I'm a Pepper. He's a pepper. She's a pepper. We're a pepper. Wouldn't you like to be a... ah fuck it.

I mean... ah hell.

It doesn't matter after all, but I thought it would mean more to what I'm about to rant on about today.

I weigh about 270 lbs.

The reaction of some people is to run and scream:

"OH HOLY SHIT!"

Although... when people actually see it on my 6'2"+ frame, it's not so apparent.

I know I'm overweight, but I don't feel overweight.

Right now, I still feel like the skinny dude I was before my legs got lamed and it got REALLY hard to walk.

According to the "doctors", I'm 100 lbs over weight.

It seems like a lot of weight, but when I think about it, when I was at 180-190 lbs, I was VERY skinny.

I fit into 34" waist jeans with room to spare.

Not lots of room, but enough room that they could sag a bit if I wasn't wearing a tucked in shirt.

I just now realized, that I fit into a 38" waist pair of jeans...

Now, I know that's a 4" difference, but it's only 2 sizes larger.  Not 4 sizes larger.

After all, to illustrate things more, I wear a belt that has to be synched up to keep my pants and shorts from falling!
WHY?
Because, I have strong, thick legs.

Even though, I don't walk very often anymore, I can still dead lift quite a bit of weight. 50-100lbs bags of concrete, dog food, etc.

Hell, I don't even want to be on the opposite side of my own kicks.

Many moons ago, and know I could kick hard then, but due to the light weight, I didn't have a wallop.  Now it'll be like kicking someone with my back against a brick wall.  I won't rebound much at all with the force of the kick.

Going back to the pants/shorts fitting, aside from the legs of them not fitting me very well, I also like to wear suspenders.

I really get tired of wearing a belt cinched up, so I like suspenders to keep my drawers up without a belt digging into my waist and gut.

Getting back to the original weight topic, it doesn't really help that I make good money these days, I own a car and that stores plentiful and close by.

So what I'm getting at, is that I just finished off an entire bag of peanut butter M&Ms.

Oh, BTW, that reminds me of a coworker who once messaged me that he was going to get some "MANDMs"... I had no fuckin' idea what he was talking about.. until I realize he meant M&Ms. 

Dumbass.

Well, WTF the "pepper" reference then, Mr. Dipshit blogger?

 I suppose,  it wasn't necessarily the need for a "Dr. Poo", but rather a reference that each of us is an addict of some sort.

For some of you it's alcohol, tobacco, drugs, pornography, soda, sugar/candy and food.

Now for me... I know that I have addict genes, and my siblings have proved this.

One of them, pretty much the one dumbass mother fucker, has such a bad addictive nature, he is addicted to pretty much everything. (Porn, tobacco, alcohol, prescription pain pills, beating off, etc. etc. etc.)

So, this proves that you can very addictive, without much choice....

HOWEVER!

This isn't really true.

We all have the ability to choose how we react to things.

For me, I use my prescription medications according to how they're labeled.

The exception to that, is when I might break them up when I have REALLY bad pain and I need relief immediately!

I stay away from alcohol, because the last time I had a drink, (basically a double tequila) I craved alcohol for several weeks, before the desire stopped.

Due to all the asshole prescription pain med. abusers out there, doctors and health insurance companies are doing surveys about people before they prescribe any meds.

Where this hurts, is that if you're bipolar, you have a major mark against you.  If you have siblings who are addicts/alcoholics/etc, that's another mark against you.

I suppose what I really want to hammer home on this post... or perhaps not...

Is that I have an addiction to...
FOOD!

There I said it!

Ok.. mostly to food that's not good in large quantities.

Long time ago, I posted how much I love ice cream!  I still buy it by the gallon, but much less often.  Perhaps once a month, month and a half.


When my bipolar and emotions are under better control, then my eating habits are under better control too.

So my weight yo-yo's +/- 5 pounds week to week.

At least my weight is down from 330 a few years ago!

I didn't post yesterday... So sue me...

Don't actually sue me... I don't have much money, and I'm supporting a family with two children.

Ok, granted, if I'd had more children, you might actually feel sorry for me, and offer to give me money.

Well, not all of us can do what my parents had done.  There were six of us kids.

Even back in the late 70's & early 80's many people were shocked.

Of course, we didn't live in Utah or some largely Catholic community.  We were in the heart of Southern California, so a large variety of people, most of which only had 1-3 children anyway.

Hell, most of the kids I went to school with only had 1-2 siblings, while I had 5.

I don't know my older siblings as well as my younger sister, but then again, she and I stuck together during some pretty rough years for the family.

My brothers were off on Missions, and I was graduating High School.

I never wanted to go on a mission... Even as a young kid, the thought of going out and teaching people or knocking on doors, intimidated me and it was something that I didn't want to do.

