Manic Episode: Another Side of Bipolar Disorder
Welcome back, my mates!
My apologies for the extended absence!. I have been very busy with other projects, which I’ll have to revisit shortly. Additionally, I would have liked to make sure this article was perfect, because this one’s a little tricky.
So far, the majority of my articles have concentrated on depression. As somebody with type II bipolar disfunction, that is the side I know best. Additionally , it's the side that's most straightforward for a person who doesn't have bipolar disorder to understand. Everybody has been bummed at some point. Wanna understand bipolar depression? Take your depression, magnify by about a jillion, and there ya go. Pretty simple to understand, right? The opposite side of the coin isn’t as simple. A good metaphor, I am hoping, will make it much simpler to understand.
Shall we say the average human brain is similar to a Volvo. The Volvo gets great mileage and is among the safest, most reliable autos on the road. You wanna get to work on time, day after day and with little fuss and worry? Then the Volvo is the car for you.
The bipolar brain is more like a Ferrari.
The Ferrari is fast and flashy. It’s smooth, flashy looks practically demand and can get shallow chicks to sleep with you. It’s sleek styling and predatory looks practically beg you to drive at dangerous speeds. You want to make it to work in forty seconds flat? Then the Ferrari is the car for you. Sadly, it guzzles gas like your Aunt Janie guzzles gin and tends to spend more time in the shop than on the road. The insurance fees are astronomical and you are virtually certain to wrap it around a tree someday.
Now then… Bipolar depression is similar to the occasions when the Ferrari is in the store. It’s up on the lift, and you’re going nowhere. You can't even show it off by rolling it into your drive. Not only that, but you gotta walk to work while all of the Volvo drivers practically blaze by at 35 miles per hour. In your mind’s eye, they laugh at you as it begins to rain. Your hysteria tells you they’re ALL aiming at puddles near you , and the odd sociopath WILL soak you for their entertainment.
But then the shop owner calls. Your chariot awaits! You go down to the store, pay the preposterous bill, and fire up that 16-cylinder Italian ego trip.
“I‘ ve missed you, Farrah,“ you tell her . Who cares if the guy at the shop gives you a strange look? If HE had a Ferrari, he’d name her Farrah, too. Your foot hardly taps her speed pedal and she purrs delightedly. She has missed you as much as you’ve missed her.
“Good girl,” you are saying, then ease Farrah’s shifter into first, the action so smooth that instinct alone tells you that she’s out of neutral. You pull out of the shop’s car park and into traffic. Initially, she’s just glad to be off of that horrible rack and back on the road where she belongs, but each red light, each school zone is very irritating . Sand only makes pearls in oysters. Sand in an engine is death, but Farrah complies and stays at the speed limit… For now.
You pull into the car park at work, all eyes turn to you and your stunning machine. You pull into your space and reach for the key to kill her ignition, but you stop short.
“It’s been so long. Just once,” she begs. “Pretty please?”
You know this is how it starts, but you’re still in control. Just once will not hurt anything, right? It is not like you are doing anything dangerous. Besides , what is the point in owning an automobile like Farrah if you can’t show her off?
With her gears still in neutral, your foot presses hard on her accelerator and her engine screams delightedly. People who were not looking before actually are now. Many are impressed. Many others are jealous. And Farrah, eventually, feels warm and tingly.
“Ooo baby,” she purrs. “You’re the only one who knows how to touch me right. Again. Please.”
“Sorry, babe,” you assert, a little defeated. “I gotta go to work now.”
Farrah simpers as you shut off the engine, sputtering just a bit to tell you she’s put out. You guarantee her a full tank of premium and a stretch of deserted road tonight followed by a loving sponge bath. You know that will make her cheerful, but she’s still moping.
When 5 o’clock rolls around, you dash into the car park to find Farrah waiting. It's a gorgeous day, so you decide a little sun would be good for both of you. You drop her top, fire up her engine and gun the accelerator – just a little – as you exit the parking lot. No harm done, and at last you are out of the parking lot and on the open road where the two of you are rather more happy… For all of about twenty seconds.
