The Joy of Being "Mentally Stable"

In my last blog, The Joy of Being Mentally Challenged, I talked about the difference between being 100% mentally ill and something less than that. For me and my bipolar episodes and behaviors, just for fun, I estimated that they consumed 12% of my bipolar life from 1963 to 1996, and that the other 88% of the time I was mostly "mentally stable."

Let's talk a little about being "mentally stable." That may be all we bipolars can attain to versus "normal," but let's explore this a little bit.

"Mentally stable," to me, means not spending over $3,000 flying to Tel Aviv and roaming Israel for three days by disappearing from work in the middle of the day and driving to Newark Airport. It means not spouting the most foul language at an innocent bystander who's done nothing wrong. It means not thinking that I could buy my cousin's gas station and garage on a whim. It means not pointing my car at a telephone pole going 60 miles an hour. And, it means not believing I was the return of Christ come to save mankind from its ills. I could go on.

And my experiences were mild compared to hundreds of thousands of other bipolars.

So I have firsthand knowledge of a standard of "normal" versus "mentally ill." The Road Less Travelled if you will. That normal essentially means moderation in my pursuits and behaviors, and avoiding extremes of mania, depression and moodiness. I wish I could say I was balanced, but that may be going to far, since I would classify myself as a progressive thinker in most instances. But of course that's always relative to someone else's point-of-view and their words and actions.

nor·mal  /ˈnôrməl/

Adjective Conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected.

Noun The usual, average, or typical state or condition.

Synonyms adjective.   regular - standard - ordinary - common - usual noun.   normality - normalcy - perpendicular

Perpendicular? Oh well, every definition isn't perfect....

For me, this definition of normal means something more practical than "conforming to a standard," which could be anything. No, to me normal means adhering to social norms. I'm an American. I grew up saying the Pledge of Allegiance every day. So "social norms" means I can drive where I want to (with a valid license), eat what I want to (if I can pay for it and have clothes that fit), wear what I want to (if I'm not concerned with looking foolish), say what I want to (except for yelling "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater)  etc. etc. In other words, there's limits. I don't have unfettered liberty or freedom. 

When I'm in a bipolar episode there are no limits, of any kind, to what I will say or do. It's only by the grace of God that I don't kill myself or someone else, yet both have happened with bipolars. It's estimated that 30% of bipolar people who go untreated commit suicide. That is the definition of mental instability as opposed to mental stability. 

So true liberty consists in being mentally stable (acknowledging reason), adhering to social norms, and more importantly, having a good heart. This last is my own addition, but an important one. Without it, I would have already killed myself or possibly someone else. Having a good heart means that even while in the middle of having a bipolar episode I don't hurt myself or others physically, at a minimum. That's still a wide gap between hurting someone at all, either verbally or spiritually.

I'm still working on closing that gap. And as social norms become more infused with the qualities and attributes of God, such as the ever-increasing number of practiced virtues and moral values, it becomes easier to close that gap. After all, besides our parents the most important influence on someone's life is their peers - friends, neighbors, coworkers etc. 

So chose your friends, and your job, and your residence carefully if you can. That's why, for every child, youth and adult, wealth is needed.

By Rodney Richards, NJ

The Joy of Being "Mentally Challenged"

I don't like the label "mentally ill." Never have. I don't accept it, altho I am, and have had three severe episodes of bipolar disorder to prove it, ending up in three month-long hospital stays. But I'm not mentally ill.

I'm intelligent (or can be), personable (usually), kind (generally), generous (sometimes), and overall, not a bad guy according to my friends. I only used physical violence once on Janet, which should have been never I agree, but we worked thru it and it never happened again. We've been married 42 years so far. The verbal assaults? Yes, we both have to work on that at times, but generally they're out of frustration with each others actions (or non-actions on my part), and not hatred.

I like "mentally challenged" better. Mentally ill sounds like a 100% condition. Being bipolar is not a 100% condition. There's only up or manic for me, and very few down, or depressed cycles -- luckily. Since we first discovered I was bipolar in October 1979, until my last episode in 1996, they have been unpredictable. But not 100%.

