The Rock Star From Mars

Charlie Sheen has been an interesting person to follow. He’s a very talented actor who possesses a passion for his work and play.  However, he’s also made some very poor decisions, hurting myself and others in the process. He’s riding a roller coaster.  But the name of that beast of a roller coaster isn’t known for sure. Some people suggest he has bipolar disorder and his wild ups and downs do strongly support this claim. 

However, his acknowledged struggle with substance abuse could also be responsible for his erratic behaviour.  Until he recovers from his addictions and lives clean and sober, mental health professionals will not be able to accurately assess his mental health. 

I’m reserving my judgment. I’m in no position to assess him. He’s just a guy I hear about on TV.   What do I really know about him in all honesty?  Yet, if what I’ve seen and heard about him is based on truth, my gut feeling is that he’s dealing with a co-morbidity of mental illness and substance abuse.  Its extremely common for many manic depressives to self-medicate. 

So why am I talking about Charlie Sheen tonight? 

Well, I’ve seen a lot of Charlie Sheen over the past few days.   The media has been building up a lot of hype over his characters death and replacement on ‘Two and a Half Men’. This had to be a sore-spot for him. He was one of the highest paid actors on TV, then in an instant he lost it all. Unemployed and unappreciated for acting out the truth as he saw it.  Bridges were burnt and names were called, never to be forgotten. 

In addition to the stress of the above event, he also made a show-stopping appearance on the Emmy awards, in front of the entire TV industry and common audience viewers alike, nearly the entire western world, dare I say.  That has to be an intense experience for someone, no matter what their status is.  

Finally, since events seem to naturally come in 3’s, he endured another assault - his Comedy Central Roast. I find these roasts to be intense, nasty and full of hits below the belt.  Many of his darkest moments were mocked publicly and I expect hard for him to discuss publicly.  But since each roaster ended with a hug it had to be taken in good humor, I’m sure...it must.  

      

Its not unusual for an actor to appear on TV for 3 big events in a row.  Its part of the business I expect.  However, I noticed something unusual about Charlie during this big week which concerns me.  Instead of the erratic, wild, unpredictable Charlie that people have become fascinated with (similar to how some enjoy watching a train wreck unfold in front of them), he was calm, cool and collected. He also appeared sincerely apologetic, resolved and wanting to make amends for his bad behaviour.  These are healthy actions in the grand scheme of things.  And probably necessary for him to heal his wounds. 

The thing that stands out to me is that these significant behavioural changes usually indicate a shift in thought process and a clearing of the conscious. At the Emmy’s he clearly wanted to end the dispute and any vindictiveness.  The following day, he watched his TV persona, Charlie Harper, brutally killed off, cursed through his eulogy, cremated and then replaced by another man.  Finally, that same evening he endured a brutal roasting of his life, both public and private moments, forcing him to re-live some of his darkest moments.  Incredibly, he did it all which such grace and acceptance. The beast was leashed, tamed and no longer had that wild look in his eyes.  This was a different Charlie standing before us.  

I have 2 conflicting explanations for this change - optimistic and pessimistic. 

Optimistically, it appears (to me) that he is no longer manic and seeking some professional help.  His public appearances, words spoken and well kept composure throughout this week felt like he wanted to turn over a new leaf and be a better person.  A transformation is happening and he wants to start fresh, both professionally and personally.  I really hope this is the case.  He needs to do this if he wants to re-establish his career, trust and respect from others. 

Pessimistically, I’m worried that he’s acting like someone who is seriously contemplating suicide.  The death of his TV persona, ironically being replaced by a suicidal character that same episode, is an intense experience to endure, which must of made him ponder his own mortality.  I can’t help but point out the foreshadowing I noticed as well.  Not just in the Two and a Half Men episode, but also during the roast when Seth McFarlane opened the show rather ominously, by comparing him with the late Amy Winehouse.  These events can practically convince someone struggling with depression, that its the right time to die.  All while hiding it behind a brave face. 

