Psychos of NYC! I’ll be at Live From Outer Space at Cobra Club every Friday in May. Let’s hangout!
I’m going to attempt to contextualize WHY I may have developed Bipolar 1 Disorder. First of all, it’s possible that I would have developed it, regardless, because of a genetic disposition towards mood disorders that runs in my family. For example, my grandfather on my mother’s side was on Lithium. I don’t know the specifics of his diagnosis, but I do know that I’m currently on Lithium. Sooooo, there’s that. Lithium, by the way, is a fascinating medication, which deserves an entire chapter of its own. For now, though, I’ll just say that it is considered to be the gold standard of treatment for Bipolar Disorder. Unfortunately, it wasn’t prescribed to me until 14 years after my initial diagnosis. For many years, it had fallen out of fashion because of a new wave of mood stabilizers and antipsychotics that the pharmaceutical industry was pushing. In part, they were pushing these new medications because they could make considerably more money off of them, seeing as Lithium is an element and can’t be patented. Therefore, it is very cheap.
I must admit, however, even if I was prescribed Lithium immediately after getting my diagnosis, I would have most certainly refused to take it for many years. The truth is, for way too long, I tried to outrun Bipolar Disorder, instead of making my mental health central to my life. This foolishness wreaked untold havoc upon friends, family and strangers, alike. I burned a lot of people. I wallowed in regret and self-hate because of it. I found the road to self-forgiveness impossible to traverse. I processed an unspeakable amount of psychological pain. I lived in the darkness. I cried a lot. It sucked. That’s depression. Anyway, here’s why I may have developed Bipolar…
It’s December of 1997. I’m a junior at Mountain Lakes high school in suburban, New Jersey. The nickname for the high school is Mountain “Bakes” because of all of the drug use associated with the school. The popular kids are called “Lakers.” I like to describe them as being “Fashion Hippies.” A “Fashion Hippie” is somebody who wears a Grateful Dead tie dye t-shirt, but then wears a J.Crew rollneck sweater on top of it. They wear cargo pants, birkenstocks and hats repping obscure liberal arts colleges with lacrosse teams. They ingest copious amounts of mind-altering substances, including psychedelics, but attain no insight or enlightenment. They’re too mean-spirited and banal for that sort of thing. It’s like giving pearls to swine. This is the loathsome “Fashion Hippie.” And holy hell did I ever want to be one of them!!! Lol. So what better way for me to attain “Laker” status than to drop acid at a New Year’s Eve Phish concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City? Yeah, we’ll get back to that fucking nightmare in a minute…
First, I need to talk about Latin class. Instead of taking woodshop as an elective like a normal kid, I decided to take Latin. I always revered that my father studied Latin and Greek when he was in school, so I thought I would study Latin, the dead language. I excelled in my studies, having somewhat of a natural inclination toward picking up languages. I do actually think there is value in learning Latin, because its structure underpins all of the romance languages. I do not, however, think there is value in having a teacher named Dr. Bond who was an evangelical, proselytizing Catholic (somehow in a public school). He used his position of influence to attempt to convince his students that if we didn’t live our lives in a certain way, we’d burn in hell for eternity. As silly as it might sound, his attempt to indoctrinate impressionable teenagers into the psychologically abusive heaven/hell paradigm worked; at least on a few us, myself included. How did he achieve his holy mission? He used linguistic sleight of hand.
Dr. Bond said that there must be such a thing as objective truth, because if you say, “There is no such thing as objective truth,” you’re presenting that statement as being an objective truth, thus you’re contradicting yourself. Therefore, there must be objective truth. Okayyy. I guesss. Lol. He then said that the Catholic Church believes in objectivity and that it is, in fact, the one true church, objectively. And if you don’t follow the tenets of the church, you’ll go to hell for eternity. I realize this argument alone is quite flimsy, but there’s more.
