Happy Late Birthday Kia Bird

Here's to the next 30.

It Happened Today, Hooray!

One year ago today my transformation from fine to not was officially complete. This time last year I was at University Hospital, strapped to a bed, and trying to convince myself that the cause for my insanity was some divine purpose from above; some great lesson I was learning that would change my life forever, but would require this horrible experience. The experience I'm relating to you is of being trapped in a part of your mind you didn't even know existed. To be so trapped in this place that you perceive everything as a validation of its purpose. A positive affirmation that what you are doing is for a great purpose, even though it goes against everything you know yourself to be.

I experienced just this situation last year when I had my first, and hopefully only, manic episode. Until this time I had no idea that I was even bipolar. I had no history of depression or mania, nor does my immediate family. We would find out (quite obviously in hindsight) that my mania was triggered by several factors in my life. Work was insanely stressful with the 60+ students I had between three classes in two schools, in addition to the four students I was tutoring. Work stress led to lack of sleep, which led to lack of food, which led to mania. The events leading to me going to the ER at University Hospital are too personal to post, but as many of you know my stay there led to a week long stay in a behavioral health unit in Utah County. My time there was incredible and I learned some of the most amazing lessons I will ever learn. I also met some of the most amazing people I will ever have the honor of crossing paths with.

The first of these truly wonderful people I want to mention is a nurse by the name of Stephen. My first encounter with Stephen was my first morning in the hospital. After heavy sedation, I was awakened to the sound of the director of the center, Dr. Harlan, busting into my room and screaming, "Hi, I'm Dr. Harlan, I bet they didn't tell you about me!" I had been so heavily sedated that I didn't know I was in Utah County, let alone that there was a Dr. Harlan and he was the director of the place. So I have a meeting with Dr. Harlan to go over things, etc, and afterward a nurse by the name of Stephen comes in. He sits down and asks some questions, but in an amazingly understanding tone. I responded in one of the questions with a curse word, as I sometimes do, but instantly apologized and asked how he felt about swearing. He said it's not really his thing, and I proceeded to answer his questions. I mention this part because I never swore the remainder of the time I was in the hospital. This guy had my respect that fast because of the way he treated me. He was the one nurse to treat me with that kind of respect in that entire place, and he will never know how much it meant to be treated like a human being again.

The other person I'd like to mention is actually people. They are all of my fellow patients. In my encounters with them over that week I was honored to hear and share some of the most amazing experiences and stories that I ever have, and I know I will never experience anything like that again. I had some incredibly meaningful conversations with people, and every one of them left me feeling an insane amount of love and respect for my new friends. They taught me that everyone in life is where they are for a reason. None of us has the right to see someone in a situation and make any judgments or assumptions. I never would have imagined being where I was this time last year, but when I got there and met these people, I saw that we all get to places and any number of ways. Our experiences are what make us who we are and these people were amazing.

In closing I'd like to say that my initial feelings about this experiences ended up not being that far off. Although I no longer feel this experience was a divine one, I do feel it is the greatest learning experience of my entire life. I learned more about myself in the last year than in the last 28 combined. And now, one year later, as I look at where I've come, I know I'm just beginning this journey of recovering from what happened and rediscovering myself as a person. It's been a crazy ride so far, and I can't wait to see where it takes me next.

Child Abuse Awareness

It is estimated that over 900,000 children are abused annually in the U.S. (U.S. Dept. of Heath & Human Services, 2008). The abuse comes in many forms, whether it be physical, emotional, or neglect. These abuses can have both immediate and long-term effects for those being abused. Immediate effects of abuse include physical injury, kids acting out in school through fighting, acting inappropriately with other students, being abrasive with adults, and having an overall negative attitude about school. These immediate effects, in turn, lead to long-term effects that include teen smoking, drug and alcohol use, violence, and increased high school drop out rates (Kelley, Thornberry, & Smith, 1997). In addition to these overt effects, more psychological outcomes of abuse include depression, dissociative disorders, and even suicide attempts (Silverman, Reinherz, & Giaconia, 1996). Without intervention, these things can lead to a chain of violent and destructive behavior that is passed through generations that is very difficult to stop. As the old saying goes, "violence breeds violence."

In order to effectively stop the problem of child abuse in our country, we must first be able to identify the signs that a child is being abused. Physical abuse can evidence itself through minor injuries such as cuts and bruises, as well as more serious injuries, such as broken bones and hemorrhages. In addition to these physical signs, abuse can also show itself in a child's behavior, often times resulting in withdrawn, socially inappropriate, and in many cases, violent behavior. Children who are abused develop a view of adults as people to be feared or resented (more so than normal child resentment of adults). This leads to negative behaviors toward adults that can be signs that a child is being abused. The most common of these behaviors is withdrawal. Children will shut down, or go into their own world when approached by adults and refuse to communicate. Any physical contact is resisted with force and, often times, the child will become violent or abrasive with adults.

