On Being A Maniac

Posted on September 16, 2005 in Mania

Just before I went to former Yugoslavia in 1992, I had the misfortune of viewing Silence of the Lambs, a film that did much to warp the public’s concept of the mentally ill. I still sicken if I allow the grotesque images from that film to splash into my mind or let the voice of Anthony Hopkins’s Hannibal Lechter whisper his fell shibboleths. This — and the other creeps who peopled Lechter’s world — was the face of mental illness. And so we were not to be trusted. We were killers.

This maniac refused to watch Hannibal or Red Dragon. I just didn’t share the blood lust of the sane. Who other than someone who was not mentally ill wanted to see Lechter take the top off an FBI agent and serve him pieces of his brain, for example? The makers of these films catered to the same impulse which used to bring people to watch the bodies swing at hangings. Serial killer cinema (and there have been many, many imitators of Silence including Seven and Monster) sells the face of the mentally ill as sociopath, a rare creature who often finds a respectable place in our society while the more classic types such as schizophrenics and sufferers of mood disorder languish in stigma.

My ongoing impression of the classical sufferer of mood disorders or schizophrenia is of a usually harmless person. Most, like me, sicken at the thought of violence. If we had a psychiatrist like Lechter, we’d change providers. Sometimes in mania, we might become extremely defensive, to the degree that if anyone approaches us — especially if they are wearing a uniform, carrying a club, and yelling — we will use our fists. I know of small women who have turned into termagants when mania taps at their door. (I have not been crazed like this in many years and I have never been arrested.) Yet, this transitory impulse is not what drives the serial killer. Hypermania is very disorganized. You’re all over the place, swinging wildly but only when you feel threatened. Still, you are more likely to yell and gesture at those who annoy you than pummel them.

Based on films like Silence and the demogoguery of conservative politicians who have never seen a draconian law they didn’t like, the ones who do not suffer from organic brain dysfunction paint the blue stripe of stigma over us. I have not been violent since junior high school. I have acted histrionically, made ill-considered decisions believing myself led by the Holy Spirit, gone on wild spending sprees, and heard voices so distinct and clear that I yelled back at them to shut up. Despite these symptoms, I chose to focus on my depression which, despite the hype, is the safer disease.

Depressives pull back from the world and hide. They distrust other people, which when you are in a place of distorted perception, is a survival mechanism. It’s hard to sell a unipolar a scam. Studies show that depressives can see through subterfuges better than stable people who require a modicum of denial of reality to get by. One study set up a rigged computer game. Depressives figured out the ploy very quickly. The “normal” people played that game and played that game, certain that if they only found the trick, they could beat it. One can only imagine the maniac’s obsession.

It’s this obsession, this gullibility that helps to make the maniac the target of sociopaths and just plain normal folks. A hallmark of mania is confusion. This symptom, especially, contributes to the frightening fact: that the mentally ill are four times more likely to be the victims of violent crime than people who do not possess organic brain dysfunction. This includes the sociopath — the sufferer of antisocial personality disorder which is not an organic brain dysfunction — who often steers him or herself into positions of power. Poor sociopaths tend to end up in prison, but rich sociopaths either find jobs as corporate executives, become cult leaders and televangelists, or go into politics. You will know them by their fruits: they will weedle their way into your confidence, destroy you when it suits them, and break out in anger or tears when you catch them. They live for the Lie. And they are so smooth, that the uncritical follow them.

I am not as much a threat to you as you are to me. I am not Hannibal Lechter, even in my most high and holy rages (nothing like mixing irritability, grandiosity, and religiosity). What I am is a human being — not quite like you but who can claim to be a blueprint of an ideal type? My “kind” gives beauty and wisdom to others because we have seen both heaven and hell as much as any human being can in this life.

What we need are places of safety. When we lose it, we need to be protected and receive appropriate psychiatric care. There are predators out there who will use our disease to wreak their own pleasures on us. Remember that when the statistics are totted up, it is you, Mr. or Ms. Stability who poses the greater threat to us. Watch yourselves. And if you can’t stifle your violent impulses seek help before you hurt one of my brothers or sisters in the Disease.