Dr. Bond also used the brilliance of Plato’s ‘The Allegory of the Cave’ against us. If you’re not familiar, ‘The Allegory of the Cave’ is about a group of prisoners who are trapped inside a cave since their birth. They’re immersed in darkness and chained. They’re chained in such a way that they can’t move their bodies or their heads. They can only look at the wall in front of them. This wall is their entire world. There is a fire lit behind them with a puppet show stage directly in front of the fire. This setup allows for other people to project shadow figures onto the wall that the prisoners are forced to stare at. These shadow figures act as a sort of re-creation of people and animals and objects that exist outside of the cave-prison.
Because the shadow figures are all that the prisoners know, they believe the shadow figures are the only true things that exist. This means that, to the prisoners, the shadows are more real than actual people and animals and objects. Next, in the allegory, a thought experiment is proposed. What if one of the prisoners were set free and turned toward the fire/light? He certainly would be too disoriented and ill equipped to make sense out of the various actual objects and figures that he, previously, was only seeing in shadow form. In fact, to the prisoner, the imperfect shadow form of the various objects and figures would seem more real to him than the actual objects and figures. Also, the very sight of the fire/light would be so painful and foreign to the prisoner that he would instinctively and hurriedly turn away, back toward the “comfort” of the wall/darkness.
The thought experiment is then taken a step further. What if the prisoner is released from the cave altogether? This sudden exposure to broad daylight would be even more confusing and disorienting and terrifying. Over time, however, little by little, the prisoner could become accustomed to the reality that the sun is the primary source of light. The allegory ends by envisioning the prisoner, with his newfound insight, going back into the cave. Immediately, his eyes are filled with darkness. He can’t even see the shadows on the wall anymore. He tries to impart his wisdom to the other prisoners, but they don’t believe him. They actually think he is blind. They would go so far as to try and kill him, if he tried to free them from the “comfort” of the shadow figures of their cave-prison. It’s all they know.
And yes, I realize I just used multiple paragraphs to describe an olde tyme version of ‘The Matrix.’ Lol. But Dr. Bond took this allegory and convinced us that the shadows on the wall were secular/relativist society, and that the truth (the light) was his version of Catholicism. And I have to make clear: This was not the loving version of Catholicism that my grandmother practiced. This was not the charitable version of Catholicism that helps those in need. This was not the communal version of Catholicism that provides meaning for people in their lives. This was something different. This was something scary and psychologically abusive. This was something that really got its claws into me. It messed with my head to the point where I had an ever-present anxiety that if I didn’t live my life in a certain way, I was going to burn in hell for eternity. I got indoctrinated with that shit as a teenager. I can’t believe what it would be like to be mind-fucked with that shit as a child!
So yeah, it’s important to understand that going into this acid trip at the Phish concert, my worldview was deeply influenced by the insidious heaven/hell duality.
Also, to further contextualize, I have to quickly reveal the tragedy of the first time I ever got high smoking weed. It went quite poorly, to put it lightly. My soccer team tied me up with medical tape and threw me underneath a cold shower and poured soap in my eyes. Ever since then, every time that I would smoke weed in high school, I would instantly become “burnt.” I’d immediately be totally in my head and paranoid and freaked out. DAMN YOU, “FASHION HIPPIES,” FOR RUINING WEED FOR ME!!! Lol. That really was a messed up experience, though. One minute I was high and laughing my ass off, and the next I was scared and cold and humiliated. The only way to describe that overwhelming and vast spectrum of emotions is as though I was listening to Richard Pryor’s ‘Live on the Sunset Strip’ while simultaneously being waterboarded. (Note: That analogy is funny to me, but nobody else ever seems to laugh at it.)
So yeah, it’s also important to understand that going into this acid trip at the Phish concert, my relationship with marijuana was already traumatic. And that’s where we’ll pick up next week. Thanks so much for reading this, Psychos!
So you know, the audio link at the top is a stand up bit of mine called “Bipolar Disorder Song.” I think you’ll enjoy it.
Love,
JFOD
My First Manic Episode (Part Two)