brokenwhole's profile 
Keith / 36, Male / Member since May 2007 / Last seen 5 hours ago
I suppose I fall under the label of “West Hollywood Circuit Boy,” (for non-gay visitors to this page, a "Circuit Boy" is somebody who travels to big gay dance events), and that’s what most people who see me on a regular basis might think; but I think I’m very far from being defined solely by that label, as I’ll try to prove by writing about myself here.
I kind of stand out: being 6'6. It’s Odd: my height was a curse growing up; I was skinny and awkward, sensitive and self-conscious. Now I think of it as an asset.
Oh, and I’m English, and despite having lived in the US for over half my life, I’ve managed to prevent my sense-of-humor from being splashed by all the people cavorting in the pool of American wit. No emoticons or exclamation marks in prose!!! ( (That will be my only exception. I promise!)
I’m the luckiest guy; I was single for ten years, living in San Francisco, entering my forties, accustomed to the idea that I might never find a life partner; I certainly wasn’t going to settle. Then out of the blue came Ben, a sexy, charming, brilliant, intellectually curious man. Our dating staggered along for a while, largely due to the failure on my part to get my heart into gear.
When it finally hit, it was on gay pride weekend in San Francisco. He was just returning from seeing his family in Singapore, and I picked him up at SFO. That afternoon we had sex in the sun, on a padded l-shaped bench which wrapped around the windows of my apartment, and I was completely overwhelmed with feelings. Gradually over the rest of the weekend, it began to dawn upon me that I’d finally found somebody. I had no doubt at all of Ben’s feelings or of my own. I realized that I was never going to be alone again, and that I was going to spend my life with a wonderful man. It was mind-blowing and sudden.
Now, almost four years later, we have a house in the Hollywood Hills, on a quiet street with a canyon view of trees and small mountains, with our two dogs, Indira, a massive, silly but loveable St Bernard, and the newcomer, D’artagnan, an intrepid, occasionally annoying long-haired miniature dachshund. Ben likes me to take D’artagnan on the leash when we take them out in public since he thinks the contrasts in our sizes is hilarious.
Our relationship was greatly tested in the second half of 2006 when I began to climb out of a long-lasting depression only to have one doozy of a manic episode during which I was unleashed like a great airship finally free of its moorings. During those months I variously thought I’d be a spiritual guru, an epochal intellect, and a gay celebrity (I was planning to open a gay super-club in West Hollywood).
Instead in one truly long dark night of the soul, I crashed, was arrested by the LAPD and then released to three days in a locked psychiatric unit. A few weeks later I finally had to accept that I had bipolar disorder.
Ben stuck to me. I don’t think I’d have made it without him, but it’s certainly a good way to earthquake-proof a relationship. The following months were hard too, as I remained in a manic decline, for a while, still feeling I’d left behind depression for good, only to find, with a sudden shock during a trip to Paris that, of course “bipolar” means two poles. However, I have a great support network, and since the turn of 2007 I’ve had no more severe episodes of either depression or mania, and 2008 has been even better: I’ve been on the most even keel I’ve experienced in years.
The whole episode had some positive results (although I wouldn’t wish it on anyone); I learned a great deal about myself, and lost a whole trunk full of various issues and insecurities in the process. For instance, I used to suffer greatly from jealousy. Gone: and good riddance. And out of the experience grew my blog, along with its title "broken whole.”
(The title of my blog came to me during my night in jail. It was an awful night: my manic mind was racing a million miles a minute, and they showed no compassion, keeping me in handcuffs for hours that were so tight they threatened to cut off my circulation. I thought I was going to die, and I realized that the LAPD had become, like so many things in our current society, too complex to be able to do its job of protecting people. It's the same way with computer software. Complexity is sacrificing wholeness.)
Lord, I never meant to talk so much. The cement of my relationship with Ben is our shared interests in one another’s lives. For instance, I’ve read all my life, mostly 18th-early 20th century British and American literature; I’m also very interested in the arts, particularly classical music (from Mahler through Stravinsky to Adams), modern dance, modern art and film. Ben enjoys it when I explain the writer’s devices in the book I’m reading for example, or when I point out to him the structure of a movie. Similarly, Ben is a scientist and, although his specialty is virology, he reads widely in other fields. We’ve both been consuming with great avidity the latest books on cosmology, such as “Parallel Worlds” by Michio Kaku, and history books such as “Troublesome Young Men,” about Churchill’s rise to power during World War II.
We’re also both big political junkies, and share tidbits from each other’s newspapers over a leisurely breakfast every morning (I work from home or Starbucks, and he’s his own boss at a lab in UCLA so our lives are flexible). We’re both very excited about the 2008 primary season, hoping Obama will get over the top soon.
We’re lucky enough to have three great circles of friends: one in San Francisco, and two here in Los Angeles. They’re really the most wonderful group. I never imagined, growing up a shy, skinny, lonely teenager on the North East coast of England that I’d be living such a lucky life here in Hollywood just five minutes drive from where they hold the Oscars.
All this is not to say that the sweet smell of roses is perennially in the air. In fact, the force behind the continued writing in my blog is the struggle to understand and live positively with my illness. One of the best parts about blogging is when I get emails from fellow bipolars: we get each other.
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- Updated their facebook status: Keith Keith is in the house. http://www.brokenwhole.com.
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- Updated their facebook status: Keith Keith is working at home. http://www.brokenwhole.com.
- Updated their facebook status: Keith Keith is at WeHo Starbucks. http://www.brokenwhole.com.
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- Published a new blog post: Unhealed Scars
- Updated their facebook status: Keith Keith is at WeHo Starbucks recovering from bootcamp. http://www.brokenwhole.com.
- Updated their facebook status: Keith Keith is at home recovering from bootcamp. http://www.brokenwhole.com.
- Published a new blog post: Cultural Assimilation
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- Updated their facebook status: Keith Keith is working at home while promoting his website http://www.brokenwhole.com.
- Published a new blog post: The Path Towards the Summit
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