UNDENIABLY CRAZY: A Retrospective Back cover: This book is meant to explain bipolar 1 disorder to anyone unfamiliar with the disease. It takes a peak at about a three year period in my life where I went through severe trauma and had plenty of time to reflect on it. After writing my first book where I unraveled much of my confusion mainly around my manic episodes, I spent little time confused this time around as I try to understand my psychosis. With a unique perspective I dive into my struggle and offer a view that clearly depicts life with a bipolar mind. My first book explains my life. This book explains the disease. Tribute: To the struggle: one’s struggle defines his or her life. One will ultimately be judged by his or her struggle. Here is a glimpse at mine. PROLOGUE I’m not going to start from the beginning. I spent most of my life lost. I live pretty lost too. I had a high school teacher that insisted that all I needed to do was find my passion. What was I passionate about? Well, life advanced in front of me before I ever really found a passion. Once I was living with bipolar disorder (at the age of 20) my focus on passion became less about work and more about sustainability. Weather played a large factor. I was always chasing sunny days for obvious reasons (the sun is a determining factor in mood for, dare I say, most people with a mood disorder. It really helps) Naturally, I’ve bounced around a lot; Gone here, gone there. Done this; Done that, basically living life as a drifter or loner. It’s been a pretty tough life, and it’s hard not to blame my bipolar disorder. I would be remiss not to blame my attitude and my own disposition. I’ve lived in the moment pretty extensively. I even had a trusted psychopharmacologist tell me that my problem was the fact that I ‘lived in the moment’. At the time I thought, ‘yeah right, sounds like your problem’. Everyone grows up at different speeds and everyone takes different views on life. I have friends that graduated college and started having kids pretty quickly. Obviously, something my mindset wouldn’t have been ready for. As I continued to grow older, all I do now is think about the future. I’m pretty lucky after the shit I’ve done where I still have a chance to have one or better yet, make one. My mindset really shifted around the age of 35, right around the manic episode I had at that age. Perhaps a reason I was driven into such a psychosis at that time in my life. I have a therapist now that suggests I put too much weight in the future. Funny how things work. My last book, Nobody Believes Crazy, told a story about my past experiences. The autobiography is a look at my life while dealing with bipolar I disorder. After writing my first book centering around the notion of my life with bipolar disorder, I thought about all the reasons I wrote it. I came up with all the right answers. Five years after writing the book and answering all the questions the ‘right’ way, I can honestly say it’s all a bunch of bullshit. I wrote that book for myself. It was therapy for me. My late twenties and early thirties was a lonely time. Everything I was doing was a form of therapy. Driving around aimlessly thinking and dissecting my life was therapy for me. Doing drugs, that admittedly opened my mind and freed me from the severe loneliness, was an escape; it was therapy for me. I had a lot to figure out and sorting out my bipolar brain was the goal of the ‘therapy’ I was attempting. Anything that helped me think was therapy for me. Was it the right form of therapy?; addicting, destructive, unsustainable. Obviously not. However, after writing an entire book about my life to give my life meaning and structure; to explain myself, I needed all this therapy – more than anything else I needed the therapeutic release that came with writing a book about what I would say without a doubt was a pretty complex life and complicated story – It’s hard to explain the actions and the ideas that mania causes. I accomplished doing that well enough to finally forget it. To finally release my experiences and portrayal of my life on paper freed me from dwelling over so much that ate up my mind and held me hostage and handcuffed. Attempting to explain, if not justify, the life that I lived was a challenge that I faced in my first book. Why was writing my story such a challenge? I guess it’s hard to explain a life riddled with mania, which at the time of writing my first book haunted me. I thought of myself as a composed person of sound reason and logic; I wanted evidence that I was. Writing my book was proof. I didn’t know I was writing my first book for myself. I had reasons for writing the book. I had an audience in mind while I was writing. The book had a purpose, but the life I was attempting to describe didn’t have much of one. I spoke to a lady who interviewed me about my audience and my structure. I had all the right answers. I said all the right things. And this is because I didn’t have a clue. See, I’m a bit of a bullshitter. I’m smart enough to know the right thing to say and I tend to get by on saying the right thing; it’s not exactly lying. It’s more attempting to tell the truth. The thing about it is that you can’t really run from the truth; it tends to come out over time. And after I learned a lot about my life, I have a more refined view of why I wrote the first book. You see, a lot of shit was really bugging me for quite some time and I finally organized my thoughts and I spat together a midlife memoir that I think really holds water. I didn’t get what I wanted out of the book or the writing process. I wasn’t asking for peace of mind. I wanted resolve. I didn’t get that from the book. I really thought I was due for it. Instead, I got more ‘crazy’. I got more psychosis, more delusional thoughts. More of the embarrassment that had to go with that. More humility and more growth. If the nice lady interviewed me again, I’d have a different answer now about why I wrote my book. Looking back my book’s audience was one. Nobody needed to read it. I needed to write it. I know that now. It helped me move on from a past that I couldn’t escape. Inside Nobody Believes Crazy is words that I couldn’t tell or explain to anyone. It’s the parts of my life with no witnesses; the parts that nobody will believe. It’s the parts that I couldn’t move past; that needed to be laid to rest. The act of writing my book did just that. It organized my story and explained my secrets. It laid those demons to rest. I just got done with a conversation with my mom about what the meaning of this book is. I don’t really know. I still don’t have much of a purpose in my life. I’m still lost. Like I eluded to at the beginning, I’m always a bit lost. I think most interesting people are. People who know where they’re going aren’t funny and don’t do well with catastrophe.. I don’t think I’m writing an autobiography. A memoir, sure. Do I have something to say? Yes, but I’m not sure of its meaning just yet. I don’t need to tell you about my life. I need to talk about stuff that happened to me because I want to open up the dialogue. The stigma about this bipolar shit and really all mental illness, but specifically with my bipolar, is getting really hard to deal with. I want to clue you, the reader, into what I’ve been going through in the last few years. A couple years after writing my first book because I think I have a bit of a message. Maybe, I don’t have a message, but I want to do a better job about opening up the dialogue and bringing a voice of reason (while I’m stable) to the conversation because I think I’m capable of breaking down some of the misconception and negative stigma around people struggling with mental illness. I think I can do that and at the same time offer some hope to people with the disorder; even if you don’t get hope you can feel better that you’re not going through this shitty shitty thing alone. The struggle is real. In my first book I tried my best not to complain; not to mention that this whole disease is really hard – a real struggle. I kinda feel like I did everybody a disservice with having this attitude that it was just kinda what I was dealing with. Dude, it’s a lot more than that. So I really want to humanize