The Suicide Wisperer: The Fate of Michelle Carter

All last week I read the articles online about the trial of Michelle Carter, the girl accused of coaxing her boyfriend Conrad Roy to commit suicide via text messages. When I first learned of this case, I was sickened. I could not believe that anyone could be so devoid of compassion, and morals.

BACKSTORY

Carter and Roy met while each of their families were vacationing in 2012. They were both in their early teens at the time. Both suffered from depression and anxiety, both had suicidal tendencies, and both were under the care of doctors. It was the darkest of Romeo and Juliet adaptations.

Roy communicated his thoughts about suicide, and had apparently had previous attempts. Ultimately he chose to go through with it. He drove his truck to a Kmart parking lot, rigged a hose to direct the exhaust to the cab, and succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning. Carter urged him to go through with it via text messages, up to and including ordering him back into his vehicle when he got scared and had second thoughts. Then she listened to him die on her cell phone, and did nothing to help. The text transcripts in the case clearly show she was manipulating him, persuading him to go through with it.

THE DILEMMA

At this point in time, there is no legal precedent for the case (if I'm using that term correctly). Michelle Carter was tried and convicted of involuntary manslaughter. She faces up to 20 years in prison. But the thing that will have the prestigious law academies of the land debating for decades is that this kind of thing has never happened before, and that makes the case extremely controversial. How does one murder with words? The judge had to consider such factors as intent, proximity and of course, mental state.

If I were to shoot you,, and kill you, that's murder. If I were to threaten you with murder, regardless if I carry out my actions, that's a threat of violence, and is a also a crime. But If I simply tell you to kill yourself, persuade you, sell you on the lack of value of your life, should that carry a penalty?

What if I were to convince a child with developmental disabilities to steal? What if I were to say, urge a mother of a lost child to murder someone under suspicion that they are somehow involved.

Do you see what I'm getting at? It's called duress, and every person handles it differently. The reports all led me to believe that there was a modicum of duress involved. It became apparent to me that Roy believed Carter was trying to help him, as if this was some kind of merciful assisted suicide. Someone suffering from that kind of intense, profound mental illness could not possibly have been equipped to deal with that kind of manipulation, which begs the question:  Was Carter really trying to help or was she seeking the attention of others; the grieving widow theory.

THE AIRLOCK

Recently in another article I came up with a metaphor for the steps one would take to commit suicide, that it is akin to a dark room with one door you enter from, and one that leads to your death. But the more I thought about it, the more refined the metaphor became. Eventually I fell on my fondness for science fiction. I recalled a movie called Event Horizon. More of a horror movie, there is a scene in which one of the characters, (Justin) attempts suicide by flushing himself out of an airlock. He seems to be under some kind of a trance from a recent trauma. He enters the airlock, locks the inner door, then begins the sequence to open the outer door. Just after he has punched in the required code and the countdown begins, he comes to. He and the rest of the crew realize the crisis on their hands and clamor to save him.

The classic air lock disaster is a fundamental scene in many science fiction movies. Sometimes a character accidentally gets locked in the airlock, but through rational thoughts and actions, and a little help from his peers, he is able to prevent the outer door from opening; he is able to get out.

Applying the metaphor to suicide, the person suffering is not rational, not logical. There is a certain detachment that occurs when you reach that level of hopelessness. Your thoughts don't make sense. How could the lives of your loved ones possibly improve by killing yourself? How could your life possibly improve. The further you get to actually taking action, the more twisted and dark reality becomes, and your inner self rots to the core, like an all-consuming cancer. In this state, you are much more likely to breach the outer door of the airlock.

Conrad Roy was in the airlock. He was detached from reality, vulnerable. At one point he tried to back out; he tried to open the inner door and get out of the airlock. But Michelle Carter descended upon him like a predator. I believe she saw this as an opportunity to bring attention to herself. She used a dark logic, a twisted rationale to convince him that he was doing the right thing. Therein lies the crime.

Maybe not everyone agrees with me, but suicide is serious. When you have a friend who is going through that much pain, you have an obligation to help or get help. That of course is my opinion, but it falls under "love your neighbor," and a philanthropic sense to help those in need. I guess I always thought it was a basic human tenet. What does that say about our culture that someone could work so hard to convince someone to bring harm upon themselves?

THE VERDICT

The verdict is in. Michelle Carter was convicted of involuntary manslaughter last week, although I don't know how "involuntary" it was. Along with the sentence the judge hands down to her, she now faces her own sentence, the penance of her actions, and our courts face setting a new precedent for murder. Well done Ms. Carter, you got attention from all over the world and a dead boyfriend. Bravo. Will it ever end?

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The Suicide Epidemic

Every time I hear of a suicide, my heart, and my mind immediately take a step back to February 8, 2016, the day my best friend Joe decided to end his life. The feeling was like being hit by a speeding truck, knocked unconscious, and left numb for days.

There seems to be an alarming increase in suicides among celebrities. At least from my point of view, which is that if there is one suicide, it's an alarming increase. Now I don't care much for the cult of celebrity, and have other works I intend to publish regarding that subject. However, Robin Williams was one of my all-time favorite actors. His portrayal of the Genie in Aladdin really lifted my spirits during a very difficult time after my high school graduation. 

The latest celebrity to surrender to despair was rocker Chris Cornell. I have been a fan of Chris Cornell from his days with Temple of the Dog, through his solo work and work with Soundgarden and Audio Slave. After high school, the grunge era hit it's peak. Whereas I was into hip hop and R&B in high school, it was all about grunge in college. I had purchased the soundtrack to the movie Singles long before ever seeing the movie. That's where I learned about many of the grunge bands. I can remember Smells Like Teen Spirit was really popular while I was in high school, and Pearl Jam, at least their first album. But once I started college, I couldn't get enough. Still to this day, when I listen to the Singles soundtrack, it still reminds me of driving home at 2:00 am from my girlfriend's college, especially in the fall. Many good times.

This article is not about music. It's not even about Chris Cornell, but more so about why he, and so many other prominent celebrities would choose to end their lives when they're so successful. Take Robin Williams:  funny, successful, family man. Yes he had a wicked drug problem in the 70s, but he was able to pull out of that and make so many people laugh, and so many wonderful movies. Why would you want to kill yourself if you're a millionaire with a mansion and a yacht and whatever else, and everybody loves you? How are there celebrities like professional loser Dustin Diamond still skulking about LA? Everything that guy touches turns to manure.

The answer to the question is that not everything about suicide, about mental illness, is circumstantial, nor is it always a matter of finances, nor status. I say this a lot. And I will say this until I'm blue in the face, and when I die, I will have this etched on my head-stone. 

