From Dog–Man Underwater To Stars In An Eyelash: The Logic–Magic Of Bipolar Disorder

The 24th of December 2021, totally desperate and having drowned in haschich again, I entered one more time in the psychiatric clinic, with the aim of avoiding suicide, ‘celebrating’ the beginning of the third year of my almost continuous, severe, and resistant-to-treatment depression, trying seismic therapy (rough and invasive electroschoks in the brain), and detoxicating myself. After one extremely gloomy and unbearable angst-filled week, just before my first electroschoks session, without any explanation, I woke up one morning with the sensation of being perfectly fine and ‘normal’. My condition rapidly turned to over-excitation and lack of sleep. I advised immediatly the doctors of an obvious hypomanic and potentially manic bend, happily renouncing in the same time to seismic therapy. I soon found in running in the park of the clinic a way to focus the overflowing energy, overcome or at least sustain the weird blending of delayed, disproportionate effect of antipressants and beating, potentialized opposing effect of lithium — my nickname here is Vincent Parkinson —, as well as a mean to remain conscient of the reality: despite the joy of feeling having left depression behind and the euphoria of just enjoying life again, I want and have to highlight the danger of my situation (possible delusional manic ascent like in 2018 when I was existing on the internet as ‘David Anderson’). I will then not exit the clinic before being stable and able to live with solely mood regulators (lithium plus lamotrigine) and small doses of antipsychotic molecules and being disconnected from drug appetence. It may take months, I may miss the Suede’s concert in Paris at the end of May, the issue (my life) is too critical and important: for the moment, I have to be constantly cautiously surveyed, with daily chemical adjustments if necessary.

However, is there anyone knowing what is, after two years of death-tainted and vegetable-like life distinguished by a total lack of interest for anything (even music in the extreme profundities of the depression), listening the entirety of the record The Blue Hour (Suede, 2018), alone after midnight in the patio of the clinic, dancing, singing, and smoking cigarettes, smiling and crying of happiness under a perfectly star-illuminated sky, rediscovering the magnificence of the record and forgetting how it could have been in the past the soundtrack of your insanity? What is, after two years of difficulties to walk like an ederly man to the near supermarket, finding the capacity to go running at various velocities twice a day during days, blissfully noticing the disappearance of all the muscular and articular pains endured during the course of the depression, feeling your stride like if you were twenty again? What is, after two years of suffering  for the sole fact of living, enjoying any moment of laziness and countryside contemplation (“You’re not alone, look up to the sky and be calm… Life is golden!” sings Brett Anderson in the abovementioned opus)? What comes next? I am living my days one by one and feeling at home with my peers, discovering new and precious friendships.

Furthermore, oh! I was so fucking right… — I was so fucking right when once or twice in the course of this blog I cited and used the study “Depression and mania in bipolar disorder” by Leonardo Tondo (https://www.gmeded.com/faculty/leonardo-tondo-md) and other scientists (to read here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5405618/) to find a gross mean value of 1.5 for the ratio between manic phase durations and depressive phase durations in the case of my bipolar disorder type (Type I) and predict the end of my depression for December 2021 — my previous and devastating manic phase, during which I dropped my chemical treatment, abused drugs, harassed celebrities, dealt on my blogs in incoherent and delirious ways with extremely sensitive topics (terrorist attacks), started during August 2018, lasted 16 months, finishing at the end of 2019: multiply it by 1.5 and you find 24 months (2 years) for the subsequent depressive phase. “Ce qu’il fallait démontrer (CQFD)”, as we say in France: the mathematical model is almost perfectly verified in reality. I am just a few weeks late but why caring about such a small deviation? Could have it been fatal? I don’t want to think about this issue anymore…

What could I add? Will I have to deal with so strong and extensive mood cycles until the end of my life? Or will I find the strength, reason, and means to stabilize myself and smooth the “I hate being bipolar it’s awesome” (Kanye West) condition? “Fuck it for the moment and fall in love with yourself again, boy. But don’t forget how insupportable, insulting, even physically agressive you were during your previous manic phase.” To my family, to my friends — the ones who remain as well as the ones I lost —, even maybe to the totality of the persons I have met during my life, please accept my apologies and forgive me: I was not myself anymore. I love you. And, of course, Flora Fischbach, Olivier Vallois, and other former members of the Fishbach band of the 2017—2018 years (Michelle Blades, Alexandre Bourit, Nicolas Lockart), if you read those lines, thank you from the heart for not having sued me for moral harassment and defamatory transformation of your songs and artwork. And don’t worry: I have already started to publicize you near the other patients of the clinic. Let’s hope I will not like the forthcoming Fishbach record?… ♥