The night I was taken away from it all

 It was twenty-five years ago tonight that for the very first time I was sent to a psychiatric hospital.

The bipolar disorder had started during the preceding winter, but I didn't know that's what it was (it would be another four years before that diagnosis was handed to me).  I had been manic most of the winter and then the depression - what I came to call " the dark fountain" - decided that it was time for it to show itself.  The death of my grandmother toward the end of March intensified the blackness.  All I came to think about was death and dying.  Everywhere I looked I saw dead people waiting to happen.  It was a dark fountain that was smothering me, driving me to the brink.

It got bad enough that one night some friends took me to the hospital in Burlington.  The doctors there said that I was having intense depression.  They were worried about my safety, afraid that I might do something to myself.  And so it was that they signed orders to have me taken involuntarily to John Umstead, a mental hospital northeast of Raleigh.  I got to call Dad before I was to leave the hospital, so my family knew where I was going to.

A cop came in a short while later.  He took me out to his cruiser.  We were five minutes down I-40 when his radio crackled to life and he was instructed to turn back around to the hospital and pick up another patient: another "compassionate", the situation was called.  So we returned to the hospital.  The officer opened the back door and told me to come out and he said he had to put handcuffs on me.  I was horrified: I'd never been handcuffed before.  I asked if I could just stay in the car and he said that was against the rules.  So I had cold carbon steel slapped on my wrists for the first time in my life.  We went back into the hospital though the emergency entrance.  I did my best to hide the handcuffs from view, but nobody seemed to notice anyway.

A few minutes later the new patient, a young lady in her early twenties, was brought out.  The cop put handcuffs on her too.  And so he escorted us out and into the back seat of the car and we took off.

"Hi," the girl told me.  "I'm Tracy.  I'm crazy."

She began telling me about how her parents thought she was going to cut herself again.  She told me about sticking pins and needles into her bare arm.  I asked her why did she do that.  "Oh, just to feel something," she told me.  Tracy kept talking for the whole ride.

It took about an hour to get to John Umstead.  We were taken inside.  Tracy was met by two orderlies who took her down one way and I never saw her again.  The officer took the cuffs off of me and I was taken down the other way.

I was brought to a room and told to take my clothes off.  I did, behind a cloth screen so nobody had to look at me without attire.  My shirt and jeans were taken away, my shoes too.  They let me keep my underwear.  I was given pajamas and "grippy" socks to put on.

A short while later a psychiatric nurse came into the room to give me a preliminary examination.  She asked some questions.  She also gave me a series of numbers and asked me to remember them.  A little while later she asked me what the numbers were and I recited them back to her.

She asked me "Who is the President of the United States?"

Sometimes when things are dark, I fall back into using humor.  That's what I tried to do this time, because this was about as bleak as things could get...

"Hillary Clinton," I replied.

The nurse gave me a harsh look and I could immediately tell that I had answered way wrong.  I quickly told her that I was kidding.  "I'm just really nervous right now," I added.

She made a note of what I had told her.

She finished the exam.  By this point it was approximately 2 a.m. on Friday morning.  I was brought to the ward. Taken to a room.  There were two beds inside, but nobody else was in there.  The assistant told me that if I needed anything that I could come to the nurses station down the hallway.

They had let me keep my book bag all this time.  There had been nothing in it but my Bible.  I sat up on the bed and crossed my legs, and took out my Bible and held it close to my chest.  I started rocking back and forth, my Bible a talisman against the night.  Whatever gets you through the darkness.  I tried to pray, but the words would not come.  All I could think about was that I was two hours away from home, in a part of the state where I knew nobody.  I was in a mental hospital, the last place that I had ever expected to be.  The depression was playing on the edges of my mind but I was too frightened and confused to really let that overwhelm me at the moment.

I looked out from my window.  There was a darkened courtyard beyond the glass.  I stood there, and suddenly thought that this was like that scene toward the beginning of The Godfather Part II, where the child Vito Corleone is locked up in the room at Ellis Island because he's too sick to proceed on to America.  Looking out his window at the distant Statue of Liberty, young Vito starts to sing.

I was locked up too.  Away from the world that I knew.  But I couldn't sing.  

"Especially," I reminded myself, "not in Italian."

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BEING BIPOLAR, Part Fourteen: The Cost

Being Bipolar is a series that began in the winter of 2011.  Every so often I write about what it is to live with the mental illness known as bipolar disorder, or manic depression as it's also often called.  I do this in the hope that others will gain insight and understanding about diseases of the mind, and also I do this in an attempt to inspire others who live with such conditions.  These diagnoses don't have to be the end of the chance for a good life.  I want to believe that in however small a way, I might be helping people realize that.  In this series I attempt to write about the subject with honesty and with candor and, on occasion, with humor.  I am not a psychiatrist.  However I do come from a background of being a state-certified peer support specialist in the South Carolina Department of Mental Health for four years.  It is especially in that capacity that I do my best to document what it is to exist alongside mental illness.  If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, especially if you are having thoughts of self-harm of harm to others, please consider calling 911, or go to your nearest hospital emergency room.  Trust me, I've been there, done that.  You may also find help and encouragement from a support group, such as those sponsored by mental health advocacy organizations like National Alliance on Mental Illness (nami.org).  Help is available.  You only need reach out for it.  People care about you.  Remember that.

This has not been one of the better seasons of my life.

For a year I had an amazing career as an artificial intelligence trainer.  A dear friend had recently gotten her foot in the door of that industry and she was able to get me started in that also.  After nearly four wonderful years at the state department of mental health - a position I would have stayed in forever had the economy not become so bleak - it was a great break to have.  It paid good money.  But more importantly to me, it was a chance to use the vast majority of the skills and experiences I have picked up throughout my life.  I got to bring those to bear upon the tasks at hand.  The research and analytical skills that I gained early on and finely honed during my time in college lent themselves well to the job.  It played to my skills for writing.  It was getting to use a mind that has always spanned matters as far apart from each other as World War II history and aerodynamics and Catholic theology, and everything in between.  I was on the cutting edge of technology, using my full mental toolbox, and I was thriving with purpose fulfilled.

And then, I was downsized.  Which is a bare euphemism for "let go".  I wasn't the only one either.  A lot of people were dismissed.  I was told that I was very good, but I didn't have seniority enough to keep me aboard.  And so I found myself out of the AI business.

Will I get back in?  I think so, sooner than later.  It's such an evolving field, and admittedly quite a scary one.  But the technology is still a long ways off from AI on the level of science-fiction creations like WOPR from WarGames, or Skynet.  At its heart, artificial intelligence is advanced mathematical set theory married to dialogue emulation.  For all their seemingly vast power computers still can't simulate the human factors of desire, intuition, mystery, and love.  That isn't going to change anytime soon.  But I've been told that I've got significant talent when it comes to "whispering" to AI.  So in the long run I think I'm going to do okay.

