Working In Non-Ideal Conditions

I was just thinking today that you never work in ideal conditions. If you did, then you'd probably not think much of your situation. For as long as I can remember, life has never been ideal. There was always some imperfection. Consider my current situation.

I'm going to try to go to medical school to become a medical scientist. Ideally, I would have taken all the prerequisites when I was a college student. Instead, I majored in physics, which didn't require most of those prerequisites, namely general chemistry, organic chemistry, and biology. I did cover the math and physics requirements for entrance to medical school. Still, this is far from ideal.

I now have to somehow get the money to pay for my premedical coursework at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, another non-ideal situation. I'd probably use my disability checks plus any funds I can get from my family. Further, it's hard to get a parking space at UNLV and the bus to the campus is usually full. My point is it's the same old story.

All of us have to work in conditions we wish were different. In college, I never had enough time to study. "If only I had studied eight more hours a day, I could have earned an A," I'd moan every semester in college. Dorm rooms didn't have enough privacy, or my apartment was too far from campus. If only my class were not so difficult, and so on. Life never is ideal.

When I worked as a software engineer, I lived far from my work. I had to commute an hour each way. If only I lived closer to work, but those places were more expensive than my cheap place farther away from the office. There is nothing new about what I'm saying. Most of you probably already realize that.

So as far as medical school goes, I'm going to have to prepare for it on the proverbial shoestring budget, living far from the campus, and facing who knows what imperfections. That's just life, I'm starting to realize.

The Hardest Decision to Make

I'm not going to document my particular experience with mental illness anymore. That would take a long time to do, since I've been suffering from this condition for almost two decades. Rather, I'm going to talk about new developments.

During the last two days, I made a gut wrenching decision. I decided to pursue a career as a physician. I hope to be a research psychiatrist or neuroscientist. I plan to earn an M.D./Ph.D. I did not mention that I was applying for a teacher licensing program here in Las Vegas because I feared the school district could possibly find out through this blog that I suffer from bipolar disorder.

For several months, I applied for the teacher licensure program, including studying for a standardized general science test. I told all my friends and family about the teaching program. They were excited because finally I'd be getting a job (actually not until January 2009). With the teacher shortage in Vegas, I was almost guaranteed a job.

Yet, I felt that people around me were pressuring me to go into teaching because I can get a job relatively quickly. I call them the "JOB NOW! Crowd". The Job Now Crowd pressures me to pick a job, any job, and start making money ASAP. They don't take into consideration my passion for scientific research.

It kills me when I watch a story about NASA or a medical breakthrough on the news. I used to do scientific research, and there is no reason I can't do it again. So a few days ago, I decided to pursue an M.D./Ph.D. in neuroscience and/or research psychiatry. I don't care how long it takes me. I have to try and see how far I get.

The complications arose when the school district was supposed to announce its decisions about acceptance or rejection from the licensing program last Monday (June 9). I debated whether I should just reject the school district. Finally today, I mailed a letter requesting that the school district withdraw my application for the teaching license program. Today I also received my acceptance letter from the school district.

I was hoping that the school district would reject me so I'd have the perfect excuse to go into a premedical program. That way the JOB NOW! Crowd couldn't criticize me for changing my mind (this was the 3rd time for me through the teaching program). Unfortunately, I will have to face them eventually and tell them it's my life.

I don't want to be a teacher really but I felt pressure to find a job fast, any job. I had been thinking of a career in research medicine for years, and I thought I need to take the chance now while I'm still young enough to start a medical program.

I face a number of issues. What am I going to tell the JOB NOW! Crowd? Eventually they will ask if I got in the program. Secondly, people wrote references for me and went to a lot of trouble to complete them. Yet there are other issues to consider.

At the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), I am a non-degree graduate student. I can take any class as long as I pay for it. On Social Security disability, I don't have much money to pay for classes and other school expenses. So I could just take the bare minimum prerequisites for medical school and be done in 2-3 years. I could be in medical school as early as 2011.

Still, another option exists. I could apply for a second bachelor's degree and be eligible for student loans. I'd probably major in psychology since I'm going to go for a career in neuroscience or research psychiatry. The problem with that is I'd be borrowing a lot of money and possibly be taking a lot longer to go to med school (4 years). I could just declare myself a second bachelor's student and then leave once I have the prerequisites for the medical school admission.

I'm going to talk to a premedical advisor next week at UNLV and explain the whole situation. Still things are much better than they used to be. I feel alive again that I'm working on something I really believe in.

How It All Began

I've decided to document my experience with mental illness. To protect the innocent, I will change names or use first or last name only. So, I will start from the beginning when I first realized that I am different from the average person. I knew immediately I was different somehow in summer of 1993. Three people, including myself, had experienced deaths in their families within the time frame of about two or three days.

My godfather, Uncle Fred, passed away from cancer in San Diego, California while I was working at the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory at Duke University in North Carolina. The fact that two of my friends had experienced similar losses at the same time made me think that my death was next.

It had been a tumultuous summer; Harvard University admitted me to study for a Ph.D. in physics the very day I arrived at Duke University to start my graduate studies there. My decision to leave Duke for Harvard created a scandal in Duke's Department of Physics. When my uncle died, I decided to spend the rest of the summer of 1993 in San Diego with my family. That way I could attend his funeral and my cousin's wedding later in September 1993.

On my way home from the nuclear laboratory on my last day of work, I thought I was next to die. I said, "God, am I next to die? Please don't take me now. I have so much to live for."

"No, you are not next to die," said a voice in my mind. "In fact, I have been protecting you ever since you were in Berkeley. I have a purpose for you."

The voice has never claimed to be God. The voice only answered after I called upon the Lord. Yet, so far, ever since the voice spoke to me, my life has deteriorated. Whether or not this voice belonged to God is still an open question. One thing is for sure; nobody else believed the voice belonged to God, and certainly no psychiatrist nor psychologist ever believed any of the voices I heard over the years belongs to God. Most priests, too, are skeptical.

Let's examine the record. Because of this voice and other voices like it, my career is in ruins, I attempted to commit suicide, and generally I am miserable all the time. A Catholic priest ruled out the supernatural. His logic was simple. My diagnosis of mental illness happened the same time as my supposedly supernatural experiences. Therefore, mental illness was entirely responsible for all of my experiences.

I personally am not convinced everything resulted from mental illness, but I'll humor everyone and just assume for now that everything is just mental illness. I certainly suffer the consequences of mental illness regardless of whether or not I experienced the supernatural.

Are Higher Education Degrees Useful?

As I look at my bachelor's degree diploma from UC Berkeley, I can't help but feel that it is useless for practical matters. Where is my job I was supposed to get as a result of my borrowing thousands of dollars to earn this degree? In college, I worked in three different scientific laboratories as a student assistant, and I did a good job according to the principal investigators of the labs.

Yet here I am in my late thirties, having worked only about a year in any professional manner. Given that I spent a lot of the time on disability, the work world is cruel to anyone that doesn't have a blemish free work history. I worked for eight years on a Ph.D. in physics, only to have the university deny me any advanced degree. The irony is that most employers do not count graduate study that did not result in conferral of an advanced degree. I have to compete with people who have never studied for a graduate degree.

California Magazine, the magazine for alumni of the University of California at Berkeley, often spotlights "success stories" of alumni who have "made it", such as CEO's of large corporations who studied at Berkeley. They make it look as if because one studied at Berkeley, one is successful in career. The magazine would never publish my story, one of a man who is still struggling to make his way in the world, nearly two decades after graduation. My story would hurt recruiting for new students, faculty, and staff for the university. In short, California Magazine, would never publish stories of failures such as myself.

