Life full of mania with a dash of humor and a slice of normality (those are the secret ingredients) Vol 4 Issue 3

I smacked the stripper’s ass and looked over to my friend Jamin and asked:

“Is that alright?”

Don’t get it confused now; this wasn’t my first experience with strippers. While I may not be in love with strip clubs (except for The Clermont Lounge in A-Town) I am a guy and staring at naked women is like in my DNA. However on this occasion we weren’t in a strip club, we were in some black guy’s basement. Yep this experience was of getting my cherry busted at basically being at an all black bachelor party.

I should preference this with Jamin knows how intimidated I am by black women and I’m pretty sure he thought this was going to be really funny (he thought right but I got even with the “Jermaine Gresham and I stepped on his boys shoes incident” of last year). Now where this deep intimidation I have comes from is a mystery that Jamin and I have investigated and come the conclusion that I’m just crazy (I kid I kid). While I’m not 100% sure of the motivation behind taking me to this party I will tell you a few things I learned while being the minority.

Number one is that I should have brought my own beer because whatever that pink stuff was coming out of the giant orange cooler was fucking me up! The next one is a little difficult to explain so bare/bear/baer with me. I mentioned I’m not in love with strip clubs and that’s because I just seem to get frustrated by them, like it’s the worst cock tease ever. I get that they are hot and naked but what am I supposed to do now? That being said I somehow fell in love three times that night. The final life lesson was around my ass slapping experience above and that lesson is one that I’ll save to share one day with my son.

At times I forget how much I can learn by throwing myself into a situation that I am completely uncomfortable with. I can recall the first few months of work at AT&Tizzle being pretty awful. I wasn’t familiar with anything around me and I thought I was in over my head. At about this point my boss at the time said something that for some reason resonated with me:

“We’re going to throw you into the deep end and you’re going to sink or learn to swim.”

Luckily I somehow pulled my shit together and figured it out but as chaotic as it may have seemed at times back then I think that’s the best way for me to learn; just throw me in.

I’m not sure what Jamin’s true intentions were on inviting me to that bachelor party. I mean was it for my own good to get over my intimidation of black women, or to open me up to new experiences, or even revenge for all the kids at Southeastern calling him Ricky Williams at my brother’s football game? Whatever it is it felt a lot like how BMD came into my life.

Yep no symptoms before the manic episode, no genetics in the family, then a severely manic psychotic episode to kick it all off, hallucinations, delusions, psych ward admittance; yeah I’d say I got thrown right into it but I think I’m swimming (at least doggie paddling).

Since many of my manic experiences involve music I’ve decided to add random music videos to the blog for my enjoyment and your inconvenience. Enjoy!



Coming Correct,
d01roK

Life full of mania with a dash of humor and a slice of normality (those are the secret ingredients) Vol 4 Issue 2

In case some of you didn’t catch my Facebook post earlier this week I took a shot at Paula Deen (yes it was uncalled for, yes it was easy, and yes it was pretty damn funny). It seems because of Paula’s obsession of overindulgence in unhealthiness in her cooking finally caught up to her. She was diagnosed with diabetes type 2 even despite the fact she tried to exercise regularly (I can’t support that, she more than likely never even tried) she has an illness/disease now. Well I guess I should share my comment sooner rather than later so put down that stick of butter and get ready to laugh:

Sarcasm Lesson of the Day: I can’t believe Paula Deen has diabetes

Pretty funny right? Not as funny as the fact that Paula is now the spokesperson for a type 2 diabetes medicine company. So wait, wait, wait a minute. You’re telling me she had her own TV show and was paid to promote unhealthy eating (like a hamburger between two donuts) and then when she gets sick from it is now being paid to be a spokesperson for the drugs she’s now on to stay healthy. Damn, and I thought Charles Barkley had all the scams figured out.

I guess when I slow down and think about it I really shouldn’t be all that surprised. I mean I can think of a lot disease and illnesses that are a direct result of cause and effect. You know Paula ate enough fatty unhealthy foods that her body began shutting down because of it and now she’s taking medicine to help that, oh and making money off the whole damn thing too. I should probably take it easy on Paula Deen because she isn't the only one to use their health/weight to profit (see Dan Marino) but unlucky for her she is the most recent. Her disease reminds me of the chain smoker that gets lung cancer, the avid dipper that gets mouth and throat issues or the alcoholic that has liver damage; cause and effect.