It's the time being that is so lousy...

So this is now my fourth month without a real job.  I'm looking around for something, anything within reason, that will let me pay the bills.  There are some remote jobs that I've found, but I've discovered during recent years that I am best engaged alongside other people.  That is one of the things that I loved most about the peer support specialist position at the mental health office: I didn't just work with others, I got to help them, in so many ways.  The same friend who got me involved in the AI field told me that I really am at my best, most in my element, when I'm helping people.  I think she may be right about that.

I'm looking for honest work, something for the time being until a better opportunity arises.  Unfortunately I'm coming up horribly short.  It's still a bad market for job seekers out there.  And I wonder if there are other qualities that are working against my favor, but that would be digressing considerably.

That, as much as anything, is what enticed me to update my LinkedIn page, which is something that I haven't touched or looked at and perhaps even thought of that much in the past ten years or so.  When I first heard about LinkedIn, I thought it was a gimmick.  But better minds than I convinced me that it could be an effective tool to get myself "out there" for potential employers.  I spent much of this past weekend giving it an overhaul...

...And it was tough.  The past several years weren't so bad.  I've had employment more or less since 2013, when I began freelance technical writing.  But there was a ginormous span of time before then that I didn't have any employment at all.

That was the period of my life when I was hit the hardest with manic depression.  It made it impossible for me to focus enough to work any job whatsoever.  Those "lost years" were spent fighting my own neurobiology turned against itself... and that's pretty much it.  There were no great accomplishments or personal achievements in my life during those many years.  There was only a diseased mind and a thrashing about to control it with medications and counseling.

I lost a lot during that time.  Job opportunities.  My faith.  Friendships.  Self-control of my baser instincts.  I even lost my wife.  And that's something I will never forgive myself for.  Many times I lay awake at night especially, and feel haunted by all the people who I drove away while in the midst of madness.  So often it has made me want to die.  At times I have even prayed to God to let me die.  Because then maybe I can go to Heaven and see everyone I hurt and maybe... maybe... they would want to see me, too.  Especially those who had been closest to me.  My cousin Robin told me awhile back that we will love deeper than we ever could on this earth: "Grace will abound" and there they will finally know how much I loved them and still love them.

Relationships.  Purpose.  Career.  God.  All of those things and more went into that abyss along with my employment history and if they ever came out it was met by a person with a more jaded and wounded outlook on life than one should have.  I've thought that if I could save my professional life, that maybe everything else for a full and meaningful existence would fall into place.

So I had to examine my experiences in my LinkedIn profile.  And that big blank chasm was driving me crazier than usual.  It made my page something that I would be very hesitant to share with a prospective employer.  Questions would be asked and I would have to explain myself.  I can not lie.  That's the last thing a person should want to attempt with the people considering them for a job.  What was I to do?

It was that same dear friend who came through for me again.  She suggested something that was brilliant, and I probably might never have thought of this.  As she put it, those "lost years" do count for something after all.  They were a time when I was faced with a life-altering challenge that had to be confronted, with no choice in the matter.  Reining in my thoughts and emotions became a full-time occupation.  And it's something that I will spend the rest of my life on this earth striving to maintain what control I have over it.

There is now something filling in that gaping hole in the chronicle of my employment.  From April of 2004 - the month that the diagnosis of bipolar disorder was given to me - on through to August 2013 and the start of my freelance writing career, I was "Health Manager" at "Overcoming Adversity".  And that isn't a falsehood.  Those are nine years which are now accounted for, and there was some work scattered throughout it here and there.  But the highest priority was my well-being.  And I can hold my head high knowing that I was doing my best to overcome the obstacle of mental illness, trying to have some semblance of a full life.

I prefer to believe that the time since then has demonstrated that I've come a long way indeed.  Of late I have been on the forefront of the biggest technological revolution since the rise of the Internet.  I've been a mental health specialist who not only helped others, I was able to persuade some out of making the very worst mistake that a person can make in this world.  I've been a news reporter and writer of opinion pieces read by a vast audience.  For more than a year I was producing videos for a daily television broadcast.  The year that I spent traveling across America with my dog Tammy is part of the record too, and that became one of the greatest experiences I've ever had.  I've written a memoir, spanning well over a hundred thousand words covering the entire length of my life, that is now being pitched to literary agents.

None of those things would have been possible without that working on myself for almost a decade.

Bipolar disorder has cost me a lot of things.  But I want to think that it hasn't necessarily cost me my future.  It will be twenty-five years at the end of this month since my first trip to a behavioral health facility.  At the time I was very confused, very upset, and very frightened.  At the time I thought that my life was over with, that there was no hope left.  That was now half my lifetime ago and the worst of my condition was yet to come.  And if anyone had told me then that life was going to get even harsher for me, well... Lord only knows what I might have done.

(An entire chapter of my book is devoted to the six days I was hospitalized in that place.  It's pretty thorough.  Right down to the movie that the staff played for us that Friday night and the picture that I drew and put on the wall next to my bed.)

But here I am, today.  I admit to having some envy.  Borderline jealousy, really.  I look at the LinkedIn pages of people I know, and theirs are laden with achievements.  Maybe that's why I spent so much of the weekend trying to figure out how to make mine more impressive, not just for sake of potential employers either.  I'm glad that I did though.  Maybe God used it to wink at me, a little.  Perhaps He used my friend toward that, too.  The cost has been more than any person should have to deal with.  But when I looked at my page after working on it for awhile, I had to admit to myself: "Wow, that's pretty impressive.  I've come a long way after all.  I've got nothing to be ashamed of so far as my career is concerned.  Maybe God hasn't given up on me."

I might say that I could be content with that.  But I'm not content.  I never have been and I probably never will be.  Alexander on the edge of India wept because he thought there were no more worlds to conquer.

God willing, that will not be me.

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BEING BIPOLAR, Part Thirteen: A New Project

Being Bipolar is a series that began in the winter of 2011.  Every now and then I post a new article, as an ongoing attempt to chronicle what it is to have a mental illness.  In my case it is bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression.  Perhaps in doing so others might gain greater insight and understanding of what it means for millions of people who likewise must deal with severe mental and emotional disorders.  As always during this series I strive to be as honest and forthright as one possibly can possibly be.  I am not a psychiatrist.  However I do come from a background of being a state-certified peer support specialist for four years.  And it is especially in that capacity as having been a mental health professional that I endeavor to document mental illness.  If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, especially if you are having thoughts of self-harm or harm to others, please consider calling 911, or go to your nearest hospital emergency room.  Trust me, I've been there, done that.  You may also find help and encouragement from a support group, such as those sponsored by mental health advocacy organizations like National Alliance on Mental Illness (nami.org).  Help is available.  You only need reach out for it.  People care about you.  Remember that.