Let me give you some data. My poor, un-normal, sporadic juvenile delinquent behavior started when I was 13. I calmed down quite a bit after meeting Janet in 1967. so you could say four years of hypo-mania off and on. Say those bad behaviors, all together, totaled six months. Then my three episodes and two near-episodes, lasting say another ten months, what with the lesser manic (i.e. moody, hypo-manic and depressed), periods before and after. Total mania etc. equals sixteen months since I was 13. I've been completely stable since 1996, or when I was 46. So from 1963 to 1996, that's thirty-three years or 396 months. 16/396= 88% "normal," and 12% un-normal. So you see, I'm not 100% bipolar, at least my behavior hasn't been. However, Janet may certainly disagree with my 12% number.

This doesn't count my personal foibles, like a serious listening problem resulting in forgetfulness 30 seconds after being told something, or lying, a mastered trait since I was young, or a large degree of detachment, i.e. lack of empathy/sympathy, and others. Could those be considered within the normal range of human behavior? Maybe my white lies?  Well, we don't have any standard of scientific normalcy, unless in my case, you mean not breaking the law.

But, technically, without my successful medications regimen, I could explode at any time. That's true. But with meds management, that hasn't happened to me in seventeen years. Seventeen years! Yes, its still cause to look over my shoulder, the possibility that is, and Janet is always aware of it, having coped with my five terrible episodes, one taking me halfway around the world. But, could is different than will. 

I also mean not 100% mentally ill in a certain way. Yes, once bipolar, always bipolar, I don't dispute that. There is no cure for bipolar. In fact, NAMI says 30% of untreated bipolar Americans commit suicide. That's more deaths than the number of yearly auto accidents in the U.S. But there's a lot of reasons for uncontrolled mental illness.

One, is not having universal mental health care. That's the number one reason, in my opinion, that there's so many deaths, injuries and hurts from mental illness of any kind. A hospital is better than jail, which, just like me, is usually the first stop during a full manic episode. 

And there's hundreds of kinds of mental illness. Some health care CEOs are already expanding their psych centers (like UHS's Alan Miller).  Obamacare calls for universal mental health coverage as part of it, BUT it's up to the states to determine how much they implement, so that means it could still result in what we have today -- little state provided coverage, only private. Have you ever gone to talk to a psychiatrist for an hour and gotten an anti-psychotic prescription? The going rate is $225 an hour for the psych visit, plus the meds cost. My Wellbutrin used to cost over $200 per script. Twice what they s/b I agree, but who can afford either on a regular basis without insurance coverage?

Two, the meds are there. We have enough kinds now to help most mentally "challenged" children, youth and adults. I've read as many as 70% can be helped with existing anticonvulsants, anti-psychotics and mood stabilizers. This despite the so-called faults of DSM-V. But, you need constant help from the psychiatrist to figure out exactly what meds work best. So back to number One.

And even with that, sometimes round-the-clock care facilities are needed, even if just for a month or two or three to get stable, as in my cases. That's reason Three. That includes having a very close caregiver like a mate/spouse or parent/parents to help and support the bipolar youth or adult on a steady, reliable basis.

Four, as in every issue, is education of the public and those who are mentally challenged in recognizing the symptoms and getting proper help. That's the same with every issue, and could be number One. Part of that education is the government's job at all its levels, i.e. caring for its citizens; part is the health care professionals job, and the health care industry's; and part is continuing research funding. All are needed.

So myself and millions of other bipolars, as many as 5.7 million according to NIMH -- right now -- are not 100% mentally ill. We are mentally challenged. Our goal is to be "mentally stable." But even DSM-V in all its prowess, can't describe, and doesn't describe, what "normal" is.

Can you?

The Joy of the U.S. Congress

"Congress has been paralyzed," said author Neil Irwin this morning (6/11/13) on WHYY. His book, The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire, a newly published work, demonstrates the powers of the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank (ECB), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as well as large central banks like the Bank of England.  I mention it because Mr. Irwin quoted this phrase "Congress has been paralyzed" to juxtapose the quick acting banking system in the crisis we are are still in against slow moving governments like ours. Although we were better than many during this crisis thanks to things like the Troubled Asset Relief Program. I know firsthand because we got a few million dollars here in New Jersey government for energy conservation projects at aged state facilities. At least TARP helped us, and many others. In general, that's how it seemed to me.

