From Manic Depression to The Other Shore
I suffered a 14 year, debilitating, excruciating, terrifying, traumatic depression. It lasted so long that my parents would cry themselves to sleep every night for 11 years once they fully realized how dreadful it was and how I couldn’t function because of the flashbacks. People with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, people who have flashbacks and can’t function because of them, and Manic Depression, would understand. It was so traumatic that I almost died from it. Luckily, I didn’t die because what follows is a story that could help people cope and guide through manic depression, to inspire them in the darkest times.
After 14 years, when I couldn’t take the suffering anymore and my family couldn’t take it, the sleepless nights, the crying all day, the intense suffering that mental illness has on the entire family. Manic Depression coupled with flashbacks and delusions is a dreadful fate. It is so intense and so insane that no one could understand it and what had happened. Once at the height of it my dad was in such pain that he cried in the worst way, the most excruciating sorrow. “What happened to you over there? How could this happen to you? You are my soul, all I ever wanted was for you to be happy.” In Hebrew happy translates more to OK, or good, or well, in this context. But remembering that really brings tears to my eyes, because even now that I am 7 years out of the misery, and free from the sorrow, flashbacks and trauma, depression and terror in the mind, I still mourn for that child. That time was so heavy, so painful, for so long, that we thought I would never get out of it. We thought I was going to die this way or live in a mental hospital or a severe mental state of dysfunctionality that ends in homelessness, or that I would have to be taken care of all my life. Many PTSD sufferers and mentally ill, as we all know, end up on the streets. Most homelessness is due to mental illness of one kind or another. It was through the love of my family that I did not end up homeless and insane. It was through the care of my parents and doctors that I did not.
I want to help those who suffer from trauma and, above all, Manic Depression to find peace, serenity and freedom from the suffering. A deep drive within me, after speaking at a meeting, and touching the people so much, I realized there is a story that people who suffer from mental illness need to hear. It is a story of redemption and compassion. Family and friends who stick by, and those who did not, the pain of loss and the joy of knowing you will never have to suffer again. The realization that comes to those who overcame PTSD, that heaven has been realized and that there is no way that the hell will come back. Those who completely surrendered to the immeasurable pain that comes with mental illness and chronic, continuous, long lasting, torture of mental states. Those who are so messed up in inside that their mom’s eyes turn blue from crying so much. Knowing the depth of sorrow that her youngest son has and not knowing why, what, or how it happened. And that there is actually a way out.
There is a way out of suffering mental illness, manic depression and trauma. There is a redemption that comes to those who suffer from extreme and insane states of mind. Those who have flashbacks. Who can’t imagine ever being free of the immense sorrow that their mind produces. The pain serum that spews every ounce of blood with pain and misery, the excruciating nights of terror in the mind. Believed that unless you died you would be with this terror forever. And knowing that you would never do that to your parents, to actually take your own life, that you will be fucked forever. That you will never get out of the flashbacks, the crying all day and night. The violence, the regret. The never ending sorrow, loss, and pain that no one can possibly understand. You can’t understand it. You thinking. “This precious being. This lovely soul that loved life more than anyone and smiled more than anyone is now in the darkest of pains. The diamond turned to coal. The black pain of disturbance and insanity. They say, we mustn’t fight in front of the children, all for naught because I went insane.” The world ended when I went to college at age 18 and Bipolar triggered the trauma. I died. In the worst possible way. I died. There was no way out of this trauma. The before and after was killing me. I was in so much pain and progressive depression that it felt like my real self got killed and here I was, mourning my own death.
I was mourning the loss of a beautiful child, and it was my own. I was mourning the loss of myself. In the future I would come to realize that when I lost my ‘self” for real, I really did die. I died twice in my life. The second time will be written, but I am to point out for the one who still suffers from mental illness, flashbacks and insanity, that at the time it really feels like you are mourning your own death.
Something for relief. God knows the addictions aren’t helping. I so wanted a moment of freedom. But it didn’t come. For 14 years I was in dark dark place. A shadow of a life. A shadow of breath. I was in a place of so much misery that my dad once said as I cried to him, “It’s impossible to live like this, your ruining our lives. I don’t sleep at night. I cry all day.” Mental illness affects the entire family. If you have compassionate family you will see a lot of love pour forth from them and ultimately from you. Eventually your mental illness and insanity will heal your family. You will come to a place of peace and happiness that you won’t even regret those decades of misery. You will find yourself so purely so kindly with self-healing that you will see that it was all divine. Even the years of loss, the years of loneliness, of never dating, of addiction.
I am open now, so as to touch the aspect of your being that sees beyond the pain, that aspect of your being that feels that there is redemption underneath the miserable state. There is joy underneath the sorrow. There is sanity underneath the madness. In fact you will be more sane than those that never looked within and found their true self. Those who don’t suffer like the mentally ill suffer, the schizophrenia, the suicidal depression, the mania, the trauma. Those who suffer it for decades, for years, come out with a special light in their eyes. They overcame the world’s worst mental disease and they overcame with shining colors. The light of emptiness that shines through the unmanifested life of your inner slayed daemons of your most precious soul. You will come to a place of such peace, such joy, that nothing will be able to shake you. Nothing you do will be able to hurt you any more. Nothing that happens to you will cause you sorrow. You will experience relief from insanity and suffering in a way that will make it almost impossible to ever be sad again. No matter what. Because you will know the strength of forbearance the strength of a warrior spirit who has come into this world to heal it. You will know that you were not suffering in vain all these years. Once you overcome your own madness you will overcome the worlds as well. You will overcome the entire panorama of experiences that make up the feeling that there is such a thing as a separate self.
