Manic Episode: Another Side of Bipolar Disorder

By Richard Albertson

Mypomanic Episode: Another Side of Bipolar Disorder

Welcome back, my pals!

Sorry for the extended absence!. I've been extremely busy with other projects, which I should have to come back to soon. Also, I wanted to confirm this essay was perfect, cause this one's rather hard.

So far, almost all of my articles have focused on depression. As someone with type II bipolar disorder, that's the side I know best. Also , it is the side that is easiest for somebody who does not have bipolar disfunction to understand. Everyone has been depressed at some point in their life. Wanna understand bipolar depression? Take your depression, magnify by about a jillion, and there ya go. Pretty easy to understand, right? The other side of the coin is not as straightforward. A good analogy, I'm hoping, should make it easier 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 rather 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... a depressive episode feels like the times when the Ferrari is in the shop. It's up on the lift, and you are going nowhere. You cannot even show off the pain job by rolling it into your driveway. Not just that, but you have to walk to work while all the Volvo drivers practically blaze by at 35 mph. You imagine them laughing at you as it starts to rain. Your anxiety deepens as you imagine them aiming for puddles near you . You've learned that the occasional sociopath WILL soak you for his or her amusement.

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 telle her, 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 carpark and into traffic. At first, she's just happy to be off that hideous rack and back on the road where she belongs, but every red light, every college section is an irritant , and sand only makes pearls in oysters. Sand in an engine is death, but Farrah complies and stays below the velocity limit... For the moment.

As you pull into the parking lot at work, all eyes turn to you and your gorgeous 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 are still in control. Just once won't hurt anything, right? It isn't like you're doing anything threatening. Anyway what's the point in owning a car like Farrah if you can not show her off?

With her gears still in neutral, your foot presses hard on her accelerator and her engine screams delightedly. Those that were not looking before definitely are now. Many are impressed. Many others are jealous. And Farrah, at long last, 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 pouts as you shut off the engine, sputtering just a little to let you know she's put out. You promise her a full tank of premium and a stretch of deserted highway tonight followed by a loving sponge bath. You know that may make her happy, but you can tell she's still sulking.

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 snarl up drives you nuts, but you attempt to grin regardless. You have gotten so many "nice. car, man" comments from the Volvo drivers that both you and Farrah's egos have slipped into overdrive. At last, though, it gets old. You're done with hearing how nice your auto's. You wanna FEEL how nice she is , and in this traffic, how can you? You haven't even been out of second gear yet! You have 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."

Eventually, you come upon a stretch of open highway, just begging to be devoured. You stomp Farrah's accelerator and instantly know that what she revealed is correct. Who wouldn't be jealous of this speed? This freedom?

"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 DESIGNED to do, you tell yourself. It is simply you and Farrah and all is well globally. You drive off into the nightfall, winning, just like in the movies.

But real life isn't the movies, and sun setting only means the day's end, not the end of the movie. You pull into your garage and park Farrah for the night. You've got to work in the morning, but you're too wired to sleep. You try watching TV. You try a hot 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 young child leather bucket seat that fits you like a glove. You artfully 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 warmer than Georgia asphalt," she purrs.

You bet your sweet ass I do, you believe as the garage door rises to release you from your jail. Your place isn't your place. Here with her. This is home. Here's where you belong.

Now, there are two different ways this scenario can end?

END 1

The garage door is barely up before you are sliding out of the garage and into... Another fucking traffic blockage! No! No no no no NO NO NO!!! You honk crazily. Farrah's engine snarls at any Volvos who get too close. The admiration in the Volvo drivers ' eyes is gone. Today, they look on you with fear as you fight your way through traffic, but you don't give a damn. They're just in your way, anyhow, right? One Volvo makes an attempt to pull in front of you. You stomp the accelerator and he weaves out of your way just in time.

"My lane, asshole," you shout. "Mine!"

Your lane or not, the traffic light turns red and you're stuck. Time stands still. You scream and rev your engine, your foot to the floor, you and Farrah quickly reaching redline. The temperature warning light comes on, but you ignore it. It just wishes to slow you down, too. You smell oil smoke, but don't really care.

"Go baby," Farrah shrieks. "Go! Go! GOOOO!"

KABLAM!

Something snaps. Thick grey smoke boils from the engine compartment. Farrah's engine chokes and sputters as the light turns green. She's got just about enough strength to ease to one side of the road.

"This is all your fault," she is saying, dying. You weep at what your angriness has done.

The tow van guy clucks his tongue as he winches Farrah's front end into the sky. "Damn shame," he says. "Such a pretty car."

In your brain, you finish his sentence. If only you knew how to handle it.

Welcome back to depression.

Or, it could 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 announced the cliche ' phrase "more than ecstatic" sounded like a medical condition. Well, it is...sometimes. "More than happy" is called euphoria, and euphoria is sometimes a sign of a manic episode. Occasionally, bipolar disorder feels Smashing. At the start of the upswing, you have hypomania, and hypomania can be exceedingly good. It's your chance to truly shine.

Often, when you're hypomanic, you're the life of the party - charming, clever, friendly and full of energy. Your mind becomes very sharp, your reflexes like those of a kung fu master. You make chums simply, do fantastic amounts of work, and have flashes of brilliancy that astonish and amaze everybody around you. I LOVE 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 outline of hypomania and magnify it exponentially: the occasional sleepless nights becomes days on end without sleep; the occasional ego trip gives way to significant narcissism and delusions of grandeur; euphoria becomes psychosis; bad temper becomes hostility and anxiousness 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!

About the Author:

Read more about " Hypomanic Episode: Another Side of Bipolar Disfunction " on Kurt Pedersen's Blog about Bipolarity, Depression and Anxiety!