The paralysis of Congress, which I've heard and read elsewhere, only demonstrates the flaws of the archaic two-party system in America.We have huge problems, yet the House of Representatives has voted over 30 times to repeal the Affordable Health Care for America Act (Obamacare). Wouldn't their time have been spent better by fixing the things wrong with it thru amendments? But consensus on those tweaks has been impossible to come by because of internecine strife. Thirty-nine Democrats voted against the bill, seemingly because they were in left-leaning districts. The original bill only passed in the House by five votes.

Think of thirty million needy Americans without health care access if it hadn't passed.

Of course, we don't know the real reason why, because these elected representatives don't have to vote their conscience, they can vote for any reason. Sometimes the reasons pander to specific political action groups, or even donors. Sometimes they say, "My constituents don't agree with it," and vote "Nay" without trying to correct the problem areas. And when a bill is 1,990 pages, who can agree with every word? Especially when each page is anywhere from 250 to 700 words depending on font size?

But all that is not what I'm talking about.

The paralysis in Congress is a good example of a lack of trust. Lack of cooperation. Lack of having a higher goal rather than a personal or party goal. To me it shows many of our senators and representatives with feelings of "I'm right (or my party is right), and everyone else is wrong." Isn't that what dictators like Amin, S. Hussein, and Assad believe? As 'Abdu'l-Baha once said (Pilgrim's notes), and I paraphrase, "Anyone can serve as a bad example." And that's what many in Congress are now, bad examples. But many citizens agree with their philosophies, and November votes may put them back in office, especially from gerrymandered districts. So, those of us who want real change aren't likely to get it in a big way. Only incrementally.

But for those of us with positive worldviews, change is happening, and its going in the right direction, which is, towards the unity of mankind, and not towards separation and isolation.

Look at globalization.  We just bought another Honda because our daughter's car was crapping out after 142,000 miles. Yes we could have fixed it for $1,500 but we killed two birds with one stone, and gave her our 2008 CR-V, which is only five years old and not ten. The point? Our newer CR-V parts could have come from China, Canada or the United Kingdom, and could have been assembled here in Ohio. Globalization will only increase at an exponential rate.

Mankind never really goes backwards. For example, we learned that with the burning of books didn't we? We're still learning it with currently banned books like Mark Twain's the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (in a few school districts), or Lolita during my youth. Other examples of backwardness maybe intelligent design vs. evolution, or the sun revolving around the earth etc. But you get the point again, right? The point isn't that offensive things shouldn't be written or published, or even read (although I prefer all three sometimes), its that as society grows, norms change. There are even "clean" versions of the Bible.

Differing opinions is one thing. We should encourage that BUT ALWAYS IN A CIVIL MANNER, in fact, Shoghi Effendi reiterated, "The shining spark of truth cometh forth only after the clash of differing opinions" Right now in Congress we have plenty of opinions, plenty of clashes, and very few actions towards resolutions or solutions. Yet, as in every age, we face the greatest problems now than we have every faced before. And when Congress acts together great programs come from it. Take the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the depression, or Social Security or Medicare. Can they be better? Absolutely. Change is constant. Continuous improvement should be constant.

So maybe, just maybe, this congressional paralysis will serve as enough bad examples for us to reexamine our political system and start correcting these long standing evils.

I certainly hope so.

After all, Dan Gottlieb, Ph.D., has been paralyzed from the chest down since an auto accident in 1979, and it hasn't stopped him from reinventing himself and fulfilling his potential after that and other losses. His show Voices in the Family has been aired since 1985, and like all shows on WHYY, is always informative, often inspiring, and always from the heart.

I'd like to see that from all our representatives, not just a few.

By Rodney Richards, NJ

The Joys of the Age of Renewables

Here's one of my favorite quotes, both as a person and as a writer: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities 

The Industrial Revolution (c. 1760 - 1840) was one of mankind's superlative eras. Dirtiest as well; soot and pollution I mean. That's why we're still in it; I know we haven't left it entirely. Yes, most now would say we are in the Age of Technology or Communication, especially since Samuel Morse's historic federally-funded message over his telegraph on May 24, 1844: "What hath God wrought"  And, yes that's true enough, but eras can overlap also, in my opinion. The fact that we are still using massive amounts of fossil fuels to generate energy, means we are not yet past the Industrial Revolution and its massive scales of production (assembly lines). Maybe we'll never be past assembly lines as a means of production. In fact, with robots, we're making more types of assembly lines, of all sizes.

