"Making Bread"*

Here is yet another excerpt of yet another aspect of my life . This was posted on yet different forum than the previous one is from.

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I started to type on a typewriter (and meangfully) for the first time when I was just short of 30 years old - the state of sped-up frenzy that was then that year I was 30 and then partially into being 31 (with barely any break in the acceleration even after that) of in approximately a 12 month period of going from a daily routine of going to a sheltered workshop, coming home to the grouphome and and live as a presumed mentally retarded person with an IQ around 20 to communicating, the treatment I received from others entirely changing, being bombarded with ADL (adult daily living) skills towards the goal of having my own apartment as soon as I expressed this desired goal, to attending a selective-admissions university, a second move then to this city and apartment I live in now.. there was so much that year I can't begin to think of it all in one setting.. I literally had at least several decades if not a lifetime packed into that year or so and at lightyear speed, this is as close as I can imagine this 'no dead time' experience as I can imagine a person could have. The result is it trigger a mental illness in me known as Bipolar disorder and hypo-manic/manic episodes. I know the current theory is that for a person to have a mental illness the disposition for it has to be inside of you waiting for something to set it off, to be the catalyst, well that was certainly it then.

While in that manic state of mind (which I was not aware of until afterwards, evidently a neuropsychiatrist who'd been my doctor since the regional center picked right up on it but neglected to tell me until after the fact, I doubt it would have made any difference anyway, people had said I'd had a miracle and was having 'miracle after miracle' and yet another movie I heard "you are just like" is one named "Rudy" although the character in that movie isn't autistic) and I believed all that miracle stuff to the point I think if anyone had said "excuse me but you are having a mental illness and that's why you can do all these amazing things" (like the academia and such that I am convinced I am not capable of in a normal state of mind) I wouldn't have believed it, I 'was having miracles, dammit' on a sort of preordained mission from God or something there, or so I thought (and raging deadly homocidally furious the whole time, due to the certain very traumatic thing that happened at the sheltered workshop that year that if any single event could be pointed to that 'set me off' that was it). I decided I was 'a genius' (and people saying that I was and supporting that belief and behaving as if 'genius' was a relevant and 'the end all be all' thing certainly fostered and supported this and wasn't helping matters) I verbally spoke an entire 'speech' at a dinner held for me as "Consumer of the Year' at the DRC, even if it was only a two sentence 'speech' that went like this: "We are in your schools, we are in your universities, and we are in your world, its our world too and we are here to stay. Thank you" (I was inspired to write this speech by the children's cartoon "Horton Hears a Who")
that's is by far the longest string of words I've ever vocalized in my entire life let alone understandably so... Yes it was me and I did them and even if during the throes of mental illness still pretty amazing stuff for me (made the dean's list, into all honors(accelerated/gifted) classes at the "honors college' on campus, membership to phi beta kappa (GPA based sorority) got accepted to even fancier schools I'd never attend but qualifed for (the University of Michigan being one that stands out in my mind), qualified for things like "Mensa' and the "Prometheus club" etc... I can look back and feel accomplished, yeah that was me that did that.. sort've.. a mentally ill me, but still me, purely adrenaline and rage powered (other people get adrenaline and lift vw's and toyotas off of loved ones, evidently I do mental feats I can't ordinarly, go figure) but I wouldn't want to do it again
I was about as miserable during my rage-fueled 'genius' experience as a person could possibly be.
I eventually 'bottomed out' in the form of literally one day waking up one morning and being if not exactly 'catatonic' then something extremely close to it, which started me into this other part of 'bipolar disorder' (and why its called that) a huge massive (and equally mentally ill and somewhat delusional at that end as well) depression. That part was so clearly 'not cool' and realy hurt and was the part that caused that doctor to finally happen to tell me (and with an added thrown in "I thought you knew".. well at depression's end I sure did anyway!) and that's how my major sped-up-adventure came to an end and I discovered what it had actually been and that I had this 'other thing' now (a bipolar disorder, which since then has been disputed by other doctors and counselor guys because there's been no other since of it since.. I kind of think I had some sort of one-trip deal there with it, I hope that's all of it I'll ever have) after quite some time balanced out to about where I am now.

I'm healthier and 'regressed a bit' in that I'm not capable of all that so much now (but I'm back to a level of *functioning* in another way that's more important and that is realistic for me, consistent, and powered by the real and healthy me), I don't regret that experience (namely because of all the little perks and pieces I still have that are my proof I'm "*really* not MR" which is all I was after in the end) and after its all said and done, past being able to just be satisfied and content to say if it comes up that just "I'm smart enough", but I wouldn't do it again, even if I could, that's for sure.
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PS, while attending the university I took no notes. I listened. I first tried taking notes by hand with a pen and paper the way most of the other students did, then I conceded to typing them fullsized keyboard communicator I had on loan (with the speech turned off obviously but was still told it was a 'distraction") and I did so simply because thats what the other students did (taking notes) as part of my huge drive to 'be just like them'
I missed much that way, the act of attempting to write where I simply cannot and then trying to type at the same time as listen left me shorted, things missed and unheard. I finally fell back to what is natural to me and just sat and listened quietly, being nearly the only one (sans the occasional person with a minicassette recorder) in classrooms of about 30 and lecturehalls of about 500, amidst all the scurrying notetakers.

*The topic for this entry "Making Bread" and reference to 'crumbs' come from what I felt was a very apt analogy of recent events that given to me by an interested party (and used with permission).