Keeping cause and effect in mind and seeing how a lot of people like to look at BMD as a disease or illness, even though I don’t buy it, I’ll still humor them for this post. Now I can go ahead eliminate genetics to the cause of my crazy world because while at times my family has glimpse I don’t believe anyone is completely mad (yet). So if it’s not genetics and it’s not a virus (could you imagine if you got BMD for 3-7 days at a time from airborne viruses; things would get crazy-no really, it would be complete madness) then the only logical explanation would be cause and effect and me enjoying something in abundance that gave me this disease.

Let’s see before the diagnosis and the manic episode I was having a shit ton of fun in my life. I mean I didn’t have very many complaints with the whole social life at the time. I was living in amazing new cities, making a good living, had great friends and good times on the reg (sorry, couldn’t resist), and was even getting laid. Maybe I was having too much fun and that’s why I got the BMD as a disease. But that just doesn’t seem like it would be enough. I mean Paula had to dedicate herself to living a completely unhealthy lifestyle to get diabetes. What am I missing? What am I missing. . .

That’s it, some advice Stubby gave me when I was having some woman problems once:

“Yeah son, but the crazy ones are the fun ones.”

So there you go, when you add in my attraction to the “fun/crazy” ones I think that puts me over the top in terms of abundance of fun in my life that led to my “disease” of craziness (still wouldn’t take it back for anything though).

Since many of my manic experiences involve music I’ve decided to add random music videos to the blog for my enjoyment and your inconvenience. Enjoy!



Coming Correct,
d01roK

Life full of mania with a dash of humor and a slice of normality (those are the secret ingredients) Vol 4 Issue 1

I contemplated starting this new volume of .e4 off by making fun of the new hipster subculture of our society that I experienced in A-Town recently. I had this clever lead in to these “fixed gear” riding, preppy grunge style, and board game paying fools in bars with a day-walk story (so day-walking is when I just kind of wondering around during the day when everyone else is at work, it’s ok to be jealous). I would have shown all these pics of cool street art (and stray dogs) to you but my New Year’s Resolution was to not make fun of people I don’t really know (that’s like impossible by the way). So Instead here’s a story about high school basketball officiating…

After my sophomore year of really only being the 1 in the box and 1 defense in high school JV basketball I decided to hang up the sneakers (I did throw a behind the back pass that year though in a fast break, I’m still pretty proud of it). I did start working at the mall (outlet that is, us country folk don’t live close to real malls) but I was also a pretty enthusiastic fan for the basketball team. I was even known to verbally spare with the refs about calls, the general officiating of the game, and how the other team is cheating.

After one particularly poor officiated game the next night at the game a girl in my class tapped me on my shoulder (as I stood in the front row under the basket so everyone could see me) so I turned around to a folded up ref’s shirt and the girl (whose dad is also a referee) saying:

“The guys from last night’s game thought you should have this because you talk so much shit during the game.”

I’m not going to lie; it was one of my proudest athletic moments in high school. I wore that ref’s jersey to the rest of the games as my best friend and some bum we found on the street (that’s a lie) also dressed as refs for all the home basketball games and tried to make the calls throughout the whistles (yes we were idiots). We took it probably too far by wearing warm-ups to the JV game and stretching out and warming up only to bust out our officiating gear at the horn. We made ridiculously homered calls on the sidelines and had as much fun as possible (never kicked out, threatened, but never kicked out).

I find myself wondering from time to time what happened to my two officiating buddies. I definitely hear stories about what they’ve been up to; it’s a little hard not to in South Chuck. I also try to take this with a grain of salt (or pills of lithium, I kid I kid) because I can just imagine what they’re hearing about me. I think the last rumor I heard was I was knocked up with NPH’s baby (I don’t even know how that’s possible). I’m sure whatever life has brought my officiating buddies it’s far from the one I have heard about or could imagine; I know my story is.

The time is approaching fast for the release of my book and to say that’s something me, or anyone from South Chuck, would have imagined is more than a stretch. I like that idea, doing something that when I tell past friends about, it makes them look confused (like how could this drunk write a book?). Hell even I still think that from time to time. I guess my real New Year’s resolution (because I’m definitely going to make fun of people) is to try and have fun again; and I think that can be as easy as just being me.