who I am by describing more about myself in order that people can empathize with the character I’m pursuing. – Please stick with me. A lot has happened to me since my first book. I thought I had been through a lifetime of psych ward related incidents. I thought for sure that part of my life was over. During my last gasp of hypomania I boasted to a friend about the idea I had in my head that I was never going back to another psych ward as long as I lived. At that point I had been to six. I knew the drill. I knew how to evade capture and captivity too well to be locked up ever again. I was wrong. I went through a manic episode as bad as my first, probably worse. I spent 10 months under complete psychosis. I ended up with an additional eight psych ward visits culminating in forced ECT (electric shock therapy) – it saved my life. I thought I was done having to fight. I’m a little over a year out of ECT and my last psych ward visit. After rehab and extensive therapy I’m thinking its time to put something on paper. I have a lot to say. I have a purpose for the book. My life, well, I’m starting to think I don’t have to worry about too much. I spent a lot of time thinking about the past and living in the present. Now all I do is focus on the future. As mentioned, it hasn’t always been that way. My future isn’t what I imagined, but I’m doing better coping with the fact that things aren’t going to be the way I planned. It’s funny how you change in your 20’s, where my psychiatrist was floored by how little I cared about my future, compared to your 30’s as my therapist now says I shouldn’t think about the future so much; I should live in the moment. Something I was too good at back in the day. Night and day from where I was before my last manic episode. Mania can do that to you. You have thoughts and feelings during mania - some you have to ignore, forget, or reconfigure - but some, oddly enough that stick with you. My last manic episode kinda feels like an early midlife crisis; I told the whole world, everyone in my contact list in some way or another, to fuck off and get bent and then I smoked a cigarette in my bed and stashed the butt on my windowsill. As a girl that slept with me at the time would describe, I was a ‘junkie’ - A junkie that didn’t give a fuck about society. I had become incohesive, degenerate, and delinquent. If not for the diagnosis of bipolar I would, and some may believe, should be in prison. I recognize that a lot of people that are reading this story may be looking for answers. You might have bipolar disorder yourself, you might have questions about bipolar disorder and you're doing your homework on the issue. To those people, I want to talk about mania and insanity real quick. Why just mania? Well, I’m getting to be a bit of an expert. I’ve experienced a lot of it and I’d say I have a pretty good grasp on just how it works. First off, I think there’s a lot of misnomers about just how bad mania really is; how destructive it really becomes not only in one’s life but where it puts them mentally when all is said and done. I’m distinguishing this from depression because I suffered from mania a whole lot more than depression, and depression sucks the entire time you have depression. Mania isn’t like that. I talked to a pretty cool therapist and she asked me right away with a bit of a shit eating grin on her face, ‘did you have a good time?’ No doubt about it. That shit was such a rush. Then how could it be so debilitating? If mania is so great, why is it so bad? Besides destroying every bit of your life – personal, financial… you name it – putting the pieces of yourself back together after you’ve been brought to earth is the fight of your life. Now, when you’re managing your bipolar disorder the consequences aren’t as bad. The fight is smaller, and a lot of the time you can build yourself back up to your old self while still functioning in society. However, mania can get out of hand. The insanity can win. Not only is it a fight to bring you back to reality, but managing life after mania is an impossible feat on your own. I want to explain this further and in terms everyone can understand. Mania is like the party, and the party is a good one. You go out and have the time of your life. Your friends are all there, your having a good time. Free booze, free drugs, free love… it’s utopia. It's a great party that lasts until the sun comes up. The problem: You have an early morning 6 hour long presentation the next morning and you’re really hungover and all through the presentation you have to go to the bathroom. Just like life, mania comes with a hangover. A time where you really need to peace your life back together, figure yourself out or at the very least move on from the very fact that you went insane. This isn’t an easy feat. It’s full of severe mental anguish, disappointment, embarrassment, and total and utter confusion that can really render you useless socially. It’s like the hangover lasts months or even years after the epic party. You’re never going to forget that party, but the hangover is such a bitch that you swear against partying the rest of your life. Especially after you bombed the presentation and work only got worse, or more realistically, you were left on the unemployment line and applying for food stamps. Mania, depression, doesn’t really matter, bipolar disorder sucks. It’s very testing and every episode puts you in the fight of your life. Depressive episodes (and I’ve only had one really bad one but a lot of small manageable other ones) are a war of attrition. You gotta try and do something everyday and you gotta kinda wait it out. Work and life gets put on hold. Mania is a battle to reestablish or even reinvent yourself. It also takes a long time; not days or weeks but months and years. People don’t realize that about people with bipolar. You know, I’m out of the hospital, but just so you know before I was in the hospital while I was alarming everybody and destroying my life I was having a great time. Now that I’m out, it’s not business as usual. I’m in the fight of my life to reestablish peace in my existence. Which, I know, is a big concept, but if you're like me when you’re dealing with issues in life, big ideas and big concepts can really be the focal point of your general mood and greatly affect your ability to function. The DSM manual lists off a bunch of medical terminology that speaks to the symptoms of mania or madness that a person experiences when they're dealing with the struggle of bipolar disorder. This manual isn’t worth arguing and is pretty accurate. However, it's hard to understand if you’ve never really been through mania before. A long time ago I saw a quotation on Facebook. It was by a guy named Voltaire, a Renaissance or Enlightenment period French writer, historian, and philosopher, and he sums up mania pretty completely. He said that madness is to have erroneous perceptions and to reason correctly from them. More notably he sums up madness to be the act of thinking about one thing exclusively or thinking about too many things too fast. I love these definitions or generalizations because I feel like they do a great job describing a lot of my root problems. I’m sharing these definitions with you because I think a lot of people are looking for a simple version of the DSM manual. I could sum it up in a whole lot of my own words, but I think Volaire does a pretty good job at explaining what I, in particular, and having bipolar disorder, deal with. In 2016 I picked up a drug habit. I started doing copious amounts of cocaine; a drug of choice for bipolar victims. It really unlocks the mind. When something goes missing in your life it’s a common practice to fill that void with something else like cocaine. I spent 2016-2022 as some of the loneliest years of my life. I was chasing the devil. I didn’t fear death, but I wasn’t getting what I wanted. I found myself willing to do anything and mad at the world. I really think God took over in 2022. I think he guided me through a manic episode where I was possessed; ‘erroneous perceptions’ or delusional thoughts led me to a false reality where there was a disconnect with my logic and what was going on around me. What was the delusional thought?