The Hot Wire

Posted on April 26, 2006 in Mania Responsibility

What the fuck do people see about mania? Last night, I listened as a group of fellow bipolars talked about how mania made them less afraid than depression. Never mind that they did foolish things like run up Enron-sized household deficits, talk like a 33 rpm record played at 78 rpm, screw every knothole and every broomstick, go for nude noontime strolls just in time for Sunday services to let out, and break every window in the house to allow for proper ventilation. That sure was fun, they say!

Mania is the Hot Wire for me. When I am in it, (as I am in hypomania now), I walk a singeing piano chord, terrified that a word or an action is going to disgust even my bipolar friends. My bad habit is that I start making annoying sexual remarks. Nothing so bad as a certain sociopath who described the size of his penis to a woman he liked, but bad enough.

Boundaries of propriety become faint. I don’t march across them as some do. I blunder across them, bruising friends, relatives, enemies, and strangers alike. I’m a dangerous man! So on these days, I must lock the door and hang out the Go Away shingle. I live in terror of what I might do.

Depression can be my friend, as long as I prevent the cruel enforcers from making an appearance. It comes and there’s a certain softness to it. The keys of weathering depression are, for me, not to upbraid myself for the things I did while in mania, and not to recite the “I want to die” mantra. When depression becomes a silent guest, its company is not unwelcome here. I live with it until it picks up its hat and goes.