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 Your Depression and Bipolar Disorder Source Knowledge is Necessity There are many things to be thankful for on Thanksgiving. Perhaps it is time to give a my condition its due. "I'm normal! I kept insisting over and over, much to Fred's quiet amusement." Main articles page. Go here. More My Struggles Articles When I First Knew I Was Different
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A Thanksgiving Tribute I t's like a cardiac arrest, only it happens in the brain - something responsible for holding the gray mass together abruptly shifts, there is a sickening feeling of something terrible about to happen, and next thing your head is experiencing the awful sensation of being emptied out. From somewhere inside the power goes down and the body seems to collapse into itself like a marionette being folded into a box. You look for a way out, and what's left of your broken brain does its best to oblige with images of high bridges and frozen ponds and nooses dangling from balconies.In January 1999 when my family brought me to the emergency room at our local hospital I could never imagine eleven months later that I'd be writing about anything I had to be thankful for, much less paying tribute to this beast inside that sent me there in the first place, the one that goes by two names, both of them woefully inadequate: manic depression and bipolar.
For most of my life, Fred has been my constant traveling companion, even as I denied his existence and tried so hard to pretend I was a master of my own fate. I'm normal! I kept insisting over and over, much to Fred's quiet amusement. Twenty-one years ago I was well on the way to proving it. After all those wasted years at the mercy of the very condition I denied having, I landed on my feet in New Zealand. I had successfully completed my second year of law school there, and I was married with a beautiful three-month-old daughter. There had been some other Americans in our birthing classes and we invited them over, together with another Kiwi-Yank couple we knew, to celebrate Thanksgiving. I recall lifting my glass to make a toast, but then words failed me. We were seated on cushions on the floor with the turkey and all the fixings on a low table. But the stars of the show were the new citizens of planet earth. I looked at the proud parents and their newborns and all the baby paraphernalia they had brought, and simply choked out, "thanks". Life was beautiful. Little did I realize in ten years I would find myself in another country, broke and alone and unemployable and in search of a convenient bridge to jump off. I couldn't blame it all on Fred. Besides, Fred has a way of convincing you he doesn't exist. Boy, you showed them, Fred let me know less a year after that. You're back on your feet again and working on your own terms, not theirs. I had one book out and another on the way. And there was my daughter, now ten, together with my parents, in my apartment to celebrate Christmas. Like a considerate roommate, Fred made himself scarce. When he showed up again I was back in the States. Think of someone on a high hill lobbing boulders at you, that was Fred. One large stone would hit me on the chest and send me into a crushing depression. Then the next one would come thudding down on me as I lay sprawled on the ground, compounding my despair with a depression on top of a depression. But I made Fred work hard, damn hard. Several years and an untold number of boulders it took, but finally I went down and didn't get up. After all these years, I finally acknowledged Fred's dominion, not to mention his existence. So now, at long last, I'm going to give Fred his due. After all, he made me what I am. Whatever our differences, he is responsible for me being me, so to hate Fred would be to hate me. Besides, having Fred around does have its advantages. It is Fred who painted my brain with amazing visions and insights, and filled my senses with the type of sensations few mortals experience. It is Fred who made it possible to for me to find the sublime in even the most mundane, and it is Fred who cloaked me in a humanity and godliness that I would not exchange for a winning lottery ticket. So, yes, Fred, on this Thanksgiving, for the very first time, I will sing your praises and give you thanks. In a few months I will see my grown daughter, here from New Zealand, and I give thanks for that, too. I will give thanks to my family who were there for me, and to a God who somehow has proved to me he does not and does exist. And yes, Fred, I know one day again, you'll be waiting for me in some dark alley. But for now I invite you to pull up a chair while I lift my glass in a toast. For three free online issues of McMan's Depression and Bipolar Weekly, email me and put "Sample" in the heading and your email address in the body. My Struggles articles All articles
