Even with Clopam

It's 7:38 P.M. and I basically haven't experienced this day at all because I stayed up all night last night. I just awoke because my dog insisted on taking shit. Otherwise, I would have slept the day away entirely, at the risk of then being awake during the night.

As I took the dog for her walk, I remembered the talk therapy I engaged in in 1986-2001. Yes, I overcame my fear of women during that period, graduated from college magna cum laude and entered law school with a full scholarship. But, I was experiencing mood swings that no one could explain to me. I cried daily and mourned for months, rooting around in my past for the basis of this mourning, without suspecting that it might simply have been my genetic makep.

I experienced daily attacks of rage that I tried to "vent" "appropriately", by beating a garbage can in a secluded area. But, I eventually beat all of my furniture, including my microwave oven, with an ax. I was trying desperately to act behaviorally "normal" even as my brain chemistry blew up repeatedly like a pressure cooker with a bad gasket.

Eventually, I "came on" to a woman who was a deeply good and intimate friend of mine but with no desire to engage with me romantically. When she didn't respond, I lost all interest in returning some of her favorite CD's to her, and I couldn't see that this behavior was problematic until the intercession of another close woman friend with whom I had a similar experience later.

"Julie" asked me if there wasn't something seriously wrong with me that Christmas, when she saw that I had rammed my Christmas tree through a closed window with the lights still flashing. (I know this wasn't original behavior. I had read about it in a recovery book and it seemed like a good idea.) "Julie" was perhaps shocked, terrified, and afraid for me.

I still cannot say that I fully or even partially understand that period, except to note that all of my success with my "issues" and academically and professionally left me with a big hole in my chest that nothing could fill. Even when I had a girlfriend who loved and doted on me, I cheated on her relentlessly, inviting another woman to the theatre with us, watching the show with one woman on each side. I knew my behavior was unconventional, but then my life has been relentlessly unconventional and promises to me more so in the future.

During that self-help college days period, I refused to take any medication at all, fearing that I might "stuff" or "medicate away" my feelings, or "bury my anger alive." In any case, medication hadn't seemed to improve the lives of the family members I knew. It just made them admittedly insane and chemically dependent.

It might have been the manic depressive episodes of my older brother that convinced me that some people simply need to take medication whether they like it or not - but not me, because I had the courage to "deal with my feelings". Meanwhile, my ever-changing and unpredictable chemistry was "dealing with me" on a daily basis.

When I started law school, my behavior became more clearly manic. I chased after and "sexed" three women and more women simultaneously; dressed to impress like a cock showing his colors, even when I couldn't afford it and when it would not help me to pass my first-year law classes or the Bar Exam. And, that Christmas, I bought expensive sweaters for all of my friends, who had already tired of the increasingly extreme inappropriateness of my various behaviors. My expensive presents were received like gifts of sugar candy during a typhoon of my own making.

Is it one's own fault when one is "insane" and behaves terribly? I used to believe that "placing blame" was useless, and yet the responsibility for fixing the behavior and its consequences lay with the sick person. Now, I understand that sometimes the responsibility for improving the behavior of the sick person lays in significant measure with the medication that the sick person takes. Even the refusal to take medication can be lain at the foot of the mental illness from which the person suffers, as in manic depression.

During my first year in law school, as I cried on the floors of my friends' houses with no relief in sight, I became so painfully insane that I welcomed ANY medication that would help me to feel better and meet my responsibilities without making my situation worse.

I had some brief interactions with the police during these periods, which I dealt with well, aside from the fact that my insane behavior had caused the interactions in the first place. I once was driving on a small street in Providence, Rhode Island, passing every car in spite of the traffic light at which we all would stop in moments. When I reached the traffic light and stopped, I saw the unmarked police car lights whirling in the car directly behind me - the one I had just passed and cut off.

The officer asked me what my problem was. Assuming correctly that my emotional turmoil was visible in my face, I simply looked contritely at the police officer and didn't say anything at all. In fact, had I known what my problem was, I probably would have sought treatment for it rather than behaving in that way. The officer perceived my extremesis and simply told me to drive more slowly, which saved him the trouble of checking me into a mental hospital.

The exact same thing happened again within weeks on another intersecting street in Providence, Rhode Island. Because I didn't drink or use drugs, and I knew I was behaving erratically, I wasn't belligerent or incoherent, which probably saved me many beatings and arrests.