So how do we help fight the problem of child abuse in our country? Research shows that children who have been abused have a better chance of success in life when they develop "resilience," or the ability to cope or thrive following negative experiences. The biggest factors related to this resilience are self-esteem, intelligence, humor, creativity, and acceptance. These kids need to feel valued and that they are somebody worthy of a good life. And this is where we adults can come in. As adults, we have the opportunity to foster in these kids the kind of self-esteem, confidence, and knowledge that can help them cope with abuse at home. We can give them a place and support when they have nothing else. The easiest way to help in this way is to VOLUNTEER. Boys and Girls Clubs across the country have been serving as places for kids to go, have fun, and be accepted for many years. Volunteer at your local Boys and Girls Club to coach a team, teach a skill, or just help kids with their homework. If this isn't up your alley, volunteer at your child's school. School's are always looking for volunteers to help with reading, social skills, art, and basically anything you could bring to the table. Call your child's teacher or principal and ask how you can help. Many schools also offer after-school programs, which are great opportunities to make a difference in these kids' lives. The more positive experiences with adults these kids have, the stronger their resilience will become to the abuse they may be facing at home.

Finally, if you suspect that a child has been abused, report it. Don't even think twice about it. All it takes is one phone call to the Child Abuse Hotline (800) 678-9399 and they'll take it from there. This phone number is linked to the Utah Division of Child and Family Services as well as many other states' departments. In addition to the hotline, other resources include the following websites:

Child Abuse and Neglect http://www.childwelfare.gov/can/

Defining Child Abuse and Neglect http://www.childwelfare.gov/can/defining/

Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect http://www.childwelfare.gov/preventing/

Reporting Child Abuse and Neglect http://www.childwelfare.gov/responding/reporting.cfm

In closing, let me share a song that always comes to mind when I hear of a child being abused. The reason for this is a personal one for me. In my first year of teaching I suspected a child of being abused. She was a beautiful 10 year old girl with the sweetest spirit ever, but she was withdrawn and scared of adults. I discussed her situation with the school social worker and we had discovered that she was abused. Over the next year and a half we were able to work with her to put her in a nice foster home with a loving family, who I am still in contact with, and she is doing very well in her new situation. When she had left my class initially (to change grades, not schools), I had given the students a CD at the end of the year with songs that meant something to me. When I saw her the next year after summer she told me that she listened to the CD every night, and this was her favorite song.

This one's for you beautiful.

Life's one constant is time...or is it?

On this blog, I discuss openly my experiences as someone living with manic-depressive disorder. Initially, I related my experiences when I first had a manic episode last January, and later brought in some videos explaining some of what one experiences when in a manic state (Bipolar or Spiritual?). One thing discussed in those videos is timelessness, or the perception someone in a manic state might have that they are altering time. What is meant by this is that time seems to "slow down" and they can get a lot more done in a shorter amount of time. Athletes talk about this phenomenon as well, whether it be a quarterback referring to the slowing of a game and being able to read the defense, or a baseball player being able to slow down a 95 MPH fast ball and crush it out of the park.

Below is an article I found on the topic titled, "Thinking Faster by Altering Your Perception of Time." The article comes from the blog "Sentient Developments," which does an excellent job of linking scientific developments to positive lifestyle outcomes. In the article, author George Dvorsky looks at the concept of one's mind speeding up during times of stress or pressure, which alters that person's perception of time. While this is most commonly experienced during times of emergency (car accident, being held at gun point, etc) it is also common in sports, according to Dvorsky.

While the article doesn't mention this phenomenon in the context of bipolar mania, I think it is safe to make the connection to the rapid cycling of a manic person's mind. When one's mind is going at that rate, it only stands to reason that they would have an altered perception of time, and this is something to which I can personally attest. I remember blinking and almost thinking the clock had gone backwards. Regardless of my experiences, it is a very interesting read, and one that sheds a little light on altered perceptions of time. Enjoy!

April 3, 2006

Thinking faster by altering your perception of time

People who undergo extreme short-term psychological stress often claim that time slowed down for them during the experience. Traumatic events like car accidents or lengthy falls often appear in slow motion to the person experiencing it.

Is this just a recall error? Or are people literally experiencing these events at an altered subjective time rate? If so, how could such a psychological phenomenon be accounted for? Obviously, time is not really slowing down -- but something is happening to the psychological interpretation of time.

One possible answer is to compare the human brain's "clockspeed" to that of a computer's. Some scientists now suspect that slowed time elapsement is an evolved defence mechanism similar to our fight-or-flight response. When time appears to have slowed down, we have more subjective time in which to deal with a crisis situation. Put another way, extreme stress helps us to think faster.