Tom (Nov 26, 2001): John, I felt like I was following you in some of the years you talked about. We must be close to the same age, I was born July 11,1945, out of wedlock to a married marine that never new he had two sons born with in months of each other. I first found out when the man I thought was my father told me in order to get my license we had to decide what to do about my birth certificate. That's when he told me he had raised me but my mother would never tell or let him tell me I wasn't his. So, in 1962 at the age of 17 I went before a Judge and said yes I wanted to be adopted and I went officially from Horn to Johnson. Finding out from my adopted Dad that I wasn't his instead of my mother telling me was the first of a number of deep dark secrets she never told me. I didn't know it then but problems I had earlier in life began causing my mind to not let them go and problems about myself after that date festered. I didn't mean to go on like this but your story hit home and I thank you for sharing it. In closing I would like you to know I fought myself for years and I nor anyone else new until Feb. 1984 when I had my first crash and was taken to the hospital as a blubbering, broken man that I had finally met Fred.Again, I say thanks for sharing and now listening. I am looking forward to the Holidays because I have two helpers that help keep Fred in check along with my doctors & group. One is a two and a half year old Princess named Elizabeth and the other is a Prince born nine days after Sept. 11th and his name is Jared Thomas. I absolutely love my three daughters, but as someone told me there is nothing in the world like grandchildren and that includes my oldest granddaughter. She came into our lives as a step granddaughter when she was six or so and she is now 14 and a Freshman. Elizabeth and I spend a lot of time together. My Family and I guess others can tell that Elizabeth is the closest thing, to me, to having cure in keeping Fred away. He still is my companion as you said, but the lord gave me a new reason to live. Happy Holidays, and ENJOY your daughter's visit, every minute of it. McMan (Nov 26): Many thanks, Tom. My daughter will be paying another visit soon, so I count my blessings, too. Joann (Oct 1, 2002): Your story is one I'm all too familiar with. I
have lost everything in my life only to have to recreate it all over again.
It's interesting that you have given the monster a name. Perhaps I will do
the same. This is one of the cruelest illnesses that anyone could ever have.
It is silent and it eats away at your life ever so slowly. I, too, resisted
the acceptance of this horrible illness, but I have accepted it now for
quite a few years. That does make it better, but like you say, it can
overtake you and your mind at any given moment. Treatment makes it a lot
better, but it still lingers under there ready to rear its ugly head. Brandi (Oct 5, 2002): Yes, here I am writing again. But I too want to give thanks to this illness. I am grateful for all the good books I have read and all the insights I have gained from my manias. But I am most grateful for how humble this disorder has made me. I am coming up from the depths of despair to a pinnacle of peace. And what lies before me is a great destiny of using my experiences to help others. That is how I thank Heavenly Father for my life and my blessings--by loving myself and others and by living a passionate life. Thank you again!! Your writing is absolutely beautiful. Paul (March 3, 2003): I was diagnosed a year ago as Bi Polar II. This came after a course of Paxil prescribed by my GP for "mild" depression blew me into hypo-mania that nearly destroyed my family through drug addiction and extramarital sex. Since then I have gone from being relieved at knowing why I have always felt different from everyone else, to feeling sorry for myself at having to get my emotions out of a bottle of Depakote, to fighting to break the drug addiction. Somehow I have not yet come to terms with "Fred", though; I certainly have no sense of thanksgiving toward him. Zyautumn (July 12, 2004): I asked my mother
what kind of a child was I? She looked at me funny and said "You were the
strangest child I ever met". Then she turned her back on me and walked out
of the room. I was a strange child to her, one she never knew, one who
never felt loved by her. I too felt different growing up but kind of liked
the idea. I was a loner, I went to about two schools a year and so never
lived anywhere long enough to be branded, except "the new kid". Emily (Dec 3, 2005): To give thanks . . . to give thanks for that which has irrevocably shaped who I am both for bad and for good. My husband, father, mother, and sister are bipolar. "Normal" isn't normal for me. And yet, in the midst of all the pain and sorrow that I have observed, in the midst of the frustration at my role as caretaker, and facing the reality of this in the lives of my family, I truly am thankful. Bipolar disorder has taught me deep compassion. Bipolar disorder has taught me to be thankful for every minute of stability we have. Post your opinion here. |
John McManamy Order my book on Amazon
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Above: Daughter Emily and I, 1988. Like a considerate roommate, Fred made himself scarce. Above left: Emily and I, 10 years later.
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as well call the thing Fred, as far as I'm concerned.
