STEPHEN FRY

I don't go anywhere without my houseboy. I hope he will be welcome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UD2ieV70c7k

On a serious note, I grew up with my dad in the military and now married to a man in the military. I have moved all my life and sometimes things got better and sometimes they got worse. Tito is right, you can move but your brain goes with you. It feels good initially to have a "clean slate". I got really good at putting on masks. No wonder I chose Drama for my electives in school.

I was happiest and had great friends living in Georgia from 6th grade to 8th grade. Then we moved back to Colorado. From 9th grade on pretty well sucked, but that is where I decided to settle when given the choice after my parents divorced. I still wonder why that is sometimes. I think my connection with my dad might have over shadowed the negative.

What would I do in the highlands? Garden, paint, maybe write, yeah. Whatever i wanted i guess!
Though in reality, as i can't move out of my own head, i would probably end up going stir crazy and be miserable.
I like being alone too. Don't know what it is. Sometimes i feel lonely, but i also like being alone.

I want to go to a place where i can stand on the top of a hill and look around 360 degrees and see nothing man made. No buildings, telegraph wires, stone walls, nothing. Just wild, in all directions.

I reckon it takes a slightly crazy person to be able to cope with isolation. I have a suspicion that most people who we class as 'normal' are so busy running around keeping busy that they don't listen to themselves and their thoughts, certainly not the darker ones. And confronted with nothingness, no distractions, they come face to face with bits of themselves they may not like.
Whereas people with MH issues often have to live with the darker side of themselves, or at least have met it, know what it is and how it works, and so we are less scared of it. Hence when we are on our own, no distractions, we're not scared of ourselves.

But on other hand, and there is always one.... you could argue that we keep the dark thoughts at bay by being distracted with 'normal' life, and if we were on our own nothing could stop the crap from crashing in.

That's very true greentree. Not many of the seemingly 'normal' people i meet seem to think too deeply about life or world issues. They seem very content with busying themselves with simple things, making a family etc.

Although i love being alone at home, i've been to places on my own in Oz, places like you mentioned, look around 360 degrees and see nothing man made. I was surprised, i actually felt quite spooked. I began to think about silly things like Serial killers and realized i was at the mercy of anything more powerful, be it animal, human or the elements. Anything could happen to me out there and nobody would ever know. Just being a girl i guess!

Buddhist monks seem to magage it don't they, when they go off into the mountains alone to meditate for months on end. They always seem really together to me.

I love being alone when I'm feeling down. Just walking across the fields opposite my house with some music on, letting the air roll over me. There's a point just over the second field where it dips down, and you're just surrounded by hedges, trees, and the sky... no matter how bad I feel it always makes me feel a little better! I tend to think a lot about mortality when things aren't going so well, but being surrounded by nature, having something soothing playing in the background... it makes it a lot more bearable!

I have always liked to be alone. On the other hand, as Greentree put it, not when there are alot of people around. I would not dare go to a resteraunt to eat by myself. In my high school days I spent alot of time alone. I did not belong to any "group" and wandering past or sitting next to groups or pairs of people made me feel awkward. I tried to tell myself how stupid that was, after all I like to be alone.

When my younger sisters had friends over they would warn them "just ignore my sister, she does not like people." I always tried to have a sinister kind of alloof attitude about me. I got a kick out of the idea that my sisters friends might be afraid of me.

Perhaps I did this to fool myself. If I acted like this was my choice not to have oodles of friends over all the time, I believed it after a while. I had one good friend, and really to this day I would rather have one good friend than a ton of so so friends.

Now that I have a family I crave having time alone more and more. The time between my kids going to bed and when I go to bed is gone in a flash. Iam rarely alone anymore and when I am the time is spent on appts., errands.........nothing for just me, for my enjoyment.

As for the dark thoughts, I have always had them too I think. When I was little I was afraid of fires under my bed, afraid the witch from Sleeping Beauty was going to jump out of the book and get me so I put heavy things on top of it, and the shadow my ceiling light made looked like a skull to me.

As I got older my fears turned into kind of a dark humor I suppose. As Quantum eluded to, it all kind of turns into something laughable. My favorite movies and shows are all dark. Silence of the Lambs, all time favorite movie. Dexter and SFU, best shows ever. Whoever writes those has dark, sinister thoughts and I find it refreshing when I watch or read something and I can say "Wow! I have always thought that too!"

They are just thoughts right? I often get angry when someone is walking across the street slowly where they should not even be crossing and think how it would serve them right if I ran their ass over. Or came close enough to scare the shit out of them. I would not actually do it, but strangely takes the anger away to think about.

I feel dumb for posting this. Dumb and trivial.
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If anyone has suggestions or insight into this I would appreciate any and all ideas.

Pretty well at a lose atm. Hard to know the difference between bipolar and ADHD. It seems the more enjoyable things he gets to do, the more ragefull he is later when all the fun is over.

We went out to eat Fri night, had two basketball games Sat and hung out at the youth center after, Sun got to play with friends across the street to ride bikes, skateboards and let him bring out his mototcycle.

That night he complained of a stomach ache and when he asked for dessert I told him no. If your stomach is too upset to eat dinner the last thing he needs is biscuits or icecream.

He got so angry and started cursing, threatened to go live with his dad and pushed me into the fridge. My husband intervened and had to hold him on the floor for almost an hour before he calmed down.

When all was over he cried and wanted hugs and said how terrible he felt. It always seems the more he gets to do, the worse the fall out when it is over. Does this seem to fit bipolar? If not I might need to give more attention to the ADHD aspect.

I talked to the school therapist and explained it seemed that he is trying to maintain that rush when doing fun things and when they are over he does not want that feeling to go, so he turns the rush to a negative. She did not give me any real answer, but seemed to think this more ADHD related.

I thought the same about him wanting to maintain the elation. The school therapist kid of shrugged me off a bit when I mentioned it. I don't know if that is what she was trying to do. She might not have had an answer. I will be glad for my son to see his regular therapist again. She has been out for hip surgery.

All of these things are hard enough for adults to wrap their heads around and I think so much harder for kids. My son will be 12 next month. Very quickly puberty is going to throw itself into the mix.

Since parents are idots, I am trying to find him a peer group. Until then I found a couple of books. Bipolar workbook for teens, Taking the Grrrr out of Anger, Putting on the breaks and Fighting Invisible Tigers. He was reading Taking the Grrr out of Anger and it described anger like a beach ball. As hard as you try to push it down into the water it will always explode back to the surface. He really, really got that.

As far as the ADHD goes there are three types. I am the inatentive type. Not all people with ADHD act like Jim Carey.

Thank you Greentree. XXXXX