The fine line between sanity and madness blurs as a jittery librarian in downtown Miami with body sores, unkempt hair and tattered clothes gives fiery sidewalk lectures.
Onlookers who recognize the senior librarian shake their heads as they toss a dollar or a get-well note into a tip jar with the hash tag #litwithfire scrawled on it. As the 57-year-old hippie throwback from San Francisco rambles on about spiritual warfare, chem trails and legalizing weed, a struggle between rational and irrational thought plays out on the public stage.
I am Theo Karantsalis, a longtime college library administrator who has suffered from serious mental illness since childhood, or for about 50 years. This includes multiple suicide attempts, drug addiction, and bizarre behavior resulting in police standoffs, countless trips to jail, dozens of lawsuits, restraining orders, and lots of psychiatric intervention.
A crumpled doctor’s note in my pocket is a reminder to take medicine which includes immune system injections, large doses of anti-psychotics, anti-depressants and mood stabilizers. It reads: “chronic mental illness, poor coping skills, evidence of paranoid and persecutory delusions, most recent episode manic, severe, with psychotic features.”
Over the years, a team of doctors have helped keep me afloat with schizoaffective disorder bipolar I type, or a combination of schizophrenia and bipolar.
Regardless of how consistent one is with treatment, there are risks of unexpectedly going off the rails, as I did earlier this year. This left coworkers in our tight-knit College community scratching their heads and whispering.
When I requested emergency leave last April, the official reason was something valid and visible: psoriatic arthritis, which has left me covered head to toe with skin lesions that make it hard to sit, stand or walk. If need be, I was ready to stack the request with multiple sclerosis, a condition that for twenty years has given me a neurological golf umbrella to hide any mental misfires.
One thing that I could never admit was that I had been sucked into a psychotic black hole. I recklessly spent thousands on Rolex watches, passed out $100 bills to strangers, filed a bizarre lawsuit against the College in federal court, chose to sleep on the streets, and recently fired two psychiatrists for being spies for the CIA.
Years ago, when I started my librarian career with Miami-Dade County, I looked the other way as homeless bathed and shaved in our restroom sinks or violated other minor rules like sleeping or eating. Deep down, I knew that I was just one psych ward visit away from joining them. And I did.
Ending up on the streets outside the main library – disheveled, delusional and with Diogenic indifference – I saw first-hand what it was like to panhandle near the metro rail station, watch the sun rise from a decrepit alley, wait for handouts of day-old muffins and coffee, smoke discarded cigarette butts, and feel the disdain some locals have for the downtrodden.
At the College, the mentally ill make up a slice of the folks we serve, and many colleagues have confided in me that they too suffer, albeit quietly. And for good reason, as words like “schizophrenia” or “bipolar” conjure up fear and the related stigma might affect a promotion or a career.
There were signs in the months leading up to my break that things might be amiss like handing out psychedelic business cards and custom bookmarks that detailed my extensive medical and drug use history, including LSD, cocaine and meth. I also wore the same wrinkled and stained clothes for weeks on end, quickly lost about 75 pounds, stopped shaving or combing my hair, and often shed clothes and spoke to wildlife by the lake.
While in a psychotic state, one often has poor insight or an ability to perceive that he or she is ill.
And even if I did have a sliver of insight, who might I have reached out to at the College about being under attack by interdimensional demons? Or that meetings were a waste of time, as we should just send mind messages back and forth via ESP? Or that out-of-tune foreign radio stations in my mind scrambled my thoughts and words jumped from my computer screen onto the desk and scattered into the walls?
Perhaps it is time for the College to address mental illness from within the ranks so we can better understand and help each other, as well as those with similar issues seeking our services.
As I wind down my wonderful 15-year journey at the College, I leave you with a simple, best-life practice that has helped me deal with police, jail, court, and living on the streets.
Smile.
This is an international signal that no threat exists. Just love. These words from Crosby, Stills, Nash’s ‘60s classic, Wooden Ships, say it best.
