Send it here. No rain in a month, and my flowers are dying

I'm sorry about your friend. The thing about new friends is they turn up when you least expect them. I wish there was a twelve step program for people trying to live without psychiatric drugs but there doesn't seem to be one. I could use some of your rain.

Hang in there. Take some vitamins as a placebo. Sorry about the M's but I have never seen so many baseball fanatics as here in NY. They really take this seriously. LOL...Miss ya..

I've been feeling the same trepidations, Autumn is my favorite time of the year because whatever I am to some degree broadens. It's usually into deep melancholy, no music and reading Dostoyevsky, or a bold, what the hell sort of sustained euphoria, with all curiosity and benevolence for the world and a pressing drive to participate in social interactions. Sub-clinical hypomania, and I live for it, but can never know in advance when it will visit, or if it will be the darker thing, and some Autumns nothing much changes, but if it will, this is the time of the year it begins.

These last weeks I've been alert and watchful and most scared about what happens if I go too far in one or the other direction. Will I be able to find humane and affordable mental help to get passed it? I've been off meds for a couple years since losing my insurance, and regularly check to see what's available for the poor in Austin and it scares the hell out of me. You have to be in florid psychosis to get services here.

My old neuropsychiatrist believed that my years on meds made my brain function better, created neurons, whatever, that it built something that lasts, even after quitting. We're trying to predict what hasn't happened, and then what will happen, next. No one knows, not even Mundanes. We ruminate about the unknown, we can also embrace it, there I go, stepping off a cliff with my eyes closed.

Here's to landing on our feet.

Just curious if you've ever tried a light box and if you have, did it help? Can use of a light box trigger mania if one has bipolar disorder? Seattle sounds worse than Milwaukee/Chicago re: lack of sunshine. Good luck!

Also, do you use fish oil or other homeopathic products in lieu of prescription Rx? Thanks for your reply.

I saw the leaves yesterday, which caused dread, the same fear of the unknown you describe here. The fear is attempting to find my mind as a safe harbor. Instead, have turned to look the other direction toward the lighthouse instead. Fear of the unknown causes depression, and look at it this way--it's about possibilities. Then it no longer is a free fall into unknown, it's free movement toward good.

There's a light rain outside my window right now, fat wet drops on leaves that are still green. It *is* really hard to lose a friend. I'm sorry to hear about your loss.

Good luck to you, Philip. My crashes tend to come in October, also. My advice (not that you asked) is to get outdoors as much as you can (even in the rain) and soak up all available light. Go easy on the booze. Eat well. Sleep lots. Laugh whenever you can.

Sorry about your friend. The truth is there are too many wonderful and beautiful people in the world to waste your time on those who seek to bring you down.

I'm off meds too -- and I've abandoned all hope of getting help from the medical system.

If it's any consolation--here in Southern California, too much sunlight can be a nuisance (how I long for a rainy day now and then) and it's damn hard to find friends here too.