There are about 33,000 suicides in the United States every year.

There are about 18,000 homicides in the United States every year.

Now, ask yourself this: If there are nearly twice as many suicides than homicides, how come I don’t hear about more suicides in the news?

Because the media doesn’t think it’s appropriate to cover suicides. We don’t want to cause any more anguish to the friends and family of people who kill themselves. (Imagine that, the media is concerned about causing anguish!)

That’s the unspoken rule in newsrooms across the land – suicide is personal and private and covering it would cause more pain. Unless the person who killed herself is famous, there is no news value. But homicide is fair game. Doesn’t matter how obscure you are. If you’re dead and somebody killed you – it’s news.

I have been thinking a lot about my trip to Venice…Louisiana.

I went to Louisiana with a photographer about six weeks ago to cover the oil spill. We heard the action was in Venice. We bought a map and asked for directions because even with a map I had managed to get us hopelessly lost a day earlier in a small town called Houma.

“When you get to Belle Chase you take 23 and go straight,” we were told. “When the road ends, that’s Venice.”

Venice is in Plaquemines Parish, a 70-mile long peninsula that hangs off the toe of Lousiana. The first 30 miles or so seemed pleasant enough. Nice brick houses, convenience stores, churches, schools – the usual small town stuff. Then things started getting…interesting.

Last Saturday I flew to Washington for lunch.

I had been invited to attend the media awards luncheon at the annual conference of Mental Health America. I was among the writers and journalists receiving awards for excellence in reporting and portrayals of mental health issues.

I received the award for my blog, Depression on My Mind, here at PsychCentral.com. Dr. John Grohol, the founder of PsychCentral.com invited me to blog  for the site in March 2009 and I have thoroughly enjoyed every keystroke of it since.

I had not heard of PsychCentral.com when John called me with the invitation. I was embarrassed to admit it then, and even more so now because I have learned that PsychCentral.com is one-stop-shopping for all things mental health.

For the first time ever, someone told me to go to the gym. I haven’t gained any weight but I have not been working out.

I have an exercise addiction – which my therapist says is anorexia – and I am restricted to working out four times a week. (We fight over whether scuba diving is exercise. She insists it is. I insist it is just floating at the bottom of the ocean.)

There’s a word you don’t want to hear if you are bipolar. It’s “cycling” and I’m not talking about the Tour de France.

“We need to find out why you’re cycling,” my nurse practitioner said.  So, we schedule yet another appointment to see if my efforts to get some good sleep and to take my life down a notch, especially at work, do anything to stop the cycling.

One of the problems with my mania is that once it kicks in, it needs fuel. After years of therapy I can see myself fueling it. It is very frustrating. Like holding your hand over a flame over and over and thinking, this time you won’t get burned. Here’s an example.

I was in Washington, DC this weekend. I did a turnaround — flew up on the red-eye at 5:45 am and returned at 11:54 pm. When I booked the flight I knew this was a bad idea. I should have gone up Friday. I should have taken the day off work but for some reason, I decided I could do it all — work a 40+ hour week AND fly up to Washington AND come home AND clean the house, do the grocery shopping  AND the laundry.

I am dual-diagnosed. I have bipolar disorder coupled with substance abuse. My favorite substance to abuse is alcohol but over the years I have also been addicted to marijuana, exercise and work. I have been in recovery for nearly 12 years but I have one addiction that I can’t seem to shake: Oil.

Every time I hear President Obama or Thomas Friedman or some other pundit or politician tell me that I am addicted to oil, I think of my other addictions. How did I recover from them? Prayer. 12-step program. Therapy. Friends. Medications. A lot of humble pie.

What I did not do – ever – was blame my dealer/supplier. It wasn’t his fault. I am the addict.

Did someone scribble my phone number on the bathroom walls at university engineering departments? I have people calling me with the solution. I have blueprints of contraptions that will allegedly stop the flow of oil coming from a hole in the ocean floor. I have people wanting me to pass along their idea to BP. I have people wanting me to write a story about their invention.

People, I am a newspaper reporter, not Obi-Wan Kenobi.

I have a short fuse and I cannot tell if it is attached to my mania or my stress. Whatever it is attached to, I am afraid it could blow and I am not sure my blowout preventer is working right now.

When I get manic I get righteous and sarcastic. I want to raise my eyebrows, cock my head  and say: “When my clone gets in I will  have her give Tony Hayward a jingle and check on that.”  ”If I knew when they were going to plug it I would be planning my summer vacation, now wouldn’t I?” “Everything I know about dead fish I learned from a worm.” “Do I look like I know where the Loop Current is going to be next week?”