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. 

Attempting to Articulate Mania (part one of three)

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 

Back on the Good Foot.

The holidays have been going really well so far. My older sister, Jessica, is in town, and despite her playing the scarcity card via her reunions with her high-school and college friends, my fun-sized sisters (Nicole being the other) and I were able to spend quality time at Christmas with my mother.

Looking back on it, throwing mom under the bus for the fractures in our mutual dissatisfaction as it concerned the living arrangement was harsh, but with the privilege of hindsight the friction was only natural. While the dog incident proved to be the tipping point, there were other goings on, which in retrospect, made my mother’s growing discomfort understandable. Generally speaking, being 30 with no kids, no warrants (that I know of, ha), of able body, and sound mind made the house in which I was raised far from optimal for either one of us.

And about that sound mind thing. My last trip to the hospital was far more of a tune-up of sorts as opposed to a critical/crisis intervention, but as is typically the case, in retrospect, I can admit that I wasn't quite on point when released. After ten plus admissions you learn, what to say, how to say it, and when to say it, and to whom to expedite your exit and have your walked papers granted. While psych wards had become something of a home away from home during my twenties, they are still no place I’d want to be, unless there was no other suitable option, hence me talking that talk while committed.

That said with my newfound optimism and experience, good times were had this last go round nonetheless. The staff knows me well (cue the “Cheers” theme song) at Newton-Wellesley Hospital (NWH), so it’s almost like seeing old friends. This last time, I damn near played the role of host being wholly familiar with the routine, hospital personnel, and typical clientele. Sure, the circumstances surrounding these types of  reunion are less than ideal, but familiar faces in what could otherwise be seen as hellish places go a long way themselves in allaying certain symptoms.

When I came home, there was many a hypo-manic hiccup, not to mention side-effects from the newest medication, Seroquel, which simply did not agree with me with its nauseating side effects. Throw in a little post traumatic stress (though I may or may not meet the criteria for the disorder itself, please believe it’s not simply reserved for those who have served), and I was waking up extremely irritably, lashing out for any number of reasons, poor sleep (thanks to the Seroquel), and no consistent place find it, and having flashbacks when I did, were amongst the top ones.

Despite not being wanted at home as my mother made clear to the hospital clinicians, there was nowhere else to go, as the shelters I had looked into at that point were booked. That said, I came to my old bedroom, to find my little sister in the midst of taking over my room and her trove of stuff, half way moved in and mine strewn about as she prepped the room for a fresh layer of paint. “Welcome home, thanks for helping me towards a speedy recovery, guys” I thought.

In any case home used to be a good place to recoup, regroup, rest, and recover. The rehabbed me (again thanks to the tour Atlanta), left me well against any number of measures, and there was simply no reason to be there. My mother and I were both more than frustrated with my presence. She, as a freshly minted divorceé finally free of any maternal obligations, looked to indulge in her long suppressed wanderlust between her side of the family in Pittsburgh and a lovely renaissance of sorts with her new beau in South Carolina. Before I even left Atlanta, I looked to take writing more seriously than ever before, but coming home threw a wrench into those plans, which only now are being re-adjusted accordingly and most thankfully.

A holiday update.

Excuse the hiatus, y'all, but getting in family time during the holidays while working full-time and respecting the 7pm curfew at the lodge has made writing a little tough. On the other hand, however, with some Christmas cash, and this week's paycheck, a budget laptop looks to be in the works.

I hope to taking writing more seriously over the next year. The recent flurry of posts have been time-constricted by the library limits, not to mention the time it takes to get there before or after work. I'm looking to freelance wherever and whenever possible over the next year, as well as reach out to different folks and resources to hopefully get the name out there. It's time to get it crackin' y'all.

And one more for ya before I sign off. I recently topped the four digit hit mark, with readership from places as far as Russia. Though my postings were only in intermittent flurries over the past year, my resolve to write as therapy is emboldened knowing that others seem to have found value in it as well.  A good feeling indeed, which is much appreciated, so a whole-hearted thank you is in order.

From Laments to Lessons

As someone who used to carry around a cumbersome load of them, regrets seem to be typically reserved for those who have not reconciled with their past and thus may have an awareness of, let alone peace with their present. After suffering from what my shrink then called, self-attacking thoughts and even more brutal self talk for years that thankfully have been reframed casually using many cognitive behavioral techniques learned along the way, this virulent vortex of self-pity (and when it wasn’t self-pity it was straight up self-hate) has provided background for a portrait that’s still in the works.

