Bipolar Manic Dash to Accomplishment-a Challenge

By Jon Van Loon

This small book provides bipolar persons with a lexicon for vocational success. The material will assist parents, employers and health professionals. A handicap can actually be a stimulant to encourage a performance in life that will be well above average. I have proven this in my own case. Despite being bipolar and learning disabled I obtained a PhD in Chemistry and am a Full Professor at the University of Toronto. Many stories exist where handicapped people have excelled in life and I salute these, but I believe that many more could. By telling my own sometimes, bittersweet, mostly driven, often amusing, (The manuscript is peppered with amusing stories from my bipolar life), nonlinear, story and views, I want to demonstrate that even the most seemingly unachievable goals are not only achievable but can be exceeded.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jon Van Loon
• Release date: Mar 22, 2013
• ISBN: 9780991785940

Jon Van Loon

My life has been complicated by 3 factors. A severe learning disability and a bipolar condition could have easily doomed me to a troubled, non productive existence. However a prodigious unrelenting manic drive was the burr under my saddle that propelled me to unexpected achievement in academia. Of interest here in this regard was that developments in my laboratory at the University of Toronto lead me to opportunities to work, teach and live for short periods in many locations on the 6 continents over a 25 year period. During these intervals, I chose to live in local category accommodation thus maximizing my exposure and participation in parochial experiences. In contrast to the calamitous relationships dogging present world interrelationships my experiences were entirely welcoming and solicitous.I was born in Hamilton Ontario Canada. My interests include jogging and other fitness programs having run in and completed 4 marathons together with numerous 5, 10 and 20 km events. My prowess in sport to say the least was very average. Non-the-less I participated in and then later coached ice hockey both in Canada and Australia. My reward for all this activity is that I have a healthy cardiovascular system and have endured 3 knee replacement operations. Most particularly I have a passion for work related to environmental concerns. In this regard I have 120 peer reviewed research papers in Environmental Chemistry, one of which nearly landing me in jail.

Book preview

Bipolar Manic Dash to Accomplishment-A Challenge

Jon Van Loon

Copyright 2013 Jon Van Loon

Smashwords Edition

Dedication

Anyone who has had the misfortune to live through the antics of a seriously bipolar family member will understand the misery involved, so this book is dedicated with love and apologies to my loving wife Maureen of 52 years who bore the brunt and provided help and of course to my children Lisa Melissa and Jon Jr. who were also forced along for the bumpy ride. It is also dedicated to others with Bipolarity who might find this volume to be helpful.

Preface

A dash is a strong term implying vigorous action. In the context of this book the dash to accomplishment is to convince those, who like myself, are somehow severely handicapped that their problem is a challenge as opposed to an impediment. Many stories exist where handicapped people have excelled in life and I salute these, but I believe that many more could. In fact it is my view that a handicap can actually be a stimulant to encourage a performance in life that will be well above average. When a person is presented with the realization that they have a built in, intellectual, physical or mental impediment one of two things can occur, either resignation to some supposed limitations will be made, or a toughness and strength of determination to succeed can by activated. My strong conviction is that the latter could be more commonly the case.

By telling my own sometimes, bittersweet, mostly driven, often amusing, (The manuscript is peppered with amusing stories from my bipolar life), nonlinear, story and views, I want to demonstrate that even the most seemingly unachievable goals are not only achievable but can be exceeded. That is not by any means to belittle a disability or to suggest that the handicap won't lead to dismay. That was why I used the term nonlinear to describe aspects of my own promised tale. Why should I dare to compose such a compendium considering the thousands of other successful disabled people in this world? Perhaps it is because I feel a little unique in that I have more writing experience than most. As will be seen, the mere fact that I am able to write is the attaining of a goal which many, who have been sideswiped by life like I was, could not do.

In attempting such a presentation it is important to dispose of the facts of my disability in a fast, efficient, manner in order to achieve a quick run to the convictions, goals and stories. Thusly the facts of my problems will appear in the Introduction and the following Chapters will contain tales of emanating from my life in Canada and while working and living in areas encompassing all the Continents except Antarctica. I missed out on the latter Continent because the Penguins expressed no interest in my scientific capabilities!

