Memoirs of Madness

Philosophy Forums Psychology and Mind
41

The in take process at the hospital took the remaining morning and afternoon, into the evening. Reason being I found out later is that they did not have a mental health ward at the closest hospital and they were seeking another hospital to take me in. I was transferred an hour away and was provided things to shower, brush my teeth and comb my hair, as well as a gown. All of my clothes were taken. While at the hospital that night, I slept ok I believe. The following day I requested a guitar, which was available, and began playing with another patient who also knew how to play. Unfortunately it was missing some strings. In any case, it was nice to be able to have it available to us to pass our time. The following day I was upgraded to another unit on the ward, as I was in the highest security upon my initial intake. The details of my stay were that I was rapidly understanding what had happened to me daily, without medication taking affect. I was able to understand that I indeed had endured another manic episode, unlike anything I have experienced for the past 20 years, but very much like those manic episodes of my early 20ā€™s. However, I was able to recover and gain cognizance of my situation much faster than previously. I knew I had to be on meds, it was deemed I may need to be on meds the rest of my life and I accepted that.

I was in the ward for a total of five days, I cried tears of joy when I found out I was going to be released. Upon release, I had to buy a new car, apply for the Family Medical Leave act for my job, and get a new pair of glasses as mine were lost in the accident.

I no longer believed I was Lucifer and havenā€™t looked back on that until the writings dated here in this very forum. The date of my accident was September 16th, 2024, I was released from the hospital on September 20th, Friday. The past two weeks I have spent car shopping, playing guitar, playing basketball, getting a new pair of glasses, renting a car. I rented a Dodge Challenger with 305 HP for fun, shits and giggles while away, some of the days were paid for by my insurance. I spent time driving, despite my incident over a week previously. The car was a beauty, and it was fast. It beat my neighbors 8 cylinder Mustang. It had a premium sound system, I was able to drive and listen to tunes, burn a little rubber however I was and always was safe about my speeding. This fist that held the wheel for years knows how to drive and knows how to drive fast, and apparently knows how to drive while unconscious at that, well, somewhat. Iā€™ve also been working with FMLA and keeping in touch with my company without disclosing any medical information. I am currently still on STD waiting for FMLA approval, upon which I will have up to 6 months of paid leave at 100% pay. Currently my last pay check on medical leave will be this Friday, October 11th. I am hoping my status is approved, or if not that I am able to be signed off by my doctor to return to work. There is not much more to the story at this point, today being October 7th. I am going to possibly play some more basketball today to keep in shape. I have been spending more time with my children, as they were rightfully so very worried about me. They knew I could have died, as do I. I took my son on a fishing trip the prior weekend, and have been driving my daughter to and from school as well as her job that is Thursday - Sunday, for two weeks. It has been a time of recuperation, introspection, and getting my life back in order after the accident. I now feel I am ready to go back to work, and will mention that to the doctor the next time we meet, which is this Thursday. I have been listening to a lot of music and playing a lot of music. Iā€™ve been playing some video games as I have a lot of spare time on my hands. I have been shopping spending some recent gains that I took from my stock trading plays this year. I bought a new Iphone 16, bought a $200 sweater from Ralph Lauren, and bought 2 jeans for $160.

I have nothing more to tell of the story as of now. I am uncertain how to spend the rest of my day, it may consist of video games, basketball, or guitar playing. But that should be about it for now. Thanks for reading, Meno, Ithacus and anyone else who is a silent reader. Advice, questions, comments are encouraged, me speaking about the matter has done me well, and reading your thoughts on things has done me even better. Thank you all,

-WW_III_ ANGRY

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42

This line struck me. I often wonder to what extent itā€™s possible to reason ones way out of delusion, if not to stop it to learn to recognize it and discount the false beliefs. The closest thing in my experience, and I know itā€™s possible for a drug-fueled hysteria to spin up or down depending on whether I notice that itā€™s just the drugs talking. Even when Iā€™m well plastered, I can sometimes notice that Iā€™m plastered and have the good sense to pass out.

But this moment in your story felt like the comedown, like you were regaining your senses after the crescendo into the marsh. Is that how if feels in your memory? I was surprised to hear that your hospitalization lasted 5 more days. How long was the lead-up to the crash?

