Reply
Tue 13 Jan, 2009 11:42 am
This an extact from my account with life and death brought on be manic/depression
Before the unimaginable lows of depression my restless dynamic mind moved between a vast host of subjects, as diverse as physics, chemistry, quantum mechanics, history, music, art, poetry, religion, medicine, anatomy, thermodynamics, micro and macro biology, anthropology, wild life, creation, mathematics, metaphysical, geography, engineering, computer science, plate tectonics, genetics, mind control, physiology, psychiatry, psychology evolution, cosmology, astronomy, plate tectonics, genetics, literacy, science fiction, engineering, the origin and end of all things, the esoteric world, philosophy, architecture, the study of the lives of great men, origin of man, etc,
. I lost my faith in God and consequently my rudder to guide through the trials of life is gone. I feel now lost in the vast ocean in the doldrums of existence. I just want to cease to exist now and cover myself with the peace of the dark blanket of oblivion.
.
. I stopped eating, did not sleep for weeks and lost weight rapidly. I had endless energy. Speeding vivid thoughts like a torrential rapid raging river flooded my brain. I began to write, think and talk nonstop became poetic, musical and danced and sang with unspeakable joy.
I felt so very very wonderful, happy and totally convinced God
Filled with laughter and the joy of life everything was beautiful. My sense of humor returned to an unusual extent and I found everything extremely funny indeed.
It was June 1980 and it was snowing outside in, for the first time in twenty years JohannesburgSouth Africa.
Returning to work in this state of optimism, not knowing then that this was my first encounter with the evil sister of depression
The sublime wonder mixed with cold horror of manic psychosis began.
I have to try my very best with all the skills of my gift with the written word to take the reader with me on this journey of terror and horror that goes on in the basement of my chaotic maelstrom mind and brain, when I am in the relentless unrelenting grip, grasp and throes of this evil psychotic, insane madness of manic insanity.
As I feel so tremendously high, energetic and good, in the first stage of mania, I immediately stop all my medication, throwing it down the toilet when no one is looking.
. The delicious pleasure of the first stages of the manic phase are so seductive and so far better than any drug high, one feels that an eternity in this happy glorious joyful beautiful state is an absolute necessity to be sustained maintained forever. Nothing can convince me, when I am like this, that there is anything wrong with me and any one trying to reason with me that I am unwell makes me very indignant, Irritable and very angry.
Looking back now and after much careful reflection, I note that the trigger my mania was caused by unbalanced brain neurotransmitters, causing my brain to race and burn out. Thoughts, came with nonstop obsessions and uncontrollable non- thinking, trying to know the inscrutable? Religious obsession? What is the universe expanding into if it is everything? What is absolute nothingness? Is infinity possible? Why do we exist, is there a God, Infinity?
he impossible concept of eternity? My finite mind trying to arrive at by precise and finite means the explanation for all inscrutably mysteries , the enigma of evil, the enigma that there is no such thing as nothingness?, what is time?, what is life?, what is the of purpose of life?, what is energy?, know the mind of god?, is evolution toe?, what is gravity?, what is god?, what came before the big bang of creation?, how many dimensions are there in existence?, are there other universes beyond ours, what is outside the boundaries of the universe,
Will the universe continue to expand forever?, what is forever?, is there life after death? Is there a heaven or a hell? What is the purpose of life/, is life meaningless? etc, etc, etc.
I feel unreasonably that I must know everything in existence, that it is imperative to unravel all mysteries to know the inscrutable mind of God and become one with the infinite eternal divine sublime reality. On, on, and on day and night, without rest trapped in a life- time cycle of questions with no answers that I simply cannot accept.
An unsettling uncontrollable flood of never-ending disturbing thoughts that give me no rest, day and night. I must just know everything before meaningless death overtakes me and I die in ignorance.
Mania is so very delightful at first, so seductive and wonderful creeping unawares on the helpless victim, cannot tell or will even admit that there was anything wrong, because of the fact that one feels so unearthly wonderful.
Please note that what I am describing is not the mild beneficial hypomania of high performing persons of history who also had this disorder.
This mild form of mania existed in a large number of great and creative persons. It was there that one saw the enormous energy of Winston Churchill , Ludwig Van Beethoven, William Blake, Napoleon Bonaparte,, Charles Dickens, T.S. Elliot, Robert Frost, Sigmund Freud, Ernest Hemingway, Abraham Lincoln, Jack London, Robert Cow ell, Michelangelo,, Mozart, Isaac Newton, Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain, Vincent Van Gogh, King David, King Saul. To name a very few of the countless great personalities that suffered in different degrees from a milder form of this disorder.
To reiterate, the first symptom of mania is the lifting of depression one feel so very wonderful, I always stop all medication. Once I reached the higher level of mania, where I no longer had any control over myself
I progressively went into a long altered state of consciousness, sometimes as long as three months before some normality returned.
Energy becomes so boundless and one is dangerously without fear, stop sleeping, develop extreme, sublime, exalted grandiosity, ecstasy, joy, wonder, delight, rapture bliss, elation, sublime euphoria, hallucinates constantly and has bright eyelid visions, stops, eating and etc, etc.
