III. Christmas 1979

After getting high that night after Rocky Horror, I was manic for well over two weeks over the christmas break. I'm not sure if this was not also a schizopherenic experience or not. When I was put into St. Joeseph's, the doctor diagnoised me as Paranoid Schizophrenic Manic Depressive. He put me on Thorazine but it was nothing personal, he put all his pateints on Thorazine. For the next six years I was misdiagnoised as a Schizophrenic, then in 1986 a doctor decided correctly that I am bi-polar and put me on Lithium. I got much better after that. I mean you'd get better too if you had Diabetes and they gave you Insulin instead of Sugar. I never was on proper meds until 1986. But none of that really mattered because I never quit doing drugs and alcohol until about that time, and even after that I still drank. In 1992 I got serious about my recovery from drugs and alcohol and outside issues. But my story is kinda like one of those fantasy novels where the heros are lost in a labyrinth. It has taken me a long time to get it all sorted out correctly.
As I said I do not know how similar the schizophrenic experiance is to Mania. If I were to make a guess, I would say that Mania subsides after awhile. It can be arrested and controlled with the proper medication. Schizophrenia can also be treated with medication but that does not necessary halt the schizophrenic experience. I have met many schizophrenics and they always seem to be in an altered psychological state regardless of medical treatment. I am not saying this is true for all schizophrenics. I really don't know.
If I had been born an american indian say in the 19th century, I would've been groomed for a position as shaman once I had my experience with mental illness. From what I have read, when a child was found to be not quite right in the head (suffering from some sort of mental illness) the tribes shaman would take them to the desert and put them in a small shelter. He would bring the child food and water and tell him to let the great spirit come to him and relay to him his dream. This dream would give the child direction in life and then when he grew up he would become the Shaman of the tribe after the old Shaman passed on.
I find this all very interesting because in our society the opposite is true. We have no use for the Mentally Ill. We are afraid of them and we don't want them around. We just would like them to go away, perhaps like the Nazis wanted the Jews to go away. The American Indians not only gave their mentally ill a JOB, they revered and honored them. Meanwhile, we shuffle the mentally ill into state hospitals and outpatient clinics (well, not anymore, most of the funding to help the mentally ill has been cut) and the greatest crime of all is, we let them live and take care of them but we give them ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do. This is Pshychologically DAMNING in itself. I believe a great deal of my illness was caused by neglect when I was in my teens. I also believe that a lot of the mentally ill people should be given the opportunity to do something other than have their illness constantly reinforced by merely only participating in the treatment of a clinic or worse being locked up in a state hospital. Almost every mentally ill person I have ever met smokes. Now they can't even do that once they are put in a hospital. How would you like being locked up and given nothing to do. The mentally ill should not be neglected, it only makes their problems worse.

Mania as an Initiation to Manhood Part Three

From about the age of 17 I decided I wanted to be a ROCKSTAR! (how original) I still would like to be a rockstar (how hopeful). Perhaps I am ( how dismal). Punk Rock was just emerging and I became a huge foan of the Ramones. I was a "punk with long hair" or as I often thought of myself, a hippie/punk. I was too old not to be completely fucked up by the hippie generation. A condition my younger Gen X friends I would meet later did not necessary suffer from.
If there were Yuppies back then they the ones we called "socials". They were clichish stuck up people who thought they were better than everyone else. The rest of the kids in school were either jocks, ropers, or white trash AC/DC fans, known as the FREAKS. I really wanted to be a freak but I just wasn't socioeconomically challenged enough. I also was not a tough guy as you will completely understand when you get far enough down in the page.
However, sometimes when I have been manic, I turn into John Wayne and I am bulletproof and ten feet tall. When I have been like this I am really scary. I hope I am never like that ever again.
There was one other group at School then, as always there were NURDS. I really fit into that category the most.

Mania as an Initiation to Manhood Part Two

My brother and I got involved in a "cult" in 1979 involving this strange woman and her three daughters. It was really kinda dumb. She would practive hypnotism on all these kids that would come there to her house and convince us we all had psychic powers. Most of the kids were abandoned by their families and one was this fellow named Andy. Andy moved in with me and Dad and Richard right after Mom left my Dad in 1979. I was 15.
Andy and Richard would take us all to Rocky Horror with a bunch of friends. One time in December of '79 I scored like a lot of pot. This dude just sold me all this pot for next to nothing. It was more than I had ever had at one time before. I began to smoke it on the way home and I never came down. I had achieved perma-high. A state I would become all to familar with later which was Mania. This was the begining of my Bi-Polar Disorder.
I need to say something very important at this point. Rocky Horror was kinda of terrifying movie for me because it touched off a very important exploration of my own sexuality that will prove significant below. The only thing you need to know at this point is I was BRAD. I will return to this anology of myself as Brad at several points yet to come.
When our Mom left Dad in '79 she didn't take anything he owned. He got to keep the house and all his money. She wanted him to be able to remarry and be happy. He did just that. Dad met Sue who became my step-mom (for over twenty years now). They met just six months after Mom left and were married in a year. I was put into the hospital in January 1980 for my mental illness. When our Mom left earlier that year my reaction was to bury my emotions about it. I decided I did not care about anything. It never occured to me that I could fail a class at school because I never had. It also never occured to me that I actually had to DO something in order to graduate from HIGH SCHOOL. I never did.

