Attempting to Articulate Mania (part two of three)

The mind is a very powerful tool, however, if these episodes have taught me anything, and even that may be an understatement. That is to say, what you think upon grows, to borrow from a classic Buddhist mantra. If you think people are following you or out to get you, soon enough, they just may be. That said, These delusions had me in the hospital next to a cast of characters that would have made Francis Ford Coppola proud.

During one of my admissions in Southern Califorina, still disoriented from the hyper-manic night that landed me in there the night prior, I remember having a cigarette (yes, they let you smoke in Southern California hospitals, a privilege very much missed by my inmates other sanitaria) with a gentleman aptly nicknamed, “Trig,”,( and let’s just say it wasn’t for his aptitude in trigonometry). During that same manic wave, in a different hospital in Anaheim, there was another elder gentleman who looked to have had non-elective tongue surgery presumably for talking a bit much, who was kind enough to hand me a tattered Bible (which I still have to this day). In either case, both Trig, and the elderly statesman gave me cold-blooded looks, and spoke in suggestive tones, telling essentially telling me to, “Slow down, or be slowed down.”

Despite their initial auras, I’d like to think that after spending enough time with them, winding down from episodic insanity, I earned their respect, if not friendship. In any case, not to digress too much, I would be remiss were I to omit the gentleman at Alta Bates, a hospital in Northern California, whom I had the pleasure of meeting while running Amok in Berkeley in the fall of 2009/spring 2010. He was a dead ringer for a young Charles Manson, with the forehead tattoo, scraggly, long hair, and vacant gaze to match his disheveled visage. However, after dealing with those characters described prior, after a certain point unabashed fear yields to curiosity, and after a few days together, he was teaching me elegant Middle Age calligraphy, an art that his appearance belied, and a gentleness that was not suggested by his hulking frame.

One thing you learn not to do in certain spaces, mental institutions, being one of them is ask questions, especially the, “What are you in for?” classic line that’s been overly popularized in film and television. In some cases, you’d rather not know where they may be coming from in a literal sense, as is true with the figurative. Ask the question and get the answer you did not want to know. My intuition has yet to steer me wrong thus far, and having consorted with a cross section of the most dysfunctional amongst us, you learn to gauge people very quickly. Eye contact is a key cue and the clues from our most trusted senses teach you the roads a man have traveled without confirmation or corroborating evidence. Have I lived amongst killers? “I don’t know, officer, neither here nor there, and certainly not my place to go probing.”

That said, my defenses were up 24/7 for many of my visits to the inside while manic, because at the end of the day, anybody from burnt out Ivy leaguers to penal veterans to anyone in between can voluntarily admit themselves or be committed. Without knowing their diagnoses, tendencies, or intentions I turned into my own secret service, with my head constantly on a swivel, making sure everything was on the up and up.