But what concerns me most, are the public apologies he made, the calm acceptance of his bad behaviour, and his making amendments to clear his conscious, that set off the warning bells for me.  If he is indeed bipolar, then his recent manic behaviour seems to have come to its conclusion. Most people would see this as a positive step, but sadly most suffering with bipolar disorder don’t simply shift to neutral.  Untreated, they frequently crash hard into depression.  Its incredibly devastating when you finally realize the mess you made of your life, the people you’ve hurt along the way.   If the depression goes unrecognized and untreated, complete despair can envelope you.  Suicide suddenly seems like a rational way to end the hell. It might be difficult for most people to understand, but once you decide that you’re going to kill yourself, a sense of relief finally overcomes you.  Its nice, a sign you made the right choice.  Nothing they say is going to bother you now.  Much like Charlie’s relaxed and accepting body language during the roast.  You say your good byes, make your apologies, and make peace with those you’ve hurt, e.g. his apology and well wishes at the Emmy’s.  The loose ends are tied up and now you can rest in peace. 

I know this vicious cycle, its behavioural pattern and its warning signs.  If I knew Charlie personally, I would be on his door step right now checking in on him, but I don’t, so I can’t.  Instead I find myself writing this blog for him.  It feels like the least I could do.

Anyway, I really really hope I’ve misinterpreted his actions this past week, but I can’t shake this unsettling feeling, obvious and eerie, that he’s headed for a bad place.  

I hope the rock star from Mars stays with us for a little while longer. 

Sleep

Perhaps I’m cycling upwards again.  Its 5am, I’ve drank a bottle of chardonnay and taken 1.5mg clonazepam (3 pills) and I’m still not tired. Coupled with the nightmare I had when I finally did fall asleep last night, these are warning signs of a trip down manic road.  Let’s keep an eye on this situation and see what happens. On the bright side,  maybe I’ll get some good blogging in again, instead of the pathetic 3 posts of last month.   I was kinda bummed out in July.  I didn’t really want to get into it without giving away some personal info, but things are a little different for me now, in a good way I think.  Stay tuned my friends, lets see where the road takes me. 

In the meantime, I'll play my fav lullaby by Samuel L Jackson and hope I'll go the f**k to sleep. 

Amygdala - its all your fault!!

I’ve been struggling with writers block for the last two weeks.  I know exactly what I want to write but every night I am dissatisfied with my results and refuse to post the tripe I’ve written. Its either boring or rambling or unfocussed or some combination thereof. I am very irritated lately. But tonight I think I can do it. I’m going to post something goddman it. This foolishness has gone on long enough.  I hope this blog turns out well.  Don't lose faith in me. 

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I think I’ve finally figured out why I’ve been having so many nightmares, and what it all boils down to.  It all comes down to my Amygdala.  Let me explain, because it took a fair bit of digging around for me to figure it out, but I am somewhat satisfied with the conclusions I’ve drawn.  I should start from the beginning which would be my most recent nightmares.

I’ve had 2 more terrifying nightmares since my last blog that I will share with you. 

In the first one, I dreamt a man (a dark unrecognizable formidable figure) was trying (very hard) to drown me.  We were in the ocean and he had his hands closed around my throat and he held me firmly underwater beneath him.  I struggled but he was incredibly strong and it soon became clear that fighting him was futile.   The only chance I had was to fake death. I stopped struggling, went limp and fought the burning in my lungs with all my might. It worked. He released his grip from my throat and I began to float away from him.  I drifted through the ocean with my life. I remember enjoying the drifting feeling very much. I drifted for the rest of that dream. 

In the second dream I was camping somewhere out in nature, I’m not sure where exactly but a jungle type of environment comes to mind. It was nighttime and I was asleep between 2 other people in a tent when the attack happened.  This time it was not a man, but a tiger.  The animal tore through the tent and very specifically attacked the 2 people sleeping on either side of me, but did not harm me in any way.  I watched frozen in horror as the tiger tore the flesh from their stomachs in long strips, exposing their bright red innards. A disemboweling, twice. There was no doubt the tiger wanted them both dead but me alive. I don’t know why.  I wish there was more of a conclusion to that dream.  I don't even know who the 2 murdered people were to me. Its all so confusing. 

While these nightmares were still incredibly vivid, filled with murderous rage and negative emotions, I’ve not been incapacitated by them the following day (like I had been previously with the dream about Kristen).  So thats a bright note in the darkness. 