In my experience, in my darkest depths of despair, most people who tried to help, made the assumption most of the time, that the problem was superficial. "What are you depressed about?" was a question I /was asked most often. I was never able to pinpoint one particular detail, nor two or three for that matter. I mean, there were a lot of things:  having to live with my parents in my 30s; being heavily overweight; not able to hold a job, to name a few. I thought for so long that if I just had a lot of money, if these things would just go away, I wouldn't be depressed anymore. In retrospect, no amount of money nor circumstantial upgrade would have made me feel better. The problem was much deeper. The problem was how I felt about myself. I didn't think I had any worth. I honestly didn't think I added any value to anyone's life, not even my own. That's when I started thinking about suicide. I didn't understand how my parents could tell me how much they loved me and that I am an important part of their lives, while at the same time telling me that I was a financial drain and that they would do anything to get me out of the house including threats of eviction. Where's the value in that?

I really believe that the circumstantial details become pieces of a larger problem that is both tangible and intangible at the same time. And the real danger starts when you can't tell the difference, that is, when you can't see that the problem lies in how you feel about yourself not what you have, or don't have for that matter; when you lose sight of your own value, and the enrichment you provide in the lives of others.

I imagine suicide to be a room with two doors opposite each other:  the door in which you enter, and the door which ends your life. There is only one rule:  you can only exit through one door; either the door opposite to you, or the door you entered through. So many people I know have been in this room. I have been in this room. If only people knew that they never entered alone.

Super Powers

As a child, I was never into comic books. I was never much of a reader, and I can remember my mother being kind of turned off by them as well. I did however, really like Superman and Spiderman. Batman was OK, I loved to watch the cartoons, and the early iterations of Batman and Superman on TV. Super Friends was my favorite Saturday morning cartoon. Every Saturday, before ever touching any of our toys, my brother and I would sit together in front of the TV for Super Friends.

Fast forward thirty-something years, and it seems like at least half of all action movies are based on a comic book. Marvel is king. My favorite comic book movies are the ones where super hero had to undergo some kind of physical or mental adversity, and in overcoming it, gained super powers. Spiderman was bitten by a deadly spider; Daredevil took caustic chemicals to the face; Deadpool endured abject torture; and the Hulk was exposed to beyond lethal radiation. All of these characters survived immense suffering, and were bettered. Possibly the greatest connecting piece to all of these stories is that each of their trials were unique; the end result was the same, but the pain was different.

Those who know me, know the struggles I've been through with bipolar disorder. But not many know my super power:  I can see pain. I first became aware of this power in 2014. I had just started a job in a call center. I trained with a young woman named Dee who had just graduated college. She was 21 years old, and told stories in our training about travelling to Europe. I was really impressed, and I kept thinking that this girl was half my age and has had twice the experience that I have. I loved to listen to her stories about Spain. 

Then one day I came in to work and noticed something was not right. She was the same person, she looked the same, talked the same, but when I looked at her, I could see deep inside she was hurting. She quit shortly after that, but we had become friends on Facebook. At first, we didn't have much contact, but then one day she sent me a message and asked about characteristics of bipolar disorder. She was dating a guy with the condition, but as we continued to have further interactions, I started to notice characteristics and symptoms of bipolar disorder in her. As we became closer friends, she began to reveal more and more about her past, her struggles, and her feelings. Finally, she saw a doctor and was diagnosed. In our conversations I told her my story. I told her everything:  my experiences growing up, dealing with ridicule, harassment, and bullies; periods of deep profound depression, and relief; relationships, and how I coped, how I was able to defeat the monster.  

Dee and I are now very close. We talk often. She has told me on many occasions how my narrative has helped her to cope with the battles she is fighting. She is a fighter like me, she doesn't quit, and she will never give up. She will always have my support.

This is what my purpose is:  to help others. God gave me the tools to pull myself out of the black hole when I began to put my trust in Him. But I never expected that I would have such a passion for helping people who are fighting such pain. I know now that this is my charge. If I can help just one person. If I can save just one life from suicide, I know my mission will be fulfilled.

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Depression; Suicide

I've been waiting a while to write this article. I have posted several articles on bipolar disorder and depression on the Circuitry page. I've held off on writing an about suicide. Although I feel like I have a lot to say, and some good insight, having self-harmed myself and attempted suicide in the past, I was really afraid that a friend or family member might panic, thinking that I have those thoughts again, and I was composing a cry for help. 

Let me make it abundantly clear that have absolutely no intentions of harming myself in any way.

First I'd like to revisit the issue of the stigma of mental health issues, and then get into suicide awareness and prevention.

Recently a friend posted a video from Paul Joseph Watson, a right wing contributor for an online media outlet, posted a video on YouTube titled The Truth About Depression, . It was a seemingly angry rant. Watson, obviously has never experienced depression, and seemingly does not know anyone who has. He compares depression to the modern phenomenon of waving a flag of victim-hood and linking it to the many unusual sub-movements within feminism. His argument is that depression is an inability to cope with events or circumstances that are unpleasant, virtue signaling, and mental fragility. He goes on to say that a big part of this epidemic of depression is in part due to the fact that drug companies are pumping out new psychiatric medications like a candy factory, and that doctors are ultimately enabling symptoms, severity and duration by over-prescribing their patients.

I am torn between two competing opinions. On the one hand, I completely disagree with Watson's assessment of depression. In my prior series Three Settings on the Dial, I addressed different kinds of depression. I showed how there is a difference between having a really bad day, and having something else, elusive, that has taken control over you. There's a difference between going through a break-up or getting cut off on the freeway, and having no energy; having the feeling to withdraw, avoid social interactions or work, and having feelings of self-harm.

On the other hand, I tend to agree with him in regards to drug companies creating new psych meds, and doctors prescribing them at an alarming rate. The problem lies in the fact that drug companies are not charities. They do not exist for the benevolence of helping the sick. Just like Coca-cola or Frito-Lay, their function is to make a profit, even if their products prove ultimately harmful to their consumers.

I've battled depression since I was in the 6th grade, having serious bouts throughout my life. The first time I was prescribed medication was just after high-school. I remember taking amitriptyline; and I remember that it actually made the symptoms worse. I went the next three years without anything, my depression had lifted on its own. In 1996, I started back taking medications. First for anxiety, then for depression. The problem was that I didn't have any means to research these drugs. I suffered from a lot of side-effects, and never realized that most of these medications were not intended to be permanent, or even long term. Eventually I developed a dependence on them. 

Psychiatric medications work by supplementing neuro-transmitters. It is usually a deficiency of certain neuro-transmitters that causes mental illness including depression. The problem is that the brain has a natural tendency to decrease or even stop production of said neuro-transmitters, since it is getting them now externally. I'm pretty sure my brain is now permanently dependent on my medications, ergo my disdain for their abundant overuse. Medications should be a part of the solution, not THE solution.

If you watch the video, you'll see that Watson does not necessarily condemn all people who suffer from, or claim to suffer from depression. Having watched many of his other videos, I think he was trying to point out yet another facet of the victim mentality. The problem I have with this is that the take-away from the video, intentionally or not, serves to fortify the wall of ignorance that supports the stigma of mental illness.

THE SEMICOLON PROJECT

You may have noticed the title of this article is Depression; Suicide. Why the semicolon? Well, I came across a video a while back about something called The Semicolon Project. It was created to raise awareness about mental health and suicide. I feel that anything we can do to raise awareness about suicide is good. The idea behind a semicolon is that it is a punctuation character that a writer uses to continue a thought when they don't want to end a sentence. The symbolism is to continue life, not end it.

