Ups

[peterbirks]

It's becoming increasingly clear to me that I am bipolar, although not to a debilitating, Spike Milligan-like degree. It's only when you look for it that you recognize the "up" phase, but I'm quite clearly in one at the moment. They are rare, but I have to assume that I was in one of these phases in May 2005 when I decided, for no reason that I can fathom, that I could beat $15-$30. This lasted for about three weeks, and then, suddenly, I said to myself "What on earth am I doing?"

It's a moot point whether I have always been like this, but booze and lack of a diagnosis have kept it hidden, or whether the "illness" is getting more extreme over time. I suspect a bit of both. This could, in the long term, be worrying, and I shall have to keep mt eyes and ears open for the condition becoming more extreme.

Since I am in the middle of the "up" bit, it's clear that the whole thing does not cause me much concern. I had always thought that I was just a depressive. To have the compensatory "up" bit as well seems just like abonus. But one has to be careful. You become less concerned about consequences, more daredevil, and more self-confident. This can have positive consequences, but it can also have negative ones. I can sit here thinking that my dollar hooldings in poker accounts are in essence meaningless, but that does not make them so.

I was half-tempted to go to the doctor's today and say "I'm bipolar. Treat me," and to tell him that I was probably the first ever manic-depressive to actually go to the doctor during an "Up" phase rather than a "down" one.

Here's the kind of hand you can play when you are brimming with confidence...




Texas Hold'em NL $0.50/$1.00

Seat 2: NPROO345sll ($93.50 in chips)
Seat 3: Poor Victim ($14.00 in chips) (tight short-stack player)
Seat 5: MrMillhill ($97.44 in chips)
Seat 6: Hero ($99.85 in chips)
Seat 8: pelailija ($124.40 in chips)
Seat 9: Juppe86 ($26.80 in chips) DEALER

NPROO345sll: Post SB $0.50
Poor Victim: Post BB $1.00

It's a fairly weak-tight table, and I've been taking down quite a few pots on the flop, while giving up if anyone shows much rsistance.

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [SJ CK]
Dealt to Poor Victm [DQ CQ]

All fold to
Hero: Raise to $3.50
All fold to
Poor Victim: Call $2.50

This is alarm bell time. These short-stack guys tend to fold unless they have something that they are willing to commit their hand to on the flop. Fortunately they are a bit ABC. They will reraise all-in with Aces and Kings, sometimes (but rarely) with AK. With QQ, JJ, TT and 99 I expect a call. Some would call with smaller pairs.

*** FLOP *** [H3 SK C8]
Poor Victim: Check
Hero Check

My rationale is that I am either well ahead (to QQ or JJ) or well behind (to AK). But opponent might sometimes lead out with AK (usually a small probe, trying to get me to raise). They tend not to bet the pairs. So QQ or JJ seems more likely to me than AK. Therefore I have to convince opponent that the King didn't help me. My failing to continue here would normally either indicate (to these players) a monster or a complete miss. If he has QQ or JJ, he just might punt that he is in front.

*** TURN *** [H5]

As can often be the case when you feel blessed, so it turns out. I really like this card. It's low, so opponent is unlikely to think that it has improved me. It's also a heart, so opponent might be scared of a flush draw.

Poor Victim: Bet $3.00

Bingo.

Hero Raise to $10.00

Opponent might well read this as a semi-bluff draw with Heart Ace.

Poor: Victim: Allin $7.50
Hero: Call $0.50

*** RIVER *** [H10]
*** SUMMARY ***

Total pot $27.10 Rake $1.40

Hero: wins $27.10

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

It depends as to whether this is a true 6 handed game or just a ring game that has ended up short. If you're now playing 6 handed, then you should be raising a lot and cb-ing a lot too, even, and perhaps especially when you hit. In that case, checking behind except against very tricky large stacked foes can turn into fps.

gl

bdd

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

It was a ring-game that had got short for a few hands, Dave.

What are fps? Sounds like some kind of animal you might meet in Shrek. A Ukrainian cab driver, or something. This isn't 2+2, you know ...


cb-ing? Check-betting? Checking behinding?

But it sounds to me as if you approve.....

Pete

[(Anonymous)]

do I have a reason to worry if I know these terms?!

I'm sure you have used FPS yourself Pete: fancy play syndrome. Other is continuation betting.