Who would ever want to give up a state of mind like this? Everything is much much more intense, colors are more beautiful, smell becomes much more acute, food tastes wonderful, sleep is not necessary, endless imagery reading researching debating writing thinking laughing everything is fully have godlike insight.
Eyes are bright hair shining skin looking healthy. Losing weight rapidly as appetite decreases and in the end one simply stops eating altogether.
Everything becomes so bright so glorious, beautiful colors of flowers crass, trees, sky, stars, every thing is now observed and recorded in the minutest detail, so unearthly, unspeakably indescribably beautiful beyond the normal senses.
Is this then heaven?, no! As an incandescent light overloaded with too great voltage, my neurons are all lit up at once and if continued would blaze for a short while burn out, blink out, and die if this continued. of the sublime, indeed I am Christ merged with God and all-powerful and Omni-all.
It then progresses to constant nonstop rapid uncontrollable thinking, wild laughter, and increased sense of humor non-stop talking. Acute sense of taste smell touch & vision, sound everything is more acute, in this advanced phase of manic madness. I am convinced I have developed a sixth sense, that I am God.
I become delusional, begin to hallucinate, sometimes-beautiful visions of other worlds, universes, heaven and see and perceive colors that do not exist on this earth. I feel I was in constant communication every being in existence as I was truly God I was convinced I was god. I feel that I am the incarnation of the sublime wanting to remain in this state forever.
I continue to have vivid visions and dreams, so real that I still do not know if I was communicating with some higher intelligence. I can see the future flashing before my eyes in rapid non-stop visions.
My eyes dart back and forth, back and forth, become red, and inflamed and terrifying to look into. I am in another reality beyond space and time an alarming altered state of consciousness.
No loner feeling glorious, I am becoming more and scared, terrified of this uncontrollable state and everything starts to go out of contra.
My body begins to die from the unrelenting drain off energy on it by this completely abnormal state of affairs. I became paranoid fearful, horrified, terrified desperate to escape the horror that has become my tormented mind. Is there a hell? yes! I have experienced it already on this earth.
Was I dangerous then? Yes! Very dangerous to myself and if I had remained in this state much longer, I could have killed some innocent bystander or myself.
I was by now completely out of control completely without fear. How could I fear if I was God? The police arrived and as soon as I saw him, I grabbed his gun and told him to shoot me. I was unafraid of anything and uncaring whether if I lived or died.
The police unsure of what was wrong with me with great difficulty took me forcible to a doctor nearby. The doctor was terrified of me with my wild insane appearance and had no clue of what was wrong with me.
Eyes glowing, darting side to side back and forth back and forth completely red with pupils dilated. Laughing and babbling hysterically like a rapid broken record on high speed.
By now the police, doctors (yes there was by now two trying to rationalize what was wrong with this terrifying insane demon in their midst?).
One of the doctors said in my hearing to someone that I was in the throes of severe vitamin withdrawal" I found this comment hysterically funny ridiculous and hilarious and burst into extremely loud sustained hysterical laughter. The doctor corrected me by saying he did not say vitamin withdrawal but amphetamine withdrawal.
I kept asking the police officer to shoot me as I was convinced I was immortal. Luckily, for me kindly refrained. He was a kind and loving young man that realized that something was s very wrong with me and held my hand throughout this awful event.
He asked me if one of the doctors present could give me an injection and I agreed, saying they could inject any poison even cyanide into me and I would not react, as I was a God-man. They subsequently gave me nine injections of some concoctions in order to calm me down.
At first, these injections seem to have no affect on me and the young police officer was the only one that could calm me down somewhat.
Unknown to me an ambulance had been called to take me urgently into a mental hospital on the advice of a psychiatrist, which one off the doctors had contacted telephonically.
On arriving hospital now descending down and down into an almost coma state. Given further injections of unknown substance and began to drift off. "(Twelve injections in all? I am lucky to be alive)".
In hospital, TV like visions on my eyelids continued to horrify and plague me so badly I was terrified to close my eyes. Just by thinking and closing my eyes, I could see any member of my family or anyone else and observe exactly what they were doing at the time no matter where they on earth. I had become psychic.
I saw in this way, terrifying clear as day in full color three-dimensional moving images of the past as well as the future. After each vision, a "voice?" would ask me, "do you want to savor the moment?"
I also by just thinking about something, someone, somewhere or indeed and I saw what I wanted to she on my eyelids as one sees on a movie screen. Don't believe?, I do not care I know I have seen what I have seen I was convinced I could see into and hear telepathically the mind of all living things, especially humans..
An uncontrollable cacophony and babble of voices from thousands of minds all around me soon became loud and unbearable. I escaped from hospital by jumping out of a window, early in the morning when it was still dark cold. It was mid- winter and I was freezing in my pajamas looking up into the dark sky waiting for the coming of God and his host of angels I began to thirst, (possible due to the affect of the twelve injections previously mentioned).
My mouth was dry I thirsted. In my mind, there in the darkness of the early morning, I saw the slaughter of the innocents. I saw and heard a message from God to humanity; "mere mortal man, "I God am not pleased with you". I heard god replacing world leaders.