Yet we are real. I only know of one failure in my circle of friends from UC Berkeley, myself, but I am certain that there are many failures who do not choose to share their failure stories with university publications such as California Magazine. People only share good news with university alumni publications, thus skewing the appearance of the relative success of alumni.

What purpose does a bachelor's degree really serve? It seems a bachelor's degree only really allows you to attempt to earn a higher degree like an M.A., M.S., Ph.D., M.D., J.D., etc. Even those degrees don't guarantee success in career and life. On the news, I saw women who had multiple master's degrees, but the economy prevented them from finding any kind of employment. Obviously, their multiple advanced degrees didn't help them find work. That is the story of my work life.

The bachelor's degree has become the new high school diploma. Just about everyone has a bachelor's degree nowadays. One can essentially buy a bachelor's degree from any so-called university. This forces everyone who wants to stay competitive to work toward more advanced degrees. The truth is that amount of knowledge required to do most types of work doesn't require study at the graduate or professional level, yet employers raise the educational requirements in order to screen the hordes of applicants for the few openings in their organizations.

Crisis Mode

Part of being disabled, whether mentally and/or physically, is dealing with the government bureaucracies. I'm in crisis mode right now. A week ago, the Social Security Administration (SSA) sent me a letter stating that they are cancelling my disability benefits (i.e. my SSI checks). They stated that I did not provide the information they had requested regarding my part-time job from last year, and this was the reason for their action.

Basically, the SSA is incompetent. I complied with all of their requests for information regarding my job. Most of all, I submitted my check stubs that they requested along with a letter explaining that I no longer work. Still, something went wrong and SSA is cutting my SSI benefits.

I don't care that much for the $500 a month I get from them. My parents pay my expenses anyway, so the $500 is just spending money. However, when Social Security cuts my SSI benefits, I will lose my Medicaid health insurance. This health insurance is critical. It pays for my mental health care as well as my physical health care. One of my psychiatric medications alone costs over $600 a month. I imagine the bills for my treatment must be enormous. I cannot pay for my health care on my own.

Eventually, I went to the SSA office in North Las Vegas, and after a long wait, I spoke to a bureaucrat. After much confusion, she finally said if I get a letter from my former employer stating my last day at work, Social Security will restore my SSI next month. Apparently, Social Security thought I was still working, even though I specifically wrote to them that I quit in January.

Just as an example of their incompetence, consider this. The bureaucrat said I sent them a letter on January 31, 2008 stating I was working for a community college. I actually sent them that letter in September 2007 when I started the job. The Social Security Administration was utterly confused.

I went to the college to see my old boss, but she wasn't around. I left her a note with the staff explaining that I need a letter stating my last day at work to present to SSA. In my note, I had asked her to send the letter to me at my home address. I intend to send the letter myself to Social Security. I was disappointed when the letter didn't arrive in my postal mail box today. The only thing I can do now is call her to ask her if she sent the letter yet.

If Social Security were a business, they would be bankrupt by now. My aunt says they purposely mess up people's cases in order to force us to come into the office (where we have to wait for hours to be seen). That way, they drum up activity and work for themselves in order to keep their office from being shut down by their superiors. Thus they keep their jobs by showing all the lists of people who patronize their office.

I can't say exactly what I plan to do in the future. I can say that I plan to get a full-time job and get off Social Security disability. It's no fun to be on welfare. While I will always be mentally disabled, as long as I have appropriate treatment I should be able to function like any other person. Still, I have to hide my particular disability from the people around me and especially from my future employers.

Abnormal Life

What is normal? I certainly don't feel that way. Most people my age have a full-time job, have their own homes, drive an SUV or minivan, are married, and have children. Thanks to bipolar disorder, the gift that keeps giving, I have none of that. At age 37, I still live with my parents, am hopelessly underemployed, and am pretty much abnormal if you define normal as the way I observe most people my age live.

In the real world, I find it difficult to introduce myself to people. "What do you do for a living?" is an evil question for me. I cannot just say, "I don't work because I'm disabled." I pretty much have to make up a story. The next question is usually, "Oh, what is your disability?" because it isn't obvious unlike missing limbs.

Mental illness is still the unacceptable disability in most people's eyes. It isn't a "real" disability. When I did tell people frankly about my mental illness, I received a variety of reactions, mostly negative. You can read my rant on that subject on an earlier post.

I'm attending a party for newly admitted local students to my alma mater, UC Berkeley. I have my doubts about attending this party because I didn't have such a stellar career after graduating from college. I know the new admits are going to want to hear from alumni such as myself what are their chances at good careers after graduation from Berkeley. Still, I know most of them want to know what my alma mater, their potential future college is like.

I can tell the new admits about my exploits in marching band and my attendance at football games. I can tell them about my research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. I can tell them what classes are like and what the city is like. Still, I can't really tell these young folks what life after graduation is like because frankly it's horrible and terribly abnormal for me.

Yet, the president of the local chapter of the California Alumni Association encouraged me to attend anyway. I can say that currently I am working on a professional license, but hopefully nobody will ask me where I work because I don't work anywhere now.

You may sense some anxiety on my part about going to this party. Still, I have to live in the real world. I can't stay home with my folks all the time. It's just unrealistic. When I do venture out in the world, my bipolar disorder comes with me. My entire ugly history of psychiatric illness comes with me, no matter how normally I act.

Abnormality seems to terrorize me all the time. Why don't I have a job like everyone else? Why do I live with my parents at middle age? The answers is simple. Mental illness robbed me of my life. Most people my age have been working in their professions for almost 20 years, and many have attained high positions such as school principal, tenured professor, senior engineer, and so on. While they were working professionally, mental illness was slamming me as I struggled through graduate school to earn a Ph.D. in physics.

I was going in and out of mental hospitals from coast to coast (really!) I started out at the country club called McLean Hospital, where Harvard University sends its graduate students like myself. I ended up at Las Vegas Mental Health Center, the armpit of the mental institution world. While people my age were getting promoted, making more money, getting married, and having children, I was stuck in places like McLean Hospital and LVMH.

Is it any surprise I have no job, no money, no girlfriend or wife? While I was chasing the Ph.D. and losing my mind as a result, everyone else was working at real jobs. Is it no wonder when you're mentally ill, life is so abnormal?

Too Much Time On My Hands

I hate to speak ill of people on my blog, but what I'm about to write might not be their fault. I have an ex-friend I'll just call "Lawrence". First of all, all of my "friends" never e-mail me or call me unless I initiate a communication with them. Lawrence just sent me a nasty, spiteful e-mail in response to a nasty, spiteful e-mail from me.

Maybe I just have too much time on my hands, because none of my friends, or ex-friends, seem to have time anymore. They all seem to be either too busy to say hello to me once in a while because of:

(a) their kids
(b) their jobs

Lawrence explained that he checks his home voice mail every 3-4 months. I had left him a regular voice mail, which he did not return at all. When I got another of his voice mail greetings on a second call, I left him a nasty message basically saying, "Why don't you call? What is your problem?"

My point is how busy does one have to be to check his voice mail every 3-4 months? I check my home voice mail every time I come home. If you take 3-4 months to check voice mail, wouldn't you miss very important messages?

Let me stop picking on Lawrence for a moment. Another friend, I'll call "Ernest", I still call on the telephone. Yet he told me that he has time to check his personal e-mail only about once a month. Further, he reads his postal mail on the weekends. This seems reasonable. Ernest has children and a wife.

