DAVID STANLEY HARKINS's Discussions
Working Part-time and receiving SSA SSDI and/or SSI or other kind(s) of disability or retirement pensions.
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Started this discussion. Last reply by DAVID STANLEY HARKINS Jul. 6, 2009.
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Chris, I will be waiting for your questions.
David
David: Thanks for this discussion. I will check in soon as I have alot of stuff to do today. I want to let you know about my situation and learn more about yours. I feel stuck and am fearfull about how to proceed. Any info that you have to offer wou…
I would like to start a Discussion about our experiences while working PART-TIME while living with Bipolar Disorder. I have been doing this very thing for over 12 years with a few respites and down periods due to mood swings and decompensations and…
Hello from David S.Harkins d.ba. DavidtheStoryTeller aka "TheStoryTeller" and of course thePirate
Hi, from David, TheBipolarOne, as you can see, I am one of many titles and maybe many personalities and even identities. For over years I lived On the Edge at The Edge the Old Fontana Hall, an off campus dorm associated mainly with the University of South Florida in Tampa, FL. I now live in a retirement community in Mango, FL and I guess I went from being an eternal college student to being retired!
I have 2 wonderful adult children, Daniel and Dana Grace and I am blessed.
I work in the Mental Health field and I am also a free lance writer and I do mean free! As of yet I have not sold any articles to any magazines etc. I am also a StoryTeller, did I say "TheStoryTeller?" I love to write and tell stories and am developing a birthday party business themed around Pirates called PirateParites. Arr, arr Matey, I want your gold doubloons, I want your booty! If you are ever in Tampa or Mango, FL please look me up and we'll seek sunken treasure together!
Sincerely,
David S. Harkins
thePirate
TheBipolarOne
DavidtheStoryTeller.com
dsh
I have 2 wonderful adult children, Daniel and Dana Grace and I am blessed.
I work in the Mental Health field and I am also a free lance writer and I do mean free! As of yet I have not sold any articles to any magazines etc. I am also a StoryTeller, did I say "TheStoryTeller?" I love to write and tell stories and am developing a birthday party business themed around Pirates called PirateParites. Arr, arr Matey, I want your gold doubloons, I want your booty! If you are ever in Tampa or Mango, FL please look me up and we'll seek sunken treasure together!
Sincerely,
David S. Harkins
thePirate
TheBipolarOne
DavidtheStoryTeller.com
dsh
Comment Wall (5 comments)
- At 3:31pm on July 3, 2009,
Janet B said…
- We need more people like you in Canada..even more so..In Saskatchewan, Canada..
- At 10:20am on June 29, 2009,
Janet B said…
- I live in Saskatchewan, Canada..Out of all provinces in Canada..Our province and Prince Edward Island are the smallest...and small is good enough for me..
Total ppulation of our Province is only..1 million..
- At 9:34am on June 29, 2009,
Janet B said…
- Glad to meet you David
My name is Janet..age 50. from Canada--have you publshed any books? or short stories?
- At 4:07am on June 28, 2009,
DAVID STANLEY HARKINS said…
- The Day Mike Rode the Bus
By: David S. Harkins
“Hurry, son, you’ll be late for your appointment at Vocational Rehabilitation,” Mrs. Mill urged. And Mike was out the door trotting to the bus stop to catch the number 32 bus to Net Park and then the number 6 bus downtown to the McKinnley Building to make his appointment with his Job Coach at DVR.
Elizabeth, or Beth as she preferred was a beautiful young woman who was finishing up her internship at USF to become a bonafide Rehabilitation Counselor. Mike liked his sessions with Beth. Why on the first session she made him feel so special when she pulled out a tape recorder and told him that she wanted to record his interview for an assignment for her class of playing excerpts from it so that Beth could get to know Mike better and so the class could share in the experience and get to know Mike a little better, also.
Mike had been living with his mother now for about ten years, ever since he had had his last major manic and dysphoric episode of his Bipolar I Disorder or Diversity as he liked to refer to it. Mike’s mother Dana Grace, was an industrious woman in her fifties, she had been a widow since she was twenty one when her second love in life, her wonderful husband Bruce, the soldier that saved lives, was killed in Afghanistan in the Bush wars. Mike was born just a year before this tragic event about nine months after Bruce had come home for his special leave to bury his Mom and Dad who had died in a plane, their first plane, flight that crashed on the way to see Bruce’s younger brother, Bill graduate from Artillery School at Ft. Sill, following in the footsteps of Bruce’s brother in law Daniel’s service as a Hell Hound back about six years before this.
Bruce’s departure from this life came about when he was riding in the airport limousine back to his base in Ganny, when an AED was set off by the enemy. Bruce died instantly and didn’t know what hit him and didn’t suffer and Dana Grace was a real trooper at the time and held it together and pledged her love to Bruce for eternity and vowed to raise Mike to the best of her ability as a single mom and finished up her studies at Tennessee Tech in accounting and got serious with the business her father, David, thePirate, as he liked to be known, had shown Bruce and her before he left for Ganny just after they had been married in Sparta, Tennessee three years previous to that day of infamy for the Mill and Marks families.
That was thirty years ago, now, and Dana Grace was fifty-one, this being by coincidence, the same age that her grandpa Stan had died of cancer back in 1975, and for those thirty years Dana Grace lived with her dad. Mike really loved the stories that his grandpa, David, thePirate, also known as “TheStoryTeller” told him almost on a daily basis.