That being said I’ve replaced the music video this week with a poem I wrote. I’m using it on message boards and the like to promote “Somewhere Over the Rainbow. I’ve Lost My Damn Mind: A Manic’s Mood Chart”. Enjoy!



Coming Correct,
d01roK

Life full of mania with a dash of humor and a slice of normality (those are the secret ingredients) Vol 3 Issue 50

It’s pretty rare when I go through an entire week nowadays without finding some inspiration that I want to write about. When I first started this blog I had so many ideas running around in my head on what I wanted to talk about that I rarely found it when I couldn’t find a topic about BMD to write about. Last week however was one of those times when it seemed my inspiration was lacking.

There could be multiple reasons for this and a every one I’ve even considered in great detail. For instance maybe I was so consumed with the holiday season and what was going on that my BMD kind of took a back seat to more “pressing” concerns. Or maybe I’m actually getting a little healthier now that my BMD isn’t playing such a significant role in my day to day life (I severely doubt that though). But I’m guessing that I was simply being a little lazy (hey, it’s Christmas time you know). But a Christmas miracle (ok not really, but it was still pretty cool) changed all that yesterday and lucky for you I’m going to share.

To say that this BMD caught me and my entire family off guard would be nothing more than a giant understatement. I mean my dad told me awhile back that not only did he not know what BMD was he hadn’t even really ever heard of it. To be completely honest; my opinion of BMD was not far off from Stubby’s either, I had a basic idea of what it was but when you boil it down I really had no idea (unless you’d say calling your girlfriend bipolar for being a moody brat having a firm grasp on BMD, I was also rather clueless).

But can you really blame us? I mean there is zero family history. I never once, while growing up in South Chuck, ever heard someone be referenced to as actually having BMD and I definitely never met someone with it. The only perspectives I ever had on BMD came from the media (and they really aren’t known for how accurate they are when portraying mental health). Maybe it was because of all of these reasons and more that I decided I was going to embrace my BMD, laugh as much as possible with it, and live my life; not a life around BMD but one with it (I don’t think I really knew any better).

Last night at the Thompson Family Christmas (the live nativity scene has been postponed until the next generation in case you were wondering), I found the inspiration I’ve been talking about. It’s been nearly four years since my first episode and 2 years (still holding breath a little to get through this winter btw) since my last psych ward getaway. During this time I’ve grown and learned to laugh at everything that I’ve been given (well not everything, but I’m pretty damn close). I guess that’s just the way that I like to fight my BMD.

For a lot of people this may seem awkward or weird or uncomfortable (of course I’m sure they believe I have a mental illness) but it works for me. Over time I’ve begun to see not only my family but my close friends begin to warm to the idea of poking fun of my BMD; and I love it. It’s one thing to hear your brother or good friends burn you on your psychosis but a whole other when it’s your G’ma.

Last night G’ma was opening her gifts from everyone and one was a 1000 piece puzzle (she loves puzzles, maybe that’s where my psych ward past time comes from) of a peacock with its feathers up. It looked like quite a challenging and very difficult puzzle if I say so myself. I even mentioned how tough the puzzle looked with all the all colors and similar patterns and what not. To this my G’ma replied:

“I know Derek; I’m going to need your medicine to get through it.”

The first thing that came to my mind as I laughed was:

She gets it. I can’t believe she fuckin’ gets it. So awesome!

I hope you had a Merry Christmas and if I don’t see you a very Happy New Year!

Since many of my manic experiences involve music I’ve decided to add random music videos to the blog for my enjoyment and your inconvenience. Enjoy!



Coming Correct,
d01roK

Life full of mania with a dash of humor and a slice of normality (those are the secret ingredients) Vol 3 Issue 49

So last night I was hanging out with Dave Chappelle’s neighbor (name-dropperville, population me) and we started to get into my BMD. I’ve noticed that my friends are becoming more and more comfortable in talking to me about my mania and what have you. I think it’s really cool because I think it not only helps them understand BMD a little better but it’s good medicine for me (I admit it, I like talking about myself). So Dave’s neighbor and I got into how the mania affects me and I describe it like this:

“It’s like I go to bed fine and the next morning I wake up and it feels like I’m rolling my balls off on ecstasy, tripping my face off on acid, all while at the same time my mind races like I’ve done enough cocaine to physically and mentally impair a donkey. Yeah things can get interesting.”