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MY STORY

May 31, 2009:  Having failed at many jobs, multiple battles with severe depression, and having to move in with my parents in my mid thirties, I had lost hope. I just couldn't figure out why life had to be so hard for me. My brother was doing well, had a new wife and just became a father the prior year. It seemed everything I touched turned to garbage.

So one night I started drinking and popping pills. I lit some candles to try to relax, but soon passed out. I could barely make it to my bed. The next day my mom found me and knew something was wrong. I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Everyone was asking if I tried to hurt myself. Of course I said no. I was going to school for design at the time. I said no because telling the truth would have landing me in the psych ward. A week in the hospital and I would have ended up failing my classes. There were times, after this incident, that I had lost all hope, and considered suicide again. But things started to improve greatly for me a few years later, after I had learned some things that God wanted to teach me.

Then last year my friend Joe took his own life. That was hard for me for many reasons, mostly because I thought I could help him. Having the misfortune of being the point of contact between the coroner's office and his next of kin, I learned first-hand how just horrifying it was to get that call, how horrifying it was to have to call his brother. Thank God we had been friends on Facebook for a few years. To complicate things, he had no idea, obviously, and thought it was just a social call. I had to make some very difficult decisions.

I've made many posts to Facebook about Joe; about how much I miss him; about how I wish things could have been different. It has become a calling. I want people to know that it was my sole intention to raise awareness. I was never virtue signaling or trying to draw attention to myself. I miss my friend, but if I can help even just one person to choose life, If I could help at least one person out of the black hole, it would be the most important thing I will ever do.

#thesemicolonproject

In Loving Memory

Joseph Kenneth Alles

1974 - 2016

February 8th, 2016, exactly one year ago today. One of my closest friends from high school passed away by his own hand. The worst day of my adult life. Joe called me early that morning. I wasn't up yet, and I didn't answer the call, figuring I'd call him back when I'd when my head cleared. I was really tired and would not have been very coherent on the phone. He left me a strange voice message. It sounded like he had been drinking, possibly through the night. I used to drink heavily too so I knew that was a strong possibility. I figured I'd let him dry out a little and then call him back. 

I was very concerned about Joe. We had recently got back in touch as one does after many years due to the miracle of Facebook. I could tell early on that my friend was in trouble. They say it takes one to know one. I've suffered for many years with depression, having had suicidal thoughts and even actions of my own in the distant past. I knew the chaos and I could sense his pain. As soon as I did, I made it my mission to reach out to him, to provide support, and make sure he knew he was not alone. 

I believe it was sometime in 2013 that his brother Aaron accepted my friend request. Joe accepted my friend request several months later. He was not as hip with Facebook, only having about a dozen friends an very little posts or pictures, preferring email over social networking. We exchanged phone numbers and shortly after we talked for the first time in over 20 years. We continued to talk almost every week after. It was good to have my old friend back.

But then I started to notice the depression. I could feel the pain he couldn't release. Each time I talked to him I could see a little more into that dark abyss. We tentatively tried to plan a reunion, but I was so busy with my job, I just didn't have the time to get away.

Fast forward...

In January of last year, Joe told me he was coming out for a visit, and planning on scouting out a place to live and for work. If I had a place bigger than my 400 square foot, one bedroom apartment, I would have gladly offered him the space. 

I finally met up with Joe on February 6th. We got together for a night out and I got to show him my apartment with all the techie stuff I'm so obsessed with. He was very impressed with what I had done with my tiny space.

I took him back to his sister's house later that night. I didn't know when he left town, but he called me a few days later to tell me he was going to start his journey west. I told him how excited I was that he was moving back, and asked him to call me periodically along the way, which he did. I just wanted to make sure everything was going well. 

I prayed that God would allow me to reach Joe on a spiritual and emotional level, asking him to ease his pain and to know that I would be his most loyal friend, there to help him whenever he needed it. I asked God to charge me with helping him put his life back together, having been through so much suffering myself. I had a plan. 

Often times when someone is trying to help another suffering from mental health illnesses, they take a firm direct approach. Many tried and failed at this approach with me in my own suffering. My plan was to attack the problem asymmetrically using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as a model; starting with the most basic needs first, helping him to find a place to live and work. Once I was able to stabilize the basics I would begin to approach him about the depression and try to see if I could get him into a county funded mental health program like the one I'm in. All the while I would reinforce the spirtiual, sharing with him my relationship with Christ and how invaluable that was to my success in overcome the mental health issues.

However, unfortunately, I didn't get that far. At around 2:00 pm I got the call from the coroner's office in Wyoming. They found him earlier that day and were looking for next of kin. My number was the last Joe dialed and the first one they tried. That was difficult. Even more difficult was having to reach out to Aaron. 

If I could have one wish, it would be for just a little more time that morning to call Joe back. If he could have just waited for my call I think things could have turned out differently. 

REMEMBERING A FRIEND

I can't say for certain when exactly we met, but I know it was during our senior year. We mostly just said hi or had a quick conversation in the halls. We didn't really connect until the time of our graduation.

At that time in my life, I was going through a lot of changes and was dealing with some moderate to severe depression. I was withdrawing, preferring sleep over social activities. I don't think I would have ever made it through that summer without Joe. He was always around. He always had high energy, and was always positive. We were so close, I can remember hanging out with him four or five days a week. All I wanted was a chance to repay the kindness. 

God rest your soul my friend. You were, and still are, loved beyond your dreams.

The picture above was taken at our senior breakfast. It was the best picture I had of Joe and so I decided to use it as a sort of lacrimosa on my Facebook page. In Victorian times, when someone lost a loved one, they would save their tears in a tiny jeweled bottle. When all the tears had evaporated, the mourning period was over. Some sources say it lasted about one year.

Support

I'd like to talk about support from family and friends for loved ones suffering from depression and bipolar disorder, specifically how people perceive and process your mental illness. In a general sense, I believe there are three kinds of supportive individuals. No one is 100% on the mark, these are merely observations I have made. Often times there are a mix of people in a network of support, so this article is centered more on individuals than groups as a whole. By network, I am referring to family, friends, co-workers, employers, etc., of individuals with a mental health diagnosis, specifically bipolar disorder, and depression, which is a debilitating component of bipolar disorder.

In my experience, the network can be explained as a representation of concentric spheres with a core at the center, a median in middle, and a mantle on the outside. A cross-section of the Earth lends itself perfectly to the explanation of levels of support within the network. The most supportive individuals are closest to the center. Lukewarm individuals who seem to care, but may tend to keep their distance, have reservations or conditions, in the middle, and those who simply want nothing to do with the matter forming the mantle.

THE CORE

The first example is composed mainly of family and friends who embrace your disorder as they embrace you.. That is, people who show empathy, compassion, for the daily struggles you encounter; people who show genuine care and concern. It's rare to find people who will go out of their way to help, however, people who will call or text to check-in on their loved one who is fighting the battle. I've rarely seen this level of support. However, I did have a girlfriend once who would text me several times just to see how my day was going. Although that relationship eventually ended in disaster, it is this level of support that can really be helpful.