This volume should also be of interest to anyone who enjoys hearing of a good struggle with life and the laughs and stories thus entailed. There is also plenty of interest for people who have a curiosity about the type of world we inhabit both relating to its citizens, the environment and the biosphere as it exists now, during the periods of my visits and my experienced views on our future.

Please note that the structure of this volume is unusual. I have inserted material and that may to seem extreme and to some degree unrelated to Bipolarity but this is done because it illustrates how a bipolar mind particularly in the manic phases works. I have chosen among the many digressions in my thinking trying to extract those of a more amusing nature.

It is probably important to admit from the beginning that I am a Scientist, but one who enjoyed as much of the other aspects of life as he could. Thus my mind was not only centered on theories and their application as they pertained to the world’s betterment but also on the fascinating peoples, events and nature as this kaleidoscopic scenery moved from position to position. As I write I am 76 years of age and have many of the problems that aging entails, none of which is too serious to enumerate in detail. Suffice it to say that I think that my appearance and abilities are much as they were in my 50's until I have the misfortune to look at a recent photo, catch sight of myself in the mirror or try to climb a few flights of stairs.

Introduction

It became ritualistic that one of the first things I would do was to break up a disposable razor giving me ready access to 3 stainless steel blades in case I decided to cut my wrists (to be fatal you must cut length wise never across the wrist blood vessels, otherwise slashing wrists is just an attention getting ploy) and remove the screens on the hotel windows in case I might prefer to jump to my death.

Being a research scientist manically driven to near the top of my field I was an Invited or Plenary speaker at International Conferences over a 20 year period in the late 1970’s to 90’s (hence hotels with screens on the windows). No one of course knew of my parallel suicidal proclivity that invariably walloped on and off during these events. The fact that I am writing this account is proof that I survived these episodes but non-the-less not without incidents.

For years I had manic depression and then suddenly I became bipolar. Adopting a term in already such common use for example in the basic physics of transistors and in biology relating to bipolar neurons to replace the phrase manic depression seems like a desperate attempt mask the real nature of such a disease. I suppose the term bipolar sounds rather more favourable to medical experts, but to those of us with the affliction manic depression describes what we suffer.

About 1% of the world’s adult population has this affliction. Have you never wondered that if 1% is Bipolar, 10% are learning Disabled, 3-5% of children have Attention Deficit Hypertensive disorder, 2% of adults have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and so on through a myriad of other mental and emotional disorders with new varieties continuously being discovered can there be any normal people in this world? Out of curiosity I asked Google for the percentage of people having normal behavior and also used other related wording. No percentages were found to estimate this condition. So is nobody normal? It would appear that the word normal is redundant in describing behavior, it having many slightly varying connotations.

Fifty years ago few of these maladies had been described as such. Does this mean that most did not exist until modern times and this possible onset is a result of human ingestion of complex pollutants, genetic mutations in human cells or as in the spate of new food allergies perhaps from genetically modified foods? The majority of Health Scientists would have us believe that most existed in the deep dark past and their recent discovery is the result of ground breaking research by specialists. I believe that many of these problems have existed undetected for years with many of our forefathers having suffered horrendously without treatment and without knowing the reason.

I spent time in what in the recent past was called a Lunatic Asylum but in the 1970’s was a locked mental ward of a large city hospital. Being 76 years old and having 2 mental/emotional problems which went undetected for years, a learning disability and manic depression I provide an excellent example first of lack of treatment, bungled treatment and ongoing frustration with Medical Science ineffectualness and probably incompetence. That’s where I come in. As the person with the problem and medical miracles ruled out; then am I not the expert to discuss this predicament?

All well and good, but with all the above problems but where is my claimed dash to accomplishment?

Yes I have not mentioned my Full Professorship, my PhD in Chemistry and the reason I was in the position to give Plenary and Invited Lectures.

Well