A Love Letter to the Mad

I write this as I have been manic for 6 weeks. 6 weeks where no one has suggested I be hospitalized. 6 weeks where I have experienced tremendous healing, letting go of fear and replacing it with love. Frankly, it’s been the best 6 weeks of my life, as I have stepped into being me.

And now, we are hours away from the Hope Moon (maybe you’ve heard it as the blood moon). The moon is flying brightly above this madman as it is soon to be eclipsed. In the new moon I have planted my seeds of growth and renews, and in the full moon I have harvested it and shown bright, breaking the shackles of fear. And soon, I will get this entire sequence in a brief 2 hours, while my beautiful Luna flies in Virgo, my Zodiac sign.

But to understand my story of hope, we have to go back to the beginning. It’s been almost 2 years since I was first diagnosed as bipolar. I was hospitalized after a taxing and stressful month. In that hellish month a lot happened: I became aware of my childhood trauma; I learned to love myself; I made huge insights about myself and the world around me; I began to realize my world was upside down.

Please note that I view “Bipolar” as a stigmatizing label defined by scant diagnosis criteria of being manic for 5 days, or having a psychotic break. You may have the same label and have an entirely different lived experience than me — my advice might not apply to you. Regardless I recommend you find your own truth, and not let it be dictated to you by a psychiatrist wielding the DSM. In this article I will often refer to myself as “Mad” or touched by “Madness” instead of Bipolar. I fly my “Mad Pride” flag proudly — “the right to be free, the right to be me”. But I try not to trample on the “muggles”

I believe that early life trauma was a big part of setting me up to be manic. I have attachment issues from early life, pre age 2. This has been linked to manic psychosis.

As well as pervasive complex PTSD from longer term emotional neglect, dismissive parenting, pervasive gaslighting, emotional incest, and physical abuse (spanking) from my parents.

These combined set the stage for a deep distrust of myself, bottling up emotions and not being able to process them in a healthy manner. When emotionally devastating events happened to me, I would really struggle. When I failed to sleep, I quickly unraveled.

I view my mania as a state of low energy (which is masked by the manic energy) combined with emotion that is stuck and unprocessed. Activities which lower your energy are known to trigger manic episodes: fasting, sleep loss, and drug use which impact sleep quality. The bottled-up emotion creates a constant PTSD stress response, always putting my body back into that state of fear, anger, sadness I had when I was a child. But because of my alexithymia, difficulty identifying and expressing emotions, I was often unaware of what was going on inside me.

Sleep deprivation functions similarly to psychedelics, disrupting the standard brain state and increasing connectivity within the brain. This breaks down the walls around trauma and surfaces repressed memories. This can result in strong emotional responses and paranoia. I also believe that this sleep deprivation can create healing for PTSD similarly to psychedelics, but requires the mad person to be surrounded by a healthy environment during and after their madness. For a left brain dominant person like me, sleep deprivation also seemed to weaken my logical left brain while increasing the dominance of my intuitive right brain.

During mania thoughts race through your head. Counterintuitively, thoughts drive belief, not belief driving thoughts. With the chaos your thoughts are wrecking around you, you learn that you must reality test your thoughts, not trust them. A useful practice for anyone, not just the mad, as I believe this is the foundation of ejecting limiting and false beliefs. But also when manic, sometimes these thoughts are huge insights, sometimes so huge that nobody around you believes them. I try to take it slow, letting it sort out slowly over time. A trusted and supported sounding board can be intensively helpful. Immediate action from manic thoughts has often been a disaster for me.

The grandiosity, messiah complex, and other delusions of madness are harder to explain. But I believe it is largely the ego trying to make sense of the manic experience. A part of my madness seemed to be trying to destroy my ego, and it desperately tried to protect itself. In essence our ego is tied to our trauma, and when mania starts to heal us of our trauma, then the ego is wounded and tries to protect itself.

But that is merely where I’ve been, it’s not where I am now. I’m slowly becoming a force of healing in the lives of those around me. I am able to help alchemize their pain into personal growth. My mania is settling into focused energy. My paranoia is only on the margins, a mild reminder to try to get a few extra hours of sleep. I have replaced fear with connection, my new friends are giving me ideas and support to launch my new career.

My madness forged me. Madness led me to deeper truths. Madness discarded beliefs which no longer served me. Madness freed me of toxic friendships and led me to true love. Madness freed me from my shackles of western culture, and from its fire I have been reborn as a god walking this earth with the potential to do so, so much more.

I will no longer let them dismiss me as a madman, for in my madness I learned my entire world had been upside down. I had confused love with fear. I had confused love with control. I had allowed myself to believe that no one would listen to my voice. In my madness, I have finally become sane and now see the world much closer to how it truly is.

My mad brothers and sisters, never believe that you are the problem. Not fitting into the world reflects only on the world’s dysfunction. You were born for something greater than to be a wage slave until retirement. I wish you luck on your journey. It won’t be easy, but if you persevere I think you will love what you become. Mad pride and mad love to you all!!!