Not all family necessarily fits into the core, but in my experience, I've found that parents are the most likely, especially if the two biological parents are married or at least still a couple. It's about love. It's about undying devotion that a parent has for their child, or at least they should have.

THE MEDIAN

Between the core and the mantle lies the median. This group includes friends, family and co-workers who may show concern, often more accurately pity, but tend to keep their distance, and only reach out when it is convenient for them or for their own motives. There is nothing worse than a person who displays false care for personal gain, for example to gain the approval of others, or to make themselves look charitable or sincere. Conspicuous concern would be an accurate term. When you prey upon the misfortunes of others, you are a predator. And keeping your distance from someone you care about in a time of need is cruel. This is also what I call a conditional relationship:  a connection between people that is dependent on certain conditions. For example, a condition could be not wanting to get involved when someone is severely depressed, or hypo-manic. A fair-weather friend so to speak. I've seen and heard about individuals who seem to have very loving and caring parents who want nothing to do with their child when they are in crisis.

THE MANTLE

On the outside lies the last layer:  the mantle. It is composed of people who essentially want nothing to do with the individual. This can be anyone:  friends, relatives, co-workers, employers, etc. These are people who essentially have turned their backs on the individual, heading for the hills long ago at the first sign of trouble. Often times they are still connected to the individual, but refuse any contact, or agree on interaction upon unreasonable conditions, sometimes in a quid pro quo pretense. These people more often than not have had a severely negative influence on the individual and interaction with them will often serve to worsen the situation.

If you want to take the Earth cross-section model to the limit, I would say the crust would represent people who have completely turned their back on the individual and no longer want anything to do with them. This can include anyone:  family, friends, co-workers, romantic interests, and even employers. There's always a reason behind everything, and individuals suffering from depression and bipolar disorder can be very difficult to live with, even unsafe. But in my experience, these are people who have been involved in some kind of violence or victimization, on either part, the individual or the other person. Relationships at this level are completely toxic, but sometimes so because of a complete lack of compassion. I have found that these are people who have essentially had enough, or are in general, completely put off by mental illness.

THE ANALYSIS

The support concentric spheres model is based on observations within my own network, and observations I have made within friends' networks. I am not a clinician. The Three Settings on the Dial series is intended to be an account of my own personal experiences and observations which is why I chose to do very little or no research for the articles for the sole intention not to pollute my personal account with extraneous facts that may or may not have applied to my situation.

In reflection, the majority of my support group has lied within the core, but as I explained in Part 1, often times when you are in a constant state of crisis, it is not hard to turn inward and begin to see a warped version of reality, or to completely lose contact with it altogether. On many occasions, I felt disconnected from my brother. As hard as he tries, my brother, and sister-in-law, God bless them, have never been able to completely wrap their heads around my disorder. He doesn't understand how something that is going on in my head can affect my daily routine, my work, or my ability to function. He doesn't understand why, in a crisis, I sometimes shut down completely, like an electrical appliance that has shorted out. Like many people, he knows others who suffer the same condition, but maybe function at a higher level, or on different but parallel levels that are more relevant to them, who don't have the same problems that I do.

For years I feared losing my brother. We were so close, we always knew that if all else failed, we had each other. But in retrospect, he was never anywhere outside the core. Like all of my family, he lost patience with me at times, but when I really needed him, he was there. There was never any condition to his empathy, but he was not afraid to proclaim that he wouldn't stand for certain things.

Once I was able to escape the black hole, I had a powerful revelation. I was able to see just how many people I had in the core; friends, co-workers, even relatives. I could not perceive this while the black hole twisted my perception. I fell inward. Once an extrovert, I became an introvert. I can remember a time when I could not stand being home alone. I would call down my list of friends until I found one that was willing to go for a drink or a movie. I craved the interaction. That died out progressively as I sunk deeper into my disorder, into the black hole, until I was going to movies by myself and drinking alone at home.

PRACTICUM

I have known many bipolars over the years. In my apartment complex, there are many people who have bipolar disorder. And I have close friends who suffer from it as well, actually, one of them is no longer with us. People have a hard time understanding the diagnosis. Equally baffling is how I can look at a person (friend, co-worker, celebrity, etc.) and accurately calculate a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. And I can see depression as if it glows. People don't understand this. Having spent the majority of my life fighting depression and bipolar disorder, being able to see it is completely natural for me. I don't even need to try.

For example, I have a close friend that I met at a job two years ago. She's very smart, she had just graduated college, and she used to talk about traveling Europe. I loved to hear her stories of her experiences. After a while, when I would see her come in to start her shift, I noticed something was not right about her. I didn't know what caused it, but I knew what it was:  depression. We became friends and I helped her through some tough times. She was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and I want to be there for her. I want her to know that she can always count on me. I want her to know that I want to be the anchor she can rely on, that I am part of her core. Because after losing a friend to suicide earlier this year, I know first hand that being in a person's support group is the most important thing in the world while they are going through some of the hardest suffering.

To clarify, if you know someone who is suffering, and you are part of their support group, unless you make a concerted effort to be in the core, you are not helping. People in the median and mantle are irrelevant, and as I stated previously, they tend to do more harm than good.. People need to understand that there cannot, there can NEVER BE, any conditions when you care about or love someone. I have seen time and time again, a person in an individual's network, offer to help, only to manipulate or ask for something in return. Predators.

Just because you can't see our pain, doesn't mean it isn't just as real as something physical. Just because you can't understand the turmoil we endure day to day, doesn't mean that we don't need your support.

The Relativity of Time as it Pertains to Escaping a Black Hole

A Follow-Up to

 Three Settings on the Dial:  What Bipolar Disorder Feels Like

After writing my previous article, I decided to expand on some of the ideas with a series of articles. In Three Settings on the Dial  I briefly touched on an idea about how a black hole warps everything, twisting and distorting it. It inspired me to do a little bit of research that yielded a whole other set of metaphors which I can use to explain, this time, how it feels to be free of the black hole. 

The first idea I would like to expand on is in regards to the perceived passage of time when you are in the black hole of depression or bipolar disorder, the general feeling of being stuck in tar, watching the world pass you by, without any ability to move with it, and how it serves to reinforce the dampened spirits that keep you there.

This time, I'm going to provide the hard science in which I based my metaphorical allegory first. Let's examine Albert Einstein, arguably one of the greatest minds of all time, in particular, his theory of relativity:  general and special. 

Albert Einstein, in his THEORY OF SPECIAL RELATIVITY, determined that the laws of physics are the same for all non-accelerating observers, and he showed that the speed of light within a vacuum is the same no matter the speed at which an observer travels. As a result, he found that space and time were interwoven into a single continuum known as space-time. Events that occur at the same time for one observer could occur at different times for another.  

As he worked out the equations for his GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY, Einstein realized that massive objects caused a distortion in space-time. Imagine setting a large body in the center of a trampoline. The body would press down into the fabric, causing it to dimple. A marble rolled around the edge would spiral inward toward the body, pulled in much the same way that the gravity of a planet pulls at rocks in space.