… I thought I could win the girl of my dreams over… I thought I was. My world crashed in around me and I refused to take no for an answer; from anyone, about anything. I was full of anger, rage, and hormones. Here is my story… ______________ CHAPTER 1 I bought my last eight ball with my car fully packed. It was my last errand before putting my address on the GPS. A few hours prior I talked to my aunts and uncles on the phone. I was paranoid and felt the walls closing in on me. My time in Arizona was over. It was time to get out of dodge. Good news, I felt the heat. Bad news, I didn’t recognize I was the problem. My coke problem was actually on the decline. Before coming to Arizona at the end of 2021 I had just about stopped doing drugs altogether. This is after picking up a coke habit dating back to 2016 (and drinking again starting in 2018). I was doing enough blow to kill myself during this time in my life. I wouldn’t have minded a death certificate. I was very lonely and lost. Many nights were spent confused and wanting to die. Coming into the Arizona sun, into a new atmosphere, with a new beginning, gave me new life and encouragement despite enabling my problems with drugs. The Arizona play that I had concocted back in December of 2021 was my try at seeing if I could work in warm weather year round. I established a reliable job in Chicago working at a golf course and had full intention of going back to it come springtime. Winter is always tough for me. Working seasonally oftentimes leaves me searching for work in the wintertime. Around thanksgiving of that year I had made up my mind; Spring training goes on in Arizona so I figured it was a safe place to go for a job in the golf industry. My hopes were that I would be able to live this way. Half my time in Chicago and half my time in Arizona. Money was a factor. My pay wasn’t much and rent was always gonna be due in Chicago as it was home base. In retrospect the Arizona play was worth it and the long term feasibility of this play was possible, but I’d be running myself pretty thin. Starting 10 years prior when I went down to Hawaii and got a fresh start and a jump start to my life in that perfect climate, I have always been aware just how big of deal the weather is on my mental health. There is research out there that backs this up. It is paramount for people with mood disorders to get daily doses of sunlight. I know first hand that without sun it becomes that much harder to get out of bed everyday; depression looms without sunny days. This is why the Arizona play became a thing in my life. It wasn’t just to find year round work and play year round golf. It was to function year round. Even today, I’m searching for answers to the long winter months while I live in Chicago. Not everything goes according to plan. Armed with a driving addiction when I got down to Arizona I promised myself I wouldn’t drive around. I arrived in early December of 2021 and set up my lodging. After sleeping a couple nights in my car in a hotel parking lot, I wrote checks for my first and last month rent at a place in Tempe. Not a bad price. My first night in the new house made me ancy. After getting some food at the nearby Outback, I couldn’t sit still. My car was calling. There were roads to explore. I’m a creature of habit. I already had a route picked out. Make my way to I-10 and just enjoy the new landscape and colors of the Arizona horizon. Plenty of road to drive for a couple hours, turn around, and repeat. Driving was peace; it’s also expensive - a good way to destroy the Arizona play. A lot of things ruin the Arizona play besides driving. Gambling, drinking, drugs; I was living a pretty loose lifestyle. Way outside my means. My answer for quick money was simple; work part-time driving Uber. I scored a golf job at a great public course that was exactly what I was looking for. The desert was melting into the course, but it’s the perfect place to come out with a crew and crack a few beers. Lots of character. My mind, however, was as out of sorts as my behavior and things were starting to slip. It’s hard to give a month where things started to really let go. The driving was out of control. For 5 years I had a driving addiction, but back then I had an excuse. I needed to drive. I was working things out. I was going through personal therapy. Now, I was joy riding. It was irresponsible. It was just part of the problem. I was spending money on cocaine pretty liberally. No, there is no doubt in my mind I wasn’t addicted. My uncle tells me that there’s a difference between alcoholics and heavy drinkers. The same is true for drug abusers. I was a heavy drug user but I could put it down. I could stop. I had control. I just had the habit and I had it pretty bad. Hypomania was induced throughout my time in Tempe. It is to no surprise that this initiated a manic episode that lead to almost a year of psychosis. So why do I do or why did I do so much coke. I think this is an important topic. Especially for people with bipolar disorder. I’ve heard that we’re more susceptible to cocaine use and this doesn’t surprise me. You might have heard about the hypomania I just mentioned. For me, blow a few lines and the rush of hypomania becomes real. Cocaine puts a bipolar mind in a different state. More productive, more alert, more alive. How do I know that the rush is different for people with bipolar disorder? The high last longer for us, at least for me, I don’t shut off or shut down. I’ve done a night of cocaine and been up for three days in a functioning state. The drug pushes you into hypomania, which is addicting. Moreover, the risks are substantial. So how did it unravel? Everything was good. I was having a good time, liked my job but my finances were slipping. I started freaking out about my future. The stress pushed me over the edge. However, the mania that I was about to go through was deep seeded in my past. During my first manic episode I was fixated on the coincidences in my life. The manic episode I had in 2022 stemmed from delusional thoughts. But as Voltaire points out, many of my thoughts and actions made complete sense if the delusional thought(s) actually happened. Eventually, I got lost on the ride. The psychosis won out and I wasn’t making sense with my words or my actions to anyone. I was living in fantasy world. My time in Arizona needed to end. Making the call to come back home was a lucky decision, but at that point I had lost all awareness of my own mental state. I was not self aware and increasingly dangerous and over confident of my own sanity. I drove 26 hours straight back to Chicago (Yes, that was after picking up that last eight ball. Yes, rest areas became my best friends). Many things were amiss. However, my personal life was in order. I wasn’t bankrupt. I could Uber in Chicago and was working at my local public course by the end of the month. The stress was alleviated coming back home, but arrogance and anger were building. My perspective on reality was already twisted. It was too late for help. Yes, I was functioning just fine. I held my job in Chicago for almost two months, but delusion had won out and grandiosity was setting in. My mood was elevated. I mentioned having a twisted perspective on reality. I might have been off the drugs and killing it at work, but my mind was conjuring up ideas about my life and the life around me that wasn’t making much sense. More than anything else I was becoming estranged from my family. We were no longer talking. I had no life lines. Going about my day with a smile on my face I thought my parents were in witness protection from a mass murder in the 70’s. Sadly, they were coping with hard times of their own. All the signs that I needed help were there, but I was to aggressive to corral and intervene. My fuck everyone and fuck the work attitude was starting to take route as I was lashing out against a self created enemy but still very real; my life. ‘My mind is too sharp now. I figured it all out. They can never put me back in a psych ward’. -me, to my roommates in Tempe. Well, late June rolled around in Chicago in 2022. I had gotten off work and was neglecting any responsibilities I could have. I was doing what had become normal. I was