Now Available as a Paperback

From Therese Borchard, author of Beyond Blue:

I kept saying to myself, "Did he just write that?" "Did he really just write that?" until I got to the third chapter and expected the pages ahead to be full of the same playful, entertaining .... um .... original prose that preceded it.

Anyone can jot down the bizarre thought patterns that are floating between their brain lobes. I guess what makes McManamy different is that he has taken a tour of Dante's Inferno and, while there, jotted down some funny notes that people who had been to Dante's Purgatory--or maybe even the first layer of hell--might appreciate, read in the bathroom, or digest like their favorite comics because the stories simply make them feel better. They are written by an intelligent man who has suffered and has been able to translate that suffering into hysterical laughter.

Funny is good. And this man's outrageous stories make me laugh. Sometimes they even make me forget about my day's trauma. Now that's a miracle.

Purchase paperback edition ($9.95)

Or download directly to your Kindle or Kindle app ($4.99):

Some Interesting Facts About Raccoons Respect My Piss (Plus a Few You Wish You Didn't Know)

I'm still nose down-ass up in the post-production phase of my new Kindle book, RACCOONS RESPECT MY PISS BUT WATCH OUT FOR SKUNKS. Scout's honor: I will return to blogging as usual once I come up for air. In the meantime, a few interesting tidbits regarding the book:

No animals were harmed in the making of RACCOONS. Pity about the human.

I refrained from gratuitous use of the word, "quotidian."

I insisted that the book be printed on environment-friendly paper only. Then I found out that Kindle books don't use paper.

The official peanut butter employed in the Raccoons Project is Laura Scudder "Nutty." (How appropriate.)

The Lamborghini Murcielago was chosen as the official car of the Raccoons Project. Unfortunately, Lamborghini never got back to me.

The word "bipolar" appears 10 times in the book. The word "crazy" 28 times. This is intentional.

In the movie version of the book, I save the world and get the girl, or get slowly eaten by a well-mannered orange land whale - I can't remember which.

The skunks still laugh at me.

***

You can start reading my book right now by clicking on the link below, which will take you to Amazon.com. Because I am cutting out the middleman, I am offering RACCOONS at the very low price of $4.99.



If you don't have a Kindle, you can download your free Kindle app for your iPad, phone, desktop, or laptop by clicking the link below.

Download your free Kindle app.

Happy reading!

At Long Last! Raccoons Respect My Piss But Watch Out For Skunks ...

When you're both depressed and crazy, life has a way of becoming hilarious. I always sort of knew this, but it wasn't till my friend Therese Borchard (author of Beyond Blue) urged me to emphasize my funny and personal side that the message came in loud and clear.

Soon, I was writing about some of my comic misadventures in dealing with life on a planet seemingly built for other people. We are outsiders, all of us, all of humanity. A lot of us simply don't know it. I soon discovered that I was rewriting my favorite piece of literature, Homer's Odyssey, the story of a battle-weary man, living by his wits, longing to return home.

Except that I was dealing with things such as skunks walking in through the cat flap. I was also pondering life's impenetrable mysteries, such as the purpose of Ramen noodles. What was the connection?

It wasn't long before I figured out that our purpose here on earth is to make God laugh. Trust me, every day we do something to make Him snort milk out of His nose. But I also came to this important realization: Every time we make God laugh we have the opportunity to learn an important life lesson.

I have had plenty of opportunities to learn. This is my story - an outsider, cast up on a strange shore, seeking a place I can call home. In many ways, it's your story, too. We all face similar challenges, deal with similar issues. We may stumble in the dark, gritting our teeth through the pain, but we learn along the way, and that's a start.

Whether contending with mental illness or contending with normal, RACCOONS validates your worth as a human being, a band of light, a soul with neurons. Let the healing begin.

A quick sampling:

From Chapter One:

I perform my own stunts. Trust me, through large parts of my life I would have loved to employ a stunt double and perhaps someday I will. Take my depressions—please. It was around the time I was in seventh grade that I had a profound sense that I wanted to return to the planet that I was born on, any planet but this one. I was small and skinny with glasses and had a nerdy personality.

A nerd is an individual not smart enough to be a geek.