It doesn't seem practical to me to check your e-mail once a month or your voice mail every 3-4 months. Perhaps Americans are just terribly overworked to death. As a person on disability, I have the luxury to check my communications every day, sometimes several times a day. If you check your e-mail or voice mail as infrequently as Ernest and Lawrence do, wouldn't you fall behind and perhaps miss some important messages?

What makes me mad is these clowns don't bother to keep in touch at all. They're so busy with their lives, they forget their old friends. What could they possibly be doing? Working ALL the time? Are Americans a bunch of serious workaholics now?

Ernest seems irritated when I do talk to him on the telephone. It's like he'd rather get back to watching after his kids, whom I hear screaming in the background. He just can't wait to hang up. Lawrence I'll give credit that he thought of calling me back, but after about 3 months of my voice message sitting in his voice mailbox. When he heard my spiteful voice message, he decided against returning my call. Thus I received a spiteful e-mail from him today.

My aunt said friends come and go. Ernest and Lawrence were college buddies, but we've all drifted apart since then. I'm trying my best to make new friends here in Vegas, but it isn't easy. Las Vegas is notorious for being unfriendly.

Finally, it makes me mad that none of my old friends from college make an attempt to keep in touch with me. If I don't send an e-mail or call them, they won't bother to do the same. It makes me more mad when I send an e-mail or call them, and they plain just ignore my message. There really is one solution. Move on.

The Future Is Now

I had a strange experience in LVMH. I think I met people from the future. Yes, I know it sounds crazy, but you be the judge. During a hospitalization during a hot Las Vegas summer, I met a lot of people at LVMH with some really weird stories. This is what I think was happening:

(1) People from the distant future, say 2100 and beyond have the ability to travel to this time (2003-2008).
(2) People from that future have the ability to observe us in "real" time. They can watch us like we can watch television.
(3) For whatever weird reason, these people were ending up in the state mental institution with me.

One woman, named Martha, said that her patron saint was St. Teresa of Calcutta, who has not been canonized by the Roman Catholic Church yet. Maybe she was just crazy, or maybe she came from a time where Mother Teresa is already a saint.

A cute African American woman came up to me and said, "I read your Bible last night. You're a survivor." That Bible to which she was referring is the King James Bible, which is written in Old English. In her time in the future, Bibles aren't written that way anymore. As for calling me a "survivor", I think the fine young African American woman was referring to some kind of holocaust in our future, possibly a nuclear war. The holocaust was in her "past" before she jumped through time to meet me.

The weirdest encounter with the future people was with a woman named Kathleen. She claimed to be my first girlfriend, Shannon, only with a new name. She gave an explanation as to why she had changed her name. I was about 33 at the time, so Shannon/Kathleen should have been about 32-33, but Kathleen, the woman apparently from the future, said she was 46.

Kathleen managed to tell details about my life, apparently from the future generations' ability to watch the "past", our present, like television or movies. In particular, I was a fan of Huckleberry Hound, a blue dog from Hanna Barbera cartoons. My cousin Joie (pronounced Joey) gave me a toy Huckleberry Hound doll for my birthday once. Kathleen said, "Your cousin Jerry Lewis gave you a blue doll." I was amazed how she got that one right. I think somehow the signals from the past get messed up when they reach the future. That's why she called Joie "Jerry Lewis".

It seems that the future exists somewhere in the universe right now. People from the future can observe our present, their past, as it's happening. They have some technology that allows them to not only observe their past, our present, but always to travel physically back in time to our time from our future.

I just had to get that one out there. I've seen a lot of crazy things in my time, and I don't think all of it has to do with mental illness. I know, I know, the simplest explanation is that we're all insane. Yet I still find it odd that I'd go someplace where just about everyone claims to have stories about things that have not yet happened or could only happen in our future.

Really Random Thoughts

I don't know what to write today, but I wanted to see something because this blog is now in its second month. Let me write about something that is tangentially related to my mental health, which I think I write about too much anyway. I'll write about my love life!

Currently, I am a single man with no children and has never been married. In fact, I've only had one real girlfriend. Her name was Shannon, and we met in junior high in North Las Vegas around 1985. The last thing remotely resembling a romantic relationship was when I met this woman named Mettia at work. She was actually impressed with my knowledge of high energy physics and invited me to dinner if I would tutor her in calculus.

She did say she was in a long distance relationship, so that kept our "relationship" from being a real relationship. I was just a friend to Mettia. Still, as I sat across from her at the first restaurant we patronized, I thought to myself, "God bless her for just being with me right now."

After I left graduate school at UCSD, I thought I would never go out with another woman again, even as a friend. Where was I going to meet women in Vegas with my situation (unemployed, disabled, and living with my parents)? I thought women and me were history. Then along came Mettia. The short end of the story was I told her to leave me alone because I grew tired of her constant criticism. Still, one of my friends says that women will always drive men crazy, so I shouldn't have cut off my only woman companion.

As a man in my late 30s, I find it difficult to meet women at all, so when one like her shows up, I should treat her like the last woman on Earth. Love? I was in love once. Her name was Heather and she liked to read books. We were both members of the University of California Marching Band (really the University of California at Berkeley). I couldn't stop thinking of her, and I wanted to be with her all the time.

Of course, she didn't feel the same way about me. She was in a long distance relationship from her high school days, and she absolutely refused to date anyone else. I did manage to go to San Francisco with her during one winter break. Of course, she just considered me a good friend. Still, I was bad to her at times because I knew I didn't have a chance with Miss Heather (now Mrs. Heather, unfortunately for me). Eventually, we both graduated from Berkeley and she married her long distance boyfriend.

I did some reflection, and I named all the girls or women I ever had a crush on or felt genuine love for, and the number is about 35-40. They are a diverse group, and I can't really find anything they had in common other than leaving a mark on my heart. I think the worst failed relationship I had was with a woman named Jeannette. She was absolutely beautiful and liked science too.

I had lunch with her one time, but when the UCSD Catholic society had a formal, I saw her dancing with another man. I knew that Jeannette wasn't seeing anyone at the time. She had made it known that she had broken up with her last boyfriend and didn't have one when I knew her. Even as I watched them dance, I could feel that this man was stealing her from right under me. Just recently, I stumbled onto Jeannette's wedding video on You Tube. That hurt to watch that, to see how happy she was without me, but worse how happy she was with that guy she danced with at the formal, the one she's married to now.

I sometimes wonder if I had normal romantic relationships if that would have helped with my mental health. Did my lack of a girlfriend all these years spark those crazy hallucinations, delusions, etc. I just know if I'm patient enough, another woman will cross my path and put a mark again on my heart.

My Unusual Problem

As a man on disability, I have a problem you might wish you had. I have too much free time on my hands. Since I have a problem with anxiety, though, this is bad news. I have too much time to think about things that make me unhappy.

I wake up thinking, "What am I going to do with this day?" This is one reason I blog. A psychiatrist once told me to keep my mind occupied. If I don't keep my mind occupied, terrible thoughts of pestilence and plague fill my mind. I start to think of all the terrible things that could happen to me, which usually don't in reality.

I like sometimes to do mathematical proofs from math textbooks at the college junior and senior level. It's like doing crossword puzzles. I have to concentrate so much that I don't worry about things. Doing mathematical proofs chases the anxiety away.

However, the anxiety comes back as soon as I stop doing my mathematical proofs. That is why I need constant activity during the day, and I often find myself trying to look for things to do that will keep my mind occupied.

