Jack and Charlie v. The Queen

I don't know how I ended up at this page, but I found out about a native hunting rights case that went to the Supreme Court with the most kick ass name, Jack and Charlie v. The Queen. Oh man, that is the most awesome name for a case. It should be a movie title. And then I got curious and found out that my old bosses were the lawyers for the case. Ah yes, those halcyon days at Mandell Pinder. It was my second job ever. Sometimes they got paid for their work in salmon. Aw, they were a nice work environment.

Maybe I should do a courtroom drama sometime.

Oh yeah, how I got onto that was I was looking up burning ceremonies in Google. I'm burning all of my crazy stuff. When I say crazy stuff I mean a huge box full of papers and odds and sods related to my manic psychosis of 2003. Some of it is pretty intense, and I've decided I don't want it around anymore. I've been planning on burning it for a really long time, but I never did for whatever reasons. But now I'm ready. It's all going up in smoke in two weeks. And I'm setting off fireworks and firecrackers. But now I feel like I have to figure out how this ritual is going to work, so I'm reading about other burning ceremonies. It's a funeral really, but a celebratory funeral. At least that's the angle I'm trying to go for. I'm so stoked.

I found out today that someone I'd known of who had bipolar disorder committed suicide. It made me think a lot about how hard it is to have bipolar, just thinking about all the other people who had manic episodes the same year as me and what's happened in their lives since. It's all different. Some people seemed to do well after finding out, and some people went through hell, and some people don't make it. You really can't ever tell how someone is going to weather through it. I wish there was more set up in Saskatoon for peer support. Not like, a support group, but centres where we can just meet and socialize.

I don't think I would have survived as well as I did if it hadn't been for making a point of becoming involved with the crazy community. In fact, for at least two years almost all my close friends had a serious mental illness and had been in the hospital or in other crisis situations. And they were totally fun people to hang out with. I guess I had a chance to let my guard down, I could joke about hallucinations and people would laugh because it was true. And we looked out for each other, in our own ways.

I guess finding out about this recent death I started thinking about how important it is for us to know each other, as a crazy community. Some of the best coping skills I have in relation to bipolar disorder come from other Mad people who I've known. I know sometimes we do irritate the hell out of each other, but there's something comforting about having friends who really do know what you mean.

I'm tired. I should sleep. This has been an INTENSE anniversary, oh my god. I feel like things have happened every few days that are making me look at it from really specific angles. And the whole drug withdrawal has been making my body suffer the way it did in the psych ward. I don't know if people knew that about going crazy and being hospitalized, that it makes your body feel really horrible. Twitchy and shaking and aching and electric zaps and christ almighty, it was a horrid feeling. When I couldn't read anymore, that's when I got really upset. And I couldn't draw either. And everyday, the same as the last. It's such a banal form of terror, it really is.