Aftermath: shout at the top of my lungs

Mania comes in defined stages as noted in the above video. We've got to stop treating this as a mental "looney bin" problem, and look at it as an acquired disease that overcomes a person. I was labeled, put in a box, and set aside for more work, uh-uh, it's not going to happen. I've another sudden onset of mania. This wasn't depression that I went through before. This was a whole different beast that came slowly over months, and that I've outlined well in the last part of this memoir. I know what caused it now in retrospect, but at the time I was irrational. They will dose me with drugs, their idea, and I'm not speaking for the mental health facilities, but how it appears to me as one who was run through the system, and that was their answer, "We can't control them, medicate them until they're compliant, so we can herd them around." I will be doped up throughout my stay at the mental hospital, and I will be doped up for the next three years. I will tell you that once you're on this ride to hell, you will think you're having the best time in the world, "Yea, I'm going up!" Nope you're going down for the count. You become over sexed, totally out of control, and downright scary for your mate, family, and friends. For those that don't know you, you may seem normal or strung out, but those who know you, they know they had a beast on their hands to handle, not you, the disease bi-polar. I was label that because this was my second go around with depression, and although two plus decades later they saw it as a reoccurrence, but I know it was not, it was new. I was strung out on prescribed medications to treat my epilepsy, and sorry to you doctors who are reading this; your answer to everything was more medications. I was reacting to medications, and you're about to prescribe more medications to counter the problem the medications had caused me; and their thoughts are only to slow down my brain, slow my thinking, and that's going to work for the short time, but it was going to send me deeper down the rabbit hole into a place that's void of anything or anyone, sorry, no Alice here folks. However, let me take you to events that led me to the mental hospital.

I was recovering from a drug that caused my liver to produce too much ammonia; that is called hyperammonemia, too much ammonia in my blood, a basic understanding, and not a medical definition. It rushed to my heart and was pumped through all my major organs and caused Delirium Tremens like symptoms. I was removed off the epilepsy medication, but I was still on the antidepressant that I've stayed on longer than prescribed. Hyperammonemia symptoms are produced by the medication that affected a valve in my liver that sends too much ammonia to the heart, or something to the sort, again I'm not a doctor, but my brain was suffering the effects of excessive ammonia in my brain and had caused a problem, I could no longer walk, and had to learn how to walk again. People, if you take epilepsy medications or medications for depression make sure the doctors do regular blood workups on your liver that check for toxicity produced by the liver. I was in a world of hurt, as the drug I discovered can lead to bipolar episodes, and so can the antidepressants, two for the price of one. I was in the hospital to keep an eye on me. At the beginning of 2005 and by December, I was full-blown manic. You know your symptoms better than your doctor, so report them even if it is just losing a little sleep, because this is how it starts. Mania doesn't start with, "Oh man I'm nuts!" It starts out gradually, and at the end of the cycle everyone else says, "Oh man he's nuts!" and you're thinking, "Look at all these little humans, they need to bow to me, I'm their God," and by this time it is too late.

Mania is a change in your brain chemistry. I've been bombarded with drugs and now the antidepressant added to the mix, along with my restless leg; medication was all my brain could take, but the change was gradual. I just started losing sleep, but no biggie, right? I was down to four hours a night. I was in my wife's bedroom on our computer. My wife complained, "Go downstairs and work on our computer, but I was not working, I was surfing for porn, I've reached the hyper sexuality stage of mania, and since I can't drive I was left with one option, the internet. I was transported to the hospital for outpatient therapy and I was gaining mobility, and I started to pace, not in small circles, but in long jaunts, up to five miles a day in all types of weather. I lost weight, and my sleep became shorter, but five minutes was enough for me. I go nearly twenty-four seven, day in and day out. I noticed nothing, but my wife did. I started painting like a mad man and the work was not my best, but at the time, I thought, wow! I can't get any better than this. When the rage part of mania hit me, it scared my wife. I busted down doors, I was yelling, and nearing Christmas time, I was upstairs telling her I wanted a divorce while she was downstairs trying to cook dinner, and have a present opening ceremony. It became too much for her. She hauled me off to my psychologist. I didn't want her to be there, because by this time I was paranoid, a terrible place to be, and it would be the last of the symptoms to leave me. I didn't trust her, I didn't trust any of the doctors. I know she was trying to put me away, get me out of the picture. I've thought about this for a while, part of wanting a divorce, but this action by her confirms it. She was scared, she wants to get me help, and she still wants her old husband back from before the second TBI. He was never going to return; never.

The psychologist tells me to go home, and to come back on Monday, but since I refused to let her in the counseling session she didn't believe me, she stayed outside the car and when she got in the car she didn't head home. I know it wasn't what the doctor wanted. I realize she's going to take me to the university's mental hospital. I was paranoid, and I didn't want to go during the Christmas season. I pled, "Don't do this!" but she did. She arrived at the ER and tried to drag me out of the car by pulling on my coat. I slip away from her, and start to head away. There's a large crowd of people. She started; "Help me. My husband is a mad man." I realized I had no place to go. I noticed she was away from the car and I made a mistake that saved me, not the marriage, but me. I stole my own car. I had no driver's license and I was in her car, with her purse, her keys, and I drove away, just my car and my manic produced painting in the back seat. I get a few miles away and realized I hadn't any more places to go on Christmas Eve in a car than I did walking, and that I was a danger to others driving, because I was an epileptic. I pull over into a neighborhood, park my car, grab my cell phone and call the police to report my whereabouts. I then call Ava and tell her my story and she said, "I'll be over." My wife had called the police at the same time, and in about fifteen minutes the police showed up, not just one, but eight of them with their guns drawn. I held my hands up and complied; it was not the time to go acting all manic.

Still life of a lamp, post stay in mental hospital.

Sunset in the forest, without the leaves. Photo by Olan L. Smith