Lately, I discovered gardening with my mother. She is an expert at gardening. She knows when to fertilize the plants, how much to water, what kinds of soil to use, etc. I find the act of shoveling soil in itself drives away the anxiety. Since my mother knows gardening very well, I just have to follow her lead and not have to learn how to garden on my own.

I also like to read science textbooks, namely astrophysics, biology, chemistry, Earth science, and physics. I do the exercises in the books whether they are self-tests or calculations. This has the same effect as doing mathematical proofs.

I watch a lot of television and sometimes take naps, anything that will drive away the anxiety monster. You might be thinking, "Why don't you just get a job?" Well, I'm working on that one. I'm pursuing a profession that will allow me to work on a full-time basis and get me off the disability system. This project will take a long time get going.

The real disadvantage of living on disability is how unstructured my day is. I do make a schedule for myself, but I rarely stick to it. I had so many plans for today, but I ended up sleeping for most of it. The unstructured nature of my day often makes me not accomplish anything.

Still, one thing I have you working stiffs don't have is FREEDOM. I can do anything I want to do every day. Television? I just click the remote control. Go to the movies? I just hop in my car and go to the theater. Feel like getting a pizza? I just call Pizza Hut or walk to the Italian restaurant around the corner.

Though, my way of life doesn't work well when I meet people in the real world. I have difficulty answering the common question, "What do you do for a living?" Remember, mental illness is a disability you're not supposed to have, and most people have no sympathy for me when I say I'm on disability. They think I can just wish it away or turn it off like a light bulb.

That's all for my random thoughts for now.

Life With No Money

Today I received a letter from the Social Security Administration. They administer the SSI program or Supplemental Security Income program. As a disabled person, I qualify for this disability program, which gives me a check every month.

Their letter said they are reducing my payments from $579 a month to $515 a month because I worked from September 2007 to December 2007. Social Security's rule is to deduct $1 for every $2 I made while working. The whole system is annoying and penalizes disabled people for working, even part-time the way I did.

First of all, nobody can live on $500 a month to begin with. If I did not live with my parents, I would probably be homeless. When they pass away, I'll be homeless or in a group home, which is like a mental hospital only you can leave it during the day.

The big sticking point is health insurance. As a recipient of SSI, I am qualified for Medicaid from the state welfare agency. Medicaid pays for my treatment for mental illness. Just one of my psychiatric medications alone costs $600 a month. Without my treatment I cannot function. The way the whole disability system is set up, it keeps people like me perpetually in poverty. If I make too much money, I lose all my benefits.

This is not to say that all mentally ill people live in poverty, but a good number do. Millions are homeless, and you may have encountered some in public places screaming about the end of the world. I have met mentally ill people who work regular jobs, but whether this is the rule or exception I do not know. I just know so many of us who do live in poverty. I meet many at the public mental health clinic.

Poverty is a way of live for the mentally ill. My clinic prints a list of social services ranging from homeless shelters to state welfare offices. The patients often have to employ these social services for the destitute. I will admit I am fortunate I have a good family that supports me.

Anxiety

In addition to bipolar disorder, I also have severe anxiety. Life can be miserable. The anxiety once became so bad that I had to go to an emergency room. I had a nervous breakdown. The psychiatrists tell me that the bipolar disorder is a problem with the chemistry in my brain. The anxiety seems to be more of an environmental problem, although my doctor treats it with medication too.

Anxiety to me is tremendous fear, fear of almost anything. It seemed to appear about the same time as the bipolar disorder. I have a theory of how it got this bad.

Namely, the staff at Las Vegas Mental Health literally tortured me. I have flashes of memories of being assaulted by psychiatric technicians there. I once woke up naked in the shower as a psychiatric technician yelled, "Wipe your butt!" while beating me.

Another time at LVMH, I woke up as an army of psychiatric technicians pummeled me with their fists. Then they locked me away in the restraint room. I have no idea why that happened. Unfortunately, treatment in mental hospitals is still in the dark ages.

As a result of the beatings I received at LVMH, I have tremendous fear of almost anything. Just sitting around makes me wonder what is lurking around the corner waiting to hurt me. What disasters will befall me this time?

It isn't always that bad. When I'm very busy I have no time to have anxiety like when I do have a job. With that, I'll end this post. The more I write about anxiety, the more I draw attention to it.

UCSD Sucks!

The last university I really attended was the University of California at San Diego (UCSD). It was the third graduate school I had attended. In short, they were jerks. Because of my bipolar disorder, my grades suffered terribly in graduate school. At UCSD, I was hospitalized twice for psychiatric reasons. The first time was so long that I had to take a medical leave of absence.

The Department of Physics, my department, knew about my condition. Yet, for the most part they refused to grant me any accomodations for my illness. On 9/11, I took the written Ph.D. qualifying examination. I'll give the department credit for granting me special testing conditions: my own testing room and unlimited time. In the end, they would prove useless.

I passed the Ph.D. qualifying examination at the level of Master of Science. In addition, I passed all the core M.S. coursework in addition to passing the qualifying exam at the M.S. level. I qualified therefore for a Master of Science degree in physics.

However, I had a 2.76 grade point average, below the 3.0 GPA required by the Graduate Division of UCSD. UCSD informed me that they denied me the master's degree because my GPA was too low. I appealed the decision to the dean of the Graduate Division on the basis that a grade point average measures one's competence in his field, namely physics in my case. Further, my grades did not reflect my eventual competence I demonstrated by passing the compehensive written Ph.D. qualifying examination that September 2001.

By the rules of the Department of Physics, I had to leave the university with no degree since it was the second time I had not passed the Ph.D. qualifying examination at the level of Doctor of Philosophy. Although I had passed at the M.S. level, I could not take additional coursework to raise my GPA according to the Department of Physics's rules.

I had no recourse except to file a complaint against UCSD with the U.S. Department of Education for violations of the Americans with Disability Act of 1990. My reasoning with the Dept. of Education was that UCSD's refusal to waive the grade point average requirement in light of my passing the extremely difficult qualifying examination constituted discrimination on the basis of disability. The university knew well that my disability contributed to my low GPA and that by passing the qualifying exam, I demonstrated competence in graduate level physics.

The dean of the Graduate Division sent me an acrimonious letter denying me still the master's degree in physics. I did not contest his decision because by then, 2003, I was attending the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for a master's degree in mathematics (which I never completed either). The Department of Education sent me a letter stating my case had been settled by "internal procedures", namely my not contesting UCSD's decision.

Looking back at it, I should have contested UCSD's decision with the Department of Education. I was in no condition to do so, though. Shortly after entering UNLV, I was hospitalized at Las Vegas Mental Health Center. In the end, I had no master's degree from UCSD nor from UNLV.

Still, UCSD's decision to deny me a master's degree had several consequences for me. I cannot hold a job as a community college instructor. My lack of a master's degree also made me less competitive or outright unqualified for many many other jobs. Also, it will lower my salary for any future jobs I might get, if I can ever get a job in the first place. I did not take UCSD's decision to deny me a master's degree lightly. There are consequences that I feel even today.

UCSD SUCKS!

Jobs

I'm going off topic for a while, but to a related topic--jobs. I have held only one so-called "real" job in my life, that as a software engineer. As a software engineer, I worked full-time, 8 am - 5 pm, Monday - Friday. I had a good salary and a complete benefits package including health insurance and a retirement plan.

I took this job for two reasons: I did not enjoy graduate school and most of all my entire extended family was pressuring me to get a "real" job. It took me half a year to get hired by my company after a painful job search. I was happy, but it seemed my family was doing cartwheels over my new job.

"He finally got a job!!!" they shouted in unison. "No more stupid graduate schools!!!"