After spending nearly a decade trying to make sense of love and loss (aside from the romantic loves lost, other equally chilling losses included the child that never was, my grandfather, my grandmother, my mind, and last and least importantly of all my money/material possessions), it recently came to me to frame it from a more detached, objective perspective. That’s to say nothing that happened was anyone else’s fault, and it certainly was not my own to be personalized. The perceived failures were once a bastard whose paternity I claimed fully and whose rearing fell squarely and upon my shoulders. Not to say that blame should be ducked and dodged, but if we are to share the credit for our successes, an equal distribution of its opposite seems appropriate. In either case, I’ve moved away from value ascription across any number of domains and learned to view my definition of success as just that, mine.

Fault is a weighty burden to bear, and certainly not one conducive to maintaining any semblance of mental hygiene when embraced and accepted solely. Now instead of attaching blame or even searching for reasons why, my attitude, as it concerns anything, ranging, from the minor to the major, “this, that, or the third may have happened, now what am I going to do about it.” This solution oriented, value-neutral approach has been good for me as it centers around my ability (or agency, if you prefer the academic term) to be the architect of my own destiny, in the immediate, eventual, and ultimate time frames. 

on Cultivating an Attitude of Gratitude.

One thing I’ve trained myself to do, is to cultivate an attitude of gratitude as my positive psychology professor at Berkeley used to say. He taught a class called, “Human Happiness,” and its dividends are still being paid, especially as it regards being mindful of thankfulness.

Two songs I listen to first before I get into my zone are 1) William DeVaugn’s “Be Thankful for What you Got and 2) Nas and Damian Marley’s, “Count Your Blessings”)

After those two are played, it’s anybody’s call as to what comes next, but it’s as important to realize what you’ve come through and where you’ve come to, as it is to know where you’re going (should planning be your thing, if not it’s cool, too, for as they say, “Not all who wander are lost.”

I was just saying to my shrink, Francis, yesterday, how I’ve come to respect and appreciate the process that is progress, and though change by incremental extension took some getting used to, little by little, it’s important to know that as long I’m moving in the right direction, then it’s all good. Life will be there tomorrow, so what’s the rush?

I ended the session by saying, “I’m only concerned with pleasing myself these days,” which for someone who in the past has tried to be a lot of things to a lot of people was not a self-congratulatory nod to the guy in the mirror nor a hedonistic green light, but a shirking of baggage that used to weigh me down something serious.

Dispensing advice or dropping jewels on those who don’t want to or simply aren’t able to receive them can itself be an exercise in frustration. All of the tools, information, and know how, to do whatever you may be able to conceive are at your immediate disposal via the wonders of the internet. Though if you prefer the old school, personal connection, as I do, mine your network to increase your net worth, in whichever terms you see worth as having value (i.e., not necessarily financial).

After a good talk with the homie Sean yesterday, he reinforced this notion of mindful and what is to be gained simply by reaching out. This situation in the shelter (which in and of itself is a stigmatized term with some resounding connotations to the negative – besides technically it’s a lodge, and feels more like a halfway house) is a speed bump through which I’m staying focused and positive. In a few months, I will have saved up enough money for a room or even more preferably an efficiency studio. For the time being, I’m loving the camaraderie, company, and conversation of the fellas there. Though some could be doing better, just to give you an idea of the clientele, I’ve seen a laptop, an iphone, and people getting suited and booted to start there day like anyone else.

As I was telling my homegirl, Nicole, this place is a five star resort compared to the shelter shelter where I stayed for a couple of nights in the hood. It was just row after row of cots occupied by gentlemen who had been shot (in fact one guy was sharing war stories in the waiting room [read:outside on the bench], down, and super out (of it). It was actually inside of a barren, church with pews cleared out. It was bare bones and required a 20 minute walk through the hood just to arrive, (Not to mention the four dollars each way + hour commute on the bus and train just to get there – and all this is not to say that I ain’t appreciate the hell of out it, the two nights I crashed there, but to say that the place I’m at now is a palace by comparison.

We’re talking, washing machine, Coke machine, showers, cable, food from local restaurants brought in the semi-regular, as was as spacious cubbies, that for someone was a a few back packs worth of stuff (that can all go tomorrow for all I care), has proven to be more than sufficient.

Needless to say, I’m thankful and count my blessings daily.

Thoughts on the Newtown, CT shooting.

In a articularly crude use of a facebook back in 2009 while still a grad student at Berkeley, I posted a status update that read something to the effect of, “Campus Police respond as gunshots rang out on the Northwest side of campus. Officers arrived to find, the suspect, Chris Ferguson, to only have murdered his psychology final exam.”

The reactions to this post taught me a few things. One, not everyone uses the term murder in a benign light, but amongst many of my boys, Terrie especially, that word is thrown around casually to connote an especially dramatic endeavor towards consummation or completion.

Example: With my voracious appetite and gastroinstestinal satiety that knows no bounds, On Mexican night, I might be overheard saying to he or someone else: “Yo, I was hungry as a muthafucka last night. Those tacos got murdered.”