From Chapter Eight:

Life, unfortunately, doesn't come with a manual, and the tech support is a joke. Seriously, when has God—or St Aloysius, even—ever gotten back to you? Is it too much for God to stop what He is doing for just one second and tell me that the vital piece of hardware I dropped on the floor—the one I desperately need to assemble my counter extender from IKEA—rolled under the refrigerator?

It's not like I am asking God to move the refrigerator for me. Or, for that matter, to assemble my IKEA furniture, though that would be a very nice gesture. IKEA, by the way, is Sweden's revenge for not being allowed to be Vikings, anymore.

Hannibal's elephants, in battle formation, about to unleash a deadly volley.

From Chapter Eleven:

Thursday morning, I got hold of a cab driver and we negotiated a flat rate to go shopping for used cars. "They say it's best to buy a Japanese car," I opened. (Who said I didn't do my research?)

The cab driver (who was driving a Lexus) enthusiastically concurred.

We pulled into the first car lot on my list. Five VWs with silver paint were lined up in a row. "Get the car with the silver paint!" the two-year-old part of my brain screamed at me. But I'm way too sophisticated for that.

"Uh, German is kind of like Japanese," I said tentatively to the cab driver. Yes, he agreed. Good enough for me. After all, they both lost World War II.

From Chapter Eighteen:

And when it comes to a loving relationship, it's not just one person we're talking about. For starters, there's her family to deal with. Every time, the same sense of deja vu. "Weren't you 'Patient X' I was reading about in the New England Journal of Abnormal Psychology?" I am tempted to inquire of the scheming sister of the clan.

From Chapter Twenty:

Bipolar is the "crazy" diagnosis. Call me crazy. We do things that attract unwanted attention to ourselves, you know, like discovering America, painting the Sistine Chapel, founding the US, figuring out gravity, coming up with alternating current, and inventing rock 'n roll.

As I like to say to people: "We give you the gift of civilization and how do you treat us? You marginalize us."

From Chapter Twenty-Seven:

1. If you think you are experiencing God—it's probably dopamine.
2. If you think you are experiencing love—it's probably dopamine.
3. That doesn't mean God or love is not real ...
4. ... but we know dopamine is.

My idea of hell.

You can start reading my book right now by clicking on the link below, which will take you to Amazon.com. Because I am cutting out the middleman, I am offering RACCOONS at the very low price of $4.99.



If you don't have a Kindle, you can download your free Kindle app for your iPad, phone, desktop, or laptop by clicking the link below.

Download your free Kindle app.

Happy reading!

My New Kindle Book!!

Here is why I haven't been posting recently: I just completed the Kindle Book I promised, and it's now up on Amazon:

Raccoons Respect My Piss But Watch Out For Skunks: My Funny Life on a Planet Not of My Choosing That I Now - Sort of, Maybe, Well Okay - Call Home

Here is the product description from the site:

When you’re both depressed and crazy, life has a way of becoming hilarious. In his new book, highly regarded mental health author and advocate John McManamy displays his wickedly dark and equally exuberant funny side.


RACCOONS RESPECT MY PISS BUT WATCH OUT FOR SKUNKS recounts the author’s comically absurd misadventures in dealing with life on a planet seemingly built for other people. Childhood, relationships, nature’s furry psychopaths, falling in love, neurons, God, UFOs, Hannibal’s elephants - it’s all there. Each chapter tells a story, the stories bind into a narrative. The narrative builds into profound realizations.


And you are laughing all the way.


John McManamy’s deep humanity and ability to connect to others is unmistakable. RACCOONS is a timeless story, one to which we can all relate, of one individual’s long and painful and ultimately heartening journey to find home.


Whether contending with mental illness or contending with normal, RACCOONS validates your worth as a human being, a band of light, a soul with neurons. Let the healing begin.


PRICE: $4.99 (Cheap)




The book is available on Kindle or any device or computer that has a Kindle App. These include your desktop or laptop, iPAD, and smart phone. To download your FREE Kindle App, go to this page on Amazon.

Coming Soon to A Kindle Near You

Personal Note

I'm head down, ass up, putting together an ebook I plan to self-publish as a Kindle edition. I'm aiming to get the book out in two weeks. The book is based on a number of my pieces here at Knowledge is Necessity. It will be a humorous memoir with the title, "Raccoons Respect My Piss (But Watch Out For Skunks): My Funny Life on a Planet Not of My Choosing That I Eventually Came to Call Home."

