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Chapter 6

MANIC-DEPRESSIVES, INC. OR
MANIC SAN DIEGO
--SAN DIEGO, 1983-88

1==My Concept of "Manic-Depressives, Inc."

    Whenever you see a small group of loud and fast talkers in a psychiatric hospital, it
is a gathering of what I prefer to call "Manic-Depressives, Inc." or MDI for short. I think
of us as a corporation because it looks like we are doing business. The difference is the
lightning speed of the verbal delivery. Most of us are smart and fast and probably
obnoxious to you if you are there. Staff does not like it when we have a meeting. Can
you picture two or three or four manics talking rapid-fire at once? Staff thinks that we are
obnoxious. They probably love the depressives because they are generally silent and
docile. So staff prefers to sedate us to make us docile, too.
    I have said that MDI occurs in groups. It can also be for individuals. One manic
can be enough for a meeting or a play. One can play all of the parts.
    This chapter starts from this concept of MDI and takes off from it. However, the
chapter is also a miscellaneous remembrance of people and events during the years of
1983 when I arrived in San Diego through 1988. These are the times prior to my
conservatorship and the start of it in September 1988.
    Five years later at the time of this writing, November 1993, I am on the brink of
actually becoming an incorporated manic myself. I have filed the official papers with the
California State Franchise Board and Secretary of State to apply for nonprofit status for a
corporation that I founded called Mind*Star. The areas covered by Mind*Star are
education and publications in mental health. The specific purposes in the Articles of
Incorporation are as follows:

[link later---------------------see art incorp]
So, as my buddy Curtis, who is described below, said, "You're real."

2==Altered States and the Samadi Tank

    I felt an affinity to the book and movie, Altered States, because I felt that those
two words described what I had, altered states, though not as described in the book and
movie. I never used peyote or any drugs at all, except for an extremely small amount of
marijuana. I just had a natural high state of mind sometimes. When I first moved to San
Diego, Ed introduced his girlfriend Bonnie, Paula and me to his friend John-David who
had two samadi tanks that he rented out. He let us use them for free. An immersion tank
is like two bathtubs welded together and filled with a couple hundred pounds of salt to
make you float. People worry about drowning but John-David assured them that it was
impossible in that much salt. After about an hour in total darkness in the immersion tank,
I was disappointed to report that I did not have an altered-states experience. I could not
get into the experience at all although I kept trying and hoping that I would. I was
disappointed that I did not have any creative results. Bonnie did get positive benefit from
her immersion. The others did not go in.

3==Marijuana Ticket

    Judy at work invited me to the grand opening of the Coaster Saloon in Mission
Beach. Her boyfriend was working there as a bouncer and she knew a lot of the people
there. She bumped into an old friend who wanted to smoke a joint. She insisted that I
come along, even if not to participate.
    The three of us were in a van in the parking lot. I decided to participate so the
three of us were passing the joint in what I thought was secure inside the van. When the
joint was in my hand, the sliding door opened and it was a cop. I feebly tried to hide the
joint behind me but we were caught. I got a $60 ticket for possession of under an ounce
of marijuana. I was afraid that I would be taken to CMH but I was not. I have been taken
there for such trivial things before, I thought that drug possession would be a sufficient
reason.

4==Curtis Kennedy

    I met Curtis Kennedy at CMH. He was an awesome sight, a man with very black
skin and blue, glassy eyes. The contrast of his skin and eyes was very striking. He always
talked about the stock market and what stocks he made a killing on. He claimed to be the
black heir of John Kennedy.
    Once Paula and I took Curtis to Mexico with us. He shoplifted proudly but
silently. He went into a crowded store on Revolucion Ave. and came out wearing a gray
sweater that he had lifted. Someone pointed out that he needed a tie for the sweater. He
boldly went back into the same store and came out with a sweater tie.

