Here is my Dear God letter, on the enticement of mania.
Dear God,
Perfect timing with this week’s reading, given that I’m, at present, in a hypomanic cycle with 40/20 vision: noticing the beauty and mystery in just about every inanimate object—even the skiddish squirrels running into the middle of the road just to psych me and my Honda Accord out.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”
That’s always been a favorite scripture quote of mine, and I didn’t know why until this morning, when I realized that Jesus is talking to manic depressives like myself. He is articulating the same message that Kay Redfield Jamison expresses when she writes “tumultuousness, if coupled with discipline and a cool mind, is not such a bad sort of thing. That unless one wants to live a stunningly boring life, one ought to be on good terms with one’s darker side and one’s darker energies.” Or, in the words of poet Kahlil Gibran: “Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”
Granted, most of the time I’m cursing you for this sensitivity—because it seems that I feel sadness much more than joy, anxiety more than peace, frustration or resentment more than love. Given that my depressive cycles outnumber my manic cycles about 10 to 1, I so often envy that middle ground—I think it’s called “balance”–where my friends and family have set up camp.
But not today. For once, I thank you for this fleeting moment of exhilaration that comes with my brain disease. It’s about time, I got a perk, you now. Now, don’t worry. I know that, just as I have to work hard to escape my depression, I too have to resist the urge to nurse my mania. But, just for a minute today, I’m staying here, in this happy place, where I can appreciate my colorful moods just as I gaze at the cherry blossoms outside and feel the beginning of Spring.