One scientist looking into this phenomenon is David Eagleman from the University of Texas at Houston. At his 'Laboratory for Perception and Action' Eagleman is attempting to understand the neural mechanisms of time perception. His team combines psychophysical, behavioural, and computational approaches to address the relationship between the timing of perception and the timing of neural signals.

At the experimental level, Eagleman is engaged in exploring temporal encoding, time warping, manipulations of the perception of causality, and time perception in high-adrenaline situations. Ultimately, he hopes to use this data to explore how neural signals processed by different brain regions come together for a temporally unified picture of the world.

In one of his experiments, Eagleman had volunteers perform a backwards bungee jump freefall while he transmitted a rapid succession of numbers to an LED on their wrists. He found that during the fall they were successfully able to read the numbers, which under normal conditions would have appeared too fast. [I have to say, that is one of the most interesting and original experiments I've heard of in quite time some]

Thinking about Eagleman's research at a practical level, it is thought that a better understanding of these mechanisms will result in interventions that will help people process information at higher rates. This kind of 'think faster' augmentation would slow time down in a subjective sense, which would enable an individual to operate at a higher level of cognitive efficiency.

This theme has been explored in a number of science fiction stories. In Frank Herbert's Chapterhouse: Dune, the ghola Miles Teg was able to engage in extremely fast physical combat due to his ability to rapidly process information. Teg was able to subjectively experience time in extreme slow motion. Similarly, Neo in The Matrix was able to dodge bullets by altering his perception of time elapsement. And in Greg Egan's Diaspora, uploaded posthumans had to drastically slow down their internal clockspeeds when conversing with biological humans; clockspeeds in the real world varied dramatically from the clockspeed utilized in supercomputer 'polises.' Also in Diaspora, a group of posthumans altered their perception of time to such a slow rate that they could perceive the rising and fallings of geological structures such as mountains.

Here in the real world, such neural enhancements are rare, but not entirely impossible. It is thought, for example, that hockey ultrastar Wayne Gretzky was able to perceive the flow of the game at a slower pace than his competitors, giving him more subjective time to plan his attack. This may in fact be the case. At the height of his career, Gretzky was not just a 'little better' than other players, he was dominating to a degree never before seen in sport, breaking records by extreme margins. And this from a player who was physically unremarkable--in fact, below average.

Just what kinds of interventions could enable humans to 'warp time' is a topic of some speculation. A recent Discover article titled "The Mind in Overdrive" offers some possible solutions. Psychotropic substances are one possible answer, as drugs like cocaine and amphetamines have been known to alter subjective time for users. Also, meditating Buddhist monks claim to be able to perceive time differently; through their mental discipline, they may be recreating the same effect that Eagleman is documenting.

I'm certainly hoping that something like this will eventually become accessible. It will be interesting to see how much more productive and "aware" one might be with the benefit of these sorts of interventions. It may even create an alternative sense of subjective reality.

And it would surely come in handy the next time you need to dodge bullets.

I Really Should Let the Professionals Do the Talking

If you actually read this blog regularly, you may remember my blog on 22 Aug 2010 titled "Hey! Wha' Happened?" While I did my best to make my point, author and poet Andrei Codrescu puts things much more eloquently in his commentary "Conquering A Fear of Robots."

Go ahead and give it a listen!

Atheist but Spiritual

Is it possible for someone to believe in spirituality but not believe in God? Can someone be open to the possibility that there is more to this world than what we can see yet not come to the conclusion that there is an all-powerful being in charge of it all? I would like to offer a worldview that includes spirituality but doesn't include an omnipotent being. Before I get into this, I should add a disclaimer that these views are from one man (me), so I'm very aware that many of you won't agree with me.

Let me get started by discussing what I believe to be the two "selves" that each of us are born with. First, there is our worldly self. This person is influenced by the forces that surround us and what we are told is right and wrong. Anyone with even a casual knowledge of behavioral studies is familiar with the "nature vs. nurture" debate. Well, this self would fall under the "nurture" category in that it is shaped more by its environment than any internal factors. The second self is our more natural self and the one that follows instincts and does as it feels. This, naturally, would fall into the category of "nature." When looking at these two selves, they paint a picture of the average person, but also set up a struggle for one's true self. And interestingly enough, both sides of a person act both together, and against each other, to shape who we perceive ourselves to be.

When people ask themselves the question of "who am I?" as is natural to do, there are forces both externally and from within that inform this question. First, the external forces come in to shape our view of ourselves. More often than not, this includes parents taking us to church and telling us about an all-powerful God who created us, created a world for us, and wants us to serve him to return to him. This is nourished through church, bible (or other religious text) study, constant references to God and religion in the media, and of course, prayer. From a very early age kids are taught to pray to a god for guidance and obey his every word in hopes that we will please him and return to him some day

In addition to this, there are our internal selves that are constantly asking the question of "who is the real me?" This version of ourselves is constantly at odds with the side that's constantly being told what to think. Our internal selves dare to ask the questions that directly go against what they're taught. "What if there isn't a God. Then what? What comes after this life if there is no afterlife? Is this it?