However, altho I agree we are in the Age of Communication, we are also well-established in the Age of Renewables. I do believe renewables, including fusion, nuclear power, solar, wave technology and others, will improve dramatically as batteries (storage) improves, since that's their only current limitation --  being sporadic producers and poor storage. We've solved it with cars like the Prius, Civic hybrid, Insight and others, which, like the old alternator, regenerate the electricity. They are just the tip of the massive wave which will overtake all automobile production, as our fossil fuels diminish.

At 2012 known levels, we have 105 years of natural gas;10 to 387 years in the top 17 oil-producing countries, each being different; and perhaps 200 years of coal. The U.S. used 21.4 million short tons of coal in 2011, as an example. (Sources: Wikipedia and EIA) So natural gas will go before coal will go before oil. Many power plants using coal are currently changing from coal to natural gas, which also burns cleaner. And our power plants are the biggest users of coal in the U.S. The point is, there is an end. Products made from oil too, i.e. plastics, will have to change. Engines using oil will have to change. You get the point.

So renewables and storage for their created energy are the way to go no matter how you look at it, even if you're dead. Hundreds of hungry power plants use coal to generate electricity today, over 50% of U.S. consumption. It can only go so long. In the meantime, as supplies diminish, the prices for natural gas, coal and oil are and will go up. If you're like me, I love electricity -- can't get enough, especially as newer gadgets with lower wattages are invented, and right now PSE&G is a bargain at $.11 kWh for supply. The State of New Jersey was paying $.10 for its electricity supply for all state agencies (826 MWhs/year) in 2006.

So conservation is also here to stay. I applauded the U.S. Congress and President Obama for signing the law banning incandesants between 40 and 100 watts. Its a start anyway. Homes and buildings consume 40% of all U.S. energy alone. (Source: EIA) The replacement flourescents use less wattage AND give off less heat, decreasing heating bills. A no-brainer. That's why building retrofits (and solar) are gaining in popularity, especially as the costs for these new energy-efficient bulbs, with 25,000 hours of life compared to 2,000, come down in price. As manufacturers sell more, profits go up, production costs less, and prices come down. Who ever said that the government doesn't or shouldn't govern our lives with thoughtful policies such as these?

So an investment in inventors and companies tinkering with renewables would seem to reasonable (not all mind you - only the ones that demonstrate they can work), do you agree?
And there are already quite a few leading the way.


By Rodney Richards, NJ

The Joy of Budgeting

Nearly one in three Americans prepare a detailed household budget -- a majority do not. Americans are also more likely to use an online program than an accountant or financial planner to manage their money.  Jan and I hired a financial planner to help me make some retirement decisions in 2008. Well, help US make them. How much I chose to be paid monthly was critically important. Essentially I could have gotten the max payment, with nothing to Janet when I died or something less, with a percentage going to Jan when I did go. We chose a 75% option, so Jan would get 75% of my pension when I passed away. It decreased my monthly check, but only by some few hundred dollars, and gave her piece of mind.

Hiring the financial planner at $1,000 was a good decision. We've increased our IRAs and investments substantially for two middle-classers like us. But the point is, budgeting and financial planning go hand in hand.

There's a division of NJ state government in the Treasury Department named the Office of Management and Budget. The Feds have the same office, which you're probably more familiar with. NJ OMB is an internal organization, controlling and monitoring funds spent by state agencies for everything they buy. OMB records all income/revenue gathered by agencies like the Div. of Revenue, the states funds and fees collector, and OMB approves all expenditures at various levels, some standard, which are done perfunctorily electronically, others only with high-level director approvals, like the over $300k Supplemental Budget Transfers. OMB also works with the 350-500 state agencies (divisions and departments) to craft the initial state budget for the Governors review. Important jobs.

If you ever look at New Jersey's State Budget every year, and you should, OMB's name is on the front page as its producer. It may be the only time the public sees their name, but as an agency manager of the Statewide Contract Consolidation Unit, I was in charge of millions every year, especially buying new software for our Data Center mainframe computers, so I was very familiar with OMB. And their progenitor, the Bureau of Budget & Accounting, which is how they have  organized themselves. My brother-in-law John is a supervisor on the accounting side, managing the state's NJ Comprehensive Financial System (NJCFS), and its electronic interfaces to the hundreds of state agencies.

