What I had was a manic episode. I was and probably am a manic-depressive or at least have that type of personality. Now it’s called bipolar disorder. I prefer manic depression.
My manic episode was bad, probably unloosed by the Valium I took. By the time I got to the hospital I had been going so hard and so long I was at the virtual end of my physical endurance. I hadn’t slept, I hadn’t stopped and everything kept going faster and faster. The doctors worried that I would crash and they wouldn’t be able to stop me, that I might run myself to death.
I surprised everyone by how quickly the Lithium seemed to work. I took Lithium for a few months after that and then stopped because it made everything taste bad. I was a little depressed for a few months afterwards, but then life resumed. Working at Personnel was enjoyable. Being promoted to Staff Sergeant was wonderful.
After the service I waited for it to happen again. And it didn’t. Like a lot of manic depressives or bipolar people I treated my highs and lows with alcohol, beer and wine, and then later martinis and Irish coffees. I was comfortable with depression. Highs scared me. Bipolar and alcoholism are related somehow. One doesn’t cause the other but they seem to go hand in hand together. When I got sober I worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle the highs anymore, but it wasn’t a problem.
One time after I was sober I really got out there. During the Los Angeles Civil Disturbance I began working in City Hall and for the first few days, everything was hectic and intense. I didn’t get any sleep and the little sleep I got was disturbed. I began to get crazy and grandiose. I got some sleep and life seemed to become more normal. It seemed that way to me. There were some bad signs that I was still functioning in a different way. I broke up with my girlfriend and fiancé. We had lived together for over a year. I borrowed money from retirement plan because I needed things. Looking back on it, it was more serious than I thought at the time, but it ended with enough sleep and normal work.
When I took the psych test to become a peace officer at San Francisco Juvenile Hall, it showed up on the test and I explained my service experience to the psychologist and I was cleared to work in Juvenile Hall. When I took the psych test to become a Ranger, it came up again. This time I thought it was the end of my application. They asked for my service records and I got them. They looked at my service medical file and set up an appointment to talk to a psychologist. He cleared me to become a police officer.
I am surprised it never happened again with the exception of 1992. I spent many years waiting for the other shoe to fall. I think it was closely related to my alcoholism. When I got sober I worried about it, but life seemed easier and I became more confident.
The mania I experienced in 1992 during the LA Civil Disturbance scared me. I had really gotten out there and made a fool of myself with people I worked with. It seemed OK while it was going on. It was only in retrospect I began to realize it had been full blown mania and how serious it had been. When I became a Ranger and was doing call outs, searches and other crises at all hours I was even more careful to make sure I got enough sleep. Proper sleep for me has been the cure for the mania of manic depression.
The depression is easier. I’ve handled it with physical exercise and just showing up. I lower my expectations for work and just wait it out. I have had thoughts of suicide but never taken it very far. Depression has always felt to me like a gathering in, something like a renewal, whereas mania is an expenditure, a letting loose, a draining. It feels good while it’s happening but it has a hell of a hangover. I think I may have had a manic episode in college. Part of college felt like one long manic episode and it is hard to tell the difference between insanity and late adolescence.
I’m glad I had the experience. I think it made me more empathetic, made me aware how vulnerable I am and how vulnerable we all can be, how tenuous our hold on reality actually is. I think it’s what makes me treat people in extreme circumstances like human beings, whether it be insanity or incarceration. I know even in the insanity there was an I there. I got to come back. Like sobriety, sanity, being able to function, is something I’ve always been grateful for.
A little bipolar or manic depressive is just who I am.
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