I really didn't know what I was doing." response they manage to stutter out.) Hormones control the pleasure response you have when a loved one touches you. Hormones control the response you feel when you are sad, or happy and so on.

To explain this better, lets try picturing a pot of spaghetti sauce simmering away on a stove top. A perfect blend of ingredients, of spices and flavor. Yummy. I can almost smell the Oregano and fennel and garlic marrying together. You reach for the spoon and in dumps a whole mess of salt. Now the flavor is spoiled because there are now three cups of salt when it may have just needed a dash. So in an attempt to straighten up the salt, say you decide to pour in some sugar in hopes of nuetralizing the bad effects of the salt. Oooops. That didn't work at all.

Well, I used the simmering pot to represent you, and the stuff in it the blend of chemicals and hormones within you. (The salt thing, well, I was just wondering if any of you knew how to solve the problem I have in the kitchen before dinner!) Just kidding. The salt represents the dumping of uncontrolled hormones that Bipolars experience. A Bipolars inability to control hormonal discharges into their system, which in my opinion, causes the happy little roller coaster ride we seem privy to, which can happen once in a while, or all day long. Lets put it this way. A little wine is good. A lot of wine and you can get out of control.

In a depressed state, the body releases hormones to help you deal with a certain occassion, perhaps the death of a loved one. For a non-Bipolar, usually after a brief moment, (in comparison to your life span, it is a brief moment despite how long it feels.) you realize life goes on and so do you. Realize it does not have to be such a somber occassion to really lay out a Bipolar. Something as rediculously simple, like the copier at work running out of toner can trigger a catostrophic event lasting as long as six months or more, ending with individual beinging enrolled in the happy farm against their will, or worse.

Don't despair though, there is the Manic side to all this that we need to explore as well. Oh, you know. The, whoo hoo, time to clean the garage, put up the drapes, wash the ceiling, go shopping for six days straight at the 24 hour department store, wide awake at three in the morning, haven't slept for a month, maybe two, I could crawl out of my skin right about now moments of life I think I can accurately say, most Bipolars prefer over the latter. Sounds crazy, (and I am), but it is true. I would, as an individual, gladly trade all my depressions for the manic side of this stupid Bipolar thing.

What may trigger such an episode is as much a mystery as what triggers anything in a Bipolar's day. The cause is pretty much the same though, but with different hormones, which are unregulated and just continue to pour in. Now I did say, these hormones are designed to help you. Well, normally they are. When the body is depressed, certain hormones are released to counter, or level the bodies reactions. That is why when you are watching a movie, and one minute you can be crying cause ol yeller just got shot, and laughing cause "Larry the Cable Guy says", oh, you know his catch phrase. The response is supposed to be brief, and then back to normal. A Bipolar's reaction unfortunately, is not the same. Why? Broken stuff inside us, or malfunctioning equipment dosen't control those bursts of counteracting hormones. Usually too much of one thing and not enough of another.

Through experience, I have learned not to control but recognize when wierd stuff is going on inside me. My number one question in the morning, to myself is, How am I feeling? The second is , Why? If I feel as though something, somewhere, is wrong, I wonder if I am having a paranoid moment. If I feel happy, I question if I am on a manic slide. If I am feeling a bit blue, I wonder if I may be on a down slide. If I am feeling nothing from my waste down I wonder if I slept on the remote again. (Just wanted to see if you were paying attention.) I have learned to be very self aware. I think a Bipolar must learn to do that. As I said, learning to manage your Bipolar is key to trying to lead a normal life, shoulder to shoulder with all those who are not Bipolar.

Managing bipolar is the fun part of the entire Bipolar experience. There are a couple ways to do just that. (Three in fact, if you count "Ignore it and maybe it will go away!") I think maybe we can talk about this a bit before I leave you hanging for my next Hub. (there's a teaser for you.)

Anyway, the two ways of managing Bipolar are, Naturally, or the other. I don't like to be negative, so I will be polite and say it this way instead. The Professional way, or the Natural way. I prefer the Natural way. The thing that burns me up is this. I have to refer to the professional way of management for a brief moment. Why? Well, it is complicated, but simply put, because on one thing we agree. Lithium is something that is regularly prescribed by professionals in the management of, what they like to call, "Mental illness".(UGH!, I do not like that term at all.) Lithium helps to stabilize that, up and down, thing Bipolars are so famous for. When I say Bipolar, I mean the myriad of fancy named side tracked money producing corridors they try to stuff Manic-depression, ADHD, and all the other D's into, as a group. As I have observed, all carry similar traits, and are, as far as I am concerned, based in Bipolar Syndrome. ( Wow! Now that is an impressive sentence, if I do say so myself.) Anyway, Lithium is used in their management. Guess what. Lithium is available out there, naturally.

No really it is. In the soil. Yup, right there under your feet. And, suprise! Certain foods are known to be richer than others in natural Lithium. Whoo hoo! You mean I can eat stuff that is rich in natural Lithium and that may help my, lousy up and down till I could puke, day? All I am saying is that it works for me. I feel natural is best. That is a personal opinion. I will simply say that I feel that synthetic Lithium, man made, is just not the quality our bodies need. Yes, I know, it is pure, and on paper it should be exactly what our little hearts desire. But look at it this way. Let me refer to the female readers a moment. Ladies, if I were to put two diamonds on the table, and identified one as Genuine and the other as Synthetic, and that they were each 1 karot in weight, which would you choose. (I was going to download the "Jeapordy" tune here, but ran out of gumption. Just hum it to yourself.) Times up. The answer is, What is the Genuine one? Of course. The synthetic, though really pretty, is also pretty much worthless in comparrison. Natural is better. Nuff said.

In fact, I try to manage my Bipolar in just this way. Naturally. So far, it has worked much better than those methods of far more educatedpersons than I. Their management system seemed to be in little bottles of pretty colored do-dads and hours of tiresome recounting of crap I had already hashed over a thousand times. That just didn't seem to do much for me but make the soles of my feet itch for space. A whole lot of space. Miles of space. And on the run to find out what made me so different from everyone else. There was something really wrong inside me, and I needed to try to fix it. That is where my moments of discovery began. I needed to make myself feel better. I needed to be able to function as a Bipolar. Still working on it, so bare with me.

Our syndrome causes the way our brains react to stimulus, causing an illness that affects our body. Much as Heart Disease is considered so because of the many ways the heart can be diseased, or effected by disease within the body. How unfortunate our disease effects our brain, because it is for that reason it is considered a mental illness. Our brains are not necessarily diseased, but parts within it do not function properly. The side affects are mental in nature because they do deal with emotion. So far so good in the natural management of these malfunctions. But we can talk more about that next time, unless there is something different on your mind.

Oh yah. Yes, Van Gogh was Bipolar. So was Picasso, (which explains that painting thing). Lots of famous people were Bipolar. There was Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Patsy Cline, and, um, well, yours truely.(or did I already mention that?) I will mention a few more next time. One of which will probably be a shocker to fans of "Tom Sawyer" and "Huck Finn". (I didn't let the dog out of the whiskey barrel, did I?)

Well, till next time, happy Bipolaring.