Throughout the course of Being Bipolar, going back fourteen years now on-and-off, I have written extensively about the disease and its consequences.  Those being the episodes, the medications, the affects on my faith, how it's altered my outlook on life... lots of things.

It struck me in the past few days that maybe it's time for another edition of Being Bipolar.  And perhaps it's time to change things up a bit.

I've been defined by this disease for too long.  I've let it touch upon aspects of my life that should have by all rights been mine, not a chronic misfire of my neurobiology.  Unfortunately that's what I've allowed to happen.

And I'm finally sick and tired of it.

I'm fifty years old, going on fifty-one.  For fully half of my life I've had to struggle against a mind turned against itself.  Something that has cost me careers, friendships, a vibrant relationship with God, and even a marriage.

It's time I take back my life and everything pertaining to it.  I'm in a place where I believe I'm finally able to do that.

In a week and a half I begin a new career.  One that will let me help other people, much as I did when I was at the state mental health department.  It will require intensive training.  It will also require much patience.  It will certainly require a focused mind and an empathy for others.  It will call upon skills and experiences that I have gained at various times throughout the course of my life but have not had to employ for quite awhile.  But it will be personally rewarding.  It will have me feeling accomplished every day when I leave, and eager to come back the next morning.  It will also, I have to believe, be a little fun.

This job comes after more than two years of a career drought.  I had to depart from my position at the mental health department because the economy turned bad and I wasn't able to afford living on it.  Exiting that was one of the worst things that ever happened to me.  I had to leave behind many good people.  People who I worked with and the people I was helping on a regular basis.  I became part of their lives and they became part of mine.  I miss them.

I've been without reliable income all this time.  And I have had to rely on help from others to get me through.  It's not an enviable situation, but it was having to accept reality.  Maybe God has needed me to go through this.  Perhaps it's His way of making me more thankful for the blessings He has given me.  Perhaps it's making me hungrier, to be the person He made me to be as I've never been before.

I am ready for the new career.  And now maybe I'm ready for other things, too.  The things that have mattered for most of my life.

Throughout this time without a real career, I have had to put my writing on hold.  I've been too busy trying to stay afloat, keeping my head up in spite of the financial difficulties.  It's not just for my own sake: there is also my dog Tammy, who I promised my father as he was dying that I would take care of her.  I can't let him down.

I've lost my writing.  Something that my freshman English teacher in high school told me was my gift.  That's something I've tried to exercise and cultivate ever since.  When I was seventeen I began writing for publication.  I thrived on that.  It led to some really amazing opportunities, like working at a couple of newspapers (okay, one of them turned out to be a swindling operation, but that was not my fault) and being an associate editor of a major pop culture website.  I've maintained a blog for more than two decades.

The past two years caused me to lose my touch.  I know it.  I can recognize it.  It's one of the worst things that's ever happened to me.  And in great part it's not only because of struggling for better employment, it's because of the bipolar disorder and especially the meds I take to manage it.

The meds take a lot out of me.  They take my edge off.  Have stricken me of much of my passion.  I'm not the Chris Knight who I used to be.  I can't write as I once did.  And a few weeks ago it struck me that if I were to engage in community theatre again, I couldn't be as good an actor as I had been when I was living back in North Carolina.

I've become someone different from the person I once was.

But I believe that I can find it again.  And that's what this installment of Being Bipolar is about.

Two months ago I finished writing my first book.  It's a memoir.  Actually, it's more like two or three mushed together into a cohesive autobiography.  Every phase of my life - childhood, the Christian school and then transition to public education, the Elon years, the onset of manic depression, my marriage, coming to terms, the year spent driving across America, the "chrysalis" stage - is included.  The book is something that I've spent ten years of on and off laboring upon, and now it's done.  I was able to commit three months of solid work, when I wasn't eating or sleeping or a part-time job or playing with Tammy, on the manuscript.  It was very difficult.  It demanded a lot of me.  But in the end it was done.  I'm hoping to eventually see it published.  If it can make it to a real brick-and-mortar bookstore's shelf then that will be a supreme accomplishment.

Doing that showed me that maybe I haven't lost all of my touch after all.

Earlier this month (January 2025) I began an endeavor.  That being to write a new op-ed piece every week for the rest of the year.  Hopefully for publication elsewhere but if not when I'll post the essays here on The Knight Shift.  It's already been a challenge.  I have come to spend my Saturday and Sunday evenings (helpful hint to self: a lot of work can be done while Svengoolie on MeTV is on every Saturday night) thinking about new pieces and composing the with my iPad Pro.  As of this writing I've had two pieces published.  And it's sparked my inner fire again.  Like Rocky Balboa I'm re-discovering "the eye of the tiger", the part of me that enjoys taking part in the arena of ideas in this world.  That's been gone too long.  And now I'm doing something about it.

So committing to write op-ed commentary articles is going to be one part of a greater project.  I'm going to strive to bring the original Chris Knight back, absent the occasional depression and racing thoughts.  In writing, and also in other ways.  Who knows, maybe I'll be back on stage again sometime in the future, collaborating with others on a theatrical production.  If that desire is there, then I have to believe the drive and the ability and the raw passion is there too, waiting to be uncovered.

It may take awhile.  But it will be worth it.  At fifty I don't believe that I'm done with life yet.  Not by a long shot.  Manic depression has taken a lot from me, but there is still plenty of time to make the most of my life.  Hey, maybe I'll even be blessed with a relationship again someday.  I would be very thankful for that.

In the meantime though, there is zest for life and the hunger to make an impact on this world for the better to find again and cultivate.  I aim to play that particular sword to the hilt.

Expect the unexpected from here on out.  That is my mission.

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BEING BIPOLAR, Part Twelve: Report on Mixed Episode

Being Bipolar is a series that began nearly fourteen years ago in the winter of 2011.  It is an occasional look at what it is like to live with bipolar disorder, or manic depression as many still call it.  This blogger posts a new article whenever he feels the time is ideal to write about an aspect of bipolar disorder, so that others might have deeper understanding of this disease and appreciate what it is to have to exist with it on a routine basis.  In doing this I do my best to be as honest and forthcoming as is possible.  I am not a medical professional.  However I spent several years as a peer support specialist - a person with mental illness who undergoes extensive training so as to help others with like and similar conditions - for a major state department of mental health.  I believe that this may put me in a unique position to examine bipolar disorder.  Perhaps writing this series will be in some way how I get to make up for many of the things that I have done while in a depressed state or exceedingly manic (ESPECIALLY manic).  If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, please consider calling 911 or if you are able to then visit your nearest hospital emergency room.  You may also find help and encouragement from a support group, such as those sponsored by mental health advocacy organizations like the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI.org).

 

Hey hey!  Once again it has been quite awhile since I have posted anything under the Being Bipolar brand.  That last one came almost two years ago.  And a lot has changed since then...