If you smile at me, I will understand/ 'Cause that is something everybody everywhere does in the same language
The reason those of us suffering from schizophrenia and bipolar may appear distant, aloof, or otherwise detached is because our minds tend to run on different operating systems. Though I now have flickers of clarity and reason, my thoughts and speech remain fragmented and disorganized, drowned out by noises and visions from another dimension.
We live in another world, at times a wondrous and magnificent world, but one that is often disconnected from your version of the world. We remain somewhat tethered to Earth in various degrees, some with a fat rope, and others, like me, with a tiny thread. And the library is the magnet that instinctively pulls us as we seek direction, meaning and purpose.
As I glance down from another galaxy, like Major Tom floating in a tin can, the signal bars waft in and out of service and I wonder what life will be like when and if I eventually land.
But I think my spaceship knows which way to go.
Theo Karantsalis, Associate Director of Learning resources at Miami Dade College’s North Campus, will retire from the College on July 29, 2019.
I deleted this video as it caused me a lot of shame and embarrassment. However, it serves a purpose and illustrates how things in life can go from good to not so good in a flash. Who among us is immune?
God does not grant a great gift without a great trial.
I have accepted that I have severe physical and mental health issues ranging from multiple sclerosis, double vision, psoriatic arthritis, schizophrenia, bipolar and whatever else doctors put on my long chart. One doctor said she is surprised that I am still alive.
If you or someone you know suffers from one of life's many trials, please consider this Bible verse which helps me make it through each day.
2 Corinthians 12:9, "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."
Note: This story has deeply upset my mother and I apologize for that. My wife is a bit upset, too. Let's call it fiction, yes?
BY THEO KARANTSALIS
There is one drug you might want to cross off your list if you suffer from schizophrenia or bipolar: methamphetamine.
I bailed on college in 1983, told my parents I graduated and took a job driving exotic sports cars back and forth to Los Angeles. Though it only paid minimum wage, it beat my night shift cashier job at an AMPM Mini Mart, in Santee, next to a biker bar and a nasty strip club.
My boss, Pete, had his office decorated with Scarface memorabilia and sat in a gauche, faux-leather chair where he would hand us our pickup orders. He freaked one day when I showed up in a $59 three-piece polyester suit that I bought on sale at Capwell's in Oakland. The tag originally said it was $110 but I found another tag with a price that better fit my budget.
"What the fuck, you fuck, you're a fuck," Pete said with his Brooklyn accent. Dark suits seemed to make Pete nervous. When I paused, he asked me what my problem was and I told him I was trying figure out whether he used fuck as a verb or a noun.
At age 22, I was very immature and wanted to feel like I owned one of the cars, especially the 1976 Turbo Carrera which pulled like a rocket ship in second gear. If Pete was in a good mood, he would toss me the keys on a Friday afternoons to take a car back to my condo near San Diego State University, but only 500 series Mercedes sedans. Sometimes, he let me drive his legendary 1977 Mercedes 6.9 on the condition that I return it with tread on the tires.
Pete didn't trust me with his new 1984 Ferrari BB512 or other higher end vehicles. But if I worked hard, he would let me demo it with him along what was then a desolate Palomar Airport Rd., near I-5.
Driving some 12 hours a day soon took its toll. As fatigue set, in a coworker who recently got out of prison offered me some meth. I wasn't really sure what "ice" was but it had a nice name that sounded refreshing. Cocaine was out of the question, it cost too much and I did not want to get hooked again.
We pumped a fat line of meth into our nostrils and it burned like fire. My chronic use of meth during this time destroyed my nasal septum which required surgery in 1985 to repair.
After zipping up to the docks in San Pedro, we picked up a brand new, shiny red Mercedes-Benz 280 SL convertible. It had a Blaupunkt cassette player and we popped in some white trash music, Def Leppard.
Then we did what two sorry-ass, white dudes high on meth do on Sunset Blvd. at 2 a.m., we rounded up two hookers and headed to the Hollywood Hills.
A few hours later, as our naked bodies glistened in the morning dew, I noticed that my date had a five o'clock shadow. I didn't trip, he or she was attractive and we had a good time. Though I don't recall what we did exactly, my ass felt sore.