5==Cayce Carter

    After I was out of CMH, Curtis said that I should go visit Cayce at Mesa Vista
Hospital because he felt that I should really meet her. When I was resisting meeting her,
he threw in the stopper, "She has a car like yours." I knew that it was rare for clients to
have a Porsche. It turned out that she did not have one, but she had another limited-
edition car, like mine, an Austin Healey.
    I went to visit Cayce. She was heavyset with long, blonde hair. Her claim to fame
was that she overthrew high doses of medicine, higher doses than most people could take.
I do not remember the names of the meds because I was not familiar with medicine names
then as I am now. She explained her car. It was a limited edition because Mr. Austin and
Mr. Healey got mad at each other and stopped production after only about 300 cars.
    Cayce invited me to the wedding of her brother, "the Millionaire's son" in Las
Vegas. I accepted and bought a tuxedo at a thrift store for $40. The date fell through for
me because I could not trace her. Her male roommate was upset at her and he was not
cooperative on the phone.

6==Kevin the Cop

    Kevin is a cop and the grandson of my 90-year old neighbor, Georgia. She is very
nice; he is very mean. One day I saw him in the front lawn visiting her. I put my empty
O.J. glass onto my car roof and asked him if he thought that the glass could get to Las
Vegas by Christmas. This must have been the worst thing that one could say to him. I do
not know why I said it. He flipped out. He screamed at me. He put his shotgun in my
mouth and said that he would pull the trigger and kill me if I ever went near his
grandmother's house again.
    I was upset that a trained police officer would resort to death threats so I called
Kevin's captain. I stated what had happened and made my complaint. As I suspected, this
did little good.
    I saw him periodically after I moved. He, several other cops and police dog came
up to me when I was setting up for a garage sale. They told me that I could not put my
book case on the curb. The sight of him made me cringe inside. I feel that psychotics like
Kevin should not be on the police force.

7==1111 Island Avenue--The Drunk Tank

    It was August 1984 and I was living in La Jolla. I went to the 7-Eleven and
bought a bottle of beer. It was unlike me to drink liquor. I opened up the bottle on the
street, took one sip and instantly a cop car was there and pulled up beside me. The cops
did not say what they were doing but it was obvious to me that they were picking me up
for being drunk in public. All that I had had (I do not want to say "All that I had drunk")
was less than a spoonful of beer, or as the contents said, hops and barley and malt. I often
flashback on the Peter, Paul and Mary song lyric from when I was about 14:

"Some takes delight in the fruit of the barley
Courting pretty maids in the morning oh so early"
--Kilgarra Mountain

I reiterated to the cops that all I had had was less that 1% of a bottle but they put me in
the back of the police car. I did not know where they were going to take me but they
drove me off somewhere. CMH? I did not know. It was a ridiculous thing that they were
doing to me.
    While we were riding I was talking a lot and they said that they were taking me
where I could talk all that I wanted to. We got off the freeway and drove to a part of
downtown that I had never seen before. We arrived at a faded, old, beige-colored
building and it said on it, 1111 Island Avenue. They told me earlier that there were going
to be a lot of couches to sit on there, but there were not any couches, there were only
mats on the floor. I realized from the way that the staff yelled at you that you could walk
but you could not talk. "Keep on walking, don't be talking." I could not stand not being
able to talk while I walked, so I kept getting in trouble. I realized that this must be the
drunk tank for the city of San Diego.
    They took me to another facility later. I was on the third or fourth floor of a
police building. I was locked in a round room with green cement walls. I was in a room
by myself and I was singing an obscure Bob Dylan song rather loudly, thinking that there
were no other humans around. To my surprise, I could hear another "prisoner"'s voice
singing back the same, virtually-unkown song. The door had three slots, one just about at
eye level and two at about knee level. Somebody opened the top door slot and a pair of
eyes stared at me but nobody said anything.
    There was a small fountain on the floor in the middle of the room. At one point
the water spouted out high and I sang screaming the Jewish song "Mayem" which is a
prayer for finding water in the desert. I performed the dance that goes with it. I was
thirsty as usual and I drank from the fountain. When the water stopped, I could see that
the water also went downward. What I thought was a water fountain was also a toilet. I
did not know if this was the detox room or really just a big joke.
    One of the two lower compartments on the door, the ones at knee-level, opened
up and a ham and cheese sandwich was visible. I grabbed it, not knowing what kind of
sandwich it was. When I saw that it was ham and cheese, I was bothered because it was
contrary to the Jewish kosher dietary laws against mixing meat and dairy together, and
especially against using pork. I do not "keep kosher", in fact, I barely practice being
Jewish, but I was struck by the fact that of all the possible sandwich combinations, they
served one that would be a problem for some Jews, or kosher ones at least. Well,
probably kosher Jews would not be drunk in public. I pounded on the door to try to get
the attention of somebody, the person whose two eyes had stared through the door before.
No one came so I gave up and reluctantly ate the sandwiches.
    Later when I was able to talk with the staff people face-to-face, I said that I could
not stand this place and I wanted to be anywhere else, even CMH. Soon the cops took me
to a third building with an open room full of stainless steel toilets. I was very thirsty,
probably from my Lithium, but they would not give me any water. Finally, after I verified
that a toilet was totally clean, I drank out of it.
    Later, a female cop drove me to CMH by herself. I figured that I could not be too
dangerous if they did not have a second cop. All that I remember about this visit to CMH
is that they talked about special diets for me.