When last you read this space, I was still working at the South Carolina Department of Mental Health (the very first mental health department among any of the fifty states, and they're dang proud of it!).  And I would still be there too, had the economy not turned so rotten.  That compelled me to seek out employment that paid better.  I spent two weeks at the car manufacturer near here...

...And then had to leave voluntarily.  The meds I take to manage manic depression made it impossible to have the fine precision finger mobility and speed to keep up.  I quickly realized that when it came to critical car components my presence was more a liability than a benefit.

After that I was at another manufacturer.  I was doing really good too!  And then two months into that job I was dismissed.  Because they discovered that I was taking medication to manage bipolar disorder.

Well, I can't really talk about that much.  There were legal proceedings and an out-of-court settlement.  It ended as best as it probably could have.  But that still left me unemployed.

Several months of work drought followed after that.  And then I was able to sign on as a substitute teacher for a local school system.  But as was reported almost a year ago that didn't last long (because ahem... I was accused of teaching high school juniors how to make high explosives).

THAT led to a job that nearly killed me.  The less said about that one, the better.  It was destroying me mentally, physically, but also spiritually.  I was never able to attend a place of worship with others on weekends, or during the week either for that matter.  My relationship with God is something that has always been precious to me, even during my worst of moments with manic depression.  For those reasons and more I left the job just before my birthday this past March.

What happened after that was practically a God-send.  A friend got me involved in training artificial intelligence systems.  We're talking real cutting-edge stuff here.  I've been able to see the AI industry from a vantage point that few get to witness.  I'm now beholding all that goes into making AI work.  Its good points as well as things that I don't believe computers will ever be able to surmount (I very strongly doubt that AI will come close to approximating real human thought, and that's a great comfort).  I consider AI training to be my true career now, and it's solid work that employs much of my educational background and experiences.

Unfortunately there are times when there is a lull between projects.  And it is during those times that I need supplementary employment.

Which brings me to where I am today.  I've been able to be a part of the establishing of the first branch in this state of a respected company that is experiencing nationwide growth.  I've been with the company for almost two months now and have really come to enjoy the community and camaraderie among the staff.  That's all that I can probably say at the moment however.  For reasons which are pretty easy to figure out.

So now we come to August 13, 2024.

I've written about having a depressive episode before, and the previous installment of Being Bipolar dealt with experiencing a manic episode.  Well, since last night I have been having a mixed episode: an entirely different beast altogether.  So I'm going to do my best to describe what this is like.

This morning I had to call in sick.  I was nowhere in any condition to handle the tasks I regularly engage in.  I probably was not even fit to drive the relatively short distance to the location.  Not when I was unstoppably blinking back-and-forth between extraordinary mania and then curling up in a ball on the sofa.

This has been a day of extremes, to be mild about it.

It started yesterday evening.  I felt it coming.  And prayed that it would pass over.  Maybe God let it be not as severe as it could have been.  As severe as it was fifteen or so years ago, when I lacked the proper medication and the counseling and the tools to deal with an episode.  Back when I had to be rocked here and fro by manic depression.  The time in my life when I caused so much damage and destruction to relationships that I cherished so deeply with those who I loved.  But that's digressing, sort of.

I sensed this coming.  And braced for the storm.  It could have been worse.  But it was harsh enough.  By 8 a.m. this morning my thoughts were racing furiously.  At 9 the swings toward the opposite direction began.

It's funny.  A little after 9 there was a brief respite.  And I found myself inspired to post the following on Facebook:

Dear God, thank You for giving me this morning. May I have a great day today. Let others see not myself but You within me, that they might be drawn to You and You alone.

 

I was hoping that the day would turn out well, in spite of how it was progressing.  And maybe I was trying to bargain with God: that I would surrender to Him and that in return He would make my day a blessed one after all.

It was not to be.

Ten o'clock.  The mania had been roaring for some time.  About this time I plummeted back into depression.  It was what ever since the symptoms first began nearly a quarter century ago I have called "the Dark Fountain".  Winston Churchill called depression his "Black Dog" that hounded his steps wherever he went.  Mine is the Dark Fountain.  When it erupts it sends dark viscous fluid seething across my neurobiology, and it takes a supreme effort to fight against those black waters or else drown in them.  And it has come close to drowning me completely at times... make of that what one will.

Today around noon I could almost hear the Dark Fountain bursting forth.  Could almost feel the waters creeping throughout my brain.  And then it stopped for a little while.  Enough to post on Facebook that I needed prayer, from whoever might be reading my words.

 

Several people responded, and I am very thankful that they did.  I believe in prayer, now more than ever.  Prayer is nothing more or less than talking with God in a personal way.  He hears our prayers.  He may not answer them as we would like for Him to... and trust me, I have prayed to Him many times over the past two and a half decades to relieve me of my own "thorn in the flesh" (as Paul described his own ailment).  He hasn't done that.  I doubt He ever will do that.  Not on this side of the veil, anyway.

 

Maybe God needs me to have a mental illness.  It's a way of keeping me humble, of having to rely upon Him, and to rely upon the prayers of others.  It would be a pretty sad and miserable world if we didn't lift each other up, somehow or another.  But again, I digress...

 

One o'clock.  Two.  Three.  I was SERIOUSLY fluctuating.  It was almost making me physically sick.  I've been trying to eat healthier lately (because, hey, it's time to admit the truth: I'm no longer in college and it's way past time that I start eating like a responsible adult, so no more frozen pizza for awhile) and later on a friend suggested that maybe this episode was triggered by my turning to healthier food TOO suddenly.  I suppose it's possible.  There can be any number of triggers of a manic or depressive (or both) episode.  Sometimes there's no apparent trigger at all: they just happen.  I mention this now, just openly wondering if the change in diet is what precipitated this latest bought with bipolar disorder.

 

And then, almost as suddenly as it began... the episode stopped.

 

Well, it was more of a tapering off.  Fortunately that occurred quicker than an episode usually does.  I could literally feel the episode coming on and now I could feel it abating.  Like a hurricane that passes over a beach, the rain decreasing until there is a measure of peace.

 

The episode was over.

 

Cost to me: a day's lost wages.  And I needed that work.

 

The alternative however, would have potentially been much worse.

 

This is what it is to have a mental illness.  But the good news is that it is controllable, to some considerable extent.

 

I no longer believe that I'm too dangerous to be with others.  Including colleagues on the job, wherever that may be.  Nor do I believe that I would be too dangerous to be in a relationship with someone, if  God were to ever bring a woman into my life (and I would never cease to be thankful to Him for that if He did).

I'm not the person who I was a decade and a half ago.  I think about the Chris Knight who existed then, who was struggling to fight against his own mind and losing that battle ever more with seemingly each passing day.  That Chris is long gone and in his place is the Chris who was always meant to be here.  Someone who can love and be loved.  Who is a hard worker, without depression being a regular hindrance. Someone who isn't going to go out on eBay one night and buy two hundred dollars of LEGO models, just because he saw The LEGO Movie and decided he needed to recreate those characters on his desk.

