brainbomb excerpt: HIGH
the HIGHER end of the bipolar scale. good moods and optimism soar into elation. uncontrollable elation.
After going to bed at 3 am I’m up again by 7 am. Emptying the remnants of a wine bottle, I finish writing the short story I started last night. Deciding my ending’s rubbish, I tear the A4 sheets into shreds, tossing them into the air like confetti. I make a spliff. Ten minutes later I’m attempting to piece together the jigsaw of the destroyed manuscript. I give up, make another joint.
A few hours later I decide to gatecrash Sunday communion in the Anglican cathedral at the West End, St. Mary's, finishing another spliff en route.
As I melt into a wooden bench, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, I'm giving the women seated around me marks out of 10, discovering few below eight, while being visually stunned by the ornate tapestries, the awesome stained glass windows, the flickering candles, the gleaming silver crucifixes. When the service gets underway I'm aurally assailed by the organ music piping through the immense Gothic structure, its rich, otherwordly melodies echoing with the communal voice of hundreds of worshippers. When I dip into whatever the priest is rambling about I hear 'I am the resurrection, and the light,' and assume he's referencing The Stone Roses. This makes me feel joyous. Overcome with emotion, tears slither down my cheeks. This entire sensory experience is so overwhelming I feel as if I am truly in the presence of God. This certainty lasts until the whitey starts kicking in.
Now I assume everyone in my vicinity is aware of my condition. I realise my Charlatans t-shirt reeks of hash. My pulse is thundering, pounding in my eardrums. My limbs tremble. I feel the sensation of blood seeping, as if some invisible vampire is gorging on me. All I can think of is escaping into fresh air before I'm violently sick. Heaving myself up, I sprint down the aisle, past a sea of bemused faces, focusing on the sunlight bathing the entrance. As the nausea subsides I'm already thinking of a million things to do once I get outside.
As I melt into a wooden bench, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, I'm giving the women seated around me marks out of 10, discovering few below eight, while being visually stunned by the ornate tapestries, the awesome stained glass windows, the flickering candles, the gleaming silver crucifixes. When the service gets underway I'm aurally assailed by the organ music piping through the immense Gothic structure, its rich, otherwordly melodies echoing with the communal voice of hundreds of worshippers. When I dip into whatever the priest is rambling about I hear 'I am the resurrection, and the light,' and assume he's referencing The Stone Roses. This makes me feel joyous. Overcome with emotion, tears slither down my cheeks. This entire sensory experience is so overwhelming I feel as if I am truly in the presence of God. This certainty lasts until the whitey starts kicking in.
Now I assume everyone in my vicinity is aware of my condition. I realise my Charlatans t-shirt reeks of hash. My pulse is thundering, pounding in my eardrums. My limbs tremble. I feel the sensation of blood seeping, as if some invisible vampire is gorging on me. All I can think of is escaping into fresh air before I'm violently sick. Heaving myself up, I sprint down the aisle, past a sea of bemused faces, focusing on the sunlight bathing the entrance. As the nausea subsides I'm already thinking of a million things to do once I get outside.
That happened to me in the days before I was sectioned in the summer of 1990. Religion is so often inextricably liked with mental illness. When I was an inpatient in the Royal Edinburgh Hospital the first time in 1987, the charge nurse in one of the wards chaired a weekly meeting. At the end he would declare an open floor in case any patients wished to air grievances or simply chat about anything. For painful minutes most of us would stare into the carpet. But one young woman, her voice lugubrious with medication, struggling to keep up with her whizzing thoughts, would always spout forth about the rapture of being possessed by the Holy Spirit, about how we were all pawns in God’s greater plan, how this spell inside hospital was a test of our faith. The charge nurse would roll his eyes and declare the meeting adjourned.
Bipolar scale
There’s nothing healthy about experiencing the bipolar ‘ups’. It would be more apt to think of the ups/downs as different levels on the same scale. Using the analogy of a scale of 1 to 10, most people live their lives in the middle, say between 4 and 7. The 1% of the population who are bipolar can slide down to 3 and below, into manic depression; or soar above 7, into mania.
Mania is characterised by restlessness, a decreased need to sleep, increased self-confidence (to the extent of grandiosity), being easily distracted, a mind racing with new ideas and plans, extreme talkativeness, loss of inhibitions, increased sex drive, risk taking, spending sprees.
In the short-term this is known as hypomania and will last for a few days. The more extreme version, mania, can last for much longer. Mania can lead to a break with reality, initiating visual or auditory hallucinations, delusions, and paranoid thoughts. When I was ill I ticked practically every box amongst those symptoms of mania, as well as inventing a few of my own.
Bipolar scale
There’s nothing healthy about experiencing the bipolar ‘ups’. It would be more apt to think of the ups/downs as different levels on the same scale. Using the analogy of a scale of 1 to 10, most people live their lives in the middle, say between 4 and 7. The 1% of the population who are bipolar can slide down to 3 and below, into manic depression; or soar above 7, into mania.
Mania is characterised by restlessness, a decreased need to sleep, increased self-confidence (to the extent of grandiosity), being easily distracted, a mind racing with new ideas and plans, extreme talkativeness, loss of inhibitions, increased sex drive, risk taking, spending sprees.
In the short-term this is known as hypomania and will last for a few days. The more extreme version, mania, can last for much longer. Mania can lead to a break with reality, initiating visual or auditory hallucinations, delusions, and paranoid thoughts. When I was ill I ticked practically every box amongst those symptoms of mania, as well as inventing a few of my own.
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Read a comprehensive guide to bipolar highs/lows on the website of the mental health charity Bipolar Scotland.
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