8==Kelly

    In 1985 when I was in CMH there was a female patient who I used to hang out
with. I do not know why I did because she was very fat, very ugly and not very
interesting to talk with. But she was always there. Her name is Kelly.
    Kelly knew that I did not smoke, so she went up to the patient next to me, Jeff,
and asked, "What do I have to do for a cigarette?" I could hear him take the opportunity
and tell her what she would have to give him. There were about five of us in a paved area
far from everyone else. She got on her knees and unzipped his pants. We could tell that
he had an orgasm in about two seconds. He told us later that it was not that she turned
him on. It was something about the situation that turned him on. I was amazed that they
did this in public and that they did not get caught. A few minutes later, it turned out that
staff did see them in flagrante delicto. A nurse came up to Jeff and told him that he
needed a time-out. He was made to stand for twenty minutes in a room by himself. What
a punishment.
    After a few weeks Jeff was released but Kelly was still a patient. He came back
every day to visit her. A gruff member of the staff escorted him out on the third or fourth
day of his visits. I could her the staff tell Jeff to stay away because Kelly had a mean
husband.

9==96 Hours without Sleep or a Parking Ticket

    One summer the workers of downtown La Jolla absolutely cringed at the excessive
number of parking tickets that they were getting. Many brought in alarm clocks and set
them for just under two hours to alert them that it was time to move their cars to avoid
tickets. The culprit was a gung-ho parking meter maid who had been ordered by her
superiors to crack down.

"Lovely Rita meter maid, nothing can come between us now."
Lovely Rita Meter Maid--The Beatles