It's not a perfect life.  But it never will be, for any of us.  We each have our burden to bear.  Sometimes it's just more apparent than others.  I should be thankful, about mine.  I've never turned to drugs or drink to make myself not feel numbness incarnate or to stifle the excess energies.  I've never been homeless.  I've been blessed with a wonderful support system of people who sincerely care about me, just as I care about them.  When I was in southern California I got to see many people who were not so fortunate.  They were obviously mentally ill, had no permanent places to sleep at night, whose meager belongings fit inside grocery carts that were no doubt stolen from supermarkets.

In a different reality, that could have been me.

I'm not thankful enough.  To God or to the people He has put into my life.

I truly hope that someday I can make amends with the people who I have hurt, which stemmed from this disease.

That is the true burden of bipolar disorder that I bear.

Maybe God can make that be so.

 

He has done miracles before.  He can do it again.

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God and mental illness: Why won't He heal my mind?

Obviously the notion entered my mind that maybe this could be an installment of the Being Bipolar series (which there may be much more material for coming soon).  But Being Bipolar is more about the disease itself, and is intended to be a resource for those looking for insight and information from someone who lives with that condition.

What I'm sharing now, on the other hand, has less to do with that aspect of my life than it does with others.  Although mental illness is certainly the precipitant.

It was twenty-four years ago this month that the symptoms of manic depression, or bipolar disorder, first began to manifest themselves in me.  At first it was wildly intoxicating, all the boundless energy and creativity that came seemingly out of nowhere.  I was still looking for a job post-college and failing in that but other opportunities were coming to the fore (like my time at Star Wars website TheForce.net, which gets a bit of interesting light shined upon it in the book I'm currently writing).  Long story short, I was bouncing off the walls with enthusiasm and optimism and sheer drive.  That those seemed to be peppered with moments of despair - like the horrible night that winter when I stripped off all my clothes and tried to freeze myself to death during a snowstorm with temperatures in the single digits - were inconsequential to how inflamed my uttermost being had become.

By early spring however, it was increasingly obvious that something was very, very wrong with me.

That was almost a quarter century ago.  But it seems like only yesterday.  In one way or another bipolar disorder has been in the background of everything that I have attempted or somehow accomplished despite the condition.  It has factored into my relationships (one of which ended in divorce), in my career history, in my choice to leave my old hometown... there has not been a single aspect not impacted by manic depression.

And all along, there has been one question that has been most on my mind: Why did God let this happen to me?

Two and a half decades later, I'm no closer to understanding the reason than I ever was.  But there has been a modicum of comfort to be drawn from scripture.  Second Corinthians 12:9 has the apostle Paul sharing with us that God told him "'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'"  Or as my Uncle Nub once told me: "Maybe God let you have it because He knew you could take it."

The verse continues: "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me."  Which dovetails well, I think, with Romans 8:28, a verse that a colleague quoted to me yesterday:

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

It has taken many years to come to this place, where I am no longer angry at God for allowing mental illness - something that at various times I have described as a "hell" - to strike me.  I better understand now that this is still a fallen world, and not all the medication and counseling remotely possible is going to change that.  I believe that God is the master Healer, and that there is no disease which is not without His power to alleviate.

But even so, disease happens.  It can occur within anyone, with all its nefarious varieties.  I suppose that I should consider myself blessed.  In two months I turn fifty and at my last medical examination the doctor told me that I've the health of someone in his early thirties.  Obviously God has let my physical well-being be good.  That is more than a lot of guys in my demographics get to have.  The only real physical malady I have is anemia, something that prevents me from being a blood donor anymore.  Perhaps sooner than later we'll get to the bottom of what's causing it, because I hate being out of the running with my friends who contribute blood.  But I digress...

With time has come understanding, and I hope a little wisdom.  And it has also brought with it an appreciation for my condition.  Had the economy not taken such a turn downward I might still be enjoying a career as a full-time peer support specialist with the state's department of mental health.  That is a job you literally must be crazy to have, I often tell those who don't know what peer support entails.  I was someone who made use of experiences and intensive training toward helping other people, who also have mental illness, and letting them have a chance at full and meaningful lives.  It was the most personally rewarding work that I have ever done and I would be doing it forever if that had been possible.  I got to be of assistance to a lot of good people.  Some of whom I still keep in touch with, just letting them know I still care about them.

Some people who God has placed in my path at times, have been close to giving it all up.  Have gotten too close to the line separating want-to-live from I-want-to-die.  I've been there too, more times than I can possibly count.  And ironically I got to be the one who convinced them that their lives are worth living.  I got to be someone who saw how precious their existences are, when they could not see it themselves.

It's possible that a lot of people wouldn't be with us still today, had it not been for God letting me have a mental illness that put me in their place first.  But I don't say that to boast.  God can be glorified in even our worst weaknesses.  If some are still alive today, that's His doing and not mine.  I'm just the instrument He chose to use.

And I can and will be thankful for that honor.

I guess the catalyst for this post is that, recently, I did something rather foolhardy and potentially very dangerous.  I attempted to move out of the way of God from healing me.  Or in other words: I tried to be made whole by faith only.

And so it is that I went a few days without my medication.

There wasn't any one agency that led me to attempt such a thing.  At various times across the decades I've earnestly wondered if my faith in God was not enough: that maybe He would heal me if only I had more trust in Him.

I went off the meds and instead I threw myself into prayer and fasting.  I turned toward immersing myself in scripture.  I asked for prayers from others: something which has become a regular occurrence for me and indeed I do not believe that I would be here today were it not for prayers from people dear to me.  I covet prayer now.  Which is another irony, since once upon a time I would have likely laughed at such a notion.

I tried relying entirely on having faith in God, that He would deliver my mind from the torment of mental illness.

And in the end, He did not do that.

After two days being without the meds my thoughts began racing out of control, again.  But I tried to endure.  Sought to increase my faith.  I want to think that my faith in Him is strong enough that it weathered the torture without ceasing to trust Him completely.

I went as far as could be tolerated before going back on the meds.  Blessed relief arrived a few hours later.

So, once again, God did not heal me from bipolar disorder.

Or, maybe He did.  Maybe He still is.

We are told that Luke, the writer of the eponymous gospel as well as the Book of Acts, was a physician.  Doubtless he of all people understood the wondrous qualities of human health and self-care.  I don't know what medications were available circa 60 A.D., apart from a form of aspirin known to the ancient Greeks.  But Luke was in all likelihood well versed in their array and uses.  God gave Luke a capable mind and adept hands to be a healer.  Perhaps God was not dealing out divine intervention toward the healing of those in Luke's care, but He certainly was the ultimate Author of betterment and recuperation.

