An Anger That Won't Go Away

My manic episodes are rage. Screaming, swearing, sobbing. Tom understands this and talks quietly and reasonably to me. It would be infuriating, except that I know his primary concern is that I not have a heart attack and die on the spot. He used to sit me down in front of the TV, which oddly seemed to work, as watching it must have engaged some other part of the brain, diverting the fuel from the fire. I don't watch TV anymore. Can't concentrate. It could be a problem.

When I was first diagnosed with depression many years ago, a very intelligent psychiatrist asked me to tell him my story. He stopped me about halfway through and prescribed SSRIs, a particular form of anti-depressant. I asked him if I would have to be on these for the rest of my life. He looked at me over his glasses. "With your history? Absolutely."  Hmm...  Didn't even bother to hear the rest of the story. It seems that after three major depressive episodes, the brain loses it's ability to properly process serotonin, and never recovers. We all have a little pool of serotonin in our brain and in a correctly functioning brain, that little pool manages to stay full. In a clinically depressed person, the serotonin just drains away, and you are left with an empty pool, a hole in your head that nothing can fill.

I learned years later, after trying several SSRIs, that this particular family of drug can actually make your manic episodes worse. Interesting. Did the medical community know that then or was it just a guessing game then as it now?

Let's talk drug side effects. Do you listen to those commercials on TV for drugs for every condition under the sun? The list of side effects usually concludes with "even death." Enough said. Anti-depressants cause them all.

There's more, much more. But let's leave a bit of the unpleasantness behind. There are a few things that might help. Light helps. Early morning light in the summer, a light box built to specifications for the winter. This is one of Tom's summer projects. Physical activity, exercise, also can help. And then there is good old positive thinking. I don't mean to scoff, as this has possibly helped me more than any other treatment over the 40 years I have tried to cope with this condition. There is great comfort and beauty in small things, as Wendell Berry says, "The Peace of Wild Things."

Well, I expect you are sick of reading for now. I am sick of writing. But more will come. The betrayal of family. The exclusion. The deception. The good times that are forgotten in favor of the bad times remembered. It is enough to make you slowly peel your skin away, in an effort to forget the present, and become the real person you know still exists inside the old person you have become.

Enough. I am telling this story now and I don't care if anyone at all reads it. It needs to be said, and by God, it will be told.

This is Tom. Come August 18th, we will be 30 years sober and 30 years together. And, apart from the occasional rough patch here and there as you might expect, 30 years happy. He is extraordinary, though there were times I had difficulty convincing him of that. He knows it now. You say, "I love you," often enough and your beloved comes to believe it. When my deep sadness comes, I still need to be told. And Tom obliges.