First, I would like to qualify all of my theories as simply theories, ideas really, intended to reinforce metaphors. I never took physics, and most of what I know about Einstein and his theories came from the Science channel, and Hollywood, with light research to follow. The metaphors I present are allegorical and not intended to have a direct relationship with hard science.

Putting it plainly, the Science channel and movies and TV suggest that the faster you go, the faster ahead in time you go, relative to say, someone who is stationary. Let's say for argument sake, the nearest star is one light year away. If I were to jump into a space ship and travel at the speed of light, it would take one year to get there. However, although I may have only traveled for one year, and be only one year older, everyone on Earth would be much much older. Time would have essentially moved much slower relative to how it moved for me. It makes sense if you look at space and time as two sides of the same coin.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love science, and science fiction. I was raised on films with plots that revolved around space, and time travel, like "Back to the Future:"  a classic. I was always fascinated particularly with films and TV shows where the character would travel back in time and return to the future later to find everything had changed, or travel from their own timelines to the distant future, and again, find everything had changed drastically; friends and relatives had passed, landscapes changed, ways of life forever altered.

One of the worst scars left by the black hole I escaped is a sort of temporal distortion. I am 41 years old, yet I find myself able to relate more easily to much younger people. Not that I don't relate with people my own age, I just feel like I have more things in common with men, for example, who are in their twenties. For years I struggled with it. From the beginning, I knew there was a relationship between my ability to relate to men, and women for that matter, in my own age group, and my disorder; my struggle with the black hole. For the longest time I thought I was stupid. I thought that the medications I had taken over the years had somehow diluted my intelligence. And because of it, my social anxiety spiraled out of control. Once the life of the party, I found myself increasingly more intense at functions, to the point of panic attacks. Eventually I began to avoid social functions, and even now, I still fight with such social anxiety.

It was only after I began my ascent to freedom from the black hole that began to see more clearly. The reason that I feel that I have trouble relating to my peers is because of the special relativity of the black hole. I was caught in its grasp for more than twenty years. It's the only explanation that makes any sense to me. My life slowed to a crawl, my clock nearly stopped. All of my friends however, were going off to college, graduating college, dating, falling in love, getting married, having children, buying houses, etc. Okay, there were a few divorces in there, (maybe even a lot), but the fact of the matter is life was happening all around, but not for me. I was suffering in a black pit, eventually becoming the black hole that oppressed me, drawing in all of my family to the chaotic turmoil within. The reason I relate to younger age groups, especially to males, is because metaphorically, I am the one who stayed on Earth, as opposed to the one in the space ship. Escaping the black hole, my maturity level and way of thinking is more like that of someone in their twenties.

In pondering my ideas for this article, I thought a lot about characters who traveled from the present to the distant future like Buck Rogers. Then I started to remember a movie I had seen in 1992 called Forever Young with Mel Gibson and Jamie Lee Curtis. As I do movie reviews on Titanium Toast as well, I can tell you that it is lackluster, milk toast love story which I'm sure Mel Gibson and Jamie Lee Curtis are happy to put behind them. However, the plot line lends itself perfectly to allegory about the relative perception of time, that is, being frozen in time. 

In the film, a test pilot in 1938 (Mel Gibson) experiences the loss of his girlfriend and subsequently offers himself to a science experiment in which he is supposed to be literally frozen for one year. There was a problem, and he ends up staying on ice for fifty years. When he is freed by a young boy (Elijah Wood), he is thrust into a future he never expected in his wildest dreams. Life has moved on, everything has changed. All of his family and friends are deceased, But his girlfriend, it turns out, is still alive and the film turns into a quest to find her.

Most of my peers are married with children. They live in nice houses, have really good jobs, nice cars and even rental properties. They have money to invest and take fancy vacations with their families. At this point in my life I have none of that, and I find that because most people I know who are in their twenties and thirties also have little or none of these things, it's easier for me to have conversations with them and relate to them.

Getting out of the black hole was probably the greatest thing I've ever done in my life. But I wasn't prepared for this feeling, and I feel it will take some time and effort to get past. After my last girlfriend, I made a conscious decision not to date anymore until I was in a better place. Now that I am in a better place, I feel like my options are limited, and so I'm finding myself interested in younger women, because from my point of view I am NOT 41, not even 31 it seems, however the dynamics are different when there is an age gap. I don't feel lonely; that part of my brain was turned off for a very long time, but now it seems to be coming back online, which is driving the thoughts that I have missed out on life. Once again, I'm letting my faith lead me. I believe something will happen at the right time, For now, I'm continuing to adjust.

Three Settings on the Dial: What Bipolar Disorder Feels Like

I am a person who tends to like to share things with others. I like to trade ideas and compare experiences; to learn. So I decided to write a piece about the three facets of bipolar disorder - depression, mania, and balance - and how they feel from my perspective, that is, how they feel going through them. Yes, that's right, three facets. Bipolar disorder typically focuses on two facets:  mania and depression, but I believe that balance can be achieved. It doesn't have to be Zen, and it's not necessarily always bliss, but to be able to escape the pull from the other two is in itself quite the reward and worthy of consideration.

I'll start with depression since that was what I fought with the most for so long. When I hear the word "bipolar" I usually think about the bouts of profound depression I have experienced, rather than episodes of hypomania or mania. Officially, there are two types:  Bipolar I and Bipolar II. I'm not going to get into the differences. They are functionally similar, yet each unique.

I thought of the analogy of a black hole. But first, how should I use this metaphor? Is depression in itself a black hole? Or does experiencing it make you feel like a black hole? I'll start with the latter first and say that it's like falling into a black hole and save the "is a black hole" metaphor for later.

MY ODYSSEY

Growing up in southern California, I can recall having anxiety, which is really a precursor to depression, as far back as sixth grade, with feelings of depression following in seventh and eighth. When I started high school, I had no friends. I only really had a few in eighth grade, one group, but we had a falling out at the end of the school year, and since I refused to capitulate to the "leader's" demands to return to the group, I walked away. My freshman year in high school I walked home for lunch alone everyday and strategically planned my path to my classes to avoid the gauntlet of bullies. The area we lived in seemed to be some kind of gladiator school for bullies. It was later in my ninth grade year that I started taking naps; after school at first, but eventually I started just not returning from lunch, my mother would just call in for me. This was about when the black hole located me, This was the threshold scientists call the accretion disc; when the evil pit set it's sights to draw me in. When we moved to Oregon, and I transferred schools, I was able to keep my orbit very loose. Things started getting better for me, after a while, but eventually I found myself wanting to sleep more than go to school, or hang out with my friends, or anything for that matter. But by the end of my senior year of high school, I had made more friends than I ever had in California. The problem was that the closer we got to graduation, the more I realized that my world was going to change, and this scared the hell out of me. My whole way of life was coming to an end and my mood began to fray. On the one hand, I felt this satisfying sense of accomplishment, like everything I've done was for this moment. On the other, I felt an overwhelming sense of dread as I can only imagine the ancient Greeks felt as they were exiled from the city-state during the ostracism rituals. My orbit shifted. It was no longer a tentative flirtation, I was firmly caught; drawn.