I’m fed up with trying to make sense of these dreams using those online dream dictionaries.  All I can get is the logic behind a certain symbol but the specific actions and behaviors ongoing are too complex to explain.  For your amusement - a tiger is apparently a symbol of female power and sexuality.  I can understand why I might dream about a tiger, I’m a very intense and sexual woman. But no dream dictionary is able to explain why the tiger killed my tent mates by disemboweling them before my own eyes. That’s messed up.  Fuck the dream dictionaries.  I’m way beyond those.   I've accepted that. 

Answers often come when you’re not looking for them at all.  And this is what happened to me when I was settling down for the evening one night last week. I often watch PBS or A&E when I’m trying to wind down before bed. Their shows are a bit like reading a book - interesting but not edge of your seat thrilling. I used to download whole seasons of certain TV series, but I could never just watch one episode at night. I’ll have to watch the whole damn season that night, forfeiting sleep completely.  I’m like Gizmo from the Gremlins, don’t feed me after midnight or things can get out of hand... I’m digressing, please excuse me.

That night I’m settling in to watch NOVA on PBS, and its all about dreams!  
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqQrbF2RFQc&feature=related FYI you can watch this NOVA Dream episode on youtube over 6 clips)
I’m not sure I believe in coincidences, I think most things are meant to happen, call it fate if you want.  Whatever. But this is just want I needed.  A credible and scientific approach to dreaming.  The show discussed many different aspects of dreams (did you know that our pet cats and dogs dream too? - very cool stuff) but the most important thing I took away from the show was which parts of the brain were responsible for dreaming: the hippocampus and amygdala.  In a nutshell, the hippocampus is responsible for retrieving events that we experienced while awake and incorporates them into our dreams.  The amygdala is responsible for dealing with our emotions, both awake and asleep.  Our brain places significant emphasis on the emotional aspect of our dreams. 

When the narrator said the word ‘amygdala’ I felt like he had just sucker punched me in the guts, knocking the wind right out of me. I literally dropped my tube of lip-balm I was applying to my lips and my jaw nearly fell to the floor after it. I’m not joking. (I still need to find that lip-balm under the futon now that I think of it.).  The realization that the amygdala is responsible for emotional dreaming was my missing link.  Most normal people have probably never heard of this abstract part of the brain, but I’ve learned about it because people diagnosed with bipolar disorder have a messed up amygdala. It may actually hold the key to the disease. So naturally I was all ears when I heard it controlled dreams too. 

I’m going to try to keep the terminology simple here but there are a few things I need to explain in order to link the amygdala with bipolar disorder, emotions and nightmares, so stay with me. 

Early brain researchers had a couple nicknames for the amygdala and I think its fitting to share them with you - the brains seat of emotion, as well as, the brains seat of fear. Needless to explain much further, its the part of the brain that controls our emotional responses and our reaction to fear.  An excellent example of how important this really is, is exemplified in the Fight or Flight Response.  When humans experience a dangerous stressor its your amygdala that decides if you stay and fight or if you run away.  Inside your amygdala the neurotransmitters that deal with stress (e.g. norepinephrine, ephedrine - sound familiar??) are released and used in your body. Basically, it gets your adrenaline pumping. 

This little almond shaped part of our brain (FYI amygdale is greek for almond) does a lot of work it seems - it’s responsible for dealing with emotion, fear, stress, dreams and so forth.  So its logical to assume that if the amygdala is damaged in someway so too would be that persons reaction to emotion, fear, stress, dreams.   

Well this is most likely what happens in people with bipolar disorder. Doctors have actually scanned the brains of those with BD and observed amygdalas that are for some reason misshapen, enlarged and/or overactive. Not the nice little almonds they should be.  There is no explanation for this. Even if its cause or effect.

You may or may not remember in one of my blogs back in June I touched on the 5 neurotransmitters that play a significant role in bipolar disorder (dopamine, serotonin, GABA, ephedrine and norepinephrine).  What I didn’t discuss back then was how they were controlled by the amygdala. It seemed like too much info at the time. But now its very important to acknowledge. 

This blog isn’t meant to be all about science, but a little bit of science is necessary here to explain all this craziness. 

Yes, my madness is explainable.  There is a real physical and chemical problem in my brain that causes me to think and behave this way.  

ooohhhhhh.....if I knew then what I know now many things would be different......