My eyes shifted left and right and I fidgeted, scratched imaginary bugs on my arms and ground my teeth. When you try to sleep while high on meth, you don't really sleep, it's more like a trance.
Bound with energy, we ventured to see my kid sister at UCLA nearby but instead rolled up to the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house to meet her boyfriend who would later become my brother-in-law. Outside, the hookers fought with us because we didn't have enough to pay their fee.
They were squished in the tiny backseat adjusting themselves. My date, who I am pretty sure at this point was a dude, yelled at my friend then popped in the head with a purse. They took off toward Westwood leaving condoms, lipstick and a defective dildo on the car floor that buzzed by itself.
Needless to say, my introduction at the UCLA Beta Theta Pi fraternity house was less than stellar even though I was a member of the same frat in San Diego. Inside, I felt my life was deteriorating.
I wasn't there the day DEA agents raided the Carlsbad warehouse, seized all the cars, several kilos of cocaine and carted my boss, Pete, off to jail. He was sentenced to federal prison at Terminal Island for drug trafficking and I would visit him, with his mother, to lift his spirits. One of the guards took this photo of us at the right in the '80s during visiting hours.
It was a muggy San Diego summer night and my girlfriend was fixing her highlighted, brunette hair on a ripped sofa I found in an alley. My dingy apartment in the 5800 block of El Cajon Blvd. sat above a liquor store in what was then a red-light district. The manager liked me and let me move to another floor a few weeks earlier to evade bill collectors.
My old lady was a 21-year old, size-zero stripper at a one-star nightclub who was addicted to heroin. She wasn't pretty but she came from a decent home, like me, and she had a good sense of humor, shot meth, and smoked lots of weed. So, we hit it off.
She was very caring and good with needles and would sew me up when I crashed my motorcycle, which I did often while high. When my wounds became infected, she would rub cocaine into them.
We did what we needed to do to get by and that included her sometimes bringing a John by for sex that usually didn't last long because she said she knew some tricks.
Together, we visited a local clinic to get free refills of Flagyl to treat our STDs which we had to take for seven days. We also got screened for hepatitis, since we sometimes shot up with dirty needles.
Doctors asked us to notify other sexual partners, both men and women for each of us, but we both had so many partners it was impossible. Some of my sorority girlfriends at SDSU accused me of giving them chlamydia but I would always deny it. Instead, I blamed them.
I did not visit strip clubs but seemed to hook up often with low-class, trailer trash types that just showed up. It was about 3 a.m. outside the Beta Theta Pi fraternity house at SDSU when a heavyset, tattooed lady with big biceps cruised her Harley up Linda Paseo, slowed down and looked my way. I was drunk, hanging out with friends near the street with no shirt, and casually asked her if she wanted to fuck.
"Hop on," she said. At first, I declined but my friends said that since I called her out, I had to go. They laughed I drove off clutching her sagging breasts - mainly for safety - as she accelerated. Her Harley roared as if she did something to the exhaust to make it louder. We parked nearby and must have made a lot of noise. An old man came out swatting a broom on his porch to signal we needed to split.
Unlike the sorority girls I dated who wore pearl necklaces and initialed sweaters who expected me to buy them dinner and other things while on dates, my low-class girlfriends were less maintenance and way more fun. Plus, plus they liked to get stoned.
One night, my old lady sat nude by an open window shaving the legs on her tiny, 95-pound frame as the signal lights outside flashed yellow. Then she pulled out an eight ball. And the fucking sky lit up!
Not sure really if we smoked or shot meth, or meth mixed with heroin, but whatever we did, it launched my ass into a full-blown, level 10 psychosis. She turned to have sex but I started overheating and instead jumped off. Then I hopped on my my barely legal 180-cc Honda motorcycle and hauled ass toward San Francisco, where else?
As I wove in and out of Los Angeles traffic at 3 a.m., wearing ripped jeans, no shirt and sandals, wild hair bucking the wind, I saw spectacular trails of light. I was flying through space amid the stars and nothing could hurt me. I was invincible.