I was able to anchor myself once again when I started college. A new school, a new way to go to school, new classes, new subjects, a new extracurricular activity I really enjoyed, and then, a new girlfriend, I'll call her Jennifer. Now, I must go on record and say that in high school, I had thought the cure for my depression would be a girlfriend, however, after my senior year I was wound so tight I could never make anything ever happen. Jennifer was someone I had met in high school, and was a friend of a friend. So a lot of the initial dating anxieties were already pushed to the side. She made me happy, and I started to feel a sense of balance. For the first few years of college, my orbit slowed to a crawl. In retrospect, she was only part of the equation. I was in college and doing well; I was very active in my extracurricular activity as a police Explorer (a sort of internship for youths and young adults interested in pursuing a career in law enforcement); I had a job; and her. Having all those things going on pulled my focus away from the depression and allowed me to sort of right myself, to be myself again.

Then we broke up, twice actually. The first time was for about 4 days, and then she decide she couldn't live without me. Ultimately I think she liked the idea of having a boyfriend more than the boyfriend himself. The second time we broke up, I made it stick. Once again, I tried to fill the hole in my life with other girlfriends but the sparks never lit a fire. Jennifer graduated from her college and I from mine and we found each other again, for one last blissful summer. But once again, I found myself standing at a precipice. I knew at the end of the summer Jennifer's path would take her away. The job I had was crap and I faced a huge unknown starting classes at a new university, in a new town, completely cut off from my family and friends. I developed an overwhelming sense of social anxiety that made it difficult to make new friends. Alcohol just made it worse. It didn't work out, and I had to come back to my parents. I was miserable. Over the following years I felt my orbit careening out of control, circling ever closer to the event horizon with each day. The anxiety was bad enough, but the anger was completely out of control. And like a broken record, I thought I would find balance in a relationship, however once again, I was wound so tight nobody wanted anything to do with me.

In the early 2000s, I distracted myself with endless partying, trying to live vicariously through my brother. The friends I had were all his friends for the most part, and looking back, I think some of them just tolerated me. I'd watch them hook up with girls we met when out on the town. I could never make that happen. So I just figured if I was drunk, I wouldn't notice. But at the end of the night, I would just go home with this empty feeling. Then my brother met his wife and suddenly the partying was all over. Kind of reminds me of the song "Closing Time" how everyone just went their separate ways. That's not to say that my brother and his wife caused the end of that era. And not to say that my sister-in-law was a Yoko Ono; she was anything but. Always the life of the party, she broke the ice better than Kristi Yamaguchi. Life happens. But again I felt like a disenfranchised freak. I had no real connection to anyone or anything, and I was stuck in a shitty dead-end job at Comcast that I hated. I mean I LOATHED getting up everyday to go to that job, and right about this time they fired me. Things started spinning out of control, and my orbit tightened. I was deep in it now. All the while, from the time I left the University, I found myself looking for pleasure in food. They say the closer an object gets to a black hole, the more massive it becomes. Once a skinny bean pole, I am now a giant.

A few years later, an old girlfriend (if you want to call her that) found me on Facebook. And about a year later, we rekindled our relationship. It was toxic. (It seems that the older that I got, the more messed up women I attracted) This woman, I'll call her Betty, was like spent plutonium. She had more baggage than Louis Vuitton, two rugrats and a head full of bad wiring. Oh, and she was married, so I had to deal with all the sneaking around bullshit. At this point my orbit was way past safe distance. I was entering the danger zone. I had lost all sense of self worth, abandoning even my most sacred morals and values, and was desperate to find something, anything, to anchor to; to stop my descent. For about a year I did as I had done all my life; I tried to fill a giant gaping black void with a person. I later realized I never even loved her, I was just hoping that she could stabilize me. It turns out, she was the singularity, that is, there was no further I could fall after her. All that animosity and anger at the end of the relationship eventually cleared and I realized just how important she was. She showed me the bottom. And when you hit the bottom, the only way to go is up, right?

THE SUMMATION OF DEPRESSION

DEPRESSION is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behavior, feelings and sense of well-being. People with a depressed mood can feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, ashamed or restless. They may lose interest in activities that were once pleasurable, experience loss of appetite or overeating, have problems concentrating, remembering details or making decisions, and may contemplate, attempt or commit suicide. Insomnia, excessive sleeping, fatigue, aches, pains, digestive problems or reduced energy may also be present. Depressed mood is a feature of some psychiatric syndromes such as major depressive disorder, but it may also be a normal reaction to life events such as grief, a symptom of some bodily ailments or a side effect of some drugs and medical treatments. (Wikipedia)

So far I've showed you points along my journey, a section I named My Odyssey because I felt a bit like Odysseus, besieged on all sides by monsters. Can you see the themes that recur throughout my life? I'm a movie guy, and I love movie quotes. The most profound movie quote ever came from Yoda in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, when he said:  "Fear is the path to the Dark Side; fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering:" Most of the major episodes of depression in my life were triggered by a big change in my life. I feared the change (anxiety), which led to anger (which are precursors to depression), which led to hate (of myself), which led to suffering (depression, hopelessness). And in that suffering, I reached out in desperation to fill the emptiness with love; the wrong kind of love. But unlike Anakin Skywalker, instead of destroying everything around me, succumbing to The Dark Side, I turned it all inward; I chose to destroy myself. But again like Anakin Skywlaker, I reached a point in my life where I chose to return to The Light Side. I'll get to that later.

Switching metaphors:  depression transforms you into a black hole. Like a dark metamorphosis, the trigger events change you. They hijack your personality. For me, wanting to fill the void with a girlfriend, I essentially felt that drawing someone in could help lift me out. I didn't love myself, so I thought that if someone else loved me, I could learn to love myself; to feel better about myself. Science tells us that black holes warp space-time and bend the laws of physics altogether; the more we learn about them, the less we know it seems. Its the same with depression.

But here's where the metaphors converge:  when you are both the black hole, and in the black hole, you can't see things for what they are. Your reality is askew, and it's impossible to get a true picture of anything. As the black hole, the triggers are never really extinguished and more continue to come. Things begin to become heavier and heavier and you begin to fold in on yourself. The greatest danger comes when you begin to think that you are completely disconnected from everything, cut off, lost in the abyss of the event horizon. No one knows what it looks like inside a black hole, but I can only speculate that the perspective must look something like a fun house mirror, the images distorted and twisted.

Some people have the misconception that depression is synonymous with sadness. It's not that simple. People don't go through depression because they had a bad day at work, or broke up with their girlfriend, or lost a loved one. Yes, these can be triggers, but depression is an inwardly reflecting kind of turmoil. It's a dark, remote, isolated place where hope, or at least the perception of hope, ceases to exist. So yes, it is sad, tearfully sometimes, but there is much more to it. Much of the time pride, shame, and fear of stigma stand in the way of  getting any useful help. Likewise, seeking help from the wrong source can only serve to worsen the situation and further isolate you. You find yourself vulnerable, and some will choose to take advantage of that. And the "snap out of it" response is the most insulting thing to someone experiencing it. Getting passed over for a promotion at work or getting turned down for a date can put you in a bad mood, but you can recover pretty quickly from those kind of superficial abrasions to your ego. When the triggers become too heavy to handle and you begin to internalize things instead of effectively processing them, you can't just "snap out of it."

