In the
next couple of posts I will attempt, and perhaps futilely so, to describe crazy
to someone who has not experienced the gratifying, but more often than not, dizzying
highs that mania can induce. When reality, as it is commonly understood was too
much to bear, my brain has proven to have uncanny ability to create its own,
one which is typically more comfortable that the one from which I have been
scarred. To be honest, many of my memories
have been lost, though not irrecovably, due to that same brain’s tendency to repress
to these recollections to the nether regions of its gray, three pound universe.
It is my hope, however, that the more I write, the more will be unearthed. For
now, though, many are lodged in the memory bank, hopelessly stuck somewhere between
horror, embarrassment, dismay, and disbelief. Through analogy and commonality,
it is my also my hope to make clear, or at the very least more clear, the way
my mind (dys)functioned while having a manic episode.
Let’s
begin with Bipolar 101. For those that require background bipolar disorder was
formally known as manic-depression.
Depression, from a clinical perspective, is the more familiar of this
dyad and is typically characterized by persistent and unshakable feelings of
sorrow, guilt, helplessness, grief, and just about any other negative emotion
you could fathom. Mania, on the other hand itself, is depression’s diametric opposite,
and is typified by feelings of excitability, elevation, euphoria and specifically
in my cased exponentially self-aggrandizing thoughts, a spike in sociability, and
an extremely pressured, nearly glossolalic (i.e., like speaking in tongues)
speech.
As far as
the last of these is surefire symptoms goes, imagine if information was
evacuating your brain and every thought on your information superhighway had to
find its way out to alleviate the internal pressure. For someone who has been
known to speak softly, the seeming non-sequiturs as heard, understood, and determined
by many a listener have a certain tendency to throw the audience into rapt
captivity if not sheer fright at the unexpected elocutions. Many a pair of
unexpecting ears ranging from those strangers, to remote acquaintances, to
friends and family, have received phone calls, instant messages, and IM’s while
I have been episodic and their reactions have ranged from tear-inducing
laughter to exclamations indicating their concern.
Yet
another one of the classic symptoms of mania is the aforementioned grandiosity.
These delusions can run the gamut from unwarranted overly confident ideations
(i.e., thinking you just are the straight up man to any and everybody you come
across) to those with hyper-religious overtones. The first episode had me
thinking I was the second coming of Christ. (It made perfect sense in my warped
mind at the time - the operative phrase being at the time as all of my episodes,
and the reflections contained herein are temporally contingent, meaning just
because I have been crazy and have the capability of going the deep end, does
not mean I am there now. I remember thinking my name is Christ(opher), which
translates to, “bearer of Christ” and due to my father’s naming, I am,
Christopher II [the second as opposed to a junior], so I took it, and ran with it
until I couldn’t run anymore)
Oh and I should
mention that at my manic worst/best, I have been diagnosed as having manic with
psychotic features. In lay terms pyschosis translates into a clean break from
reality, and while this may be overly general, allow me to frame it within an
analogy that may be familiar.
In the
arcade classic Pac-Man in one of the earlier levels there is a line that runs
across the center of the screen. If Pac Man, goes too far to the left or right
in flight of his eager enemies in hot pursuit, he will immediately end up on
the opposite side of the screen, but for a split second he will disappear, and
is off the screen entirely. Imagine Depression on the left and Mania on the Right
(or vice versa for you Southpaws). When life has pushed me too far in either
direction, typically when manic, there have been times that have created a
temporary suspension of reality in which I am, for all intents and purposes,
off this analogic screen. Psychotic, like gone, as in G-O-N-E.
This off the
grid gone-ness as it concerns my own relationship to it, I must mention, a
curious phenomenon known as synchronicity. This is the strange belief that
every last thing happening around you is happening to, for, and because of you.
This contemporaneous oneness extends to the past as well, as events from the
past (ranging from historic to the personally banal) leads you to believe that
everything that has happened to this point has been for you as some sort of
cosmic orientation that is working to your benefit.