I thought about doing a video game on this situation, to be called "La Jolla Meter Maid",
but I did not.
    During this time period I was frequently driving into La Jolla because I was going
to Shearson Lehman American Express stock brokerage on Wall St. to research the top 10
companies in the U.S. One of their female staff was especially proud that she had gone 26
hours without a ticket. This seemed to me like a record that I should like to beat.
However, the first consideration was not to get a ticket right at that moment. I went
outside to my car which was parked right out in front of Shearson's. I looked at my watch
and calculated how many minutes I had before the meter maid was due. I decided to wait
for her and then move my car. I saw her coming on her little vehicle. I started to get
tense as I watched her ticket some people. Then a very strange thing happened. There
was an alley bordering the west side of Shearson's building. She turned right off of Wall
into the alley just before she would have gotten to my car. I could not believe my good
fortune. Then I wondered, would she go through the adjoining street and double back and
come to my car. I knew that this is what would happen. So I stood and waited. No
meter maid. I had inadvertently discovered an area of prime space where the meter maid
did not ticket!
    I decided that I did not need to worry about getting a ticket and that I needed
some exercise so I walked home 2 miles. I did this for 3 nights and walked back each day,
totalling 12 miles. I was on a manic high and did not sleep any of those nights. After 88
hours (3 2/3 days) without sleep, Paula successfully insisted on driving me to CMH for a
doctor to see me. An oriental female doctor talked to me and gave me some medicine.
    We got back home and I was ready to sleep at last. Nothing could stop me now. I
was in bed and about to close my eyes for the first time in more than 90 hours. Paula calls
to me from the other room, "Doctor just called and she said that you have to go back to
CMH because they gave you the wrong dose." I said "What?" She said that it was toxic.
I said "So what." She said that I would have to go back to CMH to get it straightened out
or I would die. That was not good enough for me. I was really, really tired now and I
said "O.K., I'll die but I have to go to sleep first." She insisted for a while and I resisted
for a while. She won and I finally went back to CMH.
    When I got home the second time, it was 96 hours (exactly 4 days) since I had
slept. I asked myself "Can I really go to sleep this time?" I crawled into bed and pulled
the covers over my face. I calculated that if a normal day is 1/3 sleep, then I should sleep
1/3 of 96 hours or 32 hours. I went to sleep at last. When I woke up I was quite
surprised that I had only slept 3 hours.
    I have had 3 episodes of 96 hours (4 days) or more without sleep. The other 2
episodes were 100 hours (link later-see chapter on losing jobs) and 136 hours (5 2/3 days) (link later-see "Brief Freedom" chapter).

10=CMH or Jail for Child Molesting,
You Decide, You Have 6 Hours

    I innocently picked up some teenage girl hitchhikers. They seemed trustworthy. I
seemed trustworthy because I am. They talked about going to a party and about who
would have sex there. I made a fatal mistake for the first of two times--I joked about sex.
I was probably about 38; they were about 16 or 17. They said that I could go with them if
I bought them a keg of beer. Someone would pay me back once we got there. I said o.k.
and pulled into the shopping center where the liquor store rented out kegs. I had never
done this before and was shocked at the price, $60.
    I was alone with the keg in the back seat of my car. I was stopped by the cops for
a reason that I cannot remember. Here was my second fatal mistake. I was joking with
the female cop and I brought up the story about the party and the sex. I joked about
having sex with the teenagers. The female cop had been smiling and joking but she turned
serious suddenly as did her male partner. They took me in for the possibility of child
molesting.
    They took me to the central police station and put me in a glass cage. All the
other cops could see me as they walked by. I was handcuffed with my arms behind me so
there was not much that I could do. I thought of playing hand games with the cops while
I waited. I would pull my handcuffed hands to my side and play "how many fingers am I
holding up?" Some of them had a sense of humor and would make guesses with their
fingers or even put their hands behind their backs and ask how many.
    I was locked up in this glass cage for six hours while they tried to figure out if I
were a child molester or a candidate for CMH. I was glad that it was not just a quick
decision to send me to CMH. Maybe I am self-stigmatized but being a criminal seems to
rank above being a crazy.
    They finally made their decision. They took me to CMH. Then I thought that this
was preferable to going to jail for several years.
    After two weeks I got out of CMH. I wondered if the $60 worth of beer in the
keg in my back seat could be salvaged. I went to the liquor store and they said no, it only
keeps for a day or two.