I know - I need to make the title longer.

I will be posting reruns this week, and - of course - updates on my forthcoming book. Thanks for bearing with me, and stay tuned ...

Longing to Return to the Planet of My Birth

Following is an abridged version from a chapter of the book I am working on: "Raccoons Respect My Piss - But Watch Out for Skunks: My Metaphor for Life on a Planet Not of My Choosing and How I Finally Came to Terms"  ...

Sometimes I do get to return to the planet of my birth. It's just that I can't recall them. I like to imagine it's a happier place than this one, filled with shady trees, with kind people spread out on the lawn beneath, pulling out containers of Thai noodles and watermelon chunks from their picnic baskets, beckoning me to join them.
   
One of these people would be my good friend and muse, Therese Borchard, author of Beyond Blue. Therese has a way of making me feel that on a planet of six billion strangers I have at least one person I can talk to. One day, she opened a blog piece this way:

I spent my adolescence and teenage years obsessing about this question: Am I depressed or just deep?

When I was nine, I figured that I was a young Christian mystic because I related much more to the saints who lived centuries ago than to other nine-year-old girls who had crushes on boys. I couldn't understand how my sisters could waste quarters on a stupid video game when there were starving kids in Cambodia. Hello? Give them to UNICEF!
   
Now I look back with tenderness to the hurting girl I was and wished somebody had been able to recognize that I was very depressed.

See what I mean? I just know that had we been in the same class at grade school, while the other kids played ball during recess, Therese and I would have found a quiet spot to sit, sharing cookies our moms packed and discussing how Augustine of Hippo must have felt after Alaric the Visigoth sacked Rome in 410 AD (which is precisely how I felt when George W Bush was re-elected in 2004).

So - were Therese and I two sensitive souls waxing philosophical, or two depressives acting strange? When it comes to the enduring question - Who the hell am I? - we are all struggling to find the truth.
   
Part of what we are talking about involves the classic distinction between "state" and "trait." Trait is who we are, our personality. State is invasion of the brain snatchers. But no distinctions are ever as clear-cut as they seem.
   
We tend to get hung up on DSM-IV check lists while ignoring a key DSM injunction - namely that we are only in a state of mental illness when the symptoms interfere with our ability to function (as in work or relationships). So - from my personal perspective - if I am comfortable and not struggling while depressed - thinking deep, in effect - then I hardly have an illness that needs treatment.
   
Here's where it gets complicated. When does my productive depression - thinking deep - start becoming a nuisance and when does this nuisance seriously start messing me up? Similarly, when does my upbeat side cross over into social embarrassment and in turn morph into something that causes me to make very bad decisions?

Life, unfortunately, doesn't come with a manual, and the tech support is a joke. Seriously, when has God - or St Aloysius, even - ever gotten back to you? Is it too much for God to stop what He is doing for just one second and tell me that the vital piece of hardware I dropped on the floor - the one I desperately need to assemble my counter extender from IKEA - rolled under the refrigerator?

It's not like I am asking God to move the refrigerator for me. Or, for that matter, to assemble my IKEA furniture, though that would be a very nice gesture. IKEA, by the way, is Sweden's revenge for not being allowed to be Vikings, anymore.

So, back to depression. Keep in mind, medications are designed to treat an illness, not change a personality, which may explain why antidepressants only get some people somewhat better some of the time. In other words, if you are undergoing clinical depression right now, all those around you - including your psychiatrist - assume your brain will eventually boot back up to “normal.”

But suppose your "normal" is depressed? What then? First, this may not be a bad thing. If you’re the type who prefers staying home alone with a book to going out dancing, you may be a lot happier and better adjusted than Joe Cool and Miss Congeniality.
   
But suppose your normal keeps you a prisoner in your own home? So - here you are, home alone, wondering whether to ask someone out on a date. You punch in three numbers, then you freeze, paralytic. Maybe you're afraid of rejection. Maybe your inner critic is working overtime and you consider yourself worthless. Maybe it's a combination. Whatever the reason, you put down the phone. And now, here you are, alone and socially isolated. How does that make you feel? Well, depressed.

It's a very overwhelming world out there, very difficult to negotiate, and most of the time - very frankly - I don't want to be in it. Certainly, I spent a good deal of my childhood wishing I was very far removed from it. I found refuge, instead, in my own inner world. Over time, I succeeded in tuning out just about the whole world around me.