I have to believe that God gave us a beautiful thing in medical science.  Something that can not so much replace God's place in healing as it does complement it.  In the employ of those dedicated and devoted to the healing arts, medicine is by its very existence a miracle of God.  In its purest form medicine is a thing wholly given over to the betterment of life.

I can't possibly contend that medical science is something God would not want us to make the most of, if it means having better and more purposeful life.

What about when medical science fails?  I have friends who in recent weeks have each lost a loved one to disease.  Is that a judgment against medicine when it could not prevent their respective passing?  No, it is not.  As I said before, it is a fallen world.  Injury and illness have been a part of that imperfection for a very long time and barring God's intervention that doesn't look to change anytime soon.  Nothing is guaranteed.  We can only trust in God and His will, that things are going to work out for the best in the end.  And that's the absolutely best answer that I can give.  But I've seen His will work out well before.  I have to believe that His will, will manifest itself as something that gives Him the glory and proves to be of benefit to us.  God operates on a vaster scale of time than we can comprehend.  And even the failures of the best of our schemes will serve to honor Him, in the end.

Personally, I believe that this lifetime isn't all that we get.  There is more past that.  What form that takes is up to the person living it.  God knows who are His.  For the one who loves God, this life and its afflictions are not the end.  There is something better waiting for us still.  I dream of having a mind that isn't plagued by mania or depression or sometimes both at once.  That is coming, in the fullness of His time.  And that is a great comfort.

I'm not going to willingly go off the medications again.  I've tried trusting God to take my condition away from me.  For whatever reason, He has not done that.  But He has provided knowledge and wisdom and tools that can make the condition much more better manageable than it would be without those things.  Here I am on the cusp of fifty, and with each passing day I feel more like what it is to not have a mind turned against itself.  I feel younger today than I ever have, and it's because of what God has provided many scientists, researchers, and engineers with over the course of the centuries and especially the past several decades.

But of course, it never hurts to pray too.

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BEING BIPOLAR, Part Eleven: A Weekend with Mania

 

Being Bipolar is a series that began in the winter of 2011.  It is an occasional look at what it is to live with bipolar disorder... which some still refer to as manic depression.  A new chapter is posted whenever this blogger feels that the time is ripe for a further examination.  In doing this I try to be as honest and forthcoming as possible, within reason.  I am not a medical professional. I am however a former peer support specialist in the field of mental health, and though I have recently left that post I am still dedicating myself toward advocating for others who experience mental illness.  If you are experiencing a severe crisis and are having thoughts about self harm or harm toward others, please do not hesitate to call 911 or reach out to your most available health care professional.  You may also find help and encouragement from a support group, such as those through National Alliance for Mental Illness (nami.org).

 In the previous installment of Being Bipolar, I documented what it was like to have experienced a depressive episode.  Although in hindsight I see now that I could have done "better" and by that I mean that it was so minor an occurrence that it couldn't possibly be called a textbook case.  A truly severe depressive episode lasts much longer, and is so debilitating that one finds it taxing just to get off of the sofa to use the bathroom.  I got off easy that time.

Some things have changed since that last chapter.  I'm no longer a peer support specialist with South Carolina Department of Mental Health.  Tomorrow I begin a new career, one that will be rather challenging I think.  It will also afford me some more breathing room so far as being in the proper mindset for writing.  I won't deny it: being in peer support has been rewarding.  But it also doesn't pay as much as other mental health professionals earn.  My new job will be earning more money than I would have once thought possible for someone in my position.  So with that worry gone, I think I'll be able to write better than I have in the past few years up 'til now.

But you're probably wondering why I'm writing a Being Bipolar this time.

It so happened that last weekend I was in a severe manic state.  I confined myself to my house for its duration, which certainly bewildered my dog Tammy.  She had to watch me pacing back and forth through every room in the place.  Too wide open to sleep.  Being incapable of writing for a website that I'm committed to contributing toward.   I was WIRED last weekend.

Fortunately I was able to see it coming and I knew what to expect.  And that afforded some capacity to observe and note what was happening to me.

I have said before that I have lost a lot because of having bipolar disorder.  Most especially friendships, family, even a marriage.  It was both extremes of manic depression that wrought devastation but as I've gotten older I can see that it was the manic phases which wrecked the most havoc.  Mania takes whatever you have -- be it good or bad -- and wildly magnifies it to horrific extremes.  Mania makes responsible decision making impossible.  It robs one of any modicum of self control.  It lays waste inhibitions.

Thankfully, the mania has withdrawn in large part, due in no small part to medication and counseling.  I've had to address other aspects of my diagnoses in addition to bipolar disorder.  Especially post-traumatic stress disorder: the spawn of abuses from my childhood.  Mania fed off of that, too.  As I've confronted that, the mania has had less to work with.  I wish I could have been the man fifteen years ago that I am now.  But that's a post for another time...

 So, last Friday afternoon I began noticing that my thoughts were beginning to run faster than usual.  There were too many of them, all playing at once.  I'd already committed to working on a story for the Western Journal website and was looking forward to that.  But over the course of the next few hours my thoughts wouldn't hold course.

By that evening I knew that I was having a manic episode.  A bad one.

I tried my best to sit down at the computer and start writing.  But as soon as I did I had to stand back up again.  Had to walk back and forth as I struggled to keep the thoughts straight in my head.  At 8 PM I thought if I laid down on my bed for awhile that it would give me a little relaxation from the madness.  Five minutes later I was back up again.  Trying to sit at the keyboard and typing SOMETHING but there was too much clutter in my head.

It only got worse.

I had to be careful, that night.  I couldn't sleep.  Neither could I trust myself to not do something stupid.  I would have probably started running circles around my yard if I let myself out the door, just as I found myself running up and down the dirt road when I was back to living with my parents following the separation.

Driving was out.  I also remember the night I was coming back from Greensboro on US 158.  That long stretch of road near Bethany.  Not another car in sight.  I turned off the headlights and floored the pedal, screaming into the darkness and not caring if I went off the road or whatever.  And then sanity returned and I turned the lights on and slammed on the brakes just short of  hitting a deer.

Being on the computer was fraught with peril.  I'm mindful of the time that I was manic, after having watched The LEGO Movie, and I decided that I wanted to replicate those characters on my desk.  So I went on eBay and bought two hundred-some dollars of LEGO sets.

So there was really nothing more to do than endure it.  Suffocating with mania.  Trying to stay afloat in the flotsam of madness.

The very worst of it was the realization by Saturday afternoon that I had become hyper-sexualized.

Overly enhanced libido is a common feature of mania.  Something that has sent many a manic-depressive sailing over the cliff of sanity.  Books have been written by those who have been driven by mania to satisfy sexual longings with anyone and anything.  The risks are enormous.  And yet these do not matter to many who are manic.  Limitations dissolve.  All that matters is the orgasm.

Sophocles is said to have remarked that the male libido is akin to being chained to a lunatic.  How much more so, then, when reproductive biology becomes saturated with frenzy?

