Time to Reevaluate Mental Illness

A good writer friend of mine sent me an article yesterday from an issue of Psychology Today. It was written by Dr. Neel Burton, in conjunction with release of his Book Hide & Seek: The Psychology of Self-deception, which expounds insights into mental disorders and related effects.  My friend Tony sent it because it focused on Bipolar Disorder, what I've had for 35 years and still counting. I've read medical books on it, and tons of articles and essays, riveting personal accounts from Kay Jamison and Marya Hornbacher, Patty Duke et al. Heck, you know I've written and published my own story about my experiences. Yet this article was very different. Unique. Something I'd never contemplated and I'm sure most people are clueless about.

Like most of the billions of facts, histories, opinions and conjectures we've never heard or read, unless we searched them out or remembered them because they affected us directly, this little article might disappear as well. I mean, I've already written that in this age Content is King, and publishers online and off are inundating us with news, personal stories and opinions. So what's another mental illness article?

Here's the phrase that struck me: "...thus that they (our genes) must be conferring an important adaptive or evolutionary advantage..." followed by "...the genes that predispose to bipolar disorder also predispose to greater achievement and success..." Wow and wow again. To me, the full article is stating that our genes, human genes, have been and are adapting, evolving, . . . in a bipolar direction! Is that wild?

This means so much to me! It confirms what I've always felt -- I'm not crazy, not mentally ill. I functioned halfway around the world for nine full days while in a fully manic state. How could I do that? Being predisposed to non-aggression helped. But what I felt and knew and manifested -- untold energy; commitment to a vision, even compulsion; possibly solving hundreds of world problems; inspiration; and keen awareness of what was around me; my purpose, and the confidence and will to see it thru; were all elements of my manic state 5,000 miles away from home, alone.

No doubt without daily medications these past decades, I'd be divorced, homeless, an alcoholic or druggie, institutionalized or dead. That's reality. But Dr. Burton is saying to me, by giving so many, so many, examples of hypomanic or manic entertainers, artists, even statesmen, that bipolar has positive benefits on creativity, insight and is a knowledge generator. I've always known this. I have tried to express this in concrete terms in my memoir. All I can do is try. We have much to learn.

What I'm trying to say is that all humanity has been and will continue indefinitely to move to higher consciousness. That's a promise from all the Prophets of God thruout millenia. Each has provided fuller knowledge, expanded thinking and new civilizations by the billions of hearts and minds. These Gems of Holiness could be classified as the ultimate, controlled, fully manic leaders of ever more progressive ages. 

As so many accounts of manic episodes prove, mania accelerates higher consciousness. And to Dr. Burton's well-taken point, bipolar "illness" is not being diluted in the gene pool, but is trending upwards, expanding. More and more hypomanic and manic states and examples are appearing every day, already approaching 10 million teens and adults here in the U.S., even if not properly labelled or diagnosed for years, or until too late to prevent their own suicide at a 30% rate. Of course, we have not reached perfection.

Of course it would be so. We are as adolescents on our way toward fuller maturity, wiser knowledge, greater cooperation and a time when "The lion and the lamb shall lay down together," symbolizing our animal and human natures in harmony.

And our hearts and chemical brains are leading us all to a glorious future.

by Rodney Richards Copyright 2014
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Surviving Bipolar Disorder in the modern age . . . a journey of Hope for the afflicted.
My poetic memoir Episodes available at www.amazon.com/episodes-rodney-richards/dp/0615914705/