My Mystic Bipolar Autobiography

My Mystic Bipolar Autobiography

By David Dalton

How I Reconciled My Mystical with My Mental Health Experiences

In this article I claim that my mood cycles have been affected by lunar and solar cycles, and that I am similar to some past major pagan and non-pagan religious figures.

In 1986 at age 22, during a low year of the 11-year sunspot cycle, I suffered a long mild depression. It was treated first with desipramine, which didn't work and had too many side effects, and then with nortriptylene, which eventually worked but did cause my only epileptic seizure that December.

Early in September of 1991, while organizing orientation week activities at the University of British Columbia Graduate Student Centre, (having been inspired by musician-songwriter Sarah McLachlan and some others, and having experienced shaktipat from my yoga teacher), I went into my first manic episode. It began with a shower of ideas early on September 1^st, and culminated in a naked sun stare, thorn hill climb, and blue rose vision on September 5^th and 6^th.

Just before my manic episode started, I witnessed some clear sky lightning, which I relate to an M-class solar flare that took place two days prior. This manic episode occurred during a waning crescent moon in a high year of the 11-year sunspot cycle. During the sun stare, I observed a curved tunnel effect, like a divine horn of oil with its wide mouth toward me, and then giant butterfly wings of space folding in on me. Then I blacked out and fell into the water.

After this experience, I remained at a mental health ward for five weeks while my lithium level was adjusted. In May of 1992, during a waxing gibbous moon, I smoked a marijuana joint on Wreck Beach intending to relax. Instead, I went into a mixed/psychotic episode resulting in a week-long hospitalization. I emerged from this stint on 5mg of haloperidol per day, in addition to the lithium. In early July 1992, during an early waxing moon, I had a suicidal period which ceased when my psychiatrist told me to come off haloperidol. After that, I would only use haloperidol as needed and on rare occasions.

In the next two and a half years I experienced three more waxing gibbous moon trials, triggered by alcohol use, and three waning crescent hypomanias with onset 5.5 lunar months after each waxing gibbous moon trial onset. Based on the first two 5.5 lunar month separations, I predicted the late August/early September 1994 high.

After the March 1994 trial I gave up drinking alcohol during the week before a full moon but continued to drink at other phases with no ill effects. I had one more waning crescent high in early July 1994 that did not have a waxing gibbous moon trial precursor, but like the others had an M-class solar flare two days prior. Similar to the September 1991 high, my June 1993 high and August-September 1994 high had clear sky lightning at their onsets. The early January 1994 high occurred during highly variable weather. The highs were pleasant and characterized by playfulness and creativity accompanied by a feeling of mystical connectedness within nature. The trials were unpleasant and characterized by a feeling of the world turning sour around me.

Beginning early in 1996, I entered into low years. They were low in terms of creativity, at times in terms of mild depression and anxiety, and at other times in terms of delusion and even paranoia. For some past figures such low years seem to have lasted seven years, but for me they have lasted 18.5 years (as of July 29, 2014). So far, I think since I have had modern medicines, and since lifespans are longer today on average, it could be that my low years will not last much longer than 18 years (7 years plus an 11 year sunspot cycle). I hope to come out of them soon after this writing date, which is August 20, 2014. But on my current medication regimen, 1250 mg divalproex sodium and 10 mg olanzapine nightly, the low years are not very low except in terms of creativity.

I have also done comparisons of my cycles to those of past figures. The three figures I have the most evidence that I am similar to are Gwion (Taliesin), the Turquoise Bee, and Jesus (the heavens opening and wings descending during Jesus' baptism I liken to my sun stare experience which I described earlier). For more detail on my comparisons to them and several other past figures, and on my mystic bipolar autobiographical details, please do a web search for Salmon on the Thorns.

Medication (It’s a four-letter word)

Medication (It’s a four-letter word)
By Sarah (visit her blog at: www.doesthatmakemecrazyblog.com)
I suffer from bipolar disorder, a debilitating psychiatric illness that, for most people, requires a constant stream of medication.
Let me tell you something about medication. I need it to function. Along with psychotherapy, lifestyle and diet changes, and avoiding any number of things that might trigger an episode, I need medication to be able to achieve anything even approaching normal human functionality. I wouldn’t, and in fact, couldn’t, be without it. I want to put that out there before anything. I am thankful that I have access to medication. But getting to a place where you can be living well with mental illness is not as simple as doing all the right things and remembering to take your drugs when you’re supposed to.
Medication is a four-letter word. For all the good it can do when it’s working right, when it’s wrong, it can mess you up. Medication can make you sicker than the illness it’s intended to treat. I’ve been put on, and taken off an endless list of prescription medications. Pills of all different shapes, colours and sizes have gone into my body in the fashion of a lab test animal. The paper inside the boxes that lists side effects may as well be written just for me. There’s not one unpleasant side effect that I’ve yet managed to avoid. At some point over the last five years, I have experienced them all.
Some of them made it impossible for me to get out of bed. Some have made me repulsed by food. Others have made me insatiably hungry. Some have made me vomit unpredictably, or made me so dizzy that I couldn’t keep my eyes focussed or my feet on the ground. I’ve been so weak that I couldn’t walk. One made me shake so severely that I had to be carried to the bathroom, and couldn’t brush my own teeth without help.
I’ve regularly slept for sixteen hours a day because of medication, and been literally a zombie for the other eight hours, barely able to sit up straight, held down to my seat by the incredible burden of holding open my own eyelids, having no energy left over to do anything else.
I’ve gone through medication hell with the aspiration that I would find a combination to give me back the use of my brain, one that would make my thoughts make sense and convince the darkest version of myself that life was worth living.
This part of my journey has been horrendous. Even worse was that I developed a severe form of allergic reaction which meant that once my brain was settled, and finally deciding to cooperate, my medication then had to be abruptly stopped, making me a slave to whatever my brain wanted me to feel at a moment’s notice, most of which was unpleasant to say the least.
But this isn’t a cautionary tale against the use of prescription medication. Quite the opposite. If you’re treated for a significant period of mental illness (and chances are, at least one in four people will be), it’s more than likely that you will experience the side effects of prescription psychiatric medication. I want to emphasise the importance of pushing through it. Never take yourself off your medication without medical consultation. If, like me, you are within the tiny percentage of people unfortunate enough to experience potentially life-threatening side effects, seek medical attention immediately. Read the insert in the box so you’ll know to distinguish between benign side effects and potentially dangerous adverse reactions (which I stress, are rare).
Don’t give up. Communicate with your doctor. Give yourself the best opportunity to find a combination that works for you. I’ve spoken to many people who refuse taking medication for fear of side effects, but medication is an important part of self-management and a balanced care plan, and for me, it’s worth every ghastly side-effect possible to come out of the other side with a combination of pills that allows me to be part of the normal world.
Despite every adverse effect I have had to contend with, it is nothing compared with now having medications that work for me. When it comes to drugs, you name it, I’ve tried it, and in the process it’s probably made me vomit, pass out, cry uncontrollably, or tremble so badly that I can’t hold my own cup of tea.
I lost a month at work because my medications were waging war on my body and brain. But now that everything is as it should be, (within the limitations of my illness, at least), I can do many things that I wouldn’t be able to do unmedicated or without the right medication. Things like getting out of bed, or standing on the platform before the train arrives without wanting to throw myself under the next train that comes. I am able to have a conversation without slurring my speech, or speaking so quickly or with such urgency that I frighten whoever is listening.
Because of my medication, I’m confident in my prognosis, and though I have a life-long condition, I know it needn’t be life-limiting. And that’s worth all the side effects on the list.