I pulled over to smoke what I thought was a chunk of Lebanese blonde hash in my pocket but it turned out to be a piece of balled-up lent from the dryer that I went and smoked anyway. Then the deadly Central Valley fog set in. As the brake lights glowed, it was hard to tell how far away cars were.
Space and time were altered and the fog fucks with your senses more so on a motorcycle. It clouds vision, thickens air you breathe and muffles hearing, like being in a soundproof room. The semis floated in slow motion and seemed lonely, so I would get up close and caress and talk to them. My memory fades after that.
When I arrived home late the next morning, my face, teeth and hands were covered with dirt, bugs and soot mainly from rubbing up against semis. With no desire to eat, I felt a sense of urgency to immediately go back. So, I kissed my mother goodbye and bolted back some 500 miles to San Diego. Though this time with a shirt.
The following year, I tried to clean myself up by moving from San Diego back to San Francisco. After a haircut, shave and a lucky break, I got a new job as a bank manager trainee Laguna Beach. Our family market in Oakland was across the street from Golden West Financial and the founders, Herbert and Marion O. Sandler, as well as Jim Judd, watched me grow up and took a liking to me. The Sandlers went on to become billionaires and we always kept in touch, even though I let them down.
My cousin Kathleen helped me secure a tony oceanfront pad in the 3900 block of Newport Beach. The owner, Tom Blandi, had a string of seaside properties and often invited me to his home in Big Canyon. Though the entire area was wealthy, there were different strata and Tom was up pretty high. He advised me to join Toastmasters to help me at work.
Bouncing about, I moved back to San Diego as World Savings quickly promoted me to a coveted loan officer position in La Costa. I lived on the fourth hole of a famed golf course and would hang out with my neighbor, former actor named Gabriel Kaplan, who in the '70s was on a series called, "Welcome Back, Kotter."
Once my former stripper girlfriend found out where I was, she made a big scene inside the bank saying I owed her money. She looked so fucking hot when she was pissed off, shaking like a dancer in her short skirt, sandals and a see through top. I thought I was in trouble afterward, but my supervisor thought I was L7, or a square, because of my short haircut and gentle ways. But after this, he seemed very impressed with me. "I see you moving up here," he said.
Soon, I moved back to San Francisco, and then on to Boulder and Denver, all within a few months, never staying long in one place. Moving was easy, I just left and I always wondered what happened to all the shit I left behind.
The bank terminated me after about two years or so for exhibiting bizarre behavior, the same reason I have been fired from every job I have ever had. With schizophrenia and bipolar, there is no warning that things may be heading south.
When the bank sent me to Oakland for training, I went psychotic.
Though I do not recall what happened exactly, I was told it involved a weapon and that I ended up on the roof of Scott's Seafood Grill & Bar, a popular East Bay eatery located in Oakland's Jack London Square. Police had set up a perimeter and ordered me to come told me to come down on the loudspeaker. I ripped off my clothes, threw them at the cops, and jumped into the estuary between two docked sail boats. Then I swam to Alameda, a nearby island.
When I got to the other side, all I had on was my World Savings company tie.
It was at night, dark and dangerous along the active shipping channel for the Port of Oakland. Coast Guard officials detained and questioned me in Alameda, gave me a plastic sheet and drove me back several miles to the Oakland hotel. If it happened today, I would probably have been 5150'd, a California term for taking someone to the psych ward.
The lady at the front desk asked if I needed anything and I told her I was good. As she glanced down at me, I was self-conscious because the cold water made my privates shrivel up, and she could see through my sheet. She discreetly handed me a small bag with my cheap suit, underwear and shoes and I thanked her. She smiled as I walked to the elevator, my athletic, Greek ass in full view.
After being fired, my new girlfriend, Vail, found me a basement room in a seedy part of Denver. We met on the phone when she called my branch in Southern California. I joked and told her that if I ever moved to Colorado, we would go party in Vail.