In other words, if you’re kinda slow, and still don’t get it, half the time, especially as it regards modern black (s)language, ebonics, if you will, pretend it’s opposite day, where bad, quite literally can and does mean good, in any number of contexts. 

Final example for the extra lay: “Yo that chick bad, can often be translated as, “Salutations, good sir, that lady is particularly beautiful.”

Secondly, those that got my humor, laughed, but did so in a way that was illustrative to me as it regards my particularly likelihood, to go on a shooting spree. My sister’s old schoolyard boyfriend, Ricardo, was one of many who said, “Haha, good one, Chris, you almost got me with that one,” or something to that effect. This got me to thinking, well damn, guess they thought I was capable going Columbine, but after reading the recent headlines and lead-ins to the Newtown incident, that oh so familiar psychological profile for what have become routine goings on, can essentially be drawn from recall:

“The suspect had a history of mental illness. He was described as quiet by those that knew him and kept to himself much of the time.”

Well, damn, if the shoe fits, allow me to find some matching socks. That is to say, that could be me on any given day (though the paternally inherited extrovert has been out and active moreso than in the past)

Though this situation in particular and the headlines that accompanied it can and will be problematized in any number of ways, firsts things first. This history of mental illness bullshit. Instead of passing the buck and shirking the blame to have it fall squarely on the shoulders of those of have experienced the terrors and trauma so often are suffered mental illness, would it be too much to say exactly what that history is. If we are to err, why not do so on the side of specificity. As it regards onus bearing, could we not, just as easily say, “The suspect had a history of being mistreated in general and mistreated for mental illness in particular.”

Since, however, excuse-making is not the goal at this critical juncture and because the privilege to represent struck during this unfortunate time, allow me to do just that, and revisit the depths of the mind a solitary mad man from someone’s who has “been there, and thought that” so to speak. Though due to obvious sensitivities regarding gun violence in light of the recent shooting in Newton, CT, such morose humor is best unrepeated in public spaces, allow me to explicate, and perhaps even allow you to delve into a mind, who more recently than I would care to admit (well actually I did recently admit to it, please see one of my recent posts where ending up on the losing side of a love triangle, had me whistling Hendrix’s classic ballad, “Hey Joe,” like Dixie).

While this much be able to be intuited, it really can be an, “if I’m feelin’ it, someone else gon’ feel it,” type of situation. And by, “it” of course, I’m talking about abscessed, festering agony of unrecognized and unaddressed pain. While restraint has always been a source of pride for me in my sexual and violent, less-capades, (so called for their relative infrequency as measured against those of my peers and the frequency with which they can manifest in the old thoughtbox respectively), there have been times when the Bishop (see the movie Juice for the reference and the masterful acting of one Tupac Shakur) has surfaced, and I simply do not give a fuck. While the menefreghista in me comes, it typically goes just as soon, and my negative energies are typically internalized. On the two occasions where they were externalized, in an aggressive, malicious fashion my old knucklehead pops took a couple for the team as it were, having earned them for a lifetime of half-assed parenting and even more half-assed husbandry.

Thoughts ranging from mass murder to directed assault and battery can be commonly overheard in everyday idiomatic expression (that is to say, the phrases so casually thrown around like, “I’ll kill so and so,” during moments of rage or even in jest, the familiar, “I’d like to beat the shit out of such and such) there is a grand distinction between having an impulse and acting on it.

However, during that fuzzy space between thought and action, (and if close enough attention is paid, word is almost always put out in some form or fashion), let’s ask ourselves if we are at all complicit in the actions of another by our regard, or lack thereof, via indifference whether callous, or unconscious, to the burdens borne by our brother. And if you are not seeing your brother in the other then perhaps you may recalibrate your moral compass accordingly.

Listening is free, therapy is not. Caring is a 24/7 operation, therapy is not. Getting meds requires appointments, time, and money. Getting a smile should not. Giving a fuck is not just for the sexually liberated. If you see someone in passing who looks like their day, year, or life, could be going better, did you ask them, how they were doing? If you answered no to the previous question, then why it is a shock, when just about one in two people in our country, have been prescribed psychotropic meds in our country (guess can agree, that damn near the majority could be described, as having had a mental health history), when one of those (mis)treated souls loses it and consequently makes others lose their lives as a result?

Abstinence is Birth Control are taught in schools as early as elementary school. Drug Control is advocated in schools. In the wake of the Newtown Massacre, with echoes of atrociously similar shootings still being heard, the everpresent call for gun control is now deafening. If there is time to teach everything in school, and push for controls of all measures, let’s start with self-control, intrapersonal mastery, and interpersonal empathy insofar as it is possible.