I'll admit that working full-time was the most stable I ever was with bipolar disorder. Life was very predictable. I only had a disorder related absence for one week the entire time I worked as an engineer. Other than that, life seemed pretty normal. I could tell people I met, such as at a wedding I attended in 2000, that I worked as a software engineer for a living. Contrast that to now where I can't tell people I'm disabled (mentally). Things were good for the most part.

Yet, software engineering was not my intention for my life's work. I had always wanted to pursue science as a career. When I was a boy, I'd conduct all kinds of scientific experiments at home. Eventually I went back to graduate school; I reasoned that if I were to program computers all day long, then I might as well do it in a scientific environment.

I managed to find a research advisor who used computers extensively in his astrophysics research. Still, grad school did not work out for me again, and I ended up leaving again shortly after 9/11. In fact, I interviewed with Fox Network two days after the attack on America. My interview committee saw that I had attended Harvard University on my resume. Essentially, they accused me of being a liar. If I attended Harvard, why did I not put my GPA on my resume?

The answer is simple. I am one of the few people who managed to get admitted to Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences on less than a 4.0 GPA. I proved that it can be done. Yet, my GPA at Harvard, Duke, and UCSD were not something to be proud of, so I left them off my resume. Nevertheless, I never landed the job with Fox Network.

Without any income, I had to move to Las Vegas with my parents at age 30. My plan was simple--use the Internet to find jobs anywhere in the United States. I hoped to find work as an engineer or physical scientist. I didn't plan to stay in Vegas forever. I did apply for some software engineer jobs in Vegas, but ultimately the companies didn't hire me.

Several employers did call me for "pre-interview" interviews, such as NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. These pre-interview interviews were basically reconnaissance missions to determine whether to grant me a full-interview. Still, no employer hired me.

Once, the University of San Diego High School (USDHS) invited me to interview as a physics teacher. I took the bus from Vegas to San Diego and wore my suit. The principal didn't ask me any questions and instead took me on a tour of campus. Then he sent me on my way, no questions asked. When I returned to Las Vegas, my rejection letter for USDHS was already waiting for me.

I guess that the principal already knew whom he wanted as his physics teacher, but he needed by law to advertise the position. I kept using job search websites at the time, and I now question their effectiveness.

After my suicide attempt, I was not functional for years and I halted my job search. I kept getting hospitalized about 3 times a year for 2 or 3 years. I couldn't find a way to break the cycle.

Then around 2003, I decided to apply for graduate school again, but this time in mathematics. I landed a part-time job as a tutor of mathematics and physics at the Community College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas in the summer. By the end of the summer, the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) admitted me to the M.S. program in mathematics. UNLV hired me to teach mathematics as a graduate assistant.

Soon, my disorder reared its ugly head and I ended up at back at LVMH. My psychiatrist told me to withdraw from UNLV, which I did. By this time, I was going in and out of LVMH in a cycle. I couldn't figure out how to break the cycle of hospitalization and discharge.

Over the next few years, I returned to the community college 3 more times as a tutor. Still, I couldn't make a living as a part-time tutor so I continued searching for full-time work. After another hospitalization, a psychiatric technician suggested I pursue a career as a teacher.

My family planned to move back to California around 2004, and I looked into a career in education in California. I applied to two universities in California for teacher credentialing programs. The application process was extremely complex, including the background check. I withdrew my application from one university due to a dispute over my records, and the second one outright rejected me for my incomplete application.

I tried getting a job through California's Department of Rehabilitation (DOR). They seemed more interested in making me fill out paperwork than in finding work. Before they could help me find work, my family moved back to Nevada.

Back in Las Vegas, I applied for the teacher licensing program with the county school district. The school district rejected me on the first try. Later, they would call me to participate in the program. The pattern is I just wandered aimlessly from one job application to another, interview to inteview. Then I'd try to go back to graduate school in physics or electrical engineering, not being able to go for financial reasons or for getting rejected.

Around 2006, I landed a job as a tutor again at the College of Southern Nevada. I continued my pattern of using the Internet to look for full-time employment. For about a year, nobody would interview me. Eventually, I applied for a job as a forensic scientist with Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD). I studied hard for the examinations, ultimately passing all but one. LVMPD still would not hire anyone that didn't pass all the pre-employment examinations. Once again, no job.

I briefly studied for a teaching license with the school district, but I found a physical medical problem that prevented me from becoming a teacher of physics. I withdrew from the program, but in hindsight I should have consulted my doctor to correct the medical issue.

Finally in 2007, I just plugged away at the Internet looking for jobs anywhere in the U.S. For many additional months I looked for work, even work at a casino and at a shopping mall. Nobody would hire me, even the casino or the stores in the mall. Eventually, two employers, a nuclear power plant in California and the US Patent and Trademark Office in Virginia invited me for interviews at the same time. I chose to interview with the USPTO since they didn't have any pre-employment testing like the nuclear power plant did.

I flew to Washington, DC in late summer of 2007, and borrowed over $1,000 for my trip. I toured the National Mall, and interviewed with the USPTO in Alexandria, Virginia. Still, the USPTO didn't hire me. Only my tour of Washington, DC made the expensive trip worthwhile.

So there it is. Since leaving graduate school shortly after 9/11 until the present, I have been unable to land any kind of full-time employment. Interviews are rare, and offers of employment are nonexistent. The disorder plays a large part of my inability to find work. Sometimes, I just want to quit looking for work and live off of Social Security, but that's unrealistic. When my parents die, I'll probably have to live in a group home or on the streets.

Central Intelligence Agency Delusion

I don't know why it is, but many mentally ill people believe they have some affiliation with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). That includes me. In spite of the medications, I often exhibit symptoms of bipolar disorder, such as delusions.

At one hospitalization at LVMH, my psychiatrist, one Dr. Aralicia, met me in his office. I had applied for the real CIA in the Directorate of Science and Technology and in the Satellite Reconnaissance Division. Dr. Aralicia told me that he was a CIA operative and that the Agency had received my application. He said the CIA wanted to hire me, and I needed to sign some papers to get on the payroll. The CIA would pay me through Social Security disability payments (which I received anyway), according to the good doctor. My cover was the fact I was an unemployed disabled man, and Dr. Aralicia said it was the perfect cover.

According to the psychiatrist, my mission was to verify on the ground what the CIA reconnaissance satellites saw. After that, I left Dr. Aralicia's office, and he never spoke of the "mission" again. I eventually was discharged from the psychiatric hospital, but I had no way of knowing if my encounter with a CIA operative was real or imaginary.

I often have arguments with my parents. Mostly I just vent my frustrations with my life to them, often to the point of me shouting at them. One time, they became fearful enough to call the police. The cops came to our house and said, "Are you going to hurt yourself or other people?"

"I might," I replied. The police escorted me to some paramedics who were waiting at their ambulance. They took me to a regular hospital in North Las Vegas. There, the ER doctor was a jerk and said arguing with parents was not an illness. He discharged me from the ER and said to go to a homeless shelter.

I wandered the streets of North Las Vegas and Las Vegas. Then I wondered if I were really a CIA operative. I went to a casino and tried to get a meal. "How much is the government rate?" I asked the hostess at the casino's restaurant. Eventually, the casino's security forces swung into action. They directed me to a taxi at a strip club nearby. I was testing whether or not I worked for the Agency. My goal was to see if I could get to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

I theorized that the Luxor light, which emanates from the Luxor Resort and Casino and points straight into the sky over Las Vegas, could attract reconnaissance satellites while degrading their orbits. Thus eventually, it would make reconnaissance satellites crash into the pyramid shaped Luxor Hotel and possibly all over Las Vegas. I needed to warn CIA headquarters of the weakness in their spy satellites, or so I thought.