Gridlock. No one’s going anywhere fast. The traffic jam drives you nuts, but you try and smile in any case. You've gotten so many “nice. car, man” comments from the Volvos that your ego has slipped into overdrive. Eventually, though, it gets old. You are sick of hearing how nice your car is. You wanna FEEL how nice she is and in this traffic, how are you able to? You can’t even get out of first gear! You’ve got to MOVE!
Speed isn’t Farrah’s only good quality. She maneuvers like… Well… Like a goddamn Ferrari! Each time an opening in traffic presents itself, you whip into it. At first, you make sure there’s a load of space, but soon ANY quantity of space is sufficient so long as it moves you forward. Other drivers stop asserting “nice car” and start saying “watch it, asshole!”
“Fuck them,” Farrah says. “They’re just envious, baby.”
Ultimately, you come on a stretch of open road, just begging to be devoured. You stomp Farrah’s accelerator and right away know that what she said is true. Who would not be envious of this speed? This liberty?
“At last!” she screams as you tear away from the nightmare traffic behind you. The wind whips your hair as the speedometer climbs. This is what she’s BUILT to do, you tell yourself. It’s just you and Farrah and all's well internationally. You drive off into the sunset, victorious, like in the films.
But real life isn’t the movies, and sunset only means the end of the day, not the end of the movie. You pull into your garage and park Farrah for the night. You have got to work in the morning, but you're too wired to sleep. You try watching TV. You try a warm shower. Nothing works. Sleep just won't come. Farrah call to you from the garage.
“Sleep is for those Volvo people,” she says, spitting out the word Volvo as though it had the arsenic taste of sour almonds. “You’re better than that, baby. All you really need is me. Come on. Let’s go for a drive.”
But you know better. You've been down this road before. With a bit of help from one or two Benadryl, you pay no attention to her voice and drift off, but your sleep isn’t like real sleep. Your body lays motionless but your consciousness spins like a screeching tire. Dreams and reality melt together for a few fitful hours asleep and traffic nightmares.
You are awake long before dawn, but you push yourself to stay in bed until the alarm goes off an hour later, then you are up in a flash. You sing in the shower. You skip breakfast. You rush to the garage to find Farra waiting.
“Good morning, baby,” she asserts. “Ready to play?”
“Are you?” you ask, smirking as you sink into a kid leather bucket seat that fits you like a glove. You adroitly slip your key in her ignition and give it a twist. As you pull on your driving gloves, the temperature gauge begins to rise. “Like that, do you?”
“Sailor baby, you get me hotter than Georgia asphalt,” she purrs.
You bet your sweet ass I do, you think as the garage door rises to release you from your prison. Your home isn’t your home. Here with her. This is home. This is where you belong.
Now, there are 2 other ways this eventuality can end?
END 1
The garage door is hardly up before you're skidding out of the garage and into… Another fucking traffic jam! No! No no no no NO NO NO!!! You honk madly. Farrah’s engine growls at any Volvos who get too near. The admiration in the Volvo drivers ‘ eyes is gone. Today, they look upon you with fear as you fight your way through traffic, but who cares? They are just in your way, anyway, right? One Volvo tries to pull in front of you. You stomp the accelerator and he weaves out of your way nicely timed.
“My lane, asshole,” you scream. “Mine!”
Your lane or not, the traffic light turns red and you are stuck. Time stands still. You scream and rev your engine, your foot to the floor, both you and Farrah quickly reaching redline. The temperature alert light comes on, but you ignore it. It just wants to slow you down, too. You smell oil smoke, but don’t care.
“Go baby,” Farrah shrieks. “Go! Go! GOOOO!”
KABLAM!
Something snaps. Black smoke boils out of the engine compartment. Farrah’s engine chokes and sputters as the light turns green. She has got just enough strength to ease to the side of the road.