Three months after saying that, I took her on our first date to Glenwood Springs, Aspen and then Vail. She thought I was gay since I was from San Francisco, soft-spoken and came off as a little "too pretty." I admitted that I was gay but that I had recently switched back.
Vail talked a lot about unusual sex as we drove, so I asked her if she went both ways and she said yes. We spent the night together in my Chevy Sprint near Vail, and I apologized for not having enough money to take her out for dinner or to stay in a hotel. Soon, I was hanging out with her and her Jewish girlfriend who worked at Lickety Split!, a neighborhood ice cream shop off Colfax Ave. We would eat lots of ice cream and go see midnight movies like "The Man Who Fell to Earth" and "A Clockwork Orange."
Not sure why exactly, but I always seemed to attract lesbians, especially well-muscled, manly types. I was small-framed and always felt safe with them. Once back in San Francisco's Castro District, two lesbians invited me to see an indie movie. They started kissing and grabbing each other's breast in the theater, nothing too out of the ordinary for San Francisco, and then they asked me to come back to their place and watch them have sex.
I joined for a while but stopped after one of them was a bit rough on me. The next day, I noticed leather marks on my ass.
Back in Denver, I went manic. Not sure why, as usual, but was soon evicted from my room for playing the same song full blast over and over all day long.
Police visited one day and told me it was illegal to paint flowers on the sidewalk and run into the street without clothes. They received a call that I was painting cars doing jumping jacks which seemed to annoy neighbors.
The cops were called again after the landlord learned that I had painted bizarre designs on every wall downstairs. He pushed and threatened me, foamed and spit while yelling with an Iranian accent, and I marveled at a vein on his forehead that throbbed as if it were going to explode.
He was going to sue me, he said, for thousands in damages since I had used heavy oil-based color paints on the ceilings, floors, heaters, fans and pipes. Apparently, when someone turned on the heater, it released a cloud of toxic fumes that upset other tenants.
So, I returned to San Francisco in the middle of the night, then headed to Berkeley where I fell back into my native hippie ways. I quit meth, hippies aren't into that, just weed and acid. As a teenager, I would take the 51 AC Transit bus up Telegraph Ave. to the People's Park, in Berkeley, and buy Afghani hash, opium and LSD. We flocked to the area in the '70s to skateboard outside the Bear's Lair at the University, eat at the Top Dog or buy weed like Panama Red, Colombian Gold or Thai Sticks, then play pinball machines off Durant Ave at the Silver Ball.
I was always on the lookout for my father, as our market was down the street and he delivered produce to most of the beatnik restaurants in Berkeley with names like Marakesh Express, Seven Palms, Cafe Intermezzo, and the Chez Panisse, which went on to become world famous. My uncle Frank Andronico ran a popular market nearby called Andronico's Park and Shop nearby and employed lots of Greeks, so I had to watch out for them, too.
But I had some leverage and knew which business owners we dealt with who visited Diane's Nude Rap Sessions. My favorite business sign of all time hung outside: "Don't talk to me with your clothes on."
Seems I had it all, earned $60 a day at Berkeley Salvage, smoked good weed, and found a new girlfriend, Katy, a cute flat-chested hippie chick with hairy legs and underarms. She liked to shower with me in the rain, drink carrot juice and rarely wore a top. Life was good!
Mom, remember this is fiction, right?
Psychotic symptoms are commonly associated with methamphetamine use. If you also suffer from schizophrenia or bipolar, and use meth, you are on a very dangerous path. Don't do it!
People who used high-potency cannabis on a daily basis — with THC levels exceeding 10 percent — were nearly five times more likely to have a psychotic episode, compared with those who didn’t, according to a new study in The Lancet Psychiatry.
In Florida, THC levels can be even higher in products sold for medicinal marijuana.
“The THC levels are as high as 90 percent on concentrated products and 30 percent on flower,” said Victoria Walker, a spokesperson for Trulieve, one of the largest medical marijuana dispensaries in Florida.
In the study, conducted by researchers at King’s College London, researchers collected data on 901 cannabis users, between 2010 and 2015, who were diagnosed with first-episode psychosis after presenting themselves to mental health services during this period. The 901 were culled from 11 study sites across Europe and Brazil.