I told the taxi cab driver to take me to the Paris Resort and Casino, even though I had no money. I knew a cashier there, my choir director, and I hoped she could identify me to the resort officials. When we reached the resort entrance, I said to the doorman, "Pay my driver. I work for the CIA."

Eventually, the head of security came over. The security people humored me as I explained my story. The head of security, a big fat man with a goatee, said that Paris Resort and Casino often worked with the CIA, and they had contacted them about me. I instructed them to contact the naval R & D laboratory where I had worked since they had my picture ID badge in their database. I hoped the Navy lab would fax my picture to the Paris Resort and Casino, and that I could use it for my trip to CIA headquarters.

The head of security told me that the CIA had a jet waiting for me at McCarran Airport, but first I had to be cleared for flight medically. He told me to get into an ambulance that was parked at the resort entrance. So I went into the ambulance where two paramedics were waiting for me.

Little did I realize at the time that the hotel security staff was pulling off a hoax. They took me to Desert Springs Hospital, where I landed in the psychiatric holding area of the ER. I still believed I was with the CIA. The nurse humored me--"Sure you're with the CIA," she'd say.

I decided to alert the President of the United States of the weakness in the reconnaissance satellites. Eventually, I realized the big ruse the resort and hospital had been pulling on me. I knew they didn't believe my story, and I found out they were sending me to Las Vegas Mental Health Center, the state mental institution of southern Nevada. I was angry, but the delusion persisted.

At LVMH, I wrote dozens of letters to President George W. Bush about the weakness in the satellites. I concocted a story that he should issue an executive order to have every city in the U.S. launch fireworks from September 11 to July 4 every year as a memorial for the victims of 9/11. Therefore, the light from the fireworks would distract the reconnaissance satellites and keep them from homing in on the Luxor light.

Nobody really took me seriously, and I doubt the staff at LVMH even sent the letters to the president. Such delusions and mania just further eroded my credibility, especially with my own family. The whole affair illustrates how difficult it is to treat many mental illnesses. I always take my medications and go to therapy. Yet, my religious attention to my treatment doesn't prevent incidents like this one.

I often say to people, "Medication and therapy won't get me a Ph.D. or a job."

To which they'd say, "Medication and therapy will put you in a state of mind so you can get a job."

To this day, I struggle with delusions, mania, and depression no matter what medications I take or how often I attend therapy. Some days are good, while some days are bad.

Life Before Bipolar Disorder

To lighten up this blog, I'll contrast life after bipolar disorder with life before bipolar disorder. Before contracting bipolar disorder, I was an unusual person, but otherwise I was normal. I went to high school in the late 1980s and graduated at the top of my class. I attended the University of California at Berkeley for college in the early 1990s. I played trombone in the University of California Marching Band, and I had many friends.

I had two goals in life: graduate from Berkeley and attend the most prestigious university for graduate school that would admit me. I was extremely driven, even spending 20 hours straight studying one day. I did take breaks for meals, but otherwise I spent that whole day studying. I majored in physics.

In my junior year, I landed a job at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where I built and tested particle detectors for research in nuclear astrophysics. The next year, I transferred to a different research group where I made and tested X-ray mirrors. At the same time, I worked for a physics professor who researched experimental atomic and nuclear physics.

I never had a girlfriend at Berkeley, but I had many candidates. Some of the names included Heather, Anna, Gabrielle, Teresa, and Jennifer. I had never gone on a date until I went to college at Berkeley. In some ways, I regret not being more assertive with the women in college because I can't find a single woman nowadays.

Berkeley was fun, in spite of the hard work. As a member of the marching band, I attended every home football game. Band members socialized a lot and there were many band romances, even marriages.

I studied a lot, often pulling all-nighters. My hard work paid off. The U.S. Department of Defense in 1993 awarded me a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG Fellowship). I also won Honorable Mentions in the fellowship competitions of the National Science Foundation and the Ford Foundation. I had applied for 16 universities and colleges for graduate studies in physics, and 11 of them admitted me for either the master's degree or Ph.D. programs in physics. The last university to admit me was Harvard University.

So in 1993, I had everything I wanted: a bachelor's degree in physics from UC Berkeley, an NDSEG Fellowship, and admission to Harvard University to pursue a Ph.D. in physics. It was at this point that I first heard the voice claiming to be God. I had my fun before the bipolar disorder, and once it reared its ugly head, my life would never be the same.

Life With Bipolar Disorder

I haven't given many specifics about bipolar disorder, my particular mental illness. By strict definition, it means that I get extremely depressed, to the point of becoming suicidal. Then my mood swings until I get euphoric that lots of things can happen. One area I want to address is something the psychiatrists call "religiousity".

I was baptized Roman Catholic, but durng college at the University of California at Berkeley, I was Catholic in name only. When I heard the voice in my mind claiming to be God, I became a super Catholic because essentially I thought I was the next Moses. After all, the voice said it was God and that it had a mission for me.

Still, hearing the "god" voice began the destruction of my life. Nothing good came of my religious experiences except that I finally rejected God and embraced atheism.

For a long time, I had religious experiences. For example, I would find writing in my Bible that I didn't write. I thought that God had written in my Bible. Everyone, especially the priests, said that I wrote in my Bible myself and just forgot that I did it. The funny thing is one time a passage that was underlined in my Bible was read at church a few weeks after I discovered it. Things like that convinced me that the supernatural was happening to me. Of course, nobody believed me. They always came up with "logical" explanations, even if their explanations were impossible considering what I knew about a so-called supernatural experience.

When people failed to contrive an adequate explanation for my supernatural experiences, they fell back to the "you're just crazy" default blanket explanation. For example, I saw a toy shield with a cross on it rotate several times and move across my couch in my apartment in North Carolina. When I told people about things like this, they dismissed it as a hallucination. It didn't matter if they were my family, priests, or psychiatrists.

I didn't know what exactly I was trying to prove with my supernatural experiences. The more supernatural experiences I had, the higher the dosage of antipsychotic medication my psychiatrists prescribed to suppress them. When they failed to suppress the supernatural phenomena, the psychiatrists labeled me as having schizoaffective disorder, which is the default diagnosis that means, "I don't know what's wrong with you."

I once saw a book titled "God's Lite Chicken Soup for the Spirit" materialize in my brother's hand in the book store. I paid the cashier for it like any other book. I figured that God gave it to me. It was January 1996, and the inside cover of the book said it was first printed in March 1996, two months in the future.

I labeled supernatural occurences like this "minor miracles", but they gave me so much grief. When I showed people the book, nobody thought there was anything special about it. My brother didn't even remember giving me the book, much less it materializing in his hand. People to whom I showed the materializing book from the future came up with a plethora of explanations like I just took the book from the bookshelves of the bookstore.

Eventually, I became so upset that my campus minister recommended that I seek spiritual direction, which is basically therapy the Roman Catholic way. Priests are the most skeptical people about the supernatural. I had several spiritual directors over time, and the last one said my mental illness started at the same time as my supernatural experiences. Therefore the mental illness caused the supposedly supernatural events.

I'll admit I have experiences that having nothing to do with religion. Can anyone explain this one? After 9/11, I began to feel earthquakes that nobody else could feel. My psychiatrist said that I probably was having tactile hallucinations, which are ones that people feel without stimulus. He said it was a little unusual for a tactile hallucination.