Engage me in a conversation, and sooner or later you will pick up an odd mannerism: My eyes glaze over, I’m unresponsive. I am not present. Literally - I am somewhere else.
   
I am probably experiencing what the experts refer to as disassociating. In extreme cases, certain individuals may assume different personalities. Thankfully, my little manneristic quirk comes across as mere inattentiveness. It has nothing to do with that fact that I may find you interminably boring (even if you are). This planet is simply a challenge for me. Always has been. Sometimes, my mind has to flee. Where it goes I have no idea, no recollection. I like to think it’s back to the planet of my birth, a place where I belong.

A kind lady beneath a tree beckons me. She serves up a plate of Thai noodles. I help myself to some watermelon chunks. You're safe here, says the look on her face. Welcome home.

Playing the Didgeridoo - Believe it or Not, I Used to Be Worse

This weekend, practicing at home, I played my didgeridoos - all four of them - as if I really knew how to play them. This wasn't always the case. This from the book I am working on, "Raccoons Respect My Piss - But Watch Out for Skunks: My Metaphor for Life on a Planet Not of My Choosing and How I Finally Came to Terms."


We pick up on the action three years ago ...

I was downtown for my third conference in six weeks, the NAMI national convention. I rolled in late in the afternoon, checked into my hotel, then headed over to the venue, in time to play my didgeridoo at the evening talent show. Trust me, didgeridoos make perfect sense in California. I lived in Australia for five years - wasn't interested. Then, not long after my arrival in my new neighborhood, I happened to walk into a coffee shop and walk out with a didgeridoo.

This one was made out of local desert yucca and had the look and dimensions of an alphorn. Most didgeridoos are way smaller.

I arrived home with my new purchase, perplexed at why I wasn’t able to master the thing in five minutes. I used to play the trombone. What could be so friggin’ hard about getting one note out of a glorified stalk of desert yucca? Don’t these things come with tech support?

I spent the ensuing week producing noises reminiscent of the beans scene from “Blazing Saddles.” The only reason I persisted was because I knew it could be done, sort of like the Wright Brothers. They were willing to put up with failure because - thanks to birds - they knew flight was possible.

But some guy or gal thousands of years ago picking up a hollow log in some pristine rain forest? How did he or she know “beyond flatulence” was feasible? What kept this person going? What on earth was going through his or her mind? The burning philosophical question.

By the end of the first week I had progressed to fog horn. But I could only sustain the sound for five seconds at best. I set to work on my newsletter, but there was my didge in the corner, mocking me. An hour later, hyperventilated and discouraged, I began asking myself, how well does yucca burn? One last toot. Something happened. Something that faintly resembled the sound of a didge.

Over the next few days, I was able to work on reliably producing the didge sound and sustaining it beyond five seconds. One day, I felt confident enough to take it out into the back yard. The woodpeckers offered encouraging percussive chatter. A hummingbird flitted over and checked me out. Good omen.

My backyard experiences started to take on a spiritual quality. By now I could get a drone going for twenty seconds, with a range of subtle tones and harmonic overlays. Looking out across to the mountains under a cobalt sky, I was able to produce the OM of the universe. Everything stems from vibration:

“When all things began, the Word already was … So the Word became flesh.”

Then I took my didge out under the night sky. Up at 3,500 feet, they polish the stars every night. For this particular occasion, the Forest Service had just finished lowering the moon to just above tree-top level and thoughtfully provided an ambient soundtrack of croaking frogs.

I held off on my didge, allowing myself to become one with my surroundings. Then, I brought the didge to my lips, content to just blow air through it. Finally, I was ready. I drew in a relaxed breath, and looking up at the canopy of the heavens, I sounded my OM into a frog-enriched cosmos.

Now, here I was at the NAMI conference, toting around my didgeridoo. For some reason, the sight of the thing induced people to stop and ask for a demonstration. My only purpose for being at this conference was to meet people, and this was good. So, not content with talent night, I brought my didge with me the next day to the conference.

If you have never brought an oversized didge with you to a national conference, you are missing out on a major life experience. People literally stopped me in the parking area outside the hotel, and I obligingly honked on demand. Going to get a coffee – honk on demand. Walking into the lobby – honk on demand. Walk into the exhibit area – honk on demand. NAMI bigwigs, leading doctors, authors, speakers – honk on demand. Patients, family members – honk on demand.