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Ok. I tend to continuation bet 90% of the time, or thereabouts (I haven't looked at my actual figures). But the exceptions tend to be based on the texture of the flop. It's certainly very unusual for me to check in this kind of situation. It just 'felt' right (and, of course, turned out so to be. Opponent would have folded to my continuation bet there).

I don't think that I've ever used the initialism FPS, although I have used the phrase fancy play syndrome, and I might then use the initialism after using the full phrase.

Had this been a short-handed game, I would probably have continued, mainly because there would have been less chance that my opponent would have folded.

PJ

'NSyncs 'NDowns

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

It's becoming increasingly clear to me that you are slow on the uptake. Of course you are a manic depressive -- and speak not to me of this "bipolar" thing that the a la mode "psychologists" de nos jours insist is a "more accurate" description of the condition. No red-blooded American wants to be called "manic." No red-blooded American wants to be called "depressive." Add to that the observable fact that 90% of psychiatric consultations outside the nut wing of Belmarsh are between a rich, ignorant, certified, twit and an American, and you have your reasons for dumbing down the label.

Which is a Bad Thing.

Last time I was banged away overnight for drunk driving, by the way, I was only allowed out because I eventually agreed with my interviewer/jailer, a reformed alcoholic, that I was "co-dependent."

I am not sure what this means, except that the interviewer/jailer in question had been bothered, on an hourly basis or so, by my girlfriend at the time, between 11pm and 7am.

OK, I can see this is annoying, particularly to somebody who can't just say, "Fuck it. It's 3.15 in the morning, the last drunk has spewed up over the last but one drunk, and they've both gone to sleep. I owe myself a double Bells." I just don't see the point, or indeed the meaning, of the label. I mean, what is marriage, if not "co-dependence?"

I have less than no time for psychologists, as you may gather. Circumstances (largely to do with the girlfriend mentioned above) have led me to research the matter, and my opinion is that both pyschologists and psychiatrists are, in general, blithering idiots. Although, as in any other field other than, say, astrology or Chinese herbal medicine, you'll get the odd useful one every now and again.

But where was I? Oh yes. You are definitely a manic depressive. You were probably the first obvious one I met, which is, what, 30 years ago? A certain amount of stability there. Drink is indeed related, although it isn't a necessary precursor, it is not causative, and in fact I suspect that it is basically something that manic depressives just turn to as self-medication at an appropriate moment. It would seem to me that your gym sessions are the current equivalent. Manic depressives do not always plough into life-shattering behaviour, despite common prejudice.

Your theory about going to the doctor with "manic"? You'd be disappointed. Any doctor who has dealt with mental illness (and I just typed that in, and am not going to delete it, even though I feel it is an inappropriate phrase and I could obviously backspace) is well aware of the dangers of the "west pole" version as opposed to the "east pole." (See what a fucking cryptic and meaningless euphemism this is?) People with actual mania, which very definitely includes the extremes of manic depression, will do extraordinary things, like packing all of their belongings into a pickup truck and heading off to Adelaide to mine opals for a living.

Most manic depressives do not do this.

Generally, we tend to sit around in the living room with the sort of invisible black cloud hanging around the diaphragm that caused Sartre to invent existentialism. Occasionally, we will leap off the sofa and shout, "God Damn! I've been living in a Japanese commuter hotel room for two years and suddenly there's a sofa underneath me!"

Or something like that.

I remember, four years ago, going to my (by then, ex-) girlfriend's mandated Californian state psychiatrist with her. She spent an hour talking to him. She was, I have to be honest, clinically nuts. He ran out of questions in five minutes and spent the rest of the hour talking about the African wood-carvings he had collected in his office. I spent the time, downstairs, looking at the walls. As you do. The walls are there. One wall, in particular, drew my attention: it wore something like a badge of honour:

"Many people think that mental illness is a bad thing. But think of the following people..."

It then went on to list around twenty historical figures with documented mental illnesses. Curiously, the list did not include Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot. It did, however, include at least seven people (eg Van Gogh) who had topped themselves.

Re: 'NSyncs 'NDowns

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

... and then we hit the 4086 character limit.

This is beginning to bug me. Not because it's incredibly stupid. Which it is. But because there is obviously some semi-well-argued reason for it.