Sometimes, I plain just hear voices in my head. They go away by themselves or with medication. Nowadays I have terrible anxiety. The kookiest thing I ever saw was a cross made out of fire and surrounded by circles of fire. I could never explain that one. That thing started my whole religion trip. I was certain I was Moses #2 after seeing that.

Still, my preoccupation with faith led to my eventual destruction. Here I type away while everybody else passes me on the highway of life. My worst enemy from high school is now a police officer, one of the "good guys". People I knew from high school and college went on to earn higher degrees and became doctors, professors, naval officers, engineers, optometrists, and a host of other professionals. They live life to the fullest, while I suck taxpayers' money. My dream was to be a scientist, but my belief in the collective delusion known as God killed my dream.

Mental Hospitals

If you're unfortunate enough to have a mental illness, there's a good chance that you've spent time in a mental hospital, sometmes known as a psychiatric hospital. Regular hospitals also have psychiatric or mental wards. Whatever the name, I've spent time in one at one time or another.

The first one I stayed in was called McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. I was a graduate student at Harvard at the time, and the place was a country club compared to the psychiatric hospital in which I spent the most time almost ten years later, Las Vegas Mental Health Center (LVMH). After my suicide attempt, the doctor transferred me from the regular hospital to LVMH. That's when I thought I had died and gone to Hell for committing suicide.

I stayed in LVMH about 9 times for various reasons. There the staff, most psychiatric technicians, regularly engages in torturing mental patients. I have spent several days and nights in the infamous "RESTRAINT ROOM". Strangely, I often go to LVMH for suicidal ideation, but once I'm there I become delusional. It occurred to me that the approach the psychiatrists and other staff take is, "Throw medication down his throat and see what happens. If he becomes psychotic, lock him up in the restraint room."

The psychiatrist doesn't know ahead of time the effect of the medications on mental patients. It's all trial and error. My own little theory applies Newton's third law - for every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction. This could apply to medication. Too much antidepressants make you depressed, even suicidal. Too much antipsychotic medications make you psychotic. It's that simple. I suspect that the doctors at LVMH simply picked antipsychotic medications randomly and relied on their army of psychiatric technicians to keep people like me under control if something went wrong.

One time I spent at LVMH, I found myself crawling on the floor for no reason. When I "awoke", I could not stand anymore because I had a ruptured tendon on my knee. The staff had to hold me up to let me use the restroom or to get to the tables to have my meals. Most likely, the psychiatrist prescribed a bad amount of antipsychotic drugs. The "official" cause of my knee injury was my crawling on the floor. I blame psychiatrist for prescribing the antipsychotic drugs. It took several years before I could walk without a cane. To this day, my knee is still injured although I can walk almost normally. I cannot run at all anymore, thanks to the chemical and physical torture at Las Vegas Mental Health Center.

They do still tie people down with belts to a bed bolted to the floor. There are belts for a patient's wrists and ankles as well as for his or her chest and legs. If I ever was restrained with belts to the bed, I have only fleeting memories of it. The pscychiatric drugs suppress memory just like date rape drugs.

Most of the time, for reasons I don't know, I find myself locked in the restraining room. I'd bang on the door for the staff to let me out. Instead they just close additional doors to drown out my screams. The first time the staff locked me in a restraining room was when I started running up some stairs in the patio due to voices in my head telling me I'd go to Hell for doing to the contrary.

An army of psychiatric technicians chased me and dragged me to the restraining room. The nurse pulled down my pants and injected me in the buttocks with what I think is Haldol, a powerful antipsychotic drug. I ran around the bed in circles until I passed out.

There is no such thing as freedom and rights in a mental hospital. Psychiatric technicians will openly insult you if they feel like it. When I was still Catholic, I did my devotions to St. Dymphna, the patron saint of the mentally ill. One technician said to me, "Saints are just dead people." Even though I'm atheist now, I'd like someone to respect my religion or lack thereof.

The restraining room is interesting. Usually, if I do something unusual, the technicians tell me to sleep in the restraining room. They would sometimes take a chair by the door and read a magazine while observing me. For no reason, someone would slam the door to the restraining room and lock it. Then I'd have all sorts of strange dreams while I'm still awake. Again the doctors most likely overdosed me on antipsychotic drugs. Basically, they'd lure me into the restraining room and then lock it once I'm in.

The weirdest experience is a restraining room was time I thought that the hospital had been buried by rubble in a nuclear attack. I thought I was trapped in an air bubble under the rubble. I eventually stopped banging on the door because I figured nobody else was probably alive.

Life Today

In my past posts, I wrote in generalities about the past, but where am I now? I basically do nothing all day. I receive disability from the Social Security Administation. At middle-age, I live with my mother and father. I do not work as I have explained in my previous post.



I have no friends, at least no friends here in ***FABULOUS*** Las Vegas. I have no girlfriend or wife. Life is miserable. I cannot even explain to normies that I have a disability, because my disabiliy is one you're not supposed to have. I made a conscious decision to not try to make friends anymore because most people condemn me for having a mental illness.



They say it's my fault I contracted bipolar disorder due to my not eating right, poor upbringing by my parents, or my plain immorality. They just want to assure themselves that their "superior" habits and practices are what keep them from contracting a mental illness.



So I have to stay in the closet with my mental condition. I only talk to health care workers, my family, and the employees at stores, restaurants, etc. I try to stay as anonymous as possible.



Since I left graduate school in 2001, I have been unable to obtain full-time employment despite my best efforts. The best I could do was work as a tutor of mathematics and physics at the Community College of Southern Nevada (now College of Southern Nevada). The work was part-time and carried no benefits.



I puzzled my co-workers, most of whom were college students who could only work part-time or had to work two part-time jobs. They could not understand how I could support myself on only one part-time job. I seemed like a normal person when I came to work each day. One co-worker just asked me, "What do you do with all your extra time?"



"I drive my parents to the doctor," I said. It was necessary to keep our car available in the morning since my parents are too old to drive. That was why I worked in the afternoons and evenings only.



"What? You drive your parents every day to the doctor?" said my co-worker.



The basic problem I had with working was explaining my unusual life situation. My co-workers constantly asked me questions about my life history and my current life situation. I didn't want to come out and just say, "I'm crazy, and that's why my life is a mess!" I found myself making up small lies to cover my condition as a bipolar man. The more lies I made up, the worse my situation became at the college.

Then I'd have to explain why a middle-age man like me still lives with his parents. I explained that in a previous post. My student co-workers often lived on financial aid from the college, so they wondered why I didn't have a "real" job as a college graduate with graduate school credit. Why did I not work 8 am - 5 pm, own an SUV, own a house, have a wife and 2.3 children? What was my story, they wondered?

At College of Southern Nevada I was constantly on guard to protect my dark secret. I acted like a normal person, not screaming, "Repent! The end is at hand!" in the hallways. If I were normal, why didn't I live like a normal person (defined as a man who works 8 am - 5 pm, owns an SUV, owns a house, and has a wife and 2.3 children)?

Part of their problem was as young adults, my co-workers at College of Southern Nevada had never experienced REAL hardship. They weren't old enough to have something really bad happen to them (e.g. contract a severe mental illness or physical illness). In their naive young minds, people get everything they want as long as they work hard. They could not understand why I went to graduate school at places like Harvard University and Duke University without earning a Ph.D. Doesn't everyone who attends Harvard or Duke earn a degree? Universities never tell prospective students that their chances of success (graduation AND gainful employment) are less than 100%.