spending the night driving around. However, I was off my regular loop. I decided it was a good idea to explore the highways and biways around the city of Chicago. Bad idea. I had never gone off track before. I usually stick to my sacred route inside the city of Chicago. After making a mini scene in a small town - not one that stirred up any kind of trouble, just beeping and yelling in public for no reason, a sign that I was acting irrationally, - I got back on the highway. I was far from Chicago and completely lost. I wasn’t paying attention to anything. My emotions were all over the place. I couldn’t be reasoned with at this point. Mania had never been like this. I was so responsive. I could hold a conversation. I could think things through and clearly. I just wasn’t living in reality. My life and my world had taken center stage. I was the main character in the world and I had lost grip with the bigger picture. I had problems with my place in life and I really stopped caring. This manic episode was an experience with psychosis like no other. Easily the most dangerous part of my life to date. So, I ran out of gas on the highway. Third lane from the right. Very well lit area. Naturally, my instinct was to exit my vehicle with cars flying by me and sit on the hood of my car. I had no shirt on, but I was wearing my bright yellow giant puffy coat with mirror reflective sun glasses that took up my whole face. Perfect outfit for channel 6 news. I sat Indian style in peace on top of my car. I wasn’t waiting for cops, I was waiting for my helicopter (I definitely don’t have a helicopter. Complete and utter grandiosity had set in. My world had collapsed and I was happy inventing my own fake possibilities and outcomes). Well, it would have been a little more amusing to be up on the hood of my car with a bag of popcorn watching the oncoming traffic, but irregardless, the troopers that arrived didn’t see this as humorous. Not too much talking and little resistance took place. I got down from the car, got cuffed, and got put in the back of the cop car. Nothing registered correctly. I thought these guys had it out for me because and only because they were corrupt cops. The world was already against me; especially the police. The next stop wasn’t jail. It never is. It’s an ongoing theme for the next 10 months of my life. My sanity was constantly being questioned, and I needed help. I was brought to a nearby hospital, cuffed to a bed and properly administered. What goes on in these psyche evaluations? Well, they tend to hold you long enough and really never clue you in on anything. For the first part they grab your vitals, and oftentimes go for a urine sample. Now, I’m not sure if the urine sample is on record for the cops. All I know is I was cuffed and under questioning for my antics on the highway. I didn’t fight any investigation into my urine as I hadn’t done drugs in at least a month. After receiving care, the waiting games begin. At one point they removed the cuffs and a cop came in the room and told me I was being charged. I told him I wasn’t in his custody and explained how I could care less as I did nothing wrong. He dropped a few pieces of paper on the side of my bed as I let them fall to the floor. I was in the care of the hospital at that point. The charges were not one bit of my concern. Not only did I feel innocent, but the fact that I was bipolar gave the hospital the authority to administer treatment before any legal action could take place; like taking me to jail and booking me. Was I lucky? I still had to face charges. Instead of going through a normal legal process, I eventually would face at least five days locked up in a psych ward if the doctor okayed my release. It’s a lose lose when you commit a crime insane or not. I was getting locked up and wasn’t even guilty of anything yet. To this day I have no idea what I was charged with. The cops who arrested me arguably were doing due diligence, but wasted a lot of taxpayer money making me eventually appear in court knowing full well I was gonna be not guilty for reason of insanity. Talk about taking things personally. The evaluation process was all but over. But I was not aware of my fate. One thing I’ve found is that they never clue you in on your status. With an officer standing outside my little bedside cubby I started to wonder what the hell was going on. Why’d they take the cuffs off? The feeling had changed. I had taken my eye off the prize for too long. I had gotten too comfortable. They were able to make an evaluation on me and I was suddenly in the possession of the hospital. I needed to see. I walked up to the tall officer standing guard at my bed post and asked him if I was free to go. He shook his head. It was fight or flight and I wasn’t going anywhere. Time to charge. The large officer took my advances and another officer jumped in to help. They pinned me back on the bed and cuffed my hands down. That’s when I knew I was checked into the hospital. Calmly I sat there and asked the nurse to sign a five day. I had full intention of getting out of the hospital and being processed as quick as possible. Five days force the doctor in the psych wards to make a decision on your status in five business days or else you have the right to appeal to the judge for your release. When involuntarily admitted to hospitals, I highly suggest using your right to sign a five day, which your legally allowed to sign as soon as you sign into the hospital. After I told my roommate in Arizona that I would never be checked into a hospital ever again, I made it clear to him that I was an impossible patient. Why? I knew all the rules. I wasn’t going to stumble. I knew what I had to do to be in and out. Even in the throes of mania, I knew the rules, guidelines, and procedures. You put me in, I know exactly how to get out. No ‘escape’ can take longer than seven days (5 days only account for weekdays and don’t include holidays). Immediately, I knew not to complain or get upset. Face your medicine. Put in your five days and walk. Where’s my new room? I woke up the next day and it was business as usual. I hadn’t been in a psych ward since the end of 2018. This time was different. Unbeknownst to me, I was playing with fire; this time around I was really manic. But more importantly, I was totally unaware. Almost like a heightened denial. This only made me more dangerous. Not only to myself but to everyone around me. The experience I had gained in the past gave me all the tools necessary to avoid help and all the more reason to do so. The argument that nobody believed me would act as fuel to prove whatever point I might be trying to make. The first hospital stay I endured throughout the next five days, with the five day signed, went on without a hitch. —— CHAPTER 2 A long time ago I was getting my knee looked at by a doctor and he was asking about my medical history. It came up that I was bipolar and that I primarily struggled with mania. He probed and asked if I could define mania. I gave it a shot. ‘Everybody thinks crazy things. It’s normal. Mania really becomes a problem when you start acting on crazy things.’ The doctor loved my analysis. He grabbed a med student from the hallway and had me repeat my answer. ‘Get it now?’ He nudged the med student. I felt like I did a good job solving an office dispute. I was happy to help, but my knees were beyond repair. Well, if sitting on top of your car with no shirt on and a big puffy yellow coat acting like a lunatic isn’t a telltale sign that the mania had taken over and I was officially acting on crazy thoughts rather than basic human rationale, then I don’t know what is. However, I wasn’t convinced. I was lucky enough to get my sanity and clarity back over half a year later. I always looked back on the first hospitalization as the start of my 2022 manic slide, but I analyzed old texts and recovered and revisited social media history, and although impossible to date the exact start, mania was creeping in and uncharacteristic actions were winning the dialogue as early and if not sooner than April 1st of 2022. About the time my stay in Arizona needed to end. No doubt I was living in a world of drug induced hypomania for months before that, which I was fully aware of and was loving. I felt really alive the entire time I was living and working in Arizona, but I was living on the edge. Right when I got down there I parked at a casino and threw down a buy-in at the poker table. Figure it was worth a shot at a bed if I won big. Unfortunately, I spent a couple nights in my car before leasing a room in a house not too far from the highway, work, and Outback Steakhouse. Between the driving, the gambling, the drinking and party lifestyle, and the gorgeous sun, I was playing dice with the devil. I have to believe my manic episode was a test from God. The only way I was ever gonna get over all the problems I had in life, including the delusional thoughts that were lingering and spurring on erratic behavior since 2015, was if I was to make it through the 2022 calendar year by staying alive. The hardest part about it was my own inability to recognize any problem. Mania is kinda like that. Whether you slide into it quickly like my first manic episode back at Boston College about 15 years prior or my slide into mania relatively fast while at the tail end of my stay in Hawaii or like this latest bout with psychosis; something that happened quite gradually and was spurred on by an entire lifestyle over the course of months, mania is hard as hell to detect once it really starts to infiltrate your life. It’s almost like being black out drunk, fully functional, and having the ability to know you’re drunk. The warning signs are easier to detect. Oftentimes, you can manage and seek help or find refuge early on, but eventually the mania reaches levels where it becomes uncontrollable. Denial starts to play a part in the equation. Nobody can tell you to slow down or get help. You become untouchable - it’s a pretty sweet rush; one hell of a high. How did I get out of my first hospitalization? Waking up in Amica’s psych ward on floor 2s looking over a golf course, I knew exactly what I had to do to get out and I was up for the challenge because the quicker I earned my way to freedom the faster I got my hands on a pack of smokes. Challenge accepted. Not all psyche wards are created equal. They all tend to operate the same. Patterns I have discovered over the years so that one’s release can be calculated and predicted. At this point in my life I no longer feared being locked in a psych ward. Even if you sit on top of your car during heavy traffic in the middle of a highway and then bum rush a cop holding you in your hospital room during that evenings psych evaluation, your still only a week away from exiting your 7th psych ward ever arguably more manic than you’ve ever been, all because you obey the ‘rules’ they look for while administering and further evaluating your psychiatric state. This, I was counting on. With my new room at Amica floor 2s overlooking the aforementioned golf course in some suburb of Illinois, I often walked down the hall and wondered if they would give me permission to work at the course during the day as long as I came back to the psych unit at night. Needless to say Amica was a far different experience than my last psych ward visit at Methodist on the northside of the city of Chicago. Amica was Beverly Hills compared to floor 5s at Methodist; night and day. Different scenery, better food, no roommate(s), showers in each room, and a wide variety of people including women. I noticed something in Amica about psych wards this time around. I wasn’t the youngest on the unit. In fact, Amica, while I was checked in there, housed a handful of Gen Z. My main sanctuary in the psych wards is group classes. Despised by many patients, group classes offer sanctuary from the monotony of the day; usually spent walking the hallway back and forth until my feet hurt. Going to group classes is important because this is how the staff determines your level of cognitive ability. They also give you participation credit for going to group class. If you signed a five day, like I did, it is vital to go to group class if you want the nurses and social workers to give you a clean bill of health for the doctor who makes the determination on whether or not he or she is gonna sign off on you leaving within five days. I don’t really know how to describe Amica without simply giving it a clean bill of health. It was a clean, not over-crowded, complete, small, adequate psych ward consisting of all the normal and usual components. It was well staffed as well. Big part of psych ward life that Amica offered was single rooms; so no roommate, which is probably more of a timing thing where I just lucked out on, and individual showers in every room. I can’t stress how relieving it is to have a shower in the room you are staying in. You can pass time by taking showers whenever you want, and having this ability is extremely relieving for relaxation and to pass the time of day. With the five day signed and delivered time really flew by at Amica. I took a lot of showers, paced the hall from my room to the view of the golf course, demonstrated my ability to act like a citizen, showed up and participated in every group class, communicated accordingly and appropriately, and as important as anything else, showcased an understanding of what I was up against when exiting the psych ward. Having an exit strategy and plan; including transportation to and from the hospital, lodging, and a jump on a work situation, are all things a social worker tends to before agreeing to your departure, and they are really important and oftentimes where you see many patients fail in their ability to prove their case in fitting into the outside world or a world after exiting the hospital or psych unit. One thing I do remember that was unique to Amica was their check-in protocol at night. The nurse kept shining her flashlight right on me for a long duration. I was dealing with insomnia at the time, which I’ll talk about more later in the book as it greatly affects my life and is common with people prone to manic episodes and dealing with bipolar disorder, but the flashlight in the eye every 15 minutes while I was struggling to sleep created an environment where I became really sleep deprived and it was extremely hard on me. Aside from psych ward conditions or arrangements, I faced an issue that tends to pop up and give me problems in every psych ward visit I’m in; cigarette addiction. Now, I self admittedly had a cocaine problem, an alcohol problem, and a alcohol problem (I like drugs, what can I say), but by far the worst and most expensive and probably the most deadly problem I had is my cigarette and nicotine addiction. When they hospitalize you in these psych wards, by far, the hardest part of your day to day becomes the momentary loss of cigarettes. You get forced for a week or two to go cold turkey. Sleep gets difficult, anxiety doubles, temper escalates. You become increasingly strung out. It’s a process that wipes you out and for the next 8 months I was going through it repeatedly. Starting and stopping cigarettes became an exhausting feat that I had to endure. The process undoubtedly adds to mental stress as you get that much more strung out and recovery is that much harder. I heard an interesting stat in the past few years of my life. - it might be a bit made up or exaggerated so don’t quote me - but I heard that 90% of mentally ill patients smoke cigarettes. That much more of a reason to have outdoor time in psych wards. Not only so we can step outside, move around, and get fresh air, but allowing and observing us smoking cigarettes in hospitals only gives nurses, social workers, and doctors to observe us in more natural or regular conditions or circumstances. I know that outdoor time isn’t offered as patients are meant to be evaluated in a vacuum, or without outside variables, but outdoor time for a smoke or two would make the process and living conditions that much more bearable. Even prisoners get outdoor time. It’s essential to get to, at least, try and see the sun. Either way, quitting cigarettes adds, or added, to the challenge of every psych ward as I faced an additional burden during all my different stints in the 8 different psych wards till the end of January of 2023. It became exhausting and gave me the added incentive