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To sum up the important points: 

• the amygdala is the part of the brain that is responsible for nightmares, as well as our reactions both emotional and stressful.  
• people diagnosed with bipolar disorder have an abnormal amygdala
• people diagnosed with bipolar disorder have abnormal responses to stress and difficulty coping with emotions; they also commonly have vivid nightmares
• Here’s the frustrating catch. Brain researchers haven’t yet proven that an abnormal amygdala actually causes bipolar disorder. All they can say for sure is that these symptoms are probably rooted in the amygdala b/c thats the kind of stuff the amygdala is responsible for. But they haven’t isolated the direct casual link. Its really difficult to experiment on the human brain.  Ethics and all.  A few brain image scans isn’t enough, its still circumstantial evidence (which we all know is not enough to convict). Of course there’s animal testing but can a rat or chimp even have bipolar disorder? How would you know when a rat is manic? A rat's not going on a shopping spree or claim to be God.  Could he? lol. Perhaps my mood disorder truly separates mankind from the rest of the animals. A cruel twist for humanity!!

I’m thinking of donating my brain to science when I die so pathologists can have a good look at my brain and my amygdala. I’ll have to find a spot somewhere on the organ donor card for that specific detail.  

Hey, donating your brain is all the rage these days.  All the hockey players who ever suffered a concussion are doing it. 

Puts a whole new spin on the saying ‘Let me pick your brain’.  

Damn, that just made me think of that dinner scene from Silence of the Lambs. 

Moving on....

   

It actually makes soooooooo much sense to me now. This seat of fear and emotion in the brain, which is also responsible for dreams/nightmares just happens to be misshapen and overactive in people with bipolar disorder. If we’re having a mood swing, and our neurotransmitters are out of whack, how does the amygdala deal with sorting out these disordered emotions?  Well messed up/scary/fearful/emotional nightmares seem like a possible way the brain might be trying to sort out these emotions and thoughts.  My nightmares might not be logical because my neurotransmitters are out of whack.  I’ve been trying to find meaning in nonsense. I need to stop acting like a 5yr old who can’t handle the scary movie they snuck into.  Time to toughen up kid.  

Even though I know that I’ll probably have these intense nightmares for the rest of my life, and there will still be times I’ll wake up gripped in terror, I don’t feel so bad about it anymore.  One of the worst things about dealing with bipolar disorder was not understanding it.  Honestly, when I was finally diagnosed I was relieved because I finally had an answer for what was going on with me.  Of course I wasn’t happy to be mentally ill, but at long last I knew what I was fighting, and thats half the battle.  This is the same feeling I have put towards these nightmares.  Understanding their cause (at least in some part) actually takes away some of their power over me.  

This reminds me of a scene from one of my favorite childhood movies - Labyrinth. When Jennifer Connolly faces David Bowie (the Goblin King) and defeats him with the words “you have no power over me”. Very fitting. 

Too bad its not quite so simple as that. 

This has been a big deal for me.  I’ve never told anyone about my monsters, these terrible nightmares until now - never family, friends or doctors. They were always internalized. The first time I ever described one was the bipolar sandman blog I wrote last month. I’m not sure why I hid them away.  Maybe I was afraid of how they would be interpreted by others - I wasn’t abused as a child or witness to a gruesome act but maybe someone would be convinced I was repressing something. I did not want to deal with that. Maybe I was afraid of a doctor telling me I needed a change in lifestyle - nightmares about sexuality, men, death caused by escorting? I’m not quitting my job over a few nightmares. Maybe the best reason is simply because I just wanted to forget about them.  

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There is one more aspect of the bipolar sandman that I feel I should discuss. Then I’m done. Finito. It may actually be useful to other people dealing with BD and actually concludes this blog with a worthy end note. Here goes.  Researchers at the Psychiatry Dept. of the University of Alberta found that those diagnosed specifically with BD can use their dreams (both frequency and content of) as a predictor for mood swings (see Beauchemin & Hays, 1995, for more details).  

The researchers found that: 

- Their BD subjects dreamed least often when depressed.  

- Had dreams that were routine/mundane/uneventful when in a neutral mood state. 

- Experienced dreams that were bizarre, improbable and often featured death or bodily injury when shifting to manic states.  

How interesting. 

I took a long winding road getting here. But the view is magnificant and well worth the effort.  Now that I have a better understanding of how the bipolar sandman is created from within my abnormal amygdala I’m not so scared of him anymore.  Maybe I can also add him as a tool in my mental health first aid kit. I now have a flare - an advance alarm possibly.  To quote Metallica one more time - its all within my hands. 

