Cravings

Some days the cravings are bad.

I just want it.  A manic episode that is.  I want it so bad.  I'd say I want it so bad I can feel it, but that's just the point, right now, I can't.

Perhaps it seems strange to you that one like myself would crave a manic episode.  They're supposed to be bad, after all.  So bad some people must be hospitalized for their own protection.  And yet the craving is there.

My manic phases have been enjoyable for me, even if they have caused my wife significant concerns.  But even she has not always had those concerns.  Mostly, she has stood by my side and watched as I did my thing.  Prior to my diagnosis she probably just thought I was just off doing 'my thing', pursuing yet another grand goal.  And the thing of it was, I was successful enough during those times that its hard to dismiss it, or for that matter, for the uninformed to even have a clue that I was in a full blown manic episode.

I've written before about how during a manic episode I developed an assisted living facility at my congregation.  The thing is, I turned a vacant lot, a $15 dollar contribution, and a $5,000 grant into a 15 million dollar senior housing facility with 87 units.  Not only did I do that, but I tried to replicate the effort elsewhere.  I was on a roll.  There was no stopping me.  People may have had a lot of thoughts about what I was doing, but no one was questioning my sanity.  I'm a good manic.

There was an incredibly intoxicating feeling that went with it all.  The possibilities felt limitless.  I felt incredibly potent.  There was an overwhelming sense that this was my mission and purpose in life.  And, I suppose, to an extent it was.  I mean, hey, when the dust cleared there was in fact a senior housing ministry in place, and a mighty fine one, at that.

But then the high I was riding came to an end.  Life didn't just return to normal, it crashed.

I subsequently had another very definable manic phase, when I decided to leave the ministry and re-establish my woodworking business.  There are other times, less pronounced, that I notice manic thoughts come racing through my mind.  They usually pass once I identify them as "manic".  Damn.

I say "Damn" because one of the things that being diagnosed as bipolar has done is to deprive me of the opportunity enjoy the manic highs and run with them.  No more soaring with the eagles.  Any time I approach that experience there is the not so gentle reminder that this is a psychiatric condition.  The dampers are shut down.  Instead of people saying "Go for it, Dave!" they now wonder if I've taken my meds.  That's depressing.

Some days I feel as though in the name of emotional balance and stability I've had to surrender a part of myself, and specifically, a part of myself that made my life seem worthwhile and worth living.  Where I once would experience feelings of great potency, now it seems impotency rules the day.  And the "balanced life" is not all its cracked up to be.

So I live with a craving for something I know that it is not in my best interest to ever experience again.  But part of me hopes that the medications are not effective, and that one day, I will soar again.  A good manic episode can lift one's spirits, after all.

I don't know what else to say, other than that the craving is there.  A powerful craving.