A budget is a simple thing. Two things actually -- revenue (income) vs. expenditures (expenses). Everyone has a budget whether they know it or not. As individuals we can also use credit cards, get loans for new autos, or home mortgages etc. The state does the same, but differently. Publicly. We can't borrow $ unless we sell government bonds to raise the cash needed. That's usually call for a referendum on the November ballot, like for more Open Green Spaces.  

I on the other hand, just have to reply "Yes" to one or more of the dozens of credit card offers I receive by mail every week to get a loan. NJ can't do that because we have to have a balanced budget by law. What a difference it would make if individuals had to have a balanced budget! If the wife was the breadwinner, would the husband have line-item veto power as the Governor does?

The head of OMB is the Comptroller/Director, an appointed position. For a decade it seemed as if Rich Keevey was the head. I walked to his office many times to get signatures on our purchases. Then it was Charlene Holzbaur for years, to name a few. Bottom line, it was the agency directors who would call Rich or Charlene, and go over their assigned OMB analyst's head, when they had a big purchase and beg the Director to approve it. If you go on the OMB website nnow, they don't list any names of directors or staff at all, which is not transparent at all. I would recommend all directors and managers in state government be named, and their areas of control.

A funny thing about government, everywhere. We bureaucrats exist to keep the wheels of government moving. We are inclined 1) to trust agency heads, and 2) to want to please them. Even myself, in a position of recommendation and approval, worked with agencies to make their requests for expenditures conform to our stringent requirements. We just didn't say "No" and leave them to themselves and that was it. In fact, there weren't any requests that I said "No" to outright. No matter how poorly constructed, we helped the agency conform and get their request thru the system. 

This principle of helping each other guided every level of state government, in my opinion, from the lowly clerk position, all the way up to the State Treasurer. Our unit was extra lucky, because we could coerce the agencies to comply with our rules thru an OMB/DPP Circular Letter (containing regulations).

And budgets were the road map, however, they were exceeded often. Many times I worked on preparing a supplemental budget request, required if $300k or more was needed out of reserve, to go to OMB to spend money. (We tried hard to keep them under the limit so we wouldn't be hassled.) But every one that I worked on was approved. Yes, they had to be justified, but sometimes a few well-crafted sentences was enough. When it was really important and I didn't have the clout, I would go to my Director, and sometimes they would go to a deputy state treasurer or the Treasurer him or herself, to help push the procurement along. We always found money in the budget from somewhere to do what we wanted. The vast majority of other departments did also, from my knowledge.

Not always so easy as an individual, to get $, especially if the credit card was maxed out, or you had a bad credit rating, which has become so very important these days. Jan and mine is now near the 800 level because we just don't have the expenses we did when we had children, and their clothing, food, and sundries, then college and cars. In government we were okay unless we had an extraordinary expense, or the rainy day fund was depleted. That's why as individuals a rainy day fund is also encouraged to have by Suze Orman and all the other pundits. 

Our division budget every year, just like all the other divisions, consisted of two line items of expenditures: salaries, and materials and supplies. Materials and supplies could mean a $3 million software package, or buying copy paper. There was absolutely no distinction - both were expenditures and we had rules and regs guiding their purchase. I got to be an expert at those rules and regs over thirty years, and at writing the language necessary for their approval. I even taught classes to all state CIO's on how to write requests for Waivers of Advertising, and to our purchasing folks on using Delegated Purchase Authority. 

For example, here's typical language I used every year to get approval to spend $25-36 million: "To provide  required Information Technology maintenance and software support services to agencies, and payment to sole source and technical services vendor providers, as mandated by Circular Letter  06-16-DPP/OIT. These services provide technical expertise at high levels to operate equipment and software properly. These services are needed July 1." Those three sentences got me approval to spend $33.4 million in Fiscal Year 2007. My name was on these requests as the "agency contact." I also helped craft the regulation itself. It's since been superceded by 11-16-DPP/OIT, but it's the same language.

So we had to know our rules and regs, but it was the same rules that allowed us to justify massive expenditures. Every year was a challenge to write the same justification in a slightly different way. 

It should be so easy for me personally to ask for outright cash from my bank, don't you think?And, to tell the truth, it is. Another benefit of having a good job and a good personal money manager like Janet.

By Rodney Richards, NJ