I do not have bipolar. But I am pretty sure I know what it feels like.
My mom has bipolar. She began taking lithium for it when I was fifteen and she went to the local mental illness hospital, in a psychotic state. After several years of lithium she went off of it and soon became psychotic again. About ten years ago she started taking Lamictal, which has led to her having the most stable mood, and life, that I have seen in my forty two years.
During my entire childhood, up to the time I was fifteen, she had bipolar, though it was neither diagnosed nor treated.
Having a parent with bipolar means that I have modeled behavior at a very basic level which comes out of her illness. A number of times in my life I have acted as if I had bipolar. My behavior has, at times, appeared as an echo of mental illness. We all act like our parents/parental figures to some degree. I am no different.
My talking about this subject is helpful because it is one I fear. Given my parents' mental health issues, (dad suffered from severe alcoholism and depression) I naturally have feared contracting mental illness myself. Statistics I found in NAMI say that someone like me (two parents with MI) is more likely than not to develop mental illness. I did not read that until I was in my late thirties, past the average time of onset for bipolar. If I had come to that statistic it in my early twenties it probably would have freaked me out BIG-TIME.
There have been a number of times in my life when I have acted in a way that, looking back, seems pretty manic. One example was leading friends on a day-hike in bear country. It was exciting, but reckless. It was a stupid thing to do. No one was injured in any way, but we were probably just lucky.
Another example was when I graduated from my teaching program. There was a celebration that involved students doing skits. I got pretty manic. As I think about my role there I regret how manic I was during that time.
I feel bad about those events today because I wasn't the person I wanted to be in those situations. In one, I was actually putting friends in potential danger in order to get a thrill. And in the other, I did not connect deeply with people as we closed our experience together, because I was "out of myself".
I also feel bad because it draws my judgement into question at times. If I had bad judgement then, does that suggest anything about my judgement today? Can I trust myself? Can I trust my thoughts? The stability of my consciousness?
During those times I felt euphoria and like everything was in grand alignment. To a degree I felt superhuman or that I was a deeply important individual. This feeling lasted for a week or so and then subsided. When I look back on those moments I realize that my judgement was flawed and that I made bad decisions while in that state. I feel regret around these events. I see myself as having behaved foolishly.
There are other examples of times when I became somewhat manic in relation to some aspect of my life. Over the past 15 years my wife has pointed out some of them and helped me to adjust my behavior.
Normally, I would say that I am fairly mistrustful of extremes. I strive to be calm at all times, as a basic personality trait. There is some "chop" under the surface but my exterior is usually pretty calm and together. My family, because they see me up close, know that I am not as calm as I try to appear to the world.
It is likely that I have a deep-seated fear of extremes and that my personality is very level because of that. "Don't get too happy; don't get too sad. Stay right in the middle and hold that ground." Those words basically describe how my personality was formed. You could say that, to some degree, my personality developed as a sort of mood stabilizer. My M.O. as a kid was to keep mom stable. All hands went on deck for that purpose.
Of course, now that I am processing my pain I am finding that I'm not as calm as I have previously thought. Maybe my personality will be different after I've come through this process of transforming my traumas. I'll have wait and see what comes out on the other side.
It doesn't freak me out to try and be objective about my personality because I know that, essentially, I am not my personality. My personality is the expression through which I meet the world. I believe my true nature is spiritual, and not of this world, as is everyone's.
I think that my talking about this subject may make "bipolar-like moments" less likely to happen in the future. My repression of the previous experiences of such moments created a "fear pocket", a little "don't look in there" closet. And my lower self just loves to take the keys to those cars and take them out for a spin. If my higher self shines the light on the issues then my lower self does not have anything to grab hold of. It's those little secret, shameful places that the lower self looks for and takes advantage of.
What's amazing is that when I do shine the light on the "dark, scary places" I find that, rather than finding something awful and ugly, hideous to look at; I actually find something akin to "nothing" there. That is to say, the lower self somehow gets me to believe in the profound ugliness of my secret; when in fact it dissipates as soon as I shine the light of day on it. All it is is a foothold for the lower self. Nothing more than that. And by shining the light on it I dissolve the foothold. The lower self has to go find something else to latch on to. If I keep shining the light as a practice, there are gradually fewer and fewer footholds for the lower self, and its power over my thoughts, feelings and behavior gets more and more attenuated.
As the lower ego becomes weaker, my higher self naturally wants to fill the space. Or perhaps it is the other way around: my higher self stepping forward takes the space, and leaves less space for the lower ego. Inside of me there is a fearful place that keeps me from being my true radiant self. But if I keep this practice going, shining the light into my pockets of shame, I will gradually become a different person.
A different person who reflects more and more the light that I am, truly.
Your comments are welcome.
Warmly, Ben
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