For
instance, everything from a song playing on the radio, to a TV show, to the
conversations of passersby are meant for your eyes and your ears, as if the
universe is trying to tell you something. With this hyper-reactivity to
stimuli, in play, there exists a trippy feeling whereby you think everyone that
crosses your path has a pre-existing knowledge of your self-created personhood.
In other words, you think people know you and your story and your self-assured
celebrity, when they actually don’t know you from the proverbial hole in the
wall. Though under such grand delusions introductions aren’t necessary and you
operate under the assumption that they even though they may not know you that
they 1) either playing it cool and not blowing your cover or 2) are soon to
find out as soon as your delusions of grandeur are fulfilled. This would be the
euphoric side of pyschosis.
Famed guitarist
Hendrix once described craziness as heavenly (and even has an illustrative song
called, “Manic-Depression). However, no matter how euphoric, this troubled line
of thinking can put you in some pretty precarious situations, especially when
combined with heightened sensitivities and irritability that can also accompany
mental instability. Once, for instance, while in handcuffs in an Orange County
holding cell, I graced an officer with an introduction, since he apparently didn’t
know who I was. While he was sandwiched between a fellow officer on both sides,
I screamed and swore at him belligerently, while repeating particularly explicit
rap lyrics, by poet Laureate, Cam’ron:. I yelled, over and over, “Your wife, I
call her old girl, her head makes me toes curl.” Obviously taken aback by this
outburst, their reaction, was priceless and will be forever etched in my memory.
While manic and infused with a certain intoxicated confidence and conviction I had
them all but certain that this poor man’s wife was indeed having extramarital
romps with this crazy Negro in handcuffs.
One of the
few benefits, of insanity as determined by mania and psychosis that comes with
it, is the space you carve out for yourself. While people hardly come to
respect you as the “man” as self-identify, they do come to know you as that strange
fellow who deserves a whole lot o’ leave alone, which, in the end, works well
for me. Many a manic romp have put a distance between others and myself that
one 1) lends itself to my own introversion and 2) puts them on their heels to
the point where if I ever do choose to engage them, they become like silly
putty. One you introduce yourself, even unknowingly, as that more than-a-just-a-little
bit-off, black man people become off-put at least, terrified at worst, and
definitely malleable, or bendable to your will and volition. Reality becomes
your stage, people your puppets, and your hands grasp the strings the bend them
to your wanting. Oh the privileges, of insanity!
As for
the elements of grandiosity and psychosis that accompanies this manic feeling,
in many cases, it works both ways. For all of your thoughts of celebrity
acclaim and desires of universal regard, they are also accompanied by thoughts
that are equally paranoid and grossly delusional (e.g., thinking people are out
to kill you). For quite some time when manic, I thought I was the target of
international crime syndicates hitmen who to make matters worse were working in
collusion with FBI, CIA, ATF etc., and
any other acronymic governmental organization to ensure my premature demise.
Perhaps
this analogy may help this batshit crazy line of thinking. If you’ve never
experienced mania with psychotic features, perhaps more you are familiar with
recreational drug (ab)use. I once
attempted to describe it as feeling similar to having had smoked, snorted, and
injected every possible illicit drug in the book. Alcoholically diminished inhibitions? Forget about those pesky behavioral constrictors because mania is like taking a fifth of moonshine to the head. Though pulling on a nicely rolled
blunt every blue moon, is as far as my indulgence into recreational drug use
goes and ever will go, Mary Jane is known for the euphoria it induces. I hear coke can give you a (hypo)manic edge of
sorts while such hallucinogens as PCP (Angel Dust) can leave you feeling
paranoid and/or invincible. The classic psychedelics like acid and shrooms,
alter your perception of visual and auditory stimuli. Well put them together
and you have a trip that can be as equally exhilarating as it is terrifying. Though
I was spared the material cost of having to acquire these drugs seeing as how
it was my own neurotransmitters gone haywire, the jarring and nearly scarring aftereffects
were are price I would pay long after the high/bad trips had come down
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