The 901 were compared with 1,237 individuals in the healthier control group. The study participants were between the ages of 18 and 64.
The researchers concluded people who used low-strength cannabis on a daily basis — with THC levels below 10 percent — were three times more likely to have a psychotic episode, compared with those who had not used cannabis. These rates increased to five times more likely of having a psychotic episode if high-potency cannabis — with TCH levels of 10 percent or more — was consumed daily.
“Our findings confirm previous evidence of the harmful effect on mental health of daily use of cannabis, especially of high-potency types,” the study said.
NORML officials said the study is premature and potentially flawed.
“Cannabis use has increased over the years, which puts doubt on the study as incidents of psychosis have generally stayed the same,” said Karen Goldstein, director of NORML Florida.
Added NORML’S national deputy director, Paul Armentano, in a blog post: “It remains premature at best, and sensational at worst to claim that a causal relationship exists between marijuana use and psychiatric disorders on the basis of this new paper.”
He added: “Subjects in the study self-reported their cannabis use. As a result, authors had no ability to verify the THC content of the marijuana consumed by participants.”
Others, however, say the study raises red flags and more research should be done.
“Unfortunately, marijuana has been classified as a Schedule 1 substance by the FDA, and thus hasn’t been studied completely,” Dr. Jennifer Treusch, an Arizona psychiatrist told ABC 15, an Arizona TV station. “We would greatly benefit from having studies done so that we could completely understand what marijuana is doing to the body and mind.”
Some past schizophrenic and bipolar manic episodes, decades ago, were quite costly and here is an example of one that pushed the limits of safety and sanity.
As with other periods of manic psychosis, I do not remember all of the details, but friends have helped me piece together parts of my past with old photos and bizarre tales.
Back home in the San Francisco Bay Area, during the '80s, I had a peculiar habit of cutting roofs off of expensive cars. And not all of them were mine. The photo shows a rare 1973 BMW 2002 tii which today, if in very good condition - and with the roof intact - could fetch upward of $35,000, or more.
But I didn't care. All that seemed to matter at the time was stripping naked and frantically smashing the windows of cars, chopping off the roofs, and then painting bizarre designs on them. Afterward, I would drive in circles around the block, smoke massive amounts of weed, and then head to the financial district of San Francisco in the wee hours and yell for all to strip down to fight our "repressive system." My rationale: the car roof just had to come off, as it, too, was "repressed." It just wanted to be free!
If this occurred in any other U.S. city, it may have set off a few alarms. But, hey, San Francisco.
The feeling of the wind blowing my long, wild hair while flying across the Bay Bridge in excess of 100 mph seemed to put me in a trance, especially when I went through the lighted tunnel. It felt like I was manning a spaceship. Blasting defiant music, the only thing that mattered was going faster. And faster. And faster.
However, the trance faded away when the inevitable and deadly depression phase set in. In my case, it seemed that the higher I flew, the harder I fell. Periods of extreme emotion and unusual behaviors are common in people with bipolar when one goes out of bounds, it sometimes requires hospital care.
Photo: My best friend from childhood sits an old BMW 2002 tii after I cut the roof off during a psychotic episode.
The first time I decided to end my life was at age 12, in 1974, on a crisp spring day in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Weeks prior, I had been unable to sleep which exacerbated feelings of depression, hopelessness, and restlessness. Something inside my brain signaled that the only way out was death. There was no backing out.
As my mother primped her hair in the bedroom, I watched television while eating breakfast, which usually consisted of Cocoa Pebbles for me and Fruity Pebbles for my cute kid sister.
Each morning, we would watch Cartoon Town before school and I usually had to fiddle with the rabbit ears to get Channel 44, a popular station for children. But this day was different, as once my shows ended, I grabbed a bottle of narcotics from the cupboard and skipped off to school.
Careful not to step on cracks, I took giant steps on the big squares and wriggled through the poles in the adjacent alleys without touching. If I messed up and stepped on a crack, it would force me to retrace my steps, and I didn't have time for that - I was off to die!