11=Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend

    When I lived in Pacific Beach, I went to my mail service once and wound up
talking with a girl named Ellen. She was not pretty. She was very frail. She asked if she
could stay with me for a couple days because she was temporarily between funds but
would be o.k. in a few days. Ordinarily I would not do such a thing because of fear of
being ripped off, etc. However, I felt comfortable and let her stay with me. I guess my
best reason was that I let her stay out of a sense of charity. Once we were at my
apartment, she insisted on no sex. I told her that I was not offering any. She kept coming
back to this topic and I held my ground.
    Her two favorite things, apparently, were ordering pizza and doing drugs. She had
me drive her to a "friend"'s apartment and I had to wait in the car. I figured out that she
was buying drugs. She said that she was feeling really depressed and crystal meth was the
perfect solution.
    I was good to her. I gave her free rent for what stretched to two weeks and I
loaned her a small amount of money. We did have an argument and she disappeared for
good. I soon discovered how she had repaid me for all my hospitality. She stole my May
Co. charge card. When I called the company to cancel the card they told me that she had
already charged $2,000 in small jewelry which they said was common for drug users
because smaller pieces are easier to hock. May Co. interrogated me at length on the
phone several times and I got the impression that they were treating me as the criminal
rather than Ellen. Finally after more than a year I got this off my record. When I asked
about getting a new charge card, they said that I would have to come in and fill out an
application. This pissed me off and I did not go in, because my credit was not good
enough to get a credit card.
    A couple years later when I lived in Normal Heights, I walked past Ellen on my
street but by the time I recognized her it was to late to talk to her. I wondered if I would
be upset because of her using me. I decided that it would not do any good to talk to her
and I kept walking.   

12==High on a Prescription Drug

    In July 1987 I was out of town at my girlfriend Sara's house for the weekend. I
had always packed an overnight bag with my clothes and my meds when I stayed away
from home. I was taking both Lithium and Tegretol as my meds. I was running out of
Lithium but I had plenty of Tegretol. On Sunday we went to the Del Mar Fair. That night
I discovered that I was out of Lithium. This was unlike me because I usually planned in
advance when I packed for the weekend. Something inside me told me that I could
substitute Tegretol for Lithium, and furthermore, that it was on a one-to-one basis. So
instead of taking 4 of each at bed time, I took 8 of Tegretol.
    Monday morning we woke up very early because I had a long drive to work and
started work at 7:30 a.m.. I got out of bed and I fell into the wall. The room was going
around in circles. The walls and the ceiling were going around in a circular pattern. My
vision was blurry. My perceptions were similar to a psychedelic trip, but not like a turn-
on, just a big nuisance. I started to say to myself that I had never felt like this ever before
and then I said except when my doctor at San Luis Rey Hospital started me on Tegretol.
Then I realized that it was the Tegretol! When I was first started on it I saw double for
two days because it was hitting the part of the brain that controls vision.
    I went to the phone book to get the number of a crisis unit or an emergency room
of a hospital but I could not read the phone book because of the state that I was in. Sara
wrote some numbers down in gigantic numerals but I still had trouble seeing them. I
finally called them and explained what I had. They said that the best thing for me was to
get to the nearest hospital with an emergency room and have them take care of me. I
went to the nearest hospital, Pomerado Hospital, and they took care of me for several
hours.
    A month later when I got the bill, the description of what I had was "Tegretol
intoxication". When I thought about it, it meant intoxicated on my own prescription drug.
The treatment in the hospital was mostly just lying there and letting the effects of the
excessive dose of Tegretol just wear off. The doctor came in and asked me questions and
took some lab tests. When I was leaving, they were giving me some Lithium since the
lack of that is what caused my problem originally the day before. They wanted to charge
$1.25 a piece for them but I usually get them free. If you buy them in the drugstore they
would be about 10 cents each. I did not want to pay $1.25 each so I talked to the doctor
and he said that he would see what he could do. He came back and he got me the Lithium
for free.

13==Living a Normal Life

    I feel that I am living a normal life despite these bizarre events happening to me, as
described in this chapter and the rest of the book. For 3 years I went to a lot of single
dances--that is normal and everybody there was considered normal. (Well, there may have
been a few exceptions.) For about 4 years I went to a lot of Mensa events. In this case,
people say that it is abnormal there and that everybody in Mensa is abnormal and a
conceited "nerd". Technically, Mensa is abnormal because of the entrance requirements.
The abnormality is not a disease. One is not sent to CMH exclusively because of being in
Mensa.

#   

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