Instead, universities tout their success stories. All the universities I attended send me magazines filled with success stories of alumni. They would never publish my story, a promising young scientist who lost his mind. So my naive young co-workers at College of Southern Nevada have delusions in their minds that upon earning their bachelor's degrees or higher, someone will hand them a check for a billion dollars so they'll never have to work again.

Stigma and Discrimination

In my last post, I gave the history of my life with mental illness in a nutshell. In this post, I will outline the dark side of mental illness. There exists a strong stigma with mental illness, and people with mental illness often suffer discrimination. Despite my efforts to work and be a productive member of American society, I never can land full-time employment. Always in some way, my failure to gain employment has its roots in mental illness, often in the form of discrimination.



Sometimes the discrimination is overt. Sometimes, it's subtle. For example, I interviewed for a position as a mathematics teacher at a private high school in Las Vegas. The interview committee simply asked me to tell them about myself. They couldn't believe I had attended three universities for graduate school, and they demanded explanations. Eventually, I volunteered the information that I suffer from a "mental disability". Despite my assurances that I am getting treatment for it and the condition is under control, the interview committee grew hostile. Everything I said after the revelation became offensive to them. After the interview I felt like vomitting. Nevertheless I didn't get the job.



Never try to work for the Department of Defense or for a defense contractor if you suffer from a mental illness. You will never get approved for a security clearance, which is necessary for keeping your job. A defense contractor in San Diego hired me as a software engineer, and I worked under probation while the Dept. of Defense processed my security clearance application. One question on the security clearance application asks is, "Have you ever sought treatment from a psychiatrist or psychologist?" Since it's bad to lie to the government, especially the Dept. of Defense, I truthfully answered "Yes".

About one year later, a special agent from the Defense Security Services (DSS) came to my office. He flashed his DSS badge and asked to "interview" me. It turned out to be an interrogation. This was pre-9/11. The special agent questioned me about my psychiatric history. He was mostly interested in getting me to sign away my privacy rights to my medical records. This gave him access to every psychiatrist I had ever seen and to medical records at every psychiatric hospital where I had stayed.

My psychiatrist at the time reported to me that the special agent had visited her, asking questions about my illness. She merely told him that bipolar disorder causes bad judgment, which it does. The DSS special agent returned repeatedly to my office to interrogate my co-workers. My co-workers were alarmed because they asked me questions like, "What did you do?" I truly felt like the DSS special agent suspected me of criminal actions.

While mentally ill people often commit crimes, mental illness itself is not a crime. Still, society treats it as one. I have never committed a crime, but my condition automatically makes me a suspect. In short, not all mentally ill people are criminals. Psychiatric disorders are medical issues. I quit the job before the DSS special agent could complete my security clearance investigation. For months before he showed up at my office, I had been planning to return to graduate school.

By the time he did show up to interrogate me, UCSD readmitted me, and I was drafting my resignation statement for my boss. Most likely, the Department of Defense would reject my application for a security clearance due to my psychiatric history, and I would have lost my job.

As I mentioned before, UCSD turned out to be a total failure. Years later, after being unable to land a full-time job, I decided to become a high school physics teacher in California. To become a teacher in California, you need a Certificate of Clearance. You must submit fingerprints, and then the California Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI conducted background investigations on you. The first question on background asks, "Do you have any physical or mental restrictions that prevent you from exercising your duties as a teacher?"

The truth was, "Yes," because bipolar disorder can get bad enough for me to go to a hospital for a few days to a few weeks, but by then the disorder was under control with medication and therapy. Nobody can predict the state of his or her health, regardless of whether it's mental or physical. Since that was post-9/11, I decided against becoming a teacher because of the intense scrutiny I would receive from answering that question affirmatively. Society views people like me as a threat, which is unfounded. If I were such a raving lunatic, I would not be able even to write this blog.

I became an atheist because of the discrimination I received from the Roman Catholic Church. I had wanted to become a Roman Catholic priest, but every religious order and diocese rejected me for their priestly formation programs. Like the Department of Defense, the vocations directors ask you, "Have you ever seen a psychiatrist or psychologist?" If you answer, "Yes", the Church will bar you from the priesthood. I tried religious order after religious order and diocese after diocese for a decade, and every single one of them rejected me solely because I sought treatment from psychiatrists. One Franciscan vocation director said his order would consider me if my psychiatrist took me off all medications. It is precisely the medications that keep me stable enough to function. The Franciscan was unreasonable and quite ignorant of the nature of mental illness. The Roman Catholic Church is hardly the keeper of all that is good and holy in the world.

Lastly, I looked into attending law school to become an intellectual property attorney. Eventually I found that most state bar associations prohibit people like me who have psychiatric issues from practicing law. Still, I did some research and found I could have conditional admission to the bar. Denial of admission to the bar constitutes a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The ABA did decide to provide for conditional admission to state bar associations for former mental patients.

Yet, as a former mental patient, I would be treated differently than other lawyers by my state bar association. I would be subject to mental fitness reports, which attorneys without mental health issues, would not be subject to. The state bar can force me to meet higher standards than the so-called "normies", or normal people, people without a diagnosis of mental illness. That and the fact I can't afford the law school destroyed my law career.

So in general, if you have a mental illness, society subjects you to discrimination and stigma that is like racial and sexual discrimination. Although my condition affects my behavior, I never chose to have bipolar disorder. The disorder chose me. I choose to obey the law, and it is mentally ill people who chose to break it that make life difficult for law abiding citizens like me. I have no hope of a normal, productive life. I will be on government welfare programs for the disabled for life the way things are going. When my parents die, most likely I will live on the streets like so many other mentally ill people.

Bipolar Times

While the title of this blog may be Random Thoughts, I plan to write mostly about a specific topic, namely mental illness, a very sensitive subject. My life was relatively normal until one day at Duke University in North Carolina I heard a voice in my mind say to me, "This is God, and I have a mission for you." Since then, my life has fallen apart, and I have gone from Roman Catholic to atheist. There cannot be a god after all I've gone through. No loving and good god would let people suffer from mental illness.

The psychiatrists eventually diagnosed that I suffer from bipolar disorder, a severe mental illness. The voice started speaking to me in the summer of 1993 while I was working as a research assistant at the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory at Duke. In the fall of 1993, I was bound for Harvard University to study for a Ph.D. in physics under a fellowship from the U.S. Department of Defense. Since then, I never earned the Ph.D. and now I am permanently disabled due to the condition I have.

I do not work at all, or the U.S. government will take away my Social Security disability income and my health insurance, which I desperately need for my expensive treatment for bipolar disorder. I cannot afford my own home, and the only way my life works is I have to live with my aging and ailing parents. Sometimes, it's me who takes care of them and as they grow older, I will have to take more responsibility for them.

My life is a life of despair and hopelessness. My dream had been to work as a scientist, a physicist to be exact. Bipolar disorder shattered my dream. I eventually dropped out of Harvard and tried again at Duke University to earn a Ph.D. in physics. Failing health, mental and physical, forced me to drop out of Duke and to declare bankruptcy. I briefly worked for the Navy at an R & D laboratory in San Diego, California. I finally attended the University of California of San Diego (UCSD) to try to complete my Ph.D.

To earn a Ph.D. in physics at most universities, a graduate student must pass a written qualifying examination in his or her first or second year in the program. The qualifying exam tests all undergraduate level physics plus the first year of graduate school. If you fail it, the university expels you.

The exam, which I took on September 11, was so difficult I was convinced that I failed it. After the test, I immediately moved to my parents' home in Las Vegas, Nevada. I attempted to commit suicide, but survived of course. Since then I have been unable to recover and live a normal life. But life has been abnormal since 1993.