Orbiting the black hole of depression feels like some kind of dark magnetic attraction; something that is unseen, that is always just out of reach and inescapable. And as you fall closer to the singularity you start to feel what relativity really is, as you watch all of your friends and family members go on with their lives an find happiness, find themselves in their careers, have relationships, get married, have kids, go on fun vacations, etc; all while you're stuck on first base. From your perspective, everything changes except you. At some point, when your orbit gets close enough to the singularity, you lose sight of what you love. It no longer matters because you are so far down in a hole you lose all hope. Socializing becomes so increasingly awkward you give up on it. How many times can you go out to dinner and order the cheapest thing on the menu, or go out for a night on the town and order just one beer? How many times can you tell your friends you can't go out with them because you have no money because you can't hold a job? Like Caligula, the monster of depression begins to snatch up everything in your life and destroy it. Basic tenets of humanity such as accountability, reliability, and responsibility become blurred like watercolors. The ability to reason and process things breaks down, so you begin to obsess over even the most mundane of details. This creates an enormous bottleneck in your thinking that can affect every level of performance in your life. In addition, all the people you know can see your descent, and in turn, start to avoid you, because you become the black hole that nobody wants to get caught in. You find it impossible to have any conversation without complaining about something. In my opinion, the most dangerous part is just before you reach the singularity, when you've abandoned all hope. Although you feel like you can't fall anymore, inevitably the bottom always drops out, causing the misconception that the descent will never end. Oftentimes the person suffering can't even ask for help because they don't know how nor do they know even what would help.

THE OPPOSITE OF DEPRESSION

As I have mentioned, black holes are largely theoretical. Since not even light can seem to escape them, we cannot actually see a black hole; we can only see the effects. Not unlike depression. Astronomers say they can see gravitational patterns that show a convergence of stars, dust and gas; but a convergence to what, we don't know. Matter and light are sucked in and feasibly destroyed, never to be seen again. However, in our universe there exists nothing that does not have an opposite, which begs the question:  if depression can be likened to a black hole, then what is the opposite of depression; what is the opposite of a black hole? I have heard theories of a "white hole." Something that is forcefully creative in nature, adding matter and light to the universe rather than taking it out. However, this would be a faulty parallel in the matter of bipolar disorder.

If you were to cut a snip of string and hold it between your hands, it would feasibly be an accurate metaphor for bipolar disorder. On the one hand you have depression, on the other mania, and somewhere in between is balance.

MANIA is the mood of an abnormally elevated arousal energy level, or "a state of heightened overall activation with enhanced affective expression together with lability of affect." Although mania is often conceived as a “mirror image” to depression, the heightened mood can be either euphoric or irritable; indeed, as the mania worsens, irritability often becomes more pronounced and may eventuate in violence. (Wikipedia)

The most obvious misconception is that mania is a pleasant and desirable state of mind. A faulty postulation based on a lack of understanding and sometimes ignorance. If that were the case, drug companies would be making trillions of dollars (that's right, trillions) manufacturing drugs to artificially produce it. We'd all be super-focused geniuses altruistically reshaping the planet for the betterment of all, right? So far the closest I've seen Hollywood come to creating a story about this is the film Limitless, with Bradley Cooper. In the film, the character Eddie Morra is given a drug by a less than reputable source. The pill essentially mimics all the positive effects of hypomania, with none of the bad of course. This miracle drug allows Morra to become a better version of himself - strike that, the ideal version of himself. Although the story is very interesting and entertaining to watch unfold, I would classify it as a cautionary tale because nothing exists without consequences.

Based on the definition of bipolar disorder and it's symptoms, mania is often associated as the opposite of depression. Mania is only ever the opposite of depression in classifying bipolar disorder. The only true opposite of depressed would be "NOT depressed," or balance. Logically the same would hold true for mania; the opposite of manic would be "NOT manic."

Mania has historically been a difficult thing for me to explain, which is why I chose not to include manic episodes in My Odyssey. Depression, many doctors will tell you is usually a temporary state of mind. There are of course different kinds, but my interpretation is that if you are depressed, even profoundly, it will pass. Medication, therapy and a number of things can help. For someone like me, I've had long periods of profound depression with intermittent periods of question marks. That is I can remember times in my life when I wasn't so depressed, or even felt balanced, and periods of "not miserable," so to speak,  but not happy." However looking back, I know for certain that many of these intermittent periods were manic episodes which masqueraded as feelings of balance due to my lack of understanding at the time.

There are generally three stages of mania, the first two being the most characteristic of bipolar disorder. I'm not a doctor or a scholar, so I'll just classify them as hypomania and mania. Hypomania is the first stage; the precursor to mania. Although I do believe there have been periods in my life of balance or "more balanced than depresssed," the last decade, and then some, was when I truly learned about mania.

In my experience it is largely progressive. Like depression, the triggers can be internal or external, meaning it can be caused chemically, or by something experiential. For example, like depression, taking too much medicine, or street drugs, or other substances; or having a really great day at work (in a sales job for example) or a really great date can cause what I call "spin-up." I actually adopted the term from science fiction:  in Battlestar Galactica, whenever the fleet would jump to light speed, Commander Adama would give the order to "spin-up the FTL drives," essentially an order to rev-up the engines. This lends itself to be a perfect metaphor, because that is exactly how it feels to me, like my brain is revving up like a turbine. First I feel very focused, and very clear at the same time, like a cloudless sky. I can begin to feel my thinking stratify, and I'm able to focus on many different tasks at the same time with accuracy and acuity. Oftentimes that leads to a creative bloom. Sound desirable? That's about where it ends. As my thoughts begin to race, my focus shifts, productivity takes a fall. Irritability becomes apparent. Having conversations with people is difficult because as my thoughts race, my speech tends to pace, and I appear to be overly excited, oftentimes nonsensical. 90% of the time, when this happens, people think I'm on drugs; the other 10% think I'm just crazy. There are physiological symptoms too like hot flashes and cold sweats, but the most common is insomnia. I have gone entire weeks without sleeping more than 10 hours (sometimes even less) because I could not stop the spin; my brain simply wants to solve every problem I have in my life, and then do it all again over and over (obsessive thoughts). I have in the past called the crisis line because I could not stop obsessing over a conversation I had years ago. Shopping sprees are another thing. When I'm spun up, I can't resist maxing out the credit cards on stuff I don't really need, or, overbuying things I do need. I had a doctor once who was Chinese. We were talking about my disorder. He asked me if I go on "mind sprees." I had no idea what he was talking about. I later realized he was saying "buying sprees," and it was difficult for me to discern because of his accent, but "mind sprees" actually sounds like a cool "sci-fi" euphemism. Insomnia, in my opinion is one of the most dangerous symptoms because it can cause issues with safety at work or behind the wheel. I nearly totaled a car because of my inability to stay awake while driving to work. Going without sleep for days on end has often caused what I call a "crash," an acute depressive cycle, or it can lead to rapid cycling (quickly shifting between depressive and manic cycles). If you asked me which I felt was most dangerous in general, depression or mania, I would say they are equal.