As a teenager, I fought off everyone's attempt to coax me into going, and I didn't go.

Am I a different person for not going?  Perhaps.  Would my life be better off if I'd have gone? I won't know...  I took the route that I took, because it was what I wanted.

I probably wouldn't have been knocking around with my girlfriend at the time, and wind up marrying the psycho.  If you think Bipolar people are crazy, you need to meet my ex-wife and understand some of the crap that she did. WOW

Looking back on my life, I made my decisions and it appears that the Lord had decided to help me by putting the right sorts of things in my way.  Like my ex-wife.  Without meeting her, I'd have never come back to the church, nor would I have probably stayed out of jail or prison. (BTW, I've never been to either, although some crimes I've committed should've landed me there.)

Without going through the painful divorce, I'd never have ended up in the North West US, and married my current wife, Ellie.

I love Ellie, and our children are the best!

Does this mean that I'm always solid on my faith in God? No... In fact last year, while I was going through my big struggle with my mental illness, I challenged him many, many times.  I would cry and wonder where He was.  I would shout and swear at Him.

I never really understood why I was like that, until I was reading a news article one day that had a YouTube video embedded on it.  This video, of course, when it was over, had links to other videos.  Eventually, after wasting sometime, I saw this pretty young face with the description of something about Bipolar.  So I clicked on it, and wound up spending the next day and a half watching her videos, instead of working.

Now, if I was an employer, I'd be pissed that someone had missed that much time working and not taking it as time off.  But, I didn't necessarily tell my employer. ( I know, it's something that I've repented of, and my boss understood as I actually started getting the help I needed.)

Watching this young lady's Vlogs (video logs) about her Bipolar condition struck a cord with me, and I felt like she had been describing my problems.

Then through a subscription to her channel I met up with another bipolar guy, who's descriptions of his life sounded just like mine! (Hey, I was onto something!!!)

So, I finally started wondering if I was bipolar, since I'd slipped into a depression and was having uncontrolled rage/anger episodes. (Don't worry, no one got hit, but I sure swore and yelled a lot)

After telling my counselor that I felt I was going crazy, I saw a shrink.  Finally, I got put on Effexor. (I'm now working on getting off of it.)  It helped with most of the anger, but it didn't really help over all.  I got into arguments with the shrink and during the appointments he basically only talked to my wife.

I got fed up with that shrink and switched.  During the time that I was switching, I was "stable", but I was starting to get paranoid and have small break downs again. (Again with the crying, and arguing with God.)

So, my first appointment with the new shrink went well, and I thought I'd be OK... Well, I was still having my freakin' weird sleeping habits.  Where I'd know at least 1-2 nights a week, and it was sometimes totally random, that I'd only sleep 1-2 hours, if that, and I'd be awake and alert and ready to do things.

Then my wife went with me to an appointment when I was in a bit of a panic mode.  She finally said that my moods going up and down were really painful to watch and that I needed something.

I was put on Zyprexa and a few days later, I was doing my hobbies again, and starting to feel like I wasn't behind a large glass door watching my life.

These days, I'm off Zyprexa, but I'm also working up my dose of Lamictal and I'm also on half the dosage of Effexor.

Granted, the Shrink will probably be a bit surprised that I tapered off of these myself, but I had to do something.  My weight gain on those drugs put me well over 300lbs!  I usually weighed in around 270-290, and I'm well over 6'2". (As previously noted, but since this post is more recent and I doubt the reader will read ALL of my posts... I post it again.)

Lamictal was weight neutral, and didn't have the libido/bedroom problems that "side" Effexor has. (The new shrink to me that's what they called Effexor sometimes... "Side-Effects OR")

Well, that's my rant and rave for the day and yesterday.. I suppose...

Blurred Picture of my siblings & I. Summer 2012.

(I Pulled the Picture! Sorry, no Personal Pics of me... Even blurred out.)


As you can see, I'm the tallest of the bunch and the youngest boy.

I'm also the thinnest of the boys too.(Even though my weight at that time was approx 290+ lbs)

I don't worry much about my sisters, they're thin, strong and very accomplished.

My brothers on the other hand are all much more overweight than I am, and only the oldest is really trying hard at his success again.

We're all approximately two years apart.  So the one in the blue shirt is only two years older than I am, and he needs hip & knee replacement, but he needs to lose a large mass of weight first.  I hope he does.

My arthritis hurts like hell, but my doctors only tell me that my knees & hips aren't that bad... yet...

Kind of makes you wonder when the quality of life really needs to take over from the "that bad yet", phase...  So I suppose that I will need to go for many additional years of problems & pain before they'll try to do anything surgically.  Even a rheumatologist couldn't find anything additional to help me out.

I suppose, it means that I'll have to continue to fight for what I want...

Seems to be the theme of my life.