Are you religious when you arenā€™t manic? Is reading the bible something you do often, or is it a symptom? Iā€™ve internalized my skepticism to such an extent that entertaining certain beliefs (most often spurious grand patterns, thumbtacks-and-yarn stuff) is often what gets me to notice that Iā€™m just high.

Thanks for sharing, rare to see a detailed account from the inside of disconnecting and reconnecting with reality. Iā€™m glad youā€™re feeling better.

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Well Iā€™d have to say its possible as I could only attribute reason to my expedient progress. However there were lingering delusions attempting to pull me back, yet whoā€™s to say how much of it was medication bringing my brain back in order along that journey. I am told it takes a week or so for the medication to really take effect and I was sure I was experiencing a manic episode before then and letting the disease and treatment take its course. I was no longer actively engaging in my delusions upon my first nights stay in the ward. The only way for me to find out again is to get off meds, which isnā€™t going to happen anytime soon.

Yes, the lead up to the crash is hard to say, it couldā€™ve been a slow crescendo for about a month and a half leading to that, from what I can remember. I was feeling the stress from work in early August and that led to me feeling ā€œgoodā€ and experiencing a gradual crescendo of a manic high that culminated the day I crashed my car, Sept 16th.

I am an agnostic atheist and have been for 20 years. I began reading the bible again likely as a symptom of the mania, as religion has been deeply engrained in my upbringing. I went to 13 years of Catholic schooling, through the age of 18. Went to church every Sunday. All that indoctrination was difficult to break free from and I did and have been agnostic atheist for a good portion of at least 20 years, with additional years hindered by a wavering back and forth from my high school days through my early 20ā€™s and the initial manic episodes that were fueled highly by religious beliefs I was indoctrinated with and also resisting, as well as a desire to seek truth in the Bible while manic and when not manic, seeking truth in the bible while religious and being a God fearing person.

Today I quickly have moved back to being agnostic atheist again, and am at peace again. While religious, I am afraid of sinning, afraid of God, looking at the world in a completely different perspective and seeking God and guidance constantly. I have a lot of fervor when religious, which can be dangerous whether Iā€™m manic or not and in a sense can even lead to mania, as I take quite literally and to heart that ā€œall things are possible through Godā€. Couple that with my imagination, focus and faith whether manic or not, I can end up believing anything, I can end up thinking I can do anything through God, as is guided by the Bible. This has not been healthy, and this type of recipe can lead me to mania as I am able to warp reality however I see fit with my imagination as well as my manic tendencies when believing I am doing something good with God or feeling good about my relationship with this imagined almighty being.

Matthew 17:20 ā€œTruly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ā€˜Move from here to there,ā€™ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for youā€.

With God and Mania combined, there is nothing that I will think is impossible. My imagination will run freely and my imagination is very powerful, as will be my faith in God. Move mountains? Sure. Distort space and time? Absolutely. Control the sun, moon and stars? Not a problem. Walk through walls? Sure. Walk in the middle of oncoming traffic at 90 mph in an interstate freeway and lift the road and cars up into the sky and send them all to Godā€™s judgment for the sake of Godā€™s plan? Piece of cake. As long as I have faith and believe that its what God wants, then so be it.

Acts 4:29-31 ā€œStretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.ā€ 31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.ā€

So we all should see here that I cannot really afford to believe in God. Well, maybe I can. There are a few scenarios on this matter for me. I believe in God and need to remain on meds the rest of my life. I believe in God and donā€™t remain on Meds and prove godā€™s existence, get myself killed, or end up in jail.
If I believe in God I will attempt to perform signs and wonders and will either get myself killed or will perform signs and wonders that prove the existence of God. Perhaps that would mean revelations is nigh and perhaps even I would be a false prophet if so. Donā€™t think meds will prevent that but they may prevent me from doing something so severe such as risking my life or breaking the law.

Matthew 24:24 ā€œFor false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.ā€

A third option is I donā€™t believe in God and live a normal life but not sure if I will remain on meds the rest of my life, or if I go off meds will I willy nilly believe in God again.

But I prefer to not believe in God. Even though I have ā€œseenā€ the sun move as if hours passed in seconds and feel that I have travelled through time if but just for a few hours in my early 20ā€™s manic delusions, not even I can be 100% sure it was a delusion. There were other weird things that have happened to me, one in which my wife thinks I robbed a bank. She doesnā€™t know how I got extra money that day and suspects I robbed it while manic. I believed at the time I just talked to bank teller into giving me extra money through telepathy that I was the chosen one. What really happened I will never know, nor will she, but I came out of the bank with over 300 hundred dollars more than I should have. Bank error + delusion? Probably. Well, I sure the hell hope I didnā€™t rob a bank for over $300 while manic.