I found a medicine that did that for me. It was 5 days after I took that medicine along with other Bipolar meds, after 11 years of trying different meds like Depakote or Lithium for years, all did nothing for me. But I woke up from another blackout 5 days after I took the Abilify. I had no hope. I told my psychiatrist I have no hope. I will die like this. I will be on my deathbed, I told my best friend, I will call you over and I will say, why did I go to San Diego. That’s what I called my depression, San Diego. I was so deluded that I believed that going to college 3 hours drive away from home was the cause of my insanity and my eternal misery and damnation for me and my family. I didn’t have the ability then to see the fallacy of that assumption.
Insanity is interesting. It is so painful to feel traumatic brain madness that no one could understand it unless they have had it. I say there is a cure for this incurable disease just as there is grace in accepting the unacceptable. Just like John Nash says in A Beautiful Mind, “This is a problem without a solution. And that’s what I do. I solve problems. That’s what I do best…I can do this. I can work it out. All I need is time.” For me it was a combination of extreme pain and hopelessness at a time when it was literally do or die for me. I was going to die of a broken heart or overcome this…
And I overcame it. I kept taking the Abilify even though I had no hope. And like I said that I don’t remember what happened for those 5 days of taking the medicine that doctors call a wonder drug. I woke up and I was free. I must have died again like I did in the dorms. I must’ve died the right way this time. Because the first thing I remember when I woke up from those 5 days was that I will never suffer this trauma again, and as a result nothing can ever make me suffer again because I overcame the world’s worst mental diseases. I felt a feeling of unbelievable freedom. I knew it was to never come back and haunt our family again. And I was right. Other than this one time I stopped taking the Abilify for 2 days and I felt the sweat of fear come back. So I rushed to the trash can and pulled the precious pink pill and took two. Again years later I stopped for 2 weeks and it came back but not as bad. Personally now I feel that the pain will never come back. But it would be worse if I stopped. I wouldn’t stop the meds because, for one, they saved my life and in turn my family’s life. And secondly it is silly and dangerous to stop medication all at once. Many people with bipolar who believe they are cured and stop taking the meds suffer again from the depression and have to start over. I was exactly the same way till I found the right mix. Once I did, I took the pills daily and never looked back.
I realize now that there were many factors to my healing . There are medical doctors and friends who say it’s 90 percent because of the medication. In some ways they are correct. But I cannot dismiss all the other factors.
So the medicine and the spiritual work finally did it’s trick. But it was after 14 years of debilitation and different medicines and psychiatrist who had no way of helping me and even gave up at times.
It was another black out, another death, but this time it was a good kind of death. The prayer of St. Francis reads, “That it is by dying that one is born to eternal life.” It is with this message that I write this story. I write it to show and guide the sufferer through the death and rebirth of their pain and resurrection. From the depth of suffering and immense insanity I write to you. To inspire those who don’t see a way out of PTSD and Manic Depression, whether brought about through one reason or another, mostly genetic. Whether your family doesn’t know, doesn’t understand or doesn’t know how to help you. I write in order to comfort you in your times of sorrow. So as to tell you that there is a way out. There is something healing about the written word. Something healing about hearing the suffering of another and knowing that it was through the transmutation of pain into harmony that this metamorphosis took place. It took seven more years before I spoke about this story to anyone and how long it took me to write this. But when I opened up to people and saw the compassion in their eyes and the inspiration they got from hearing the redemption and liberation that comes with freedom from insanity and an arising awareness filled with bliss, I was hoping my suffering through mental illness would heal another’s pain. As Santideva speaks in the 2000 year old Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, “May the blind see the forms, May the deaf hear sounds. May the naked find clothing, The hungry find food; May the thirsty find water And delicious drinks. May the poor find wealth, Those weak with sorrow find joy; May the forlorn find new hope, constant happiness and prosperity, May the frightened cease to be afraid And those bound be freed; May the powerless find power, And may the people think of benefiting one another.”
Just because the beacon of light doesn’t hit your heart in the way it hit Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Just because Rumi’s awakening is different than yours or the quest for knowledge different from Leonardo Da Vinci’s, doesn’t mean it isn’t real. One sees the light, the other takes a little bit more to see it. But the light is always there. All the great ones have gone through the darkness. All the angels have gone through hell. You no longer need to suffer in vain. In Out of The Darkness, Steve Taylor writes about those who lost their child who came out of that misery through intense surrender to the unbelievable suffering. As Eckhart Tolle puts it; “And there have been people in concentration camps, similar. Totally unacceptable situations. Continuous intense suffering. Not knowing whether they would survive another hour, another day. Every moment could be the last. And suddenly. A complete Yes. And suddenly the have reported, a few to whom it happened to. A great sense of deep peace. In the midst of hell. Peace in the midst of hell. That is the deepest teaching of the image of Christ on the Cross because ultimately every human is Christ on the Cross.”
You have suffered greatly. You have seen Mania and Depression and felt their destruction. You have suffered the loss of soul and innocence. And now it’s time to reclaim it back but in a deeper dimension of selfless awareness. We fall into the hellish fire without scars and a self and we come out with scars and scathed, but without one.