There are ways of dealing with inflammation of sensuality.  None of those are very appealing to me, for a lot of reasons.  I believe that intimacy is something to be shared between one man and one woman in the union of marriage.  It isn't to be indulged in thoughtlessly.  Nor is "self satisfying" a solution.  Also, for reasons which do not need divulging.

I will not deny it: I have as healthy an interest in beautiful women as most other red-blooded American men.  I also have a photographic memory for EVERY beautiful woman I have ever seen.  And when one is overcome with mania the tendency is to mentally replay those images in one's head.

It does not make things any easier.

And so turning into a hyper-sexual had to be endured also.  And I did my best to drown out the lust to be satisfied sexually.  Reading from the works of Tolkien helped (lately I've been re-reading The Silmarillion).  So too did music.  By late evening I had decided to lose myself in Fallout 4.  That lasted half an hour, roughly.

I still hadn't slept.  Still hadn't eaten anything either.  I was too energized to be tired.

At some point I found myself dancing throughout the house.  Then I was scrubbing the bathroom sink.  Then doing laundry at midnight.

I felt unstoppable.  I felt invincible.

I had taken my regular nightly schedule of medication about 6 PM on Saturday.  That had done nothing to quench the madness.  But I am thankful for them.  Without medication, the episode would have been worse.

It was now 2 on Sunday morning and I was finally, at last, beginning to feel some slight measure of exhaustion.  I took a sleep aid and some Benadryl for good measure, and crashed headfirst into bed.

I couldn't tell you what time I woke up the next day.  Still manic, but it was abating.  I still couldn't put two thoughts together enough to write something substantial.  The incensed sex drive was finally diminishing (although some would no doubt consider having that to be a GOOD thing about being bipolar).  I felt tired from all of the moving around that I had done the day before.

The need for food began to creep in.  I ate some slices of pepperoni that had been left over from making a pizza several days earlier.  Chased down with some sweet tea.  Then took a look in the mirror and didn't recognize myself.  I shaved and showered and that got the funk of the previous few days off of me.

By that evening the manic phase had ended in vast part.  My thoughts were beginning to be my own again.  This season of madness had joined the many other episodes I have suffered for nearly a quarter of a century.

And I found myself pondering that it had not been so bad, this time.  Rarely had I been able to exert that degree of self control over my impulses.  I hadn't even bought anything outrageous on Amazon or eBay.

Maybe I am getting better.  The Chris Knight who is writing these words today, has come a long way from the Chris Knight of 2007, when I was riding a manic high and doing anything that could make me feel like a cartoon character.  That's not just "wisdom with age" either.  But I also want to believe that it was more than just medication and counseling.

I don't talk about God nearly as much as I should.  My faith is not what it was, now twenty-six years ago this past week when I first committed my life to serving Him.  Yet my journey as a follower of Christ has been and remains the most defining element of my life.  That in spite of how so many times I have screamed at Him, railed against Him, wanted Him to strike me dead so that there would be no more wretched existence for me.

So far, He hasn't done that (yet).

He has given me strength and grace to endure, though.  He has brought me through ice and fire.  He has been with me in the valleys of depression and the peaks of mania.

I couldn't talk about God much in my capacity as a peer support specialist employed by a state agency.  But I can say now, more than my own desire to recover from having this condition, that God has been at work even more.

That's what I found myself thinking after the episode, anyway.

So here it is, a week later.  On the cusp of a new career.  I am NOT looking forward to being on site ready to start training at 6:15 in the morning though!  But I think it'll be okay.  This is a real hands-on job involving precision work (no, I'm NOT going to be a surgeon).  When I was fighting some of the worst of depression and mania years ago, I discovered that assembling and painting Warhammer 40,000 miniatures provided a distraction from my mind.  I think this new job is going to be a lot like that.  It also won't be "work" that I'll be bringing in my head home with me, as happened at times as a peer specialist.  And like I said earlier, it'll be providing a lot more peace of mind financially, that I'll be able to devote more to my real passion, writing.

Yeah, I got through that episode pretty good.

Here's praying that it will be a LONG time before the next one.

 

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BEING BIPOLAR, Part Ten: Anatomy of a Depressive Episode

Being Bipolar is a series that began in the winter of 2011.  It's an occasional attempt to explore aspects of the life of a person with manic-depression, or bipolar disorder if you will.  It's never meant to be a regular feature of The Knight Shift.  It comes along whenever "the time is nigh" for another installment is called for.  In this series I do my best to be as honest and forthcoming about this condition as possible, within reason.  As with anything else of this kind of subject matter, it should be noted that I am not a medical professional.  So don't take anything written here as solid medical advice in the way of drugs etc.  If you need immediate assistance, please go to the emergency rom of the nearest hospital, or call 911 on your phone.  You may also find a great deal of assistance from a local support group, such as those sponsored by National Alliance on Mental Illness (nami.org).

 

For the past three years and nearly four months I have been a peer support specialist employed by a state department of mental health.  That's supposed to mean that as someone "in recovery" from mental illness, that I'm in a unique position to help others who likewise must deal with having emotional and behavioral disorders.

I wish that I could tell you that this means that I have a handle on my own diagnosis.  But over the course of nearly a year now that assumption has been solidly put to rest.  Because I've discovered that in many ways I'm the same way I am now that I was six years ago, when I first left my old hometown of Reidsville, North Carolina and began looking for a new home.  That was supposed to have been a fresh start for me (and my dog Tammy).  And for awhile, when we initially set out, there was that breath of fresh air that comes with expanding one's horizons.  With casting destiny to the winds of the Lord.  And then came a year after setting out, and a situation that triggered my bipolar disorder as it had never had been before and what led to friends having me live with them until I could get my mind situated again. That was five years ago and I'm no less thankful for them and what they did for me.

Maybe it was "the plague" that triggered me this time.  Nothing has been the same since COVID-19 came (and I was hit with it this past December, I'm pretty sure I caught it when some friends and I went to see Spider-Man: No Way Home because they came down with COVID also).  I worked from home for more than six months and it changed me.  Made me consider and reconsider my life.  I got the "vaccine" early on, because my job puts me at the forefront of public health (namely visiting patients at their homes among other things) and in the year and a half since then I've come to wonder if that was such a wise thing to have done (it's not being called the "clot shot" for nothing, but I digress).

Back to being a peer support specialist and being in recovery.  The more I have recovered, the more I have found that I still have a long way to go toward that.  It's a lot like "the Hell Curve" that I first described in 2011: I'm forever getting closer to that Y line of total recovery, but never going to cross it or even touch it.  I realized that even before last September, and the day my neighbors found me dancing in the rain in my sweatsuit and socks and trying to open other people's car doors.  I don't remember that at all.  Neither do I remember the next day and being found lying face-down next to the road beside my house, my face beaten up like hamburger from the fall onto the asphalt.  Eleven months later and I still can't wink my right eye without feeling some residual pain.  None of that, I remember transpiring.  It was all because of a medication reaction between my "current" meds and one that I have since stopped using.