What the hell could 2^12 - 10 have to do with anything? Does it denote a ten-byte header -- which would be rather cheaper than most of the bits of injected crap mandated by RFCs on the internet -- or what? It doesn't relate to an ethernet packet, which is nearer to 2^13. What the hell is going on? Are they piggy-backing blog packets at the router level? In which case, that would make it 20 bytes of inexplicable reserved space. Is some of this used for a piggy-backing protocol?

What the hell, indeed, is going on?

Well, ignoring the onrushing avalanche of technological stupidity which I am convinced will blow us all away long before global warming has a serious effect, such as diluting the poison in koala bears' claws or something, this is the rest of what I was saying:

------------------------------------

I'm not sure whether this says more about the profession of psychiatry than it does about American educational short-sightedness. As a self-elected American, I prefer to think the former, but you never know.

------------------------------------

Well, if it's been thirty years, then I think I can say with some safety, not to say asperity (think Great Aunt Agatha) that you are not getting any worse.

It's just a state of mind. Use it when you can, and knacker yourself on a rowing machine when you can't.

(Did I mention that I'm manic depressive myself? No? Must have been a depressive fifteen minutes, that ...)

[simonbillenness.livejournal.com]

Hi. I'm Simon and I'm bipolar...

I loved reading Doubleday's piece. Even when he's completely wrong or contradicts himself in mid-sentence, he's funny as hell.

I've been treated for depression a few times in the past ten years. This was the kind of depression where I felt so bad that I often called in sick and stayed in bed all day. I lost interest in everything that I used to value. The world seemed to me to be so drab and lacking in possibility.

I responded very well to meds. After I first starting taking Paxil, it was as if I had emerged from a long black tunnel into the bright sunlight. I didn't just feel better; the world just seemed to me to have more depth, more potential, and more interest. It's hard to describe but it sure felt good.

I do too like my more up or "manic" phases. Who wouldn't? But I do recognize that when I'm up, I am more impulsive and more oblivious to my surroundings. Both can cause me problems.

It was only recently that a friend and former colleague of mine who knew me very well suggested that I might check to see if I'm bipolar. I do fit the description although I'm fortunate that my "downs" and my "ups" seem to be less extreme. I'm on different meds now for bipolar and anxiety. Both seem to be working well. My anxiety is now back down to normal and occasional instead of constant and crippling. My mood is up but not too far.

I'm not surprised that so many creative people are bipolar. I've achieved a lot when I've been in my just-short-of-manic phases.

I still think the meds are the band-aid while a more balanced life is the cure. But I need the meds to dig me out of the hole of depression otherwise I'll just stay there.

Depression is the AIDS of mental disorders. When you're depressed, it's extremely hard to dig your way out without help. Depression takes away your ability and will to get better. It attacks your mental immune system.

But I ramble...

No, I'm Simon, and I am ... fuck it. I told you I was sick.

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

Let's start at the middle, go to the top, and trail off a little bit, shall we?

But let me repeat one more time: There Is No Such Thing As Bipolar. This is not just an empty piece of epistemiological argument. As I said, I read the books, what with a bonkers girlfriend in a North Californian nut-house and all. (There are a lot of them.) I'm too tired, and too two thousand miles away, to look it up, but basically the international community of psychiatry came up with four and a half specious descriptions of mental illness on what is basically a rainbow theory. (in re of which, I have yet to see any sort of statistical measurement as to why any individual should be dumped into one category rather than another, convincing or otherwise.) Round about number four, as I recall, which was roughly in the seventies, they redefined "manic depression" as "bipolar."

Why? I don't know. I suspect it's because there are an awful lot of manic depressives out here, and we don't fit The Model. Easier to start with the model and sqidge a new class of lunatics into it. Plus which, as I say, mental illness is big business in the USA, and you don't want to piss off the marks by pointing out that they are, in fact, mad. I mean, "bi-polar?" Edmund fucking Amundsen was bipolar. Of course, he was also Norwegian, which ipso facto makes him mad.

Up to the top.

I can't stop you taking medication for the bad times. I'd like to recommend that you choose your own, and I don't necessarily mean alcohol and violence ... although they've always worked for me ... but you might consider looking up alternatives on the Web. Face it, most doctors who prescribe these things are ignorant hacks: thus Valium and Percodan and any number of other "prescription drugs" thrown at you for the last fifty years. Until very recently, all of these drugs are chemical coshes at best. I had a painful conversation with the ex- about which one to take (the mental hospital was insisting on her swallowing something), and I picked the least bad one. Apparently she still went into something resembling a coma for the next two days, until she learned to keep it under her tongue and spit it out later ... which is, bizarrely, exactly what they expected her to do.

