Three Rants on Mania

Posted on November 4, 2005 in Mania

I suppose that the world doesn’t look all that different through my eyes than it does through yours, whether or not you suffer from a brain disorder as I do. When I first got on meds, I wondered if the colors would shift around — for example, yellow become violet, blue become orange, etc. They didn’t, of course because that is not what changes. Beyond my eyes are regions of the brain which sooth or irritate me. The resulting feelings are my moods. Because those moods got to overwhelming me, like Percy Bysshe Shelley I sought medical help. There was nothing they could do for Shelley, but my psychiatrists diagnosed my condition and put me on meds which put a foundation under my shaky feet.

These three rants explore issues surrounding that dangerous ecstasy known as mania.

I
Accountability

Recently, a group of bipolars that I know went to a shopping mall to buy stuff and have fun together. They talked about how fun it was to drive fast when they felt down. I did not choose to go with them.

In high mania, one can be accounted not responsible for his or her actions. But this was a mix of lonely people out to have fun. And, in my opinion, given that shop-until-you-drop activity is one of the things I share with just about every bipolar that I have ever met, it was a foolhardy expedition. In my time, I have gone crazy purchasing things. We have, for example, two laptop computers because when one broke down a month before a vacation, I pressured my wife into buying a second one. Actions like this brought us more than $40,000 in debt. I am responsible for much of it.

I am not sure who led that expedition nor would I name the person if I did know. It strikes me, however, as akin to taking a group of AA members to a liquor store or a pack of Overeaters Anonymous people to an all-you-can-eat buffet. I know of someone who went out and bought liquor for a friend in mania, then blamed her for drinking it. I agree so far as this: even in mania we are accountable for our actions. If we drive fast, we break the law and endanger not only our own lives but also those of others. What I live and believe in my stable state can become exagerrated and distorted in my manic state. So in this stable state, I must be continually working on my thinking and my mental health, ever alert to changes in my mood and ever ready to begin taking the steps I need to take to avert a crisis. If I don’t I am responsible.

Yet, I must ask: what about the brain who conceived this expedition? I must say that like the guy who brings an alcoholic to a bar, he shares some blame for what follows. He may not buy the drink that undoes the program, but he set up the situation.

II
Romancing the Mania

Some people are lucky. They never get to feel the highs of euphoria when they go manic. For them come the nighthawks of mixed state manias — dangerous moods when the temptation to play with knives, guns, pills, gas, and other lethal agents obsess the sufferer. Memories of these periods get shoved into the subconscious and the afflicted ones are ever so happy to face real life. “Give me Prozac, give me Lamictal.”

The unlucky ones soar. Godhood awaits them at the upper ends of their flights. Everything they do makes sense even if they don’t.

Many wake up when the damage they do in their manic states catches up to them. I know of people who have squandered hundreds of thousands of dollars in a matter of months. If there is any one city where you will never see a DBSA convention, it is Las Vegas for there the bright, throbbing lights, the nightclubs, and the gambling salons conspire to break the self-control of many a bipolar. Me for one.

The ro-manic occupies a place between wellness and mania. Some might call this hypomania, but I would say that ro-manicism occupies a higher and more dangerous plane. You know the ro-manic by her choice of conversational topics: road trips, the joy of driving fast, parties, spending sprees, and that peculiar grandiosity and religiosity that they attempt to fob off as interesting conversation. The anecdotes may amuse and even impress some audiences, but wiser folks can see through the superficiality. All you can do is sigh for them.

Sighing denotes sorrow and the ro-manic does not want to feel this. The last topic of conversation she wants to hear is “how are you meeting the challenges of living in your disease?” A ro-manic will tell you that she must have the happy thoughts so she does not have to face the hard walls and the caltrops made of shattered glass that make up life. Mania is a drug, provided for free by the central nervous system.

The fallacy of the ro-manic is twofold: first, that you can live in mania indefinitely and second that real life is all hardship. Which saddens me.

III
Children

Some say that we bipolars practice pedophilia. For myself, when the libidinal juices rise, I find myself staring mostly at women in their thirties and forties. Most of us prefer adults when we rise, some too much.

A few bipolars speak of their sorrow when relatives stop allowing visits. “I don’t want you playing with my kids,” their brothers or sisters or cousins say to them. They played with those same children with no problem before. No evidence was brought against them while they remained undiagnosed. So why should anyone fear them when they have been medicated and stabilized? Pure stigma and human ignorance.

A few years ago, I attended a worship service at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral. On this day, the bishop came to the pulpit and read the Episcopal Diocese’s policy on AIDS. The letter carefully outlined the committee’s findings on the contagiousness of AIDS and concluded that it could not be transmitted via drinking out of the communion cup. What impressed me was how the bishop turned the concern around. “If you have AIDS and you fear picking up germs that might threaten your health, we will understand if you do not choose to drink from the chalice.” In other words, the issue was who was a threat to who.

Children overstimulate me. If I stay around them too long trying to understand what they say to me, my mind becomes confused. I feel the gentle and unpleasant sway of disorientation. They are not bad boys or bad girls. I do not dislike them nor do I feel sexually attracted to them. The mania starts to afflict me. So I practice accountability. No one should ever leave children alone. Because I may have to leave quickly, I ask that their parents be there to relieve me.

It’s a price I must pay for having this disease.