I started to speak to myself and had visions of hell. I tried looking outward into infinity/ eternity/ nothingness and retracted my mind in alarm, in an effort to prevent myself from going completely psychotic, from the monstrous colossal undiluted evil I see. Is this the evil eternal thing destined for the eternal abyss?
I feel the desolation of this place, A place so evil so horrible even God will not look into it. I fear and think God will thrust this evil and me, into this bottomless pit and forget us there forever?
I go into a stupor and retract into a deep coma, and seem to observe from at the very cliff edge the true ultimate end of the horror that is the monster of manic madness and death.
Where there still options left for me. Who could help me now? Where was I to go from this terrible place? That is the battleground of my mind. I believe I came out of this hideous madness by going to my creator calling out to God to help me, and he lifted me out again into his light with infinite power and love.
Love conquers all. It is the love of my family, my beloved wife, caring friends and wonderful doctors that I am alive still and able to write this account hoping somehow it could help someone else in a similar dilemma. There is always hope. Be warned guard the door to your mind.
Going back to the first moment of awareness, when god was alone in the infinite darkness of ultimate loneliness, I knew he had a good eternal reason for creating me and nothing evil would ever prevail against him.
I jerking awake from the coma, I see a glorious beautiful translucent light of many colors, light now dispelled the darkness of me brain.
Hope eternal returns to me my misery turns to quiet peace. I feel final victory of goodness could be at hand.
I see a view from the very highest of mountains. I looked out, saw there was no horizon, and attempted to look at and understand infinity. The plain I see goes on forever and forever with no end. I tried to comprehend infinity and immediately started to retract, from this paradox of the incomprehensible.
I realized that it was futile to try to unravel the inscrutable When I got back home I noticed that I had become very creative writing papers on poetry, physics, history, philosophy, science, astronomy, cosmology, relativity and biblical interpretation Unique thoughts out nowhere and not found in literature just came to me out of the blue as revelation which I then documented onto my computer.
I found I was posing questions that none no one internet had asked by googling on all the subjects that interested me. My mind was constantly active.
Was this the last of the episodes? No! Nevertheless, up to the time of writing this article I have never experienced another episode remotely as severe as that detailed above.
I often hear that all trauma has a purpose and once we have survived it we come out learning some mystery of life, become wiser and more balanced.
I can not buy this point of view in my case as I see what has happened to me and what is indeed still happening to my as pain without purpose or reason. Maybe in the next life, if there is one, the reason, if there is one, will finally be revealed to me.
I have to remain on medication to control my bi-polar depression for the rest of my life.
Alan Grant McDougall 20/6/2007.
Anyone going through a similar experience is most welcome to contact me on the addresses listed below, I will do my utmost to help them in anyway I can. You know this just might be the purpose I had to endure the horror of the most severe type of manic/depression, so that I might be of some help and comfort to others in a similar dilemma, knowing no matter how dark things seem to be there is always hope.
ALAN
@Alan McDougall,
During my younger years I took ecstasy a few times (only like 3-4 times)and felt like God. It was weird, I just seemed to understand and connect with everything... Good luck with life man.
@xris,
Hi Alan
I too am a sufferer or maybe not more a recipient of the experiences you describe almost word for word, though in my case my actions ended up in countless psychiatric institutions, in various parts of the world.
How to explain to someone a feeling of knowing all and being in concert with that which created all, call it" God" if you want. For me after several such episodes. I have come to understand my existence with greater clarity and that of us all.
My friend, we are the fortunate ones , for we have been able to see beyond the unseen, to feel what most will never feel and to comprehend that which is difficult to understand.
Our existence is to convey to our fellow men that there is another and better way, we have glimpsed it. It is the heaven on Earth of which Christ and other mystics have spoken about.
It is a state of consciousness where everything is interconnected and a symbiosis of existence allows us to taste the fruits of " Gods" bounty.
Where love is the overriding emotion, love of all and everything and the knowing that we are a part of that which created us all. And that we can have a conscious relationship with that entity which allows us to experience Nirvana.
So do not despair, remember your pain has not been without reason, and in time, maybe sooner than you think . The reward for your "madness" will reveal itself, and those who may have feared, pitied or despised you. will seek your council.
For you, like many others, hold the the key to mankind's eternal happiness.
You have seen the light and as such you are a guide to our Heavenly future.
Walk in the light my friend and fear not. For there is nothing to fear.
YOUR FUTURE IS BRIGHT.
KHALIM.
Kalim's reassurance is well taken. Psychosis is undoubtedly an expression of chemicals out of whack. But remember we ARE chemicals, as is the entire Universe.
Alan's letter to us is beautifully motivated and written, for that I am grateful. Just consider the artistry of this sentence:
"I feel the desolation of this place, A place so evil so horrible even God will not look into it. I fear and think God will thrust this evil and me, into this bottomless pit and forget us there forever?"
That's art. Congratulations, Alan.
Stumble It!
Tweet This
Bookmark on Delicious
Share on Facebook
Share on MySpace