“This is all of your fault,” she says, dying. You weep at what your anger has done.
The tow wagon guy clucks his tongue as he winches Farrah’s front end into the sky. “Damn shame,” he says. “Such a nice car.”
In your mind, you finish his sentence. If only you knew how to treat it.
Welcome back to depression.
Or, it may end like this?
END 2
The garage door is barely up before you're slipping out of the garage and onto the open road. Your floor it and Farrah jumps over the speed limit like an antelope. There’s no traffic, no cops, nothing apart from miles of open road. You cut each corner closer, although not because you are beyond control. You do it because you're fucking dazzling! Each move you make is the correct one. The world is yours and everything is perfect…
. …until you run right out of gas in the middle of nowhere during a thunderstorm and have to walk to the nearest payphone only to find you do not have any change, so you have got to walk all of the way back to your house. Once at your home, you reach into your pocket and find that you've lost your keys somewhere on the way.
Welcome back to depression.
George Carlin, one of the funniest men to ever live, once said the cliche ‘ phrase “more than satisfied” sounded like a medical problem. Well, it is…sometimes. “More than happy” is named euphoria, and euphoria is commonly an indication of a manic episode. Sometimes, bipolarity feels Superb. At the start of the upturn, you have hypomania, and hypomania can be very good. It's your chance to really shine.
Sometimes, when you are hypomanic, you are the life of the party – fascinating, smart, friendly and crammed with energy. Your consciousness becomes extremely sharp, your reflexes like those of a kung fu master. You make mates easily, attain superb amounts of work, and have flashes of brilliance that astound and dazzle everyone around you. I LIKE it when hypomania works that way!
Sometimes , however , it does not. Sometimes when you’re hypomanic, you are the total buzzkill – cranky, sour, sullen… And yet still filled with energy. Your mind is sharpened, but it’s your tongue that is the razor. You are nerves are so nervous you twitch. Fine silk feels like sandpaper against your skin. You still have that eager focus, but all you concentrate on is the neighbor’s goddamn stereo and if you had one oz. less of self-control, you’d crash right over and push the thing straight up his ass. But that wouldn't sort the problem, because dammit, you're pissed and you are going to stay that way. I Hate it when hypomania works that way… it’s almost worse than depression.
Now, if you are type bipolar 2 like me, hypomania is the ceiling. You hit it, stay there for anywhere from a couple of hours to a few weeks (depending on how rapidly you cycle) and then spiral back down into depression. If you are bipolar 1, then hypomania is only the start.
Hypomania basically means “little mania,” so for a full-tilt manic episode, take my description of hypomania and magnify it exponentially: the infrequent sleep-deprived nights becomes days on end without sleep; the infrequent ego trip gives way to serious narcissism and delusions of grandeur; euphoria becomes psychosis; irritation becomes rage and stress becomes outright paranoia. Some even experience hallucinations.
No matter how high the ladder goes, unless you drop dead from exhaustion (which does happen now and then) or wrap your Ferrari around a tree (yes, those on the upward swing actually do have a tendency to speed) then you’re going to find yourself right back where you started. For some, that’s a comparatively ordinary mood. For others, it’s welcome back to depression. Hope you enjoyed the ride.
And on that note, I hope you, my readers, have liked the ride. I’ll be taking a break from this blog now, but I am sure I’ll be back I have got so many other stories, poems, film scripts and articles to write. I’ve got sketches to draw and music to compose. I have a life without bipolar disorder… or at least a life without thinking about it all the time.
The one thing I want you to remember most of all is that nobody IS An ILLNESS. They are people with a disease. Their disease is not their life, at least not unless they permit it to be. Don’t do that, folks. It sucks. Be people. People are OK unless they won’t turn their goddamn stereos down.
Keep fighting, folks!
Read more about ” Manic Episode: Another Side of Bipolar Disorder ” on Kurt Pedersen’s Blog about Bipolar Disorder, Depression and Anxiety!
