7. Excessive involvement in pleasurable activities that have a high potential for painful consequences
Wait, what? So I like to drink a little, smoke a little, and get laid. Doesn’t everybody? I mean, it’s not like I ever did hard drugs.
Even though I resisted the definition of manic symptoms, I had to admit a lot of it described things I had been experiencing my entire life. Especially that last symptom about pleasurable activities. Rachel explained that people with bipolar disorder seek to relieve their depression or manic feelings by “self-medicating” with behaviors that temporarily may impact the balance of neurotransmitters in their brains. Actually, everybody does this. I mean, how many people do you know who smoke weed or drink wine every night when they get home? They do it to feel better. But because the brain chemistry of people with bipolar disease is out of whack, their relationship with their drug of choice gets out of whack. People with bipolar disorder typically self-medicate with gambling, food, drugs, alcohol, even overspending. Often it’s a combination of several of these.
My addiction was sex. I was a high-functioning addict who needed regular orgasms in order to get those neurotransmitters flowing. I heard Rachel and knew she was right. All of this described my life, my moods, my behavior.
I began to realize that my hypersexuality was intertwined with my upbringing, bipolar disease, and my conflicted feelings about men. Just as alcoholism isn’t really about the liquor, my addiction wasn’t really about the sex. It was about the unresolved psychological problems that caused me pain. Sex was simply my painkiller.
By the time I entered therapy with Rachel, I had had more sex partners than I wanted to count. Therapy helped me understand why I felt compelled to have sex and how I used orgasms to prolong the joy and fulfillment I felt on stage. I knew from a young age that orgasms brought me peace, comfort, and relaxation. Now I had insight about the psychological and biological reasons behind it all. I do not feel ashamed about my sexual history. I’m just amazed that I’m still alive and healthy.
Let me stop beating around the bush and share this little ditty:
ODE TO THE MEN
There was hunky Butch, Nasty Bruce, and silky sexy Lenier
The Ethiopian in Boston who had to put it in my ear
James had a tongue as long as the Nile
John was high yellow with the sexiest smile
Lenier was my first at the tender age of thirteen
Caught him with Phyllis—that sad Halloween
Dexter was my army boy, we did it on two chairs
Keep it down, fool, my mama’s upstairs
There was Jessie, Jeffrey, Jimmy, and a dancer named Little Joe
Who lay me down, flipped me over, but didn’t dent my ’fro
Gary pulled my hair and had me in the closet
Maurice served up a beer can, no return, no deposit
Sawyer, Sam, Gregory, Tucker, Eric, Adam, and Ken
In the words of Sly Stone, the butcher, the baker, the drummer, and then
On tour in Detroit in the middle of a blizzard so they had to cancel the show
He introduced himself as Scoobydoo. Scoobywho?
Scoobydoo, fuck it, let’s go!
The businessman, the boxer, and the one in the sauna
I beckoned him with my titties, “com’ere baby—you you wanna?”
On top the Empire State Building—yes even up there
Was anybody watching? Cha, please! I don’t care!
Don, Ron, Tyrone, Tyrell, and I remember Rocky smoked a pipe
But it was Perry, ooh Perry, ooooh Perry was just ripe
There was a Mr. Gold, a Mr. Blue, and Mr. Green had lotsa dough
Had them in Minnesota, North Dakota, and yes, I confess Idaho
Phillip, Peter, Paul, oh yeah, and that crusty Brit
Was it Jeffrey? No Nigel. No Ed. No Fred. I’m gittin sick a dis shit
There were some STDs and pregnancies, and y’all know I didn’t give birth to no kids
The recklessness, meltdowns, and chaos left me on the skids
This madness lasted throughout the decades of the eighties
I shared it in order to express to you ladies
Back then I didn’t know my body was a temple—how precious and fragile we are
I was blind, crippled, and crazy—desperate to be a star
Oh, but I got up somehow, and scrubbed most of it away
Left a little funk on me—so I’d be stronger on this day
No shtick
Still love dick
I can joke about my sex addiction now. But trust me, there was nothing funny about it. It was sick, compulsive, dangerous behavior. My discussions with Rachel about depression, mania, and sex addiction were extremely painful. But Rachel said that if I made a commitment to stay with the healing process through the long haul, I could, in fact, become a joyful person. Joy? I made other people laugh for a living, but had never actually considered that I had a right to full-out happiness myself.
Rachel suggested that I begin journaling. I told her, “Well, you know, I’ve been keeping a diary all my life.” Rachel said, “Really? That’s probably one of the things that has saved you.” Expressing my thoughts and feelings on paper was one of the best habits I developed on my own. I wrote, doodled, and drew in my journals, chronicling my experiences, sorting out problems, writing my history. I could always be more adventurous when I was alone. Every day was a different drama. When you live in that drama, you stay in that drama. It becomes a habit. My journal entries were dramatic, but at least they were honest. Now Rachel wanted me to process it all.
My sessions with Rachel transformed my journaling and doodling from pastimes into actual tools I could strategically employ to help myself through the difficult process of getting well. To write about my painful feelings, to illustrate them in many colors, would help me to experience them deeply. Fully feeling and acknowledging my painful feelings could prevent me from acting them out—either toward others or myself. My journals from this period show how I was my own harshest critic. I contradicted myself at every turn. Being manic and crazy one minute, then grown up, realistic, and even wise the next.
JOURNAL ENTRY: It’s not so much stardom I want anymore as it is that I just want to feel better. Be better. I wanna stop trying to prove I am somebody and be somebody. I’m dramatic even as I write this. Let go baby. Nobody’s gonna hurt you anymore.
Becoming a star was once my highest goal. My talent for entertaining people, making magic with my voice and my whole self as a performing artist, was the gift God gave me above everything else in life. I thought that if I worked hard enough, the challenges God gave me—poverty, abuse, lovelessness—would fade away.