One of the first things Dave’s neighbor said to me was he thought bipolar was when I’d go from happy to angry like a mood swing. I literally laughed out loud when he said this (and then kind of felt like a dick about laughing). The main reason I find this humorous is because I wished my BMD would simply take me from happy to angry, that all this could simply be described as a “mood swing”. Life would be a hell of a lot simpler that way.

When I was recovering from episode uno back in late 2008 I would spend countless nights searching for answers. At this point I had spent the previous 8 months in a drug induced zombie state of depression and was now looking for help. I would sit up at night surf the world wide web searching for some sort of reassurance that I wasn’t alone, that someone out there understood what I was going through. What I had experienced during my manic episode was far from a “mood swing” but yet that’s the only thing I read about when others described BMD.

I get it too. I understand that the symptoms of my mania do resemble “mood swings”. I know that the chemicals in the brain (like serotonin and dopamine) that affect moods and even swings in those moods are also the same chemicals that directly affect my BMD peeps. I even saw a special on the Science channel (nerd alert, nerd alert) that described how the areas of the brain that are active during my manic episodes directly correlate to mood and the like. So I more than get why the comparisons are made between mood swings and BMD, but it doesn’t mean I agree with it.

During the nights of searching online it almost at times would have a negative effect on me. Instead of finding the comfort of knowing I wasn’t alone in my madness I actually began to feel more isolated. See what I went through was far from a mood swing, everyone has mood swings (my ex seemed to have them more than others) but I was psychotic not angry. I just think we can do better than the description “mood swings” for BMD because it’s really not accurate (at least for me).

Look a kite is pretty cool and those Chinese really got one right on this one (not so much so with Communism though). They use aeronautical engineering to create lift under the kite so that it can fly. Hell they’ve even figured it out so much that you can navigate these wings in flight and have them dance in the air. It’s pretty cool how the same principles used with a kite match out with modern day flight, those physics haven’t changed. But to me it’s similar to comparing my BMD to mood swings; just because a kite can fly doesn’t mean I call it a jet.

Since many of my manic experiences involve music I’ve decided to add random music videos to the blog for my enjoyment and your inconvenience. Enjoy!



Coming Correct,
d01roK

Life full of mania with a dash of humor and a slice of normality (those are the secret ingredients) Vol 3 Issue 48

Did you know that in 2010 Adam Sandler made something ridiculous like twenty-something million on movies? Yeah I have no idea how that works either when his two “blockbuster” hits were “Grown Ups” and “Jack and Jill” (I know, I didn’t see them either). Seeing how you can find such easy success in the movie industry these days I’ve decided to switch my writing focus and try my hands at a screenplay (seems easier than trying to get this book going).

I have yet to come up with a title yet but my idea is a comedy set in Jerusalem roughly around Passover in the time of JC in which I’m on my first pilgrimage to the Temple Mount as a faithful man of Judaism. I’m thinking of starting the film (yeah it’s a film, not a movie) out with something like this:

Scene 1: Dekel (main) and his best friend Jehiel are exiting the pool of Siloam in preparation for their first visit to the Temple Mount.

Jehiel: “Is it cold out or something?”

Dekel: “Haha, real funny Jehiel, you know I just got out of that cold pool. Besides look at what you’re working with over there, it looks like your old man busted his circumcision cherry on you. How does everything still even work down there?”

. . .

Dekel: “I’m sorry Jehiel, it doesn’t look totally awful. I’m just on edge because I’ve heard of rumors that the “son of God” has been seen performing miracles around and the high priest is pissed. I swear if I rode that damn donkey for a week and that mediocre handyman screws this up for me. It’s bad enough I’m not even allowed in the Temple itself, everyone forgot to mention that key fact as they persuaded me for this pilgrimage.”

Jehiel: “I don’t think he’s supposed to be a good carpenter, seeing how he’s the “King of the Jews”.

Dekel: “King of the Jews?!?!?” Listen my great, great, great, great ancestors didn’t walk their happy asses out of Egypt, away from the Pharoh’s control, then roam the god forsaken dessert for a couple thousand years for us to be led by someone who can supposedly raise the dead but can’t balance my kitchen shelves. Which brings me to my next point, if he’s performing all these miracles why doesn’t he just walk around just healing people instead of--”

Passing Man: “There’s trouble in the city! Someone is causing trouble near the Temple! The Roman soldiers are heading that way!!”