II. Mania as an Initiation to Manhood

I became interested in theatre at an early age. I took classes at a theatre in Fort Worth called Casa Manana. The Theatre is still around today. Starting in 77 I took a tap dance class there and it turned out to be not so good for me. I was the only striaght person in the class. What was worse is the only other boy in the class was three shades of gay and he was completely okay with that. I was terrified by this kid. I had homophobia to the state of shock. What was worse is he could dance like Fred fucking Astaire and I was all two left feet. I wanted to quit that class like so bad, but my mother would not let me. This compounded my depression and my fears of homosexuality. I would not confront those fears until much later.
In the eighth grade I took theatre and I met a silly guy named Scott and we became friends. Scott and I were both fans of Monty Pythons Flying Circus which was being shown on Sundays at 10 on the local PBS station. In the class we would act out Python skits or write our own stuff and sort of steal there material. At the talent show Scott and I performed and we were approached by this shy fellow named Ricky. He had a Super 8 color sound movie camera and offered to help us make films. We worked on silly films all summer. I wrote them and directed but our big project was never fully finished. Scott drifted away after I began using drugs. Ricky was completely striaght in every way, but he became a life long friend and we still see each other regularly. He still has the movies in a can in the dark and claims he is going to digitialize them but it never seems to get done. I think more than likely after thirty years they are dust.
By the time I started High School I wanted to seek out OBLIVION on a regular basis. I chose Alcohol as the best means to achieve this. I had an older high school friend named Gregg who kept me in constant search of pot and sometimes we'd find it. Richard my brother was old enough to buy liquer legally and kept us in good stock of Vodka and Everclear. I never drank socially, ever. When I drank it was in order to completely bloto myself. I even drank to blackouts at the age of 17.

I. Childhood Depression

I had a happy childhood. I grew up in a suburban home in south Fort Worth, Texas and I never wanted for anything. We weren't rich but we had plenty of what ever we wanted. However, I grew up being very sensitive. I was afraid of people and a lot of the kids that I grew up around. I had friends but they always seemed to be people who didn't treat me well or hurt my feelings. Public school was very hard for me. I began suffering depression in middle school. I think my mom had asked me if I wanted to go to a shrink but i said no.
When I was even younger I remember a time when I couldn't watch violence on television. It really upset me and I would cry. I got over that in time and now I am able to watch planes crashing into skyscrapers, aliens eating the human flesh off of innocent children, cars, trains, and buses blowing up and killing everyone involved. I basically became a rather well adapted American.
I remember my depression in middle school stemmed from Physical Education. I had no talent for sports. Kids would yell at me, hit me and tease me that I was gay. I'm not sure that even I knew what that implied at the time. It was the late seventies and I was like 14 years old.

Outline

I.childhood depression
II. Mania as an initiation to manhood
III. St. Joe's and Psychiatric Institute of Fort Worth
a. Hospital
b.transitional school
c.leaving home
d. Lubbock, Texas
IV. Big Spring State Hospital Act One
a. Hospital
b.back to Lubbock and college
c.brief visit to Fort Worth and more drugs
d. Texas Tech and lots more drugs
V. Big Spring State Hospital Act Two
a. San Angelo
b. AA
VI. Big Spring State Hospital Act Three
VII. Lithium
VIII. Trinity Springs Act One and goodbye AA
IX. Trinity Springs Act Two
X. Kharma Cafe and getting my BFA
XI. UNT Design School
XII. 2002 -the present

to begin....

I am thinking I will blog my memoirs here. But I'm not going to start just yet.....I'm not sure how to add the illustrations and such. I am a poster child for several 12 step groups....
I am TG. I am a CD. I have suffered from Bi-Polar disorder most of my life. I am in Recovery for Drugs and Alcohol...clean and sober 16 years, I have been hospitalized for mental illness several times across 20 years...All of this will appear in the 'book'.....about my so called life.

oh yeh, I am a musician and artist. I have lived my entire life with the notion that I AM a rock star.....I've just never been discovered....bah! I'll be famous when I'm dead...That'll show em!
THE LEGEND OF ROBBO.....a posiable title? No, when you read this 4=5 makes much more sense....Robbo