And now you know why NAMI has banned didgeridoos from all their conferences. Ha! But there's still NAMI walks.

Soon to be Made into a Major Motion Picture (In My Dreams)

In ten days, I fly out from LAX to New Zealand to see my baby grandson, Little Teddy (and my daughter Emily and son-in-law Hamish). Which means cranking out 30 days of work prior to July 22. Following is part of a publishing proposal I'm putting together for the book I have been working on: Raccoons Respect My Piss - But Watch Out For Skunks: My Metaphor for Life on a Planet Not of My Choosing and How I Finally Came to Terms.

I'm looking to get this sent out before I board my flight ...

***

No matter how many raccoon triumphs I may enjoy, no matter what state of acceptance I may feel I have reached, I know - some stinker is always out there, waiting, with its ass pointed in my direction.

Early October, 2006 saw the publication of my book: Living Well with Depression and Bipolar Disorder: What Your Doctor Doesn't Tell You That You Need to Know. It's amazing, in hindsight, how I didn't see it coming, but we never do. One day I was winding down from a round of book-related speaking engagements and radio interviews, making a mental note to pick up a Thanksgiving turkey, the next my marriage broke up.

I had been married (for the second time) for nearly three years, living in central New Jersey. On December 1, ten days after my break-up, I boarded a one-way flight to San Diego, wanting to sleep and never wake up. I woke up anyway, 40 miles out in the country, to a searing Van Gogh sun against a brilliant cobalt blue sky. Where there should have been a Walmart was a valley surrounded by 4,000-foot peaks. Time to check out my new neighborhood.

Raccoons Respect My Piss - But Watch Out For Skunks is a metaphor for life on a planet not of my choosing and coming to terms. Who was I? That Elvis-loving six-year-old who on a dare climbed on a bull (okay, maybe it was a steer)? Or that small skinny nerdy 12-year-old afraid to board the school bus?

What was wrong with my brain, anyway? A prominent psychiatrist said that no one understands depression and bipolar disorder inside and out better than I did, and I had a new book to prove it. But what was really going on beneath my skull? Here I was, my life in ruins, stuck in some kind of weird quantum singularity way out in the middle of nowhere, with the skunks and raccoons, unable to so much as go out and buy mouthwash without planning a Donner Party expedition days in advance.

Why, of all things, was I feeling better - much better - rather than worse?

I didn't go searching for recovery. Recovery came looking for me. Recovery is for YOU to figure out, I wanted to scream to audiences who kept pestering me about it soon after my book came out. It has nothing to do with me. But I was changing. The person talking about my book in 2006-2007 was not the same person who wrote it in late 2004-early 2005. Something happened after I got off my one-way flight at San Diego.

Raccoons Respect My Piss - But Watch Out For Skunks is my quest for answers: Listening to a prominent brain scientist discuss the fine points of a gene variation with a Nobel Laureate sitting five empty seats over in the same row as me. Experiencing a Zen moment - stepping out of my own shit for five seconds - as a distant peak caught the last rays of the setting sun. Dealing with whatever life threw my way, including whatever happened to walk in through the cat flap. Slowly, I began connecting the dots. Slowly, my writing began to change.

As Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living," and who am I to argue?

First Seven Chapters

Chapter 1. The Truth About Raccoons (and Some Lies About Skunks)

An introduction to my life, as seen through two separate amygdalae - my own and that of a skunk.

Chapter 2. Seriously, I'm the Wrong Person to Be Talking About Recovery

Ask me, instead, how to spell ophthalmologist.

Chapter 3. Cool Brain Science Stuff

It's all about nature via nurture.

Chapter 4. Zen Moments, Ramen Noodles, and Other Weird Shit

Healing happens, but don't expect to stay in the same place.

Chapter 5. Peanut Butter People in a Tofu World

It's not easy being illogical.

Chapter 6. How a Six-Year-Old Superman Became a 12-Year-Old Wimp and Other Mysteries

Who the hell are we?

Chapter 7. Me, Captain Ahab, and the Anterior Cingulate

Why can't we just get under the hood and fix the damned thing?

***

Very much looking forward to my New Zealand visit ...