Mania or Miracles?
The Gifts of Being a Manic-Depressive Personality
by
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A Course in Miracles teaches us to look within, for therein lies the answer to anger. The Course stresses the total use of unconditional forgiveness to effectively apply the 365 lessons found in its workbook.
My father was confused and he passed some of that confusion on to me. Until I was thirty-six, I was always looking outward to compare my thoughts to an external system of ideas so I could consider myself measured acceptable. The truth lies within me; the external “yardstick” only confused me, and caused much frustration, depression, and a tremendous sense of not belonging.
Why am I manic-depressive? I was forewarned; I was schooled on the behaviors of the monster that is waiting for the slightest chance to leap out from the quiet mind and turn that mind into a living hell. I even consulted with my father’s psychiatrist several times just before I went off the high dive. He just said that my mood swings into depression were due to the bad economic times. The doctor assured me that things would be okay, so I pushed forward even harder.
I am a survivor of an illness that affects millions of individuals, most of whom are very active and creative people. I am considered fortunate because I can still function on a normal basis and interact with society in a self-sustaining manner. Statistics reveal that only 20 percent of afflicted manic-depressives can lead normal productive lives. I thank my father for a great deal of the patience it requires to continue to educate yourself to the fact that the illness and the stigmas associated with manic-depressive personality are of your own making.
The Lithium that I take on a daily basis, since 1976, only maintains the chemical levels that help prevent a recurrence of mood swings that were not controllable the fourteen major times I was hospitalized for manic-depressive illness. These occurrences most often happened when I was manic/high and not depressed.
The most important concept to remember is not the depression or the mania, but the thoughts that help trigger the escape into these chambers of your mind.
The rapid thought patterns that are allowed to develop by the manic-stricken mind are one of the first clues that a major mood swing is about to occur. The physical changes to the body include the need for less sleep, rapid speech, a rapid occurrence of tasks that are partially finished, rash spending sprees, and sometimes additional intake of drugs or alcohol. The mind appears to become more sharp and creative during these episodes because the speeds of the thoughts are more rapid during the grandiose mood cycles.
My first recollection of a mood swing occurred early in my childhood. Grade school was not difficult for me. During the seventh grade, I became ill with appendicitis and had to leave school for a long period of time. This period in my childhood was lonely. My parents seemed to be gone a lot. My older brothers and sisters were not only my siblings, they were also my caregivers.
When I was hospitalized for appendicitis, both of my parents were in
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Strapped to the ambulance gurney, I recall the attendant’s radio call to the hospital, “Get ready, we got a Jesus coming in from Fenton.”
Captivity began. I was told that I was harmful to myself and to others. “We have to put you in confinement until we decide you are thinking right,” they said.
Actual captivity is in the mind because no one can restrain the body unless we acknowledge the body as our whole being. There is a quote from an Edgar Allen Poe poem, “stone walls do not a prison make.” This phrase explains what is happening in the manic-depressive mind during a confused state. The manic mind to me is similar to the relationship between the ego and the Holy Spirit that is described in A Course of Miracles. To reduce the conflict, we can train our minds to think with the Holy Spirit’s guidance and regain the peace that is found in the quiet mind. Therefore, we realize that essence of our captivity is of our own making.
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About the Book
This true story of a man gone mad relates to the nursery rhyme “Humpty Dumpty” as well as the movie “One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest” Our current global population is riddled with individuals that are manic-depressive personalities, five people in every 100! The disease has no boundaries and invades the lives of individualities regardless of race, color, or creed. The mystery of what causes the manic-depressive personality in a human being is still unknown. This book is an account of how a stricken personality, with will power can get “beyond the cope” and enjoy the gifts of being a manic-depressive person. Eighty percent of the individuals that are burdened with the disease never fully regain their initial potentials to develop into self-sustaining productive individuals. My life story relates to Humpty Dumpty because I fell off the “wall” and my mind broke into many fragments and it took years to learn how the pieces could fit back together again. I am like the extremely tall Indian actor in the movie, One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest because I have been able to escape from the prison in my mind that was preventing me from living beyond the “cope”. My daily dose of Lithium helps stabilize my mood swings, but living beyond the cope for me is maintained by practicing the principles in A Course in Miracles as I walk in this world thankful that I am able to be aware of my awareness. I gladly share the gifts of the manic-depressive personality and hope that this story will provide confidence to anyone that is conflicted with the manic-depressive gene can enjoy their life as much as I have.
About the Author
As a young teenager I witnessed the affects of the moodswings that occurred in a manic-depressive personality. I grew up in the swirling exuberant energies of my father and then watched as he became nearly helpless in his depressive cycles. As a young man I would admit my father to the mental health ward of our local hospital for treatment, sometimes for shock treatments. In his personal efforts to improve his condition he studied Freud and Jung. I would watch as he had a Webster dictionary next to these books on psychology and attempt to make sense of what he was reading.
During the early 50’s Dr. Abraham Low’s book, Mental Health through Will Training was becoming more accepted as a self-help manual to maintain one’s mental health after a disturbance of one’s normal living pattern. My father embraced the principles in the book. He also became a facilitator and started his own group. I supported him in his efforts and at 14 years old would attend his weekly meetings. These early experiences gave me first hand exposure to the symptoms of the manic-depressive personality.
Unfortunately, I didn’t “spot” the symptoms in myself and drove my own body into a major manic mood swing that caused me to be handcuffed and then hospitalized in September 1979. My early years as an observer of the affects of the manic-depressive behavior and my management of my own manic-depressive personality for the past 25 years has given me some insights on the vengeances of the disease and the many gifts too!
Through extended therapy, continuous use of Lithium, exercising the use of the “four sided personality rectangle”, and the daily practice of the principles of A Course in Miracles I have not been hospitalized since 1980. These efforts afford me with consistent mood swings and have not restricted my exuberance nor limited my creativity that is somewhat predominate in the manic-depressive personality.