These are examples of what has happened to me with mania. I've been involved with group therapy in the past. Some of the stories the others would tell about manic episodes were really scary. For example, many of the others had been arrested or jailed for various crimes, including assault and other forms of violence.

Revisiting the black hole metaphor, the manic side is a similar parallel. Once you start down the manic cycle, it's hard to stop. And the closer you get to the singularity, the closer you get to complete self-destruction. Doctors talk about mania being an elevated mood state, but when you look at it from another angle, it's just as much a descent. A manic episode is something you can fall into like a black hole, but as a state of mind, it will cause you to become the black hole as well, drawing in things like your family, your employer, law enforcement; the list goes on, and bad things tend to happen when it all seems to coalesce.

SO WHAT'S IN THE MIDDLE?

So far I've talked about black holes, my experiences with depression, and what mania is, is there something in between? That's a good question. Because I get the feeling that some people, doctors included sometimes, think that you're either at one end of the string or the other, all the time. The fact of the matter is that many bipolars, myself included, chase the Holy Grail we call balance.

Contrary to what most believe, it doesn't exist in the midst of chaos, rather just outside of it. It is not simply the eye of the storm. It is more like the passing of one storm before the arrival of another; that point where you realize you are not depressed, while at the same time, not anxious or spun up. Balance in the eye of the storm is fleeting; it's more like connecting the two ends of the string together:  a feeling of balance can occur anywhere on the loop, but you've never really left the cycle.

People are like ships on the ocean, and bipolars are like ships drifting in an endless sea, it's only when they drop anchor that they can stop the drift and take control. Which is why, in my experience, it's been so important to find something to anchor to. I find that it's best to anchor to a job, (paid or volunteer) or a hobby rather than to another person, which usually creates more problems than it solves. When you think about it, it makes sense; ships don't anchor to other ships, they anchor or tie-off to something more secure. Anchoring yourself to a relationship, in my experience, only leads to disaster.

Balance feels calm, normal, if there is such a thing. There are no voices, and no obsessions. There is no self-loathing nor doubt; no racing thoughts; no spin-up; and your head is clear. It's as if the sterile ground of your mind is now a fertile garden, once again producing the fruit of  free thought, creativity, contentment, and natural sleep. Peace. In recent times, I have been able to stop the sleeping pills and benzodiazepines. I sleep like a normal person now.

You're probably wondering why the section of this article that pertains to balance is the shortest. Maybe it's because it's the simplest to explain. Most people, non-bipolars, probably can't describe balance at all, That's because they have no idea what imbalance is like. I found in My Odyssey that it is far more difficult to explain to someone that I could not go to work because I couldn't sleep for a week, or because I woke up in a cloud and couldn't seem to think, or that I had overblown and internalized some trigger so greatly that now I cannot function. Balance is a matter of perspective. You cannot see it until you step away from it. Balance is not in itself an emotion, it is the confluent harmony of all emotion that allows you to function, productively, in human society. Balance is achieved through not only medication and therapy, but through living. That is, getting out, doing things, going to work and doing the best job you can, setting goals, having healthy relationships, making responsible choices, and certainly not the least:  faith in a higher power.

CONCLUSIONS

In writing this article, my intentions were to show how bipolar disorder feels from my perspective. Not everyone's perspective is the same, and certainly not all bipolars are the same. What is s struggle for me, might be a triumph for someone else. That being said, I decided to write the article prior to doing a great deal of research. This is a blog, not a paper for JAMA, and there is only one patient: me. I have provided a number of links to other sites that I feel might be helpful, and I have provided the Wikipedia definitions of depression and mania. You'll notice that I only listed some of the symptoms in My Odyssey and other testimonials. I have done this for two reasons:  1) For the intended purpose of not suggesting that depression/mania consists of all of the aforementioned symptoms. 2) So as not to mislead my readers into thinking that I chose symptoms from a list; these are my experiences that I am sharing, there are no "textbook cases" here.

How did I achieve balance?

Like Odysseus, My Odyssey began long ago. What was to be a short mission turned out to be a tragedy that lasted a dozen years for Odysseus. And when he returned home, he found that everything had changed while he was gone. I too set out into this world, besieged at every turn by impossible obstacles. But my demons were inside. There is nothing about me physically that would have stopped me from having a "normal" life. The demons were empowered by my own internalization and sense of self-loathing. The harder I fought to get out of this mud, the deeper I sank. I tried to rely on my faith, but I failed it. That's right, I said I failed my faith; God was always there. Like Job, he was forging me in a furnace. Like Job, he took everything away from me; distractions, all of it. The more I worried about things, the more I lost. It wasn't until I stopped the worrying, that He lifted me up. He calmed the seas. I fought Jesus for the wheel, and when I cried out for him to take it, I realized he was driving the whole time.

For me, faith is the reason I escaped the black hole, why I achieved balance. However, I also took a lot of medicine and had a lot of therapy sessions. I think the combination is really the best way to slay the dragon. Bipolar disorder is largely a chemical imbalance, but can also be experiential and environmental. The whole point is that I achieved balance and you can too. I know that from what I have learned, the brain doesn't heal like bones or tissue, but I also know that the brain can sometimes rewire itself. I'm hoping that is the case for me. Because I would do anything to keep from falling into that black hole again. Rewiring aside, I know now what saved me. I know what the black hole looks like, feels like. And I know how to spot them, and avoid them.

Circling back once more to that question about the black hole metaphor.

I guess the best way to describe it is that bipolar disorder is that it is in itself a black hole that will draw you in and consume you. It will give you a false sense of hopelessness and make you feel alone as you slowly become the black hole. As the black hole you begin to draw in everything in your life:  your family, your friends, your career. As your perspective begins to warp, the lives of your loved ones begin to show stress from your overwhelming gravity. Unchecked, it will destroy everything. But unlike a stellar black hole, this black hole can be overcome. Escape is possible. Knowing this may provide a lifeboat to someone in need.

RESOURCES

NAMI

Brain and Behavior Research Foundation

Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

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DEDICATION

A week after I began to write this article, one of my best friends from high school passed away. He lost the battle with his own black hole. I dedicate this article to my friend Joe. May it give hope to those who are caught. I first met Joe (center) in the beginning of my senior year at a party in high school. He was a friend of a friend of a friend, or something like that. We were passing acquaintances until the day we graduated. Ironically, one the best friends I had in high school, I never actually became friends with until the last day of high school. In my turmoil, he showed me stability and loyalty. It was if he saw my pain, and did everything he could to relieve it. Joe was the kind of friend that would call me everyday to hang out. Being a heterosexual man, there have been very few times in my life have I ever said I loved a man other than my father or my brother, but those friends who stayed close to me, especially in my darkest moments, I love with all my heart, especially Joe.