Great idea, Matt!

I’ve never been officially diagnosed but am definitely somewhere in the bipolar spectrum and when I go down, it lasts at least 3–4 days, usually more like a week.

Just had one of those in mid February. It was tough because I’d thought I realized the pattern was related to the moon – full moon I considered like noon and new moo midnight – but February broke that.

And I can appreciate all comments from anyone who has studied, treated or experienced forms of depression, I also find that some of them can be rather know-it-all in suggesting they understand the cause.

I have mad respect for you due to what you are going through and consider any parent whose lost a child, no matter the reason, something of a reluctant hero. So it’s easy for me to think that your depression issues have these causes but maybe not?

I mean for me, I am cruising up to the end of a 15-year gig as a public school teacher in Japan in the end of March and getting ready to do a dream trip to the U.S. for five months where I’ll be meeting many folks I’ve only become very close to on-line, while reuniting with old friends and being in my home country again (taking a train across the U.S.) and seeing a ton of live music all while writing a book about it and turning fully toward a career in media as a blogger/podcaster/author/musician/who knows?

So for me to suddenly just hit a wall two Tuesdays ago and then be in a funk where I felt totally disconnected from the world, well, I can’t find any logical cause for it, but rather think it has to do with a burgeoning, natural artistic temperament that I am finally allowing to flow.

I’ve got a little rap (i.e. talk – I may sing and pick guitars or turn tables or children’s heads into drum kits, but I never did do much gangsta rappin’!) coming up on my next podcast which I’ll release on Friday.

That podcast is here for you or anyone who is interested. You can hear there’s a definite difference to my communcations when I’m in manic mood (as I am in the past few days) and down, and the in-between’s.

I think there is SO MUCH we’ve yet to learn about the mind that I’m willingly allowing myself to be an experiment in terms of not taking classic medication like lithium and rather just learning to live and grow with the experience.

Anyway, though, we’ve just, umm, “Net met” (a phrase I’ve come up with that I sorta cringe at!), I am a person who 20 years ago decided that the Internet gave me/US the opportunity to express love more freely than IRL (where we can be so hurt by in-person reactions/rejections), so I’ll close by saying, as I often do to people,

MUCH LOVE!

Take care and thanks for your daily work here! It’s noticed and appreciated!

-Bryan