Sharing this now is very scary. I wrote it two years ago and hid it in a private blog. Only my first postpartum episode in 1973 had definite psychotic features.When I am manic, I occasionally find it hard to distinguish among books I have read, movies and plays I have viewed, and what I have actually experienced. And when I am manic, I remember hundreds of books I have read, movies I have seen. What fueled this episode, by far the worst one, was a pregnancy spent editing psychiatric books about schizophrenia. The most frightening fantasy/dream of that 1973 episode turned out to be straight from the surrealistic Fellini film, Juliet of the Spirits.

may be on an upswing...do I want to go there?

Although I have traveled far and wide in the world, sometimes in dangerous situations, I believe that travel to the inner world offers both the greatest risk and the greatest excitement. Writing Invisible Driving, my memoir of manic depression, (www.invisibledriving.com) - Amazon.com – demanded such a voyage, and it was no joyride. I began to see my flights into intense mania in a larger context of escape. Those of you who have played with narcotics know that even the hardest of them cannot lift the cape of mania for sheer adrenaline rush and feel good delirium. However, here on earth there are many pleasures that, if abused properly, can become intoxicants. Alcohol, drugs, sex, and even, as this excerpt reveals, music. No matter what the tool was, the goal remained fixed, (however unintentional its use). Escape self.

Writing a memoir, if you do it properly, is not a simple catalog of events. When I began Invisible Driving, my memoir of manic depression - http://www.invisibledriving.com - I knew it would be like following a piece of string that led inevitably into the darkest regions of my soul. Recreating mania through language was a technical challenge, but getting on a first-name basis with the demons that sparked my mad behavior was an emotional challenge. In my daily life I was reserved; in mania I was a runaway chain saw. I thought of myself as endlessly charming and funny, I was in fact boiling with furious rage. People in the full throes of mania are capable of tremendous, irrational violence. - A word to the wise. Don’t step on Superman’s cape, don’t spit into the wind, and don’t f*uck with a guy who’s manic. This chapter is called, “The Righteous Rage That Drives Men Into Battle.”

Well let’s see to begin with Christ was a soul brother so all the black hating so called Christians can get off the fucking bus at the next stop look at the part of the world he was from who the hell do they think he looked like, Basil Rathbone? Lawrence freakin’ Olivier? Leslie be a good fellow and pass the bleedin’ Rothmans Howard? Why can’t they get with the program he was olive skinned to begin with at the very least and spent most of his life outdoors soaking up the desert sun. How irritating when reality refuses to conform to prejudice. And of course Christ was a Jew, Christians are people who believe in the teachings of Christ, Christ, however, was of the Jewish persuasion, why am I the only person willing to point this out? So that means that all the anti-Semites are also invited to remove their misbegotten bottoms from the fucking bus. A person cannot be anti-Semitic and be a Christian at the same time, this is a square circle, a thing which cannot be, by definition. My mind understands great truths, truths which others either cannot see or refuse to see. My mind has all the answers, is there anything you need to know? Can you understand the painful weight of being wise when all of those around you are blind?

Being in the city had an advantage for me. City cops are jaded. There’s constant action in a city. A car cruising at four in the morning doesn’t raise an eyebrow. Try doing this in the lily-white suburbs sometime and see how far you get. There’s very little traffic so the roads are easy to navigate. If you’re floating on a raft of euphoria and marijuana, as I was, this can be very ooch rabazibby. And it’s very otherworldly. Large, well-lit boulevards are deserted, as though a neutron bomb had been dropped and killed the people but left the buildings standing. Everything looks cleaner, clearer, more perfectly defined. It was just me and the cabs. The cabs, the cops, the hookers, the homeless, the dealers, the debris. It’s a whole other world out there at night, a world of odds and ends, odds and unevens. Of things and people that don’t fit nicely into proper categories. And I was snaking through it in the comfort of my mini-limo, high, warm, shimmying to the funky rhythms on the radio, pumped up on the power I exerted over my growing litter of kittens. I was bad. Bad enough to make it in the big time. Bad enough to rip the cover off.

And now a little secret. A tale told out of school. Something I share with everyone else who has my illness. I loved it. It felt great. I mean really great. Why else would so many Manics refuse to get treatment? They get hooked on their highs. Can you remember the moment in your life when you felt the very best? Was it the day you got married? The day your first child was born? The day you scored the winning touchdown for your high school football team? Remember how you felt. Now double it. Keep going until the settings are turned up all the way to ten and your nervous system is buzzing like high voltage wires. Every pleasure center you have is glowing, you could burst into flames at any moment. Now add a few more elements. You’re incredibly strong, incredibly smart, and your energy is limitless. It gets better. You’re totally without fear. That tiresome little voice, the nagging conscience, is dead. You don’t care who you step on on the way up because you’re not coming down. There’s a separate set of rules for you, you’re a Greek god, lightning explodes from your fingertips.