The feeling of my ensuing death was one of liberation, as I was going to a place where nothing could ever hurt me again.
In my arms, a massive stack of books. They weren't for any specific class. Heck, they weren't even mine. I just collected them from the lost and found lobby, at school, and would carry them back and forth.
As I approached the last block, I glanced left, then right, and kicked in a fence plank of a neighbor who had rubbed me the wrong way. And I did it just like Kung Fu did on television back then. Why not? It was my last day on earth, so I could do whatever I wanted.
My favorite class was writing and I couldn't miss that. When class ended, I bolted to the fourth floor. Will C. Wood Middle School, in Alameda, only had three floors, but there was a staircase that led to the roof - a secret known only to me and the janitor. On the way, I stopped at the water fountain and shoved as many pills as I could down my throat. I was pretty sure that one tablet was plenty strong, so a handful would do the job.
After about an hour, I felt dizzy, my mouth went dry and my ears rang. Outside, the sound of kids playing waned as they returned to class. It was almost time to go to heaven, so I laid flat on the cold tile floor and got ready. Normally, I might have freaked out about it being dirty, but made an exception because I was going to a place where I no longer had to worry about germs, either.
I closed my eyes thinking that I might drift off to a final sleep but after a while opened them and everything was black. Then a glowing green cave came toward me from up above. As I debated whether to step in our not, I started feeling very sick. My breathing became labored and I felt I was on the verge of passing out, and that is when I had regrets about what I had done. So, I decided to go home and cried for my mother on the way.
No one was there when I made it home. Feeling confused, I went to bed without dinner and slept until the next morning. My ears rang for about a week and to this day I have partial hearing loss in my left ear that I have always blamed on loud concerts. I never told anyone and gave no outward signs that I intended to harm myself.
Suicide risk among those with bipolar disorder is one of the highest of all mental illnesses. The earlier it strikes, the higher the risk.
Photo: Theo Karantsalis at age 12, in 1974, shortly before attempting suicide for the first time.
Some of my earliest childhood memories include a series of fantastical colors and shapes in my mind that I have never been able to express. For example, each day of the week coincides with its own vibrant color and intricate design.
These complicated colors and designs do not ascribe to anything that I have ever witnessed in the real world.
At around age 8, in 1969, I had a life-changing vision. When I woke, still hugging a stuffed Snoopy that my Yiayia (grandma in Greek) gave me, a beautiful angel appeared in the corner of my bedroom, then vanished. It was magnificent!
Afterward, frightened by the sight, I did what any child might do - I ran and told my mother.
While it could be argued that this was an early episode of pediatric bipolar, I have always accepted this vision as real and Divine. It comforts me during life's tribulations as I continue to search for purpose and meaning in life.
Since childhood, I have searched for answers to many of life's questions. Where do we come from? Where are we going?
Research suggests that about one-fifth of children with bipolar disorder experience delusions or hallucinations during a mood episode.
After recently participating in a terrific Human Library event at Miami Dade College, I have been asked to reach out and share messages of hope with a wider audience.
As one who has suffered for many decades with severe physical and mental illnesses, as well as drug addiction as a young adult, I want to be open about these challenges so that others facing similar issues might see that there is a way out no matter how bleak life appears. Specifically, my goal is to educate and inform people suffering directly or indirectly with multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and drug addiction.
Librarians by nature are inclined to share information. There is no agenda, no one wants your money. Just an old librarian who spends his free time scouring various science and medical journals searching for answers to many of life's puzzles.
Over the decades, I have met only a few doctors who after medical school take time to read and study the current scientific literature. As a volunteer medical research librarian for NutritionFacts.org, I spend spend hours each week locating, organizing, and interpreting large amounts of data.
Each blog post will address a serious topic and will have a link at the bottom that points to a relevant, evidenced-based scientific study for further review.
If there is something you would like me to research and write about that relates to one of the above-mentioned illnesses, please email me and I will consider it. theo@litwithfire.com
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