How I came to be an escort

Often I’ll be sitting on the couch chatting with a client over a glass of wine. Or maybe we’re both naked laying in the afterglow when their curiosity gets the better of them and they have to ask me “How did I become an escort?”  Most people think that girls like me would never prostitute themselves. They don’t have to. I certainly don’t have to, that’s true. I am a well educated, intelligent, nice young lady.  I had a good upbringing, feel loved, not trafficked or addicted to hardcore drugs. But I still sell my body. Why?  What most people don’t understand is that a rare few women can actually enjoy this work and get into it by choice. Not always are prostitutes forced by desperation, deceit or drugs as mainstream media and religious groups would have you believe. 

Honestly, I consider this work more dignified than being a servant at a fast food restaurant or paper pusher trapped in a cubicle. I also get paid what I’m worth.  I could never go back to earning $10/hr when I currently make $200/hr. I’m also my own boss and set my own schedule.  Which women are really slaves in society? Not the deviant. 

However, my free choice to become an escort did not come about lightly or typically, and there were many extenuating circumstances that lead me in this direction initially.  Let me share them with you...

I believe my bipolar disorder has played a major role. I was manic when it all began.  I had just been diagnosed, fired from my job at the bookstore, taking (prescribed) anti-depressant medication which were inappropriate for me (although not recognized at the time) and in my mania I was not thinking logically. I was also highly promiscuous, another symptom of bipolar mania.  My perfect storm was brewing. 

As we know people who are manic are not thinking clearly and logically. It is often the poor judgement calls they make while ill that cause them the most trouble in life.  I was incredibly promiscuous at this point due to my illness. After another one night stand I jokingly thought to myself how great it would be if I could get paid for having all this sex.  Hhhmmm, actually, you know what, I’m a girl with a hot body, I really could.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  A week later I called up an escort service (I worked with this agency for my first 6 months before going indie) and the rest as they say is history. 

Here’s the catch. Although I was manic and not in my right mind when I starting hooking I didn’t stay sick forever.  I got healthy after a few months and came back to my right mind.  The surprising thing was that even with a clear mind I wanted to keep hooking.  I felt surprisingly empowered.  It gives me control in my life where I otherwise would not possess any.  It gives me money, power and self-confidence.  This is hard for most people to understand because of personal hang ups (e.g. religious/ethical beliefs, illegal trafficking and drug addiction, media protroyal, hypocritical laws and their enforcement, inability to separate sex and love, fear of disease, etc.).   

Yet, I’ve often wondered IF I were diagnosed earlier would I have become a prostitute?  I mean, IF I hadn’t made poor judgement calls because I was mentally ill which resulted in me getting fired would I not have thought about a career change?  Would I still have been so sexually active and thought about exchanging sex for money?  

One of the major factors which probably caused my swing into full blown mania was my usage of anti-depressant medications.  Bipolar patients have a very poor tolerance for anti-depressants typically prescribed for unipolar depression.  Instead of just cheering us up, it sends us over the fucking moon. I went over the fucking moon into mania and it wasn’t until all the poor decisions caught up with me, when all the damage was done that it became painfully clear what was going on inside me.  Initially my psychiatrist diagnosed me with major depressive disorder when I first presented myself to him.   

I honestly wonder IF I wasn’t prescribed certain meds would I have chosen to become an escort?  I can never say for sure but it does make me wonder. I don’t blame my psychiatrist for this, nobody knew about the full spectrum of my mood disorder at that time.  I don’t solely blame the meds.  However, I think it is something that should be considered, especially when diagnosing patients whose full history or tolerance may be unknown.  Its a conundrum for sure. 

Naturally, I don’t tell this whole perfect storm story to each client that asks me how I came to be an escort. Most people probably wouldn’t be comfortable with my bipolar disorder.  What I tell them is that I have a high sex drive and figured I might as well get paid for it, and also that I had a hard time finding a decent paying job with just my bachelor’s degree.  It sure beats waitressing I laugh. 

One final note that I want to stress. Please keep in mind, this is my story and not anyone else’s. How I react to things may be very different than others so I wouldn’t expect all women in my situation to become prostitutes. Not all women with bipolar disorder become prostitutes!  I am unique.