to start the quitting process - something I’ll go over in later chapters as I talk about my final month in Rush hospital in Chicago where I was admitted for such a long time I decided to quit for good, which takes, in my estimation, three weeks of cold turkey quitting to really get over the withdrawals and cravings; of course, a lifetime of resolve. Anyway, my next cigarette was all I could think about while still in Amica. Everyday, I was fixated on making it out of the hospital doors so I could get back to my pack in my coat pocket and light up. The craving is real. I remember feeling an intense rush the day they released me as I moved toward the exit knowing full well I was moments away from that first cigarette in about a week's time. My main issue, however, while detained for the week, was my job - my car was issue number two. As I’ve pointed out, the key to getting out of these psych wards on a five day, or even if you don’t have a five day (when you’re threatening to take the doctor to court if he or she doesn’t sign you out of ‘containment’ in five business days or less), is to prove you can take care of yourself and function reasonably in society on your own or even with the resources you can prove you have working on your side. This can mean showcasing that you have a place to live, in some cases, showing you have your parents’ or a loved one’s support. It means you can provide transportation for yourself if necessary, which it might be depending on your work situation, but the hospital staff does worry about things like being able to get groceries and things of that nature, which you kind of have to be prepared to be able to talk about or talk through. To that point, you basically need to be able to talk through your weekly schedule and should plan on having a job situation set up otherwise, the odds of getting out on a five day are heavily set against you. However, in this latest case, I had a job when I was involuntarily admitted to the hospital and the staff on the unit called my work and roughly explained to them why I was absent and cleared me to go back to work upon my release. This was not done well and I’ll clarify that more in the next chapter. There are certain laws around this kind of thing that protects people in my position; supposedly, I can’t necessarily lose my job, and the hospital acts like there’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing, but, in this case, and I’m sure many like it, there was an incredible amount of unnecessary strain put on my employer, which I am forever resentful about. The process of getting my job back seemed too good to be true. The social worker at Amica got my supervisor's number and updated him on my status. I believe toward the end of my time unwillingly detained or hospitalized. I had already missed three to five work days while being under a ‘five day’ in a psych ward I did not want or think I needed to be in. I was an at-will employee forever competing for shifts and a job. The hospital explained to me that they had talked to my supervisor and it was arranged that I was to call him and get my schedule upon getting out of work. They reassured me that I would get my job back and that I was protected by law in this circumstance to stay employed. I was informed of all of this right before I walked out the door after the doctor approved my release. Things aren’t always what they seem. My car and transportation was also a big concern. I refused to involve my family in this hospital visit. However, they got involved. It’s hard to say who was ‘right’ over this issue as I sit here almost three years later, knowingly and aware of my clear mania, and rehash the issue. The weekend I sat on top of my car on the highway and got arrested, charged, and admitted against my will to a hospital in the far suburbs of Chicago, did not go unnoticed by my family. Even though I refused to reach out to them while in handcuffs or while being admitted to the hospital, they stayed informed. My car on the highway got towed, and, from what I understand, a police report got written up about the incident. My brother called the local police and tracked down my car and got information on my whereabouts. My dad used his identification, he has the same name as me, to match the registration on my car, and get my car out of the pound, as it was towed from the highway. Not the wrong idea! I couldn’t complain about them intervening like this because ultimately they saved money. Had I tried to get my car out of the tow yard a week after, when I was released from the hospital, it would have cost a thousand dollars more, at least. Money on my end was real tight. I had racked up $5,000 in credit card debt and was sitting with about that in my bank account. At this point in time, I had money to pay for everything, but I was highly dependent on a full time job. It’s not a good feeling when you’re only able to make minimum payments on your credit card every month because you need money in your bank account to pay rent. My dad and brother didn’t ask questions. They helped me, as ungrateful and mistrustful as I was being and/or acting. They filled the car with gas and drove it back to my residency and stashed it in my garage. Ready to go to work or Uber drive, whatever I was thinking I could do for money at the time. When I was walking out the door of the hospital, I thought they were getting me an Uber to the tow yard to get my car. They dropped the bomb on me then that my car was at my apartment. I played it cool. I wasn’t. I didn’t want this hospitalization to affect my family. I didn’t want them to be brought into the mix. Amica did a bad job working out the details with me openly. I don’t feel they did a good job representing me as a patient or respecting my rights. You gotta understand that they made a life changing decision to admit me during a psych evaluation. I don’t know what would’ve happened if they didn’t admit me. Would I have been taken to jail and booked? The cops did, in fact, press charges. Could I have been taken by a cop back to my car and gotten my car back, gone back home, and not missed a day of work? The hospital visit very much negatively affected my life, my already strained relationship with my parents, and worse of all my mental health - already dealing with delusional thoughts, quarantine didn’t help my mind get in a better place. I’ll try and talk about it in the next chapter again, but a routine - a work routine - is what I needed. That is what I had in Arizona. I was being kept afloat with work and friends. I was surviving by having a normal life. Amica threw that out the window. Not only that, I had and really, my brother had, to deal with the mess of the charges that I faced from the highway police incident. Amica hid a lot of the conversation from me and really made things a lot worse. I think it goes back to the title of the first book. You get into these psych evaluations and it rings true that because you're identifying and self admitting you are a guy with bipolar disorder they tend not to believe your story. At the very least, they are always trying to help. Their instinct reaction is to help by admitting you to a psych ward. You talk to the staff on the unit, the doctor(s), and you have a lot of your life worked out, sometimes the best way to get help is by getting a break. I was in seven hospitals after this, and I convinced most of them to grant my ‘five day’ because the best rest I could get is at home in my bed. It’s hard to argue that. A hospital stay can be grueling. Amica shined flashlights in my face all night long for check-in purposes. It felt like torture trying to fall asleep in that place. The group classes were a break, but I spend my time in these group classes helping other people. Ultimately, Amica really added to a lot of falsehoods I had about where exactly I stood. There was added confusion not clarification. For an adult who craves and struggles for independence, doing things behind my back or ‘for me’ (favors) is not something that flies. They represented me with my family and my work and made matters worse in both. They prevented fights and ended up just prolonging them. You just can’t scoop a person with a life out of his or her