You see, grandpa David, thePirate, was now ninety-one years old and he was getting very feeble in body but still sharp as a tack in mind. Just four years after Bruce departed this earth and went to heaven to be with his dually departed grandparents in-law great grandpa Stan and great grandma Grace, who were patiently waiting the rest of the family, David or Davey theRiverPirate as he sometimes called himself after one of his most famous stories that he told at his PirateParties, hit it big when the Adventures of Davey series of children’s books hit the bookstores and he became famous and rich over night.
Now back to Mike. You see, Mike has Bipolar Disorder, too, just like Grandpa David and that is one reason he still lives with Mom and Grandpa. Mike had a pretty normal life up until he turned 21. That was the year that Uncle Daniel, died in the terrible war with the Koreans, when he had volunteered to be reactivated in his old specialty of Artillery as he had been the best gunner at Ft. Sill those many years ago and the Army was looking for a few good men to win that war. Mike really loved Uncle Daniel and Aunt Danny who was off in the Air Force a lot of the time and he was really grief stricken when Uncle Daniel’s body came home from Korea where he died in an attempt to save the lives of his fellow mates when they were overrun by a group of insurgents.
Aunt Danny was given the Medal of Honor at a ceremony in Sparta that year and Mike and Dana Grace and Grandpa and Grandma, David’s first and second and only wife who was Dana Grace and Daniel’s mother all went to the ceremony. This was the last time the whole “family” ever assembled together again, as Debra, wrecked her car leaving the ceremony and died on the way to hospital and Danny who was the first female Top Gun Air Force pilot, was shot down over Korea when she went on a rouge assignment trying to take out the insurgents that had killed her beloved, Daniel.
Why Grandpa David, stopped telling stories for a short time and Dana Grace and Mike and Grandpa went on a long vacation after Danny’s funeral, and Mike just couldn’t shake the grief of all those losses so quickly and he quit his good job and just hung around the house from that day on. Grandpa, who had been through this years ago when he had lost “everybody” was the one who took Mike to the psychiatrist and Mike soon was on the same medicines that Grandpa still took, Abilify and Depakote.
Mike showed some improvement and he had lost much of his desire to be with people. Now Dana Grace, the wonderful mother that she was, spent much time with her adult son and encouraged him to do the best he could and always encouraged him to keep up with his Sunday school lessons. Mike, met Mari at church and it seemed like things would work out. Then Mari, ran off with the preacher’s son and left the church and Mike experienced yet another loss and he was content to just stay at home and listen to Grandpa tell his old stories and watch TV and surf the net and listen to the music that grandpa and his mom liked so much, like the Beatles and Martina McBride from an era gone by.
Well, back to that fateful appointment day. Mike arrived at the bus stop outside of the apartment that the three of them lived in and got on the bus and there she was, a homeless woman, of ill repute in a tight blouse and very short skirt and Mike had to sit next to her as the bus was full. Beth had given Mike an assignment to reach out to someone on the way to their appointment, so innocently, Mike said hi to the hooker and God struck both of them right there on the bus or was it cupid or Satan? Well, Mike had one of his Grandpa’s business cards with their phone number on it and he took a chance and gave it to Lois and as he got off of the bus he said sheepishly, “Hi Lo, buy Lo” and well within a year, Grandpa David was blessed with his first and only granddaughter, Grace Evelyn Mill, the second GEM of the universe and he died at ninety-two years of age, a hap, hap happy man.
The Beginning of Life with Bipolar Disorder
The End
A BigBigDavid Story
DavidtheStoryTeller aka “TheStoryTeller”
dsh
Copyright Saturday June 27, 2009 All Rights Reserved
- At 3:54am on June 28, 2009,
DAVID STANLEY HARKINS said…
- Boy You're Going To Carry That Weight
'Dana Grace, is that you? ' I asked, as the phone stopped ringing.
'Yes, Dad, it's me, who'd you think it would be? '
'Oh, ok, I see, You're as manic as me.'
'Yes, Dad, I'm higher than a kite,
Mom's with Conrad again,
And she's spending the night.
And I'm just alright.'
'Are you safe my teeny-one?
Where are YOU staying tonight? '
'I'm at 'Nelle's but she's working this night;
And I am bored out of sight.'
'Thanks for calling, but Dadeo, I must go,
You see, Lindsey's mom just pulled up,
I'm going to go with them to Wall-Mart right now,
And shop and shop and shop and how.'
'I'll try to call you later this very eve,
But If I don't, don't think I am trying to deceive,
I'm only busy running around all through the night,
And singing and playing to keep from getting uptight.'
'I'll see you soon, when you come up,
I know you're coming as soon as you can,
So, it's bye for now, my Father, dear,
You can hear the horn blowing in your ear.'
'She's such a wonderful daughter, my Dana dear,
I remember the days I held her near;
Not so long ago when she was a tween,
But now that she is a full-blown teen,
I guess, she's 'too busy' to talk to her 'Daddy Dear.'
And so I'll go on my webtv,
Maybe I'll browse on SingleMe? '
Or write some poems to my dear friend;
Who isn't sure she wants to be,
Nor whether I'll ever get on with my life and mend?
The End
Poema de Vida
A GrandepequenoDavid Poem
'TheStoryTeller'
Written Sunday 7/11/2004 by David S. Harkins
All Rights Reserved
© 2010 Created by bp Magazine Staff
