Is this advertising? I will let you be the judge. If you give away the product, as I am doing here, I think of it more as philanthropy than advertising. My name is Alistair McHarg and after 17 years of blood, sweat, and tears I have published my memoir of Manic Depression – Invisible Driving. It is widely available online. You can read 4 sample chapters for free at my website, which, as luck would have it, is: www.invisibledriving.com. It’s self-published. Perhaps one day I will pass the break-even point. I don’t know. What matters is that it’s unique – it is the first memoir of its type to actually put readers inside the experience of a manic episode, while providing a thoughtful context for understanding it. Sounds dull and serious, doesn’t it? It isn’t. It’s a rip-snorting roller coaster ride through the terrors and triumphs of mania. Dan Endicott, who painted the cover, said, “You write the way Coltrane plays a horn.” By that he meant, the language recreates the mad energy and mercurial nature of mania.
 
This is my first blog – ever – so please be indulgent. My plan is very simple, as I return to this blog I will post excerpts from the book – and maybe a little commentary as well. My fellow Bipolar Bears can get the benefit of my book, without shelling out the sheckles. 
 
Am I qualified to write about Manic Depression? I’ve lived with it for 37 years. My first episode was at 20. I smuggled hashish – by land – from Afghanistan to Germany and ended up in prison. My divorce, at 36, prompted a spectacular episode, losing my job a few years later sparked even more fireworks. I’ve been institutionalized 3 times, once involuntarily. (Even today, police just don’t quite “get” mental illness.) These years also featured periods of crippling depression and hypomania.
 
When I was in the throes of divorce, my then wife pointed out, as only she could, that I was Manic Depressive and alcoholic. Ironically, it was years after I’d gotten the mania under control that I realized she was right on both counts. Dealing with my alcoholism has been a huge part of recovery and has made it much easier to keep the bipolar beast in the cage.
 
Part of the reason that literary agents crossed the street to avoid me over the years is that – in addition to the nervous-making nature of the subject – Invisible Driving is hard to describe. Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, a name familiar to some of you no doubt, said it is “one of the best autobiographical works of its kind, written by a man who has been there.” Dr. Jim Phelps, another industry expert and very cool guy by the way, described it as “the quintessential expression of Bipolar I in print.”
 
I can tell you that it’s not like Darkness Visible in that it won’t put you to sleep. It’s not like An Unquiet Mind in that it doesn’t read like it was written by a scientist who slipped herself between two glass slides and studied herself under a microscope. It’s not like Jane Pauley’s Skywriting in that it’s not vapid rubbish. It’s not like Electroboy in that you won’t feel like taking three hot showers and scrubbing your skin with Brillo pads after reading it. It’s not like Girl Interrupted in that it’s not named after a painting by Vermeer. And it’s definitely not like a Million Little Pieces in that it’s brutally honest.
 
I think The Icarus Project is brilliant and I’m looking forward to my tenure here. Its creators describe Manic Depression as a “dangerous gift.” This is inspired. Yes, very dangerous indeed – so many of us kill ourselves. Indeed, part of my motivation for writing Invisible Driving was mere survival – I understood that if I did not demystify this monster within me, I was as good as dead. But what Olympian heights! The long, difficult process of mastering my illness gave me my manhood, and the peace of mind I enjoy today. It grounded me in reality – the knowledge of what does and does not matter. My story has a happy ending, and I feel that I am duty bound to speak on behalf of those who did not make it, for the benefit of those who struggle now. In this respect the illness has been my greatest gift, it has given my life a purpose it always lacked. My talent, such as it is, has been impressed into service.
 
Alistair McHarg