society for a week and think you’re doing a good thing. I’d take being arraigned over that worthless visit. I grabbed my papers from this discharge lady on the hospital floor and headed out of the elevator with a cute young nurse with colorful dress socks on. She was trying to say supportive things as I stood in the elevator on a bit of a warmer day with no shirt and a giant puffy yellow coat. My street clothes made me look and feel like a gangster. I played the part. I packed my smokes in the elevator excited to soon step outside. The nurse and I exchanged words. I have feeling she wasn’t ready for my ‘fuck it all attitude’ and swagger I was giving her. She led me outside (o the freedom!!). I sparked my cigarette and waited for the Uber to take me home. —- Chapter 3 Getting back home after Amica 2s became a juggle with reality and the slip into deeper mania. I would argue that I’ve had about five major manic episodes in my life. These episodes have been life altering and many have been marked by hospitalization. Some people, and I don’t think I am exempt to this phenomenon, experience bipolar mania much more acutely. In other words, they have manic days or manic moments. Times when their mind kind of slips and their thoughts and actions become irrational. However, the mania is brief; it is short lived. They can get past it with a day off or a good night sleep or better, getting back on a med regime. Well, my experience with mania and manic episodes has been anything but short lived, and after my first psych ward visit in 2022, the tip of the iceberg had just been melted as I headed down a path where my mind was so far gone that the psychosis I was up against could sink the Titanic and I’d be lucky if it didn’t sink me. I’ve learned that episodes, manic or depressive ones, come in all shapes and sizes and can last less than a day or up to sometimes even years. When it comes to mania I used to boast that I would be able to tell when I was manic. After my manic episode of 2022, I will never assert that belief ever again. I’ll go further and just say that personally, mania tends to catch me by surprise and is wholly undetectable by the person going through it. Some will argue this. Some people can predict or self diagnose their episodes; with depression, I’m beginning to have that type of skill where I know I’m feeling pretty depressed. It’s more obvious as my energy sinks to zero while I maintain reason - something that I lose during the high energy cycles of mania. One thing I’ve become more aware of, however, is the manic or depressive moments I have. These are when the intrusive or delusional thoughts creep in for a bit of a spell, perhaps an hour or 48 hours, and I have manic moments or a downfall in my mood. These are what therapy is for. It’s really easy to slip into your sick head. It’s important to stay positive and acknowledge the things that are ultimately holding you back or reverting you back to an ‘old’ way of thinking. My first manic episode struck like lightning. It came on unexpectedly and suddenly. I was a man possessed. I didn't make sense to anyone around me. Coaxing me to the hospital might have been a challenge, but diagnosing me had to have been pretty clear cut - I was out of my mind. This summer was no different, I, again, was out of my mind. Diagnosing me, however, was a far greater challenge. See, I knew the rules of the game and I could stay alert longer. I knew the behavior they were looking out for. The clear signs that would allow them (the doctors and nurses) to deem me insane or manic. In my head I was perfectly okay. However, fantasy world was the world I was living in; it wasn’t too off base with reality… just some minor erroneous perceptions with a clear logic stream exhibited most of the time; hard to argue. My psychotic break in 2022 was an act of God. From 2015-2019 I experienced one or two major bouts with mania. There was confusion in my life. There was a girl I had strong feelings for that triggered mania. I had to ask myself during that time whether I was in love or madly in love. With the support of family and friends I sorted my shit out. In 2019 I wrote a book with my ‘t’s crossed and my ‘i’s dotted. But between 2019 and April 2022 I started forming a misleading delusion. In what my therapist calls my grieving phase where I very much knew I needed to move on from the girl I would have and theoretically did sell the farm for, I carried with me a ‘fuck you’ attitude toward the world. I was an emotionally unavailable human being; I may have known I had to move on but getting over what felt like a colossal loss was the real task at hand. During my slow slip from reality in 2022 there is no doubt in my mind that God sat there and said the only way I’m gonna get this kid thinking straight again is by giving him something far greater than a girl to get over. In comes the ensuing psychosis. An episode of mania where delusional thoughts brewing from as early as college started churning up in my mind and building the false reality that I started living in. The tornado in my mind spun uncontrollably and tended to pick up speed by the time I was out of my first psych ward. I entered society with a ‘fuck the world’ attitude. I was a threat. I was dangerous. I was a loose cannon ready for war and spinning up irrational and illogical thoughts around just about every issue I was to encounter. The delusional thoughts in my mind met reality and only continued to make a mess of the remnants of my life. Stepping out of Amica I was in a bit of a pinch in every facet of my life. Boy did it all really start to erupt. Even my response wasn’t rational. I was incapable of taking care of myself. I unraveled and the tornado continued to grow. Delusional thoughts about my life such as the idea that my parents were serial killers from the 70’s were taking over my mind and consuming my life. By the end of June, I had worked my way out of my first golf job. Estranged and not trusting anyone but my brother, I only had one way to dig and I was only building a deeper and deeper hole. My focus was on something other than a girl for the first time in 7 years; I was being tested. My ability to survive was on the line. Can I hold a job? Can I pay my bills? Will I end up homeless? These were the questions I was facing during this time period. No doubt I was up against a wall and my world was crashing around me. Again, my attitude didn’t change. It felt very much out of my control. I needed to help but was in permanent denial. In my mind, I had things completely figured out. I couldn’t see the gaps. However, I couldn’t reason with others. The erroneous perceptions that Voltaire talks about were unexplainable to everyone around me. I couldn’t get on the same wavelength as my family, friends, or coworkers / employers. In 2020 I wrote my first book at the beginning of the pandemic. I got unemployment for the job I was working at the time and headed up to my folks’ Michigan cottage and used the stimulus money from the government on a golf membership. I was riding high all summer and felt free. My book got published and I felt really accomplished. I had less on my mind than ever before. Even the weight of a lot of the things I was carrying since college were lifted off my back. During the winter of 2020-2021, I did what every American was doing. I bunkered down and started eating everything in my cupboards. In the spring of 2021 my grandmother passed away and left me enough money to buy a car. I was back! My driving addiction was real and by real I mean really serious. In the summer of 2021 I headed back up to Michigan and started waiting tables as soon as restaurants opened. Things didn’t work out at that job for reasons beyond my control so I went back to Chicago and picked up a job back at the course I first started working at out of college. Boy was the job easy, and I knew my way around the place, which made it even easier. The staff I was working with and for was really familiar and inviting. There was no doubt that this was the place for me in the future. But winter hits Chicago and golf courses shut down. Being back in golf felt right, but I wanted to work year round so in the winter of 2021 I packed up my new car full