The Latest Info On Life As I Know It

It’s been a few years since my last entry to Crazy Doctor. I am no longer a practicing medical doctor. I surrendered my medical license in 2005. While I was in the transitional process, I became a licensed drug and alcohol counselor (LADC) and tried my hand albeit perhaps less than successfully at two drug treatment jobs. The first offered minimal opportunity to function as an actual bone fide CD counselor and the second left me unhappy both with my new milieu and I encountered insufficient help to unravel the mysteries of the new technology of charting.

So what’s a professional gonna do? I never considered some of the alternative potential of my degrees only recently discovering a teaching opportunity at a Twin Cities acupuncture and Oriental medicine academy teaching Western medicine. Way back then, at the demise of my career as I had known it for thirty years, my ever so tolerant wife had off handedly suggested Sam’s Club which, on a lark, I joined first as a greeter until later moving to their gas station where I quickly discovered how to write, read, and even grade papers on the sly.

My sojourn with “big box” retail has had its heads and tails but a steady paycheck has definitely helped supplement my meager Social Security check. Now too, my teaching stipend has also helped crawling out of credit card debt. Oh, the woes of bankruptcy, divorce, and professional demise.
I have been relatively as clear as anyone can be of problems at Sam’s and have persevered for over four years through heat, rain, snow, and cold. None of the potential problems or issues have arisen as my multiple psychometric testing suggested could. But we were warned, of course, of more intellectual or stressful situations I was told rather glibly. I have shown good judgment, been responsible with work assignments and almost always been timely and never had an unexcused absence ( although I continue to pursue personal diversionary opportunities at a brainless job).

I and a fellow CD counselor who is bipolar 1 also with an addiction history have taken a shot at speaking about bipolar disorder and co-occurring addiction, Tim on bipolar 1 and I on bipolar 2. His journey has been scarred with several hospitalizations for psychosis. Mine has been marked with failures personally and professionally. Together, we have established and manage the blog, Bipolarvisions.blogspot.com and mutually try to report on our experiences with the co-occurring challenges of addiction and mental disorder.

It is extremely comforting receiving consistent feedback from intimate friends of a positive transformation to a euthymic state show compared with an earlier emotional lability. People with bipolar disorder are known to wreak havoc with marriage. I know, I’m on my second and so is Tim. Although neither of us are ready to report a bliss state, gone are the impossible psychotic episodes or, in my case, explosive anger.

Those of us with this challenge, are known to change jobs frequently sometimes with the frequency “normies” change underwear. I have been at Sam’s over four years and am engaged in a monogamous relationship and marriage I must work at continually. Sure, I still make my share of mistakes, have my emotional ups and downs, trials and tribulations. I still cherish that I can be there to give what I can to this relatively new relationship. I often must struggle just to offer another adult presence for my wife’s four now-adult children. Sometimes, it is hard for me not to judge her children or to adjust to the lack of space in my new family environment.
It has been readily clear from the outset that my moods can certainly reflect conflicts or challenges dealing with stepchildren but only rarely with my new primary relationship. I show impatience dealing with stubborn post adolescents who very much deserve a mind of their own.

My medications, the anti seizure mood stabilizer, Depakote has no side effects other than lowering my platelet count. I have none of the tardive dyskinesia (TD) I experienced on Zyprexa with or without Abilify ( in my mind falsely advertised as an antidepressant). I am readying my two classes for next trimester and feeling comfortable with these challenges. My biggest challenge in one will be how to enliven the presentation to keep students awake.

Those in the Mankind Project (New Warriors), where I derive so much peer support, respect my “gold,” as we call our strengths or accomplishments for which we must take credit. My fellow “I” or “Integration” group partners with whom I meet for three hours biweekly, encourage me to risk change and seek greener pastures. I have grown increasingly disillusioned with cognitive behavioral therapy(CBT) and received recent strokes from a practicing octogenarian psychiatrist that I demonstrated an impressive gift for dynamic interactive therapy. He has offered to supervise me with any clients I should undertake to counsel. I am heartily prepared to go that direction. There are some delightful opportunities awaiting me just by opening up the myriad of possibilities that await me