For this blog, I would like to focus on these two selves as separate entities, one being mortal and ending in this world, and the other being immortal and everlasting. It should be pretty obvious by now that I am referring to our worldly selves as mortal and our internal selves as never ending. I'd like to note here that I am not the first person to think of ourselves in these terms. Most religions will refer to this internal self as the "soul" or "spirit" and I, too, am comfortable using these terms. A person's spirit is his/her natural self that exists before we get to earth and stays living after their physical death. It is the part of us that feels things on a deep and emotional level and that allows us to be our most creative, loving, and honest. C.S. Lewis described this side of humans, saying, "There are no ordinary people. Remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. No one ever talks to a mere mortal...it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit-immortal horrors or everlasting splendors...your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses."

In viewing people as these everlasting beautiful beings, it seems reasonable to allow that these beings offer guidance after they have left the physical world. And this is where I believe guidance from above truly comes from. It is my belief that we, as people, are guided not by an all-powerful god, but rather by host of spirits who have passed through this world and now offer guidance where we choose to find it. Personally, I find this in the beauty and art that is everywhere in this world. I find it in the truly inspired work of great artists and musicians, in everyone who's ever created something new or performed past their normal expectations. This, to me, is the true guiding force in this universe and I love the view that we are all amazing, immortal beings that we "would be strongly tempted to worship." How much better is this worldview than saying we can't accept someone who doesn't believe the way we do.

In closing, I would just like to say that acceptance is the key in making this world one for everybody. I don't expect everyone to agree with this blog just like I don't agree with organized religion. However, I do believe that we're all amazing beings capable of amazing things and to close out any faction of our people simply because of the way they feel is a tragic disservice to the amazing people in this world.

Hey! Wha' Happened?

The phone rings. You wait to pick it up hoping someone else will, because the chances are it's not even for you. You wait...silence. Yes! But wait. You want to talk to your friend. You heard a really funny story and want to share it with them. Only problem is the person calling is your sister's boyfriend and she'll have the phone tied up for hours. What to do? Damn it, you'll have to walk down the street to your friend's house, hope he's home, and do a pop-in, which will inevitably lead to the two of you hanging out for awhile.

This is a scene you would never experience in the age of cell phones and the internet. A phone actually ringing (and an actual phone, too, with an actual ring), the recipient of the call answering even though they don't know who's calling or who the intended recipient is, and a young person being forced to actually...wait for it...LEAVE the house to see a friend. And yet, while this was the norm in my house as well as countless others in the late 80s/early 90s, the age of cell phones and the internet has made social contact all but a thing of the past.

Now, I'm not saying that we have completely abandoned interactions with each other in favor of the isolation of a computer and a handheld device. Obviously people are still reproducing, which as far as I know, still requires actual contact with a human being. But technology has made several of the reasons for interacting with one another obsolete. For example, in addition to reducing the necessity to visit our friends to talk, cell phones through text messaging, have even made talking on the phone a relative relic. If you have something quick to say to someone that doesn't require an actual conversation, you just send them a text and hope for a reply.

The internet has also played a large part in this change. In the past, in order to stay current on all the latest news, happenings of friends, shopping trends, etc, you would need to either talk to a friend or watch the news. In addition to this, if you were in school or working and had a project that required research, you would either have to go to the library to do research or collaborate with others who have access to the files that you need. Now all one has to do is go on the internet, type something into a search engine, and they have access to more information than was imaginable, even as recently as 20 years ago.

It is important to understand that technology, while making people generally more isolated as a whole, has also expanded our socializing in many ways. Through social networking sites and email it is getting easier and easier to keep in touch with people, regardless of their location in the world. Photo and video sharing are effortless, which helps people connect in other ways. Through dating sites people are able to meet interesting people and even filter those who they meet based on selected criteria. All of these things act as a double-edged sword, both expanding and contracting our world in its scope and its effectiveness.

While I do see these tools as being positive, I still lament the days of walking to a buddy's house, running around outside all day and hearing, "Danny, come home for dinner!" when it was that time. I miss hearing the phone ring and hoping it was the girl I liked, hearing news through word of mouth rather than through CNN Breaking News alerts. And call me old fashioned if you must, but I prefer meeting someone by chance out in the world than meeting online based on pre-screened criteria. Maybe with a little effort we can have all of these things while still enjoying the conveniences of modern technology.

To close, please enjoy this video depicting how we used to receive news.