To the bottom. Well, not quite the bottom. I don't mind being completely wrong, and I certainly don't mind being funny as hell ("I laughed so much, Satan burnt my third nipple off" -- Charles Spencer, Telegraph), but I rarely, if ever, contradict myself in mid-sentence. Bugger me, my sentences go on forever. (Except that one.) It's not contradiction; it's artistic licence.

Now to the bottom. Well, not quite. Don't mention AIDS. (a) It's giving in to the bastards and (b) it's akin to referencing Hitler in a pub conversation. That is, pointless, and end of game.

Final point? Oops, we're back to the (implied) top again.

Actually, I think that a "Manic Depressives Anonymous" would be an extremely good thing. ("Hi, I'm Simon... Give me the goddamn coffe now, you schmuck. I've got a plane to catch to the Yap Islands. I need to corner the market in fifty-stone coinage -- NOW!!!)

or maybe not

Re: No, I'm Simon, and I am ... fuck it. I told you I was sick.

[simonbillenness.livejournal.com]

I guess that we're just going to have to agree to differ. This is a shame because I'm enjoying this exchange.

There is just one more point I feel compelled to make. I resisted initially taking meds for depression. When I started therapy in early 1998 (after separating and divorcing Barbara), I spent the first six months taking St. John's Wort. That did nothing for me at all.

So I gave in and tried the meds. Wow! What a difference Paxil made. After a week, my depression lifted and I felt my old self again.

I've also suffered spells of crippling anxiety when I've stayed in bed all week. Klonopin nuked that in very short order. When I feel anxious on occasion now, it's because I have a good reason to feel that way.

Based on my experience, I've found meds work very well for me. Of course, others' experience will vary.

Despite that I do consider meds to be a crutch. But it's a crutch that keeps you going while you change your life.

Drugs as crutches

[geoffchall.livejournal.com]

I've never quite got this idea that drug use for medicinal purposes is a bad thing and to be avoided unless absolutely necessary. For some people it's just necessary. The problems come with all the labelling and euphemisim that surrounds the various forms of bonkersness that seem endemic.

I have various skin conditions - I'm allergic to nickel and some other metals and can randomly have patches of eczema and psoriasis. This means I permanently have to use skin emolients and occasionally steroid creams. But I don't care about it. If it works and it's not got unpleasant side-effects (none for me) then hand me the prescription.

But mental mankiness is treated with shame (by the sufferers) and distrust (by the ignorant bystanders). That's why we get ridiculous labels like Bipolar disease for manic depression. Actually both are crap labels since sufferers don't all just swing between the two poles or between mania and depression. And it's why sufferers (and observers) often have this delusion that they should be able to 'fix' their condition just by a positive atttitude or mind. And that can be as effective as fixing a broken leg with a positive attitude.

The drugs work or at least the modern seratonin uplift modifiers do (and with very low incidence of side-effects) so use them. Yes for some people they may just be a treatment of symptoms and not of an underlying cause, but hey, taking paracetamol for a hangover only treats the underlying symptoms, but you don't wait for life to get better or treat the headache with some macrobiotic, herbal crap.

"I don't want to be dependent on them" is like saying that you don't want to be dependent on food, water or sleep.

Re: No, I'm Simon, and I am ... fuck it. I told you I was sick.

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Hi Pete:

I think there are two points here. The first is whether Bipolar is a useful term. My feeling that it is, in the sense that it describes something stronger than "mood swings", whereas "manic-depressive" describes something more in the realms of Carrie Fisher and Spike Milligan, but doesn't really describe Stephen Fry.

So, I could term it "mood swings caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain", or I could say that it is in this sense that I am using the term "Bipolar". I'm quite happy with manic-depressive, but, in my case, it seems overdramatic.

The second point, and here I agree with you, Pete, is that the term was developed by American psychiatry because it did not like the negative connotations of "manic-depressive". And, if you are a psychiatist, the more people you can convince need your help, the higher your salary is. If you can make a mental illness "hip", then that is really really cool (for the psychiatrist). In that sense, yes, it's a piece of marketing schlock. However, I don't think that this detracts from its usefulness as a word.

PJ