of necessities and drove 26 hours in one shot down to the Outback in Tempe, Arizona. Things went how they went and I settled right in. Met some awesome people at home and at work and will never forget the experience. I feel like the whole 2-3 years since writing Nobody Believes Crazy were really great. But I wasn’t grounded. I had no purpose. I was floating and I was living a lie. I was still driving and daydreaming about a girl that was never going to be in my life. There’s a fine line between daydreaming and having an unhealthy obsession. Without therapy and with no one to talk to, this needed to end. There’s nothing too wrong with how I was living. What I was doing and trying for work. But unbeknownst to the world, my head was in the clouds. Honestly, it’s more sad than anything. They talk about delusional thoughts being a symptom of bipolar. I was living and functioning with delusional thoughts about where my life was headed. It’s like I mentioned previously, my head was stuck in fantasy world. I was functioning just fine, but there was a road block or even detour that my head was on. My future couldn’t be thought through because I was stuck in a fantasy world that was offering a different future than what was ever going to be possible. I needed a reality check. My life was stuck in lala land. Maybe, I was still kicking ass and working on my handicap, but there’s no need to be waiting on a day that’s never gonna come; kinda a sad existence. Like anybody up against the wall, survival becomes the name of the game. During this stretch most of my actions started to be based on survival. My available money situation becomes pertinent to the conversation. By the end of June I needed money in my bank account. First things first: Was I still employed coming out of the first psych ward? I mentioned how things really felt out of my control during this time. My work situation was a prime example. I think it’s pretty common to look at a homeless person and think, ‘why doesn’t he just get a job’. I’ll never think that again a day in my life. I got out of the psych ward and immediately touched base with my friend, boss, and colleague, the assistant GM of the golf course where I was employed full time. We spoke directly on the phone. He had talked to people at Amica, the hospital I was just at, and was told that I had some sort of an excuse. First off, and why I was so upset with how Amica handled this, nobody gives at-will labor employees excuses to miss work. That’s just not how it works. But, needless to say, that was enough for my boss. He talked about how he had to do some serious juggling the last week of work and totally rewrite the schedule in my absence. I was pretty disingenuous about this. Forgive me, I felt, I just spent 7 days in a psych ward detained against my will so I could kinda care less. I all but said that. We got into a pretty brief hostile exchange over who’s job was who’s. Things weren’t looking good. My boss then dropped a serious bomb on me when we were already not seeing eye to eye. He told me that to ‘help me out’ he was gonna take my full time status down to part time. I was financially dependent on full time work. This wasn’t an option. I told him that. We exchanged disgust with one another in a cordial manner and he hung up the phone. I emailed the GM of the course for a meeting with HR. The easy transition that Amica promised while handling my work situation had turned into a colossal disaster. I was pissed and left completely high and dry. My mind was on a new thread for the first time in many years. I was freaking out about my job situation, my money situation, and the future discourse of my life, not to mention the family drama that I was unintentionally sparking and creating. I think there might be a lot of different opinions about what I really needed at this time. But looking back, I really needed something to get up for every day. I needed a routine to keep me afloat. I needed a job. There might be a lot of questions as to whether or not I would have been in good mental capacity to work, especially as we examine my future actions. But remember, my future actions only took place because I was left alone at home with my word crashing in around me. If I get cleared by a psych ward to get back to my work, I should be allowed to give work a shot. I think in a lot of ways, and I already mentioned this, I was kept afloat by my work in Arizona. With that said, intervention needed to happen so, I guess there’s no hard feelings. I waited two weeks to be put on the schedule and applied for unemployment after the course stopped shifting me. I sure as hell needed that unemployment money. Looking back at this specific moment in my life I gotta believe that when I got out of Amica, and around the time I lost my job, I should’ve been able to ask for help. I don’t think it’s uncommon for people with bipolar disorder to get in circumstances where life just gets too big. No doubt I was in one of those instances coming out of Amica. This period was a turning point. I was self sabotaging myself and my situation rather than looking for ways to problem solve. Not only was I distancing myself from my family but I was cutting myself off from the rest of the world little by little. Anger and aggression were a large reason why it became impossible to reason with me. I couldn’t take advice or suggestions. My dad went about clearing roughly 5k in credit card debt on my credit card bills. I couldn’t thank him. I threatened identity theft. It becomes hard to shrink your ego when you’re running on such a high. I don’t need help. I thought. I started rationalizing all my problems, or at least compartmentalizing them, into problems that were out of my control. In other words, I stopped caring about life. As weeks without a job marched on and I closed off communication with everyone that might be willing to help me, a controlled psychosis took form, marked by rationality and logic with small spurts of irrational behavior that could very well be dangerous. How could I have gotten help during this crucial time period? What I think needed to happen was some sort of an intervention with me and my parents. I think, looking back, this would’ve been hard to do. However, at the time, the thing that was really bugging me was my situation at work, which I, rightfully, deserved support on. The weeks that followed me being let go from work got really grim. I had nowhere I could apply and nowhere where I could get a job. Keep in mind that I was already in cue for disability and more rightfully deserving of the ‘credential’ now more than ever. After my job fell through, my finances turned into a mess. The last thing I needed was someone just paying off a bunch of credit card debt. It’s nice, but it doesn’t solve any of the long term issues or concerns. My life was in crisis mode and I very much threw in the towel. By the end of June, I had 4-5k in my bank account, which I figured would be saved to pay rent over the next few months, and after that I was done. I had no way to get work, and yes I started applying to places, but if nothing developed, I was facing homelessness. It was that serious. Getting into therapy would’ve made a lot of sense. It’s easy to look back now and know that for a lot of the delusional thoughts that had been on my mind since 2015 or even earlier, ECT pretty much might have been the only answer. It’s tricky to say or guess whether or not a therapist would’ve been able to help me. There was a lot going on in my mind and I’m not sure I would’ve been able to talk to a therapist about any of it. I think it can be so hard to talk to someone about what’s on your mind. I had a psychopharmacologist for 12 years and we barely talked - really just kept it to the meds. I know myself and I know that I have a lot of ways to keep what’s on my mind hidden. I am dubious to believe that therapy would’ve been the cure. However, it can’t hurt. Even if you get clarity over the smallest detail of your life it starts the process. I guess I already foreshadowed what else might have worked. ECT could’ve been administered earlier. I don’t know the details of this treatment as it pertains to mania, but it ended up helping me out tremendously.