Dekel: “Damn it, I knew it!”

I’m not really writing this screenplay but I felt it was a pretty solid intro into what I have been thinking about lately; that’s religion. I met with Dr. A (yeah I wish I was doing that for patient-doctor confidentiality but it’s actually because I can’t spell his last name) earlier this week and we somehow got on the subject of how prevalent religious/spirituality themes are in manic episodes. There’s also other recurring themes in people with BMD manic episodes but they don’t particularly affect me (still not sure if not having an unbelievable sex drive like others is good or bad) but the religious and spirituality one definitely hits close to home.

Now because of this I decided to look up online some other’s experiences with religion during their episodes. It was pretty fascinating to see how many people shared very similar manic episode experiences of religion and spirituality, even to the point that most change their belief system because of it. However there was of course one “doctor” who attributed everyone’s experiences to symptoms of their mania and a direct result of not understanding their illness (on a personal note I believe this doctor lives a cold and empty life, or at least I hope).

Not only did this stellar professional of mental healthcare have no business in this chat forum (as he doesn’t experience religious themes in his mania as the title of the group said) he was wrong (well maybe a little right). Sure I attribute the experiences of spirituality and religion we manics have to our mania and bipolar disorder but to me that doesn’t really explain where they came from. I think the most important part of these experiences is what they do to us afterwards. The religious/spiritual experiences I’ve had in my mania and others have written about are powerful and life altering, and I think sometimes the docs are more than a little jealous of that (I mean we’re supposed to be sick right?).

Since many of my manic experiences involve music I’ve decided to add random music videos to the blog for my enjoyment and your inconvenience. Enjoy!

Coming Correct,

d01roK

Life full of mania with a dash of humor and a slice of normality (those are the secret ingredients) Vol 3 Issue 47

The silent monks of the Carthusian Monastery would like to wish you a Happy Birthday this year.

(Opens card to find complete blankness)

After seeing this on paper I’m convinced that this birthday card is a ton funnier in person. Oh well, I suppose each family has their own traditions for birthdays. With Stubby everyone gets to celebrate their “birthday month” which means each and every argument is settled with the simple phrase:

“Yeah but it’s my birthday month.”

End of argument. Another tradition is to try and find the most ridiculous and/or most funny card you can find and this one above was mine. You know it’s more of a thinking piece than most other b-day cards and everyone at the bar last night had to take a few extra seconds to get it (I guess alcohol does affect the brain) but it was a success. I also got a few laughs for my gift for Stubby. Seeing how he’s now engaged he has obligations to wine and dine his fiancé so I felt like his evening dress attire was lacking in one department; stump wear.

It’s a little known fact but in most “jacket required” restaurants also usually have a dress code for the stump wear as well and Stubby's Hanes white footie just won’t cut it (that’s probably not true). To make sure Stubby doesn’t have any embarrassing experiences in one of these restaurants similar to the one Rick Vaughn had in “Major League” I decided to purchase some black footies for his birthday. They even had the gold toe line to help him line up the fitting before his steak dinner (I did feel uncomfortable in the Kids department shopping for these, quite uncomfortable for some unknown reason…OK I was actually in the Lingerie department at this point).

In the end it was all worth it though because dammit I thought it was funny. Hopefully that’s a sign for me that this funk I’ve been in is starting to let up a little more. As I’ve mentioned I by no means thought that this winter was going to be easy on me for a number of reasons. The first is I always have trouble in the winters, plus if you’ve been through an Ohio winter you know how much it can suck and be depressing, now add BMD to that. Secondly I’m on my two year cycle/pattern of mania. And lastly I’m finally on some meds that are helping, but I had a feeling my mania wouldn’t like that so much and take it out on me (I was more than right).

The toughest part so far was I really wasn’t expecting this all to kick in until around January or February as that’s when I usually have trouble. But my BMD is an overachiever this year and decided to show up in October (yeah it’s a dick like that). One of my “tells” on this is I always lose my sense of humor and rarely laugh. Last night at Stubby’s birthday I was finding more humor in my life which means hopefully this funk is releasing its hold on me some more. Which is awesome because I think laughter is good medicine, no matter what you’re fighting.

Since many of my manic experiences involve music I’ve decided to add random music videos to the blog for my enjoyment and your inconvenience. Enjoy!

Coming Correct,

d01roK