Interlude

You may get the impression that my medications are not doing much good, but in reality (such as that is these days) they seem to be of some help already, and have been smoothing out the highs and lows, and have gotten me to a point of perspective, a wider and deeper view of my life and my condition. It's time to look back fondly (!) at the events and circumstances which bring us to this plateau.

A bit over two years ago (I'll delve into the ancient past later) - let's call it Spring of 2006 - I began having occasional bouts of emotional lability: mostly spells of inappropriate crying, but also laughter, and sometimes both together. Along with that I had brief moments of difficulty appreciating jokes and cartoons. That was scary, mainly because years earlier my father told me, shortly before dying from what his neurosurgeon called "the most aggressive tumor I've ever seen," that his first hint of that tumor were those same symptoms.

One very expensive and uncomfortable MRI later: my immediate fears were laid aside, as I didn't have a massive and extraordinarily dangerous brain tumor or, apparently, a possibly unnoticed stroke or prefrontal atrophy. Then I made a bad mistake. The emotional lability was not followed up, and no effort was made to determine it's real cause. I didn't want my mental history checked too deeply. I knew I had manic-depression aka bipolar disorder. And I kept quiet about it, as usual.

By December of 2006 I was host to full-blown mania: "This is your captain speaking. We'll be cruising at near supersonic speeds at just over treetop level. The weather is clear with just occasional mixed episodes of weeping, anger and terror. We will be arriving at some destination at sometime in the future, but who cares? so sit back and enjoy the ride."

So I quit the best job I ever had, opened my own photo studio, and blew through almost a hundred thousand dollars, all the while convinced that the business was quite successful.

I should mention that this was the sixth time I had gotten wired and opened a photo studio, and also the sixth time I'd spent almost every penny I had and then allowed the studio to die after the high wore off.

By mid 2007 I was into a kind of ultra-rapid cycling depression. There were days at a time where I just sat at the studio most of the day, unable to make a decision or take the action I know the business needed. I procrastinated, I stayed up all night and stumbled around the next day in a daze, I drank way too much coffee and consumed entirely too much sugar. I think I may have been trying to force a manic episode. A couple of times it apparently worked, but I'm not sure the outcome was what I wanted.

For instance, my mother was having problems, and was going to be moved into a managed care facility. My sister wanted me to come down to Dallas to remove all the valuables from her house so it could be shown for sale, along with any keepsakes I may have wanted. I agonized over the prospect (I hate Dallas), and ended up creating a "brilliant" scheme to bring all the collectibles and heirlooms back here and put them on sale so Mom would have some extra cash. Yeah, like I know anything about antiques and collectibles. Anyway, it's mostly worthless junk, and we'll never even recoup the cost of transporting and storing the stuff. I should have just hired someone to put on a yard sale.

Sometime around December 2007 or January 2008 I started a slide into absolute bipolar depression. I felt awful most of the time, the entire world was ugly, and even things that are supposed to be happy thoughts could drive me into a sobbing heap. (Now that I have some perspective on things, I think that the agony came from the excruciating intensity of the emotions I was feeling, such that any emotion was painful: for weeks I couldn't tell my Mary I loved her, because it hurt so much.) I could still pull off the odd manic episode - just mix caffeine, sugar, sleep deprivation, and stress - but for the most part I was useless.

In May I bottomed out, crashed and crashed hard. I was having several mixed-symptom episodes every day. My thoughts raced and fought for attention while I cried like a baby. The business was dead. The remodeling was at a standstill (Oh, did I not mention the remodeling? No big deal, we - meaning mostly "I" - removed most of the walls, replaced all the wiring, plumbing and gas lines, built a new kitchen, bedroom, dining room, family room, laundry room and two new bathrooms and the permit expired in April; Superman strikes again). I was also having fond thoughts of death by natural causes as well as serious intellectual explorations of painless and low-trauma suicide. I didn't tell Mary that, just "if I'm not better by Monday, get me an appointment somewhere." I felt better on Monday, but she got the appointment anyway - without telling me, which is probably a good thing.

And then I started this blog.