I lost very nearly a solid month of work because of that incident, which encompassed one week spent in a mental health facility while I was detoxing.  It led to some changes of my work: changes I haven't been crazy about (no pun intended, or is it?).

Long story short, this past week and a half or so I've had a depressive episode that wrecked havoc with me in nearly every aspect.  Were it not for taking care of Tammy, my miniature dachshund, there is no telling what I would have been compelled to do during this time.  Depression sucks the vigor and vitality out of a person.  Takes away nearly every interest including the desire for eating (and sometimes not even getting up to use the restroom, which is no problem if you're not ingesting food anyway).

Today the episode finally began to abate.  I must thank many friends on Facebook who I reached out to, who have been lifting me up in their prayers.  I hope that I can be just as much there for them when they need my own prayers.  I have pretty much wasted an entire weekend except for this afternoon.  So I thought, maybe since it's fresh in mind I could do another Being Bipolar installment (it's only been THREE YEARS since the last one!).

This depressive episode crept up on me.  In hindsight I can see that it was bedeviling me for almost the past two weeks.  It's been so severe, and I was so subconsciously holding it at bay, that I didn't realize it was happening until two days ago.  During this episode I was robbed of any interest apart from the meanest of caring for myself and my dog.  I was eating candy bars for breakfast and nothing else for lunch or dinner.  I fed and watered Tammy but I didn't feel like playing with her.  She "gets" me when I'm like this.  When I curl up on the sofa, unable to move, she curls right up next to me.  Tammy understands me even if no one else does.  I'm pretty sure that I lost some weight during this time.  When I went to see a doctor this past week I had lost seven pounds since the previous visit about two months ago.

My hygiene has suffered.  I went two days without showering for work.  It didn't seem to matter.  I just didn't care.  I brushed my teeth, but that's mostly out of dire habit.  Something ground into me about seven years ago when I realized what depression was doing to my dental care.  I haven't lost any teeth and I don't intend to.  So whenever I eat or drink something I'm inclined to brush immediately afterward or at least as soon as possible (which has become a religious ritual after getting home from work, before I even take Tammy outside).

I have been trying to cook better for myself (thanks in no small part to the encouragement of a good friend, hello Heather!).  A week and a half ago I visited the nearby grocery store and pharmacy to pick up two prescriptions and I had no other interest in shopping for anything else.  Well, I take that back.  I did purchase a box of Froot Loops, and that was "dinner" for a few days.  But again, my overall desire for a good meal had evaporated.

Interest in fun things and activities crashes and burns.  All that's left are the ashen remnants of something that once moved you.  I've been stoked about the current season of Stranger Things lately.  Especially the music.  I had been listening to the soundtrack and reveling in the return of "my kind" of music.  But interest in any music has gone away during this episode.  I've tried to make myself watch stuff like The LEGO Movie, a film that I usually adore, but that failed to move me too.

Depression has caused me to lose interest in my work.  Has led me to seeing it as all a vain effort.  I haven't been able to help others, in the way that I usually can and have loved doing.  I drove a patient to a physician's appointment this past week and I was barely talking at all, when usually we are readily engaged in conversation.  He could sense that there was something wrong, and he told me as much.  It has caused me to forget tasks, has made me indifferent during phone calls to patients.  It's ironic, that I work in a mental health office and my own mental health has caused that work to suffer.  But then again, my life has been filled with a lot of cruel irony.

This coming Wednesday would have been the twentieth anniversary of my getting married.  A marriage that was destroyed in vast part by my bipolar disorder.  I still can't make sense of that.  It was something I was committed to as much as anyone could commit to something.  And it wasn't enough.  Why did God let me have something that was going to wreck such havoc on an institution that He Himself created?  That has been a thought that has run rampant through my mind during this time.  I suppose that no matter how happy I might be, I'm going to forever be running that through my mind.  It hasn't been made any easier because of this latest episode.  And the proximity to the date has only made it worse.

Strangely, my faith in God this time is something I'm not doubting.  A quality that I must ascribe to not only my friends' prayers, but to all the other times I've had depression.  In its lesser moments I can find myself able to pray, and to solicit prayer.  I don't doubt God, even when it seems the depression is something cruel He lets happen.  I have to remind myself that being a Christian does not mean an escape from pain: something I wish I had known during the first few decades as a believer.

I would be remiss if I did not mention, that there have been moments during this latest episode when I have not wanted to be here any more.  When I've actually prayed to God to please let me die.  But that's a different thing from having full-fledged suicidal ideation.  Something I've come to learn increasingly during my work with those with mental illness.  It's almost okay, maybe perfectly "normal", to have thoughts about not wanting to be alive any more.  It becomes something else entirely though, when those thoughts turn toward contemplating getting a knife to open one's veins, or ingest a whole bunch of drugs and hope that they will lull one into an eternal slumber.  I will admit, that I have tried the latter at least twice.  Both times failed, thankfully.

Also thankfully, the episode seems to finally be abating, and maybe writing these words out is aiding toward that.  More irony: I've lamented in the past week or so that I haven't been able to write anymore, and here I am, composing a new blog post.  Not just blogging but really pouring my heart and soul into this new installment of Being Bipolar.  Maybe if I can write this, perhaps other things that I've thought I'd lost will come back.  Writing is a gift that I first realized I had when Mrs. Rutledge in my freshman year of high school told me I had.  I've been trying to use, develop and hone that gift ever since.  Manic depression over the past two decades and more took a LOT out of me toward that.  Maybe writing this post means I still have it.  Maybe I can write more.  Perhaps even work anew on that book that Dad wanted me to write.  Dad was proud of me.  I was very fortunate to have had him in my life.  I want to finish writing that book, and dedicate it to his memory.

And, that's all that I know to write about this latest bout with bipolar depression.  It is my "dark fountain": a term I have been it from the very beginning, when it first erupted in the spring of 2000.  Its black waters trying to swallow and drown me, and I doing everything that can be done to keep my head above its currents.  Maybe writing about it this time will help to stop the fountain, if only for a little while.

Maybe doing this will help others also, who are going through their own times of depression.

If so, please know: you are not alone.  There IS help.  Your local mental health department is one resource.  So are groups like National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI (nami.org).  If you are in a severe crisis, you can call 911.  It's okay, it really IS an emergency.  And as of yesterday there is a simple three digit number - 988 - that you can call to get help from a national suicide help line.

And if you need a friend to talk to, I'll do my best to be here for you.  My e-mail is theknightshift@gmail.com.  I've communicated with quite a few people over the years that Being Bipolar has been a feature on this blog.  I'll do what I can to be here for you, too.

 

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