Thank you Carleas, I appreciate your comment greatly as well as your questions, they help me reason out my situation just as you are attempting to do as well. Questions like yours and the others here help prepare me for the future if something like this were to happen again. For a case this severe, thankfully due to my experience, I was able to get back to sanity pretty quickly and hopefully if it does happen again, may get back even faster next time thanks to the understanding, insight, and reflection that you and everyone elseā€™s comments and questions provide.

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I am compelled here to add something about delusions, which I believe that they are just overmagnified images constructed from a divided soul, The delusions are really in-between illusions, and allusions, which are but framing the subjective experiences into an image, an image that is of a defensive nature, to moderate the severely demanding nature of what experts in the field might mean by ā€˜delusionsā€™.

The reason I am saying this, is, that a lot of deconstruction is processed by the brain, in order to connect the deep layers with those which are more phenomenally present to awareness-consciessness . It is defensive , a rationalistic holdover from the past, when self awareness equated with reductive thinking. At this point within the parameters of limited reasoning, a circularity can be ascribed to it by virtue of ā€˜its limitation. This limitation heretofore was ascribed by the processingā€™s natural limitation, that was understood as pointing to the natural conditions of higher consciousness, albeit God as an anthropomorphic semblance to His Creation. The created man, had to bounce this energy back to Whom such creation could not possibly have been intended with malicious intent, so man sinned for having been created in the first place, like he had a choice of being created or not.

On first view, this state of affairs could validate, the difference between God creating Evil and God permitting evil to come into the creative aspect of existence, and the fact is, such reasonings may have been the bar to. Catholic doctrine to suddenly change, but only Luther was able to pull it off, practically excommunicating himself from the flock.

But now, with deconstructive ameliation with those who still support the delusion that faith is irreduciable with newer narrower firms of succeeding generational psychic awareness, the return to faithlessness results a total eclipse of the sun, as it were, and todayā€™s faith, and belief in a Superconscious Being is becoming the product of a Delusive processing of a mind lost in self absorbing in a lost myth.

So ok, I could be crazy to believe in an angry god , who punishes those who form god in his own subjective individual image, as there seem to be a new church built on every corner, and some even believing themselves to herald god from street corners, through loud megaphones , proclaim that the end is near.

The fact that the paradigm of anthropomorphic mirroring Has occurred, is a fact, and the fact is, that minimally it has brought into question between the allusive, delusive and the illusive nature of Manā€™s source of Faith, and not necessarily in the sense of: ā€˜if god does not exist, he had to be created.

You/we are not necessarily deluded, we/I may just be unnecessarily illusive, by way of allusions to othersā€™ strongly held Faith.

The devil inside is one that is like an unbreakable bad habit, to undo any possibility of salvation, , by constant reminders of our sins.

Macbeth and a questionable madness, and Lady Machbath, incessantly washing her hands.

Very fitting to the general loss of faith, so artfully previewed.

So the idea that delusions can serve some hidden purpose, may not be too far from the truth, and this part of any reified construction may be subliminally overlooked, and may hinge on a politically sensitive metaphor, rather than an actual, honest jump into the underlying motive , that may be an unjustly revised opinion on the true nature of the myth.

not that this interpretation not be wrong.

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A beautifully complex thought Meno, one that Iā€™ve read 4 times to get a handle on.

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Tnks, once you do , let me know.

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I believe I understand it Meno. I am finding solace in the quote below.

ā€œI long ago abandoned the notion of a life without storms, or a world without dry and killing seasons. Life is too complicated, too constantly changing, to be anything but what it is. And I am, by nature, too mercurial to be anything but deeply wary of the grave unnaturalness involved in any attempt to exert too much control over essentially uncontrollable forces. There will always be propelling, disturbing elements, and they will be there until, as Lowell put it, the watch is taken from the wrist. It is, at the end of the day, the individual moments of restlessness, of bleakness, of strong persuasions and maddened enthusiasms, that inform oneā€™s life, change the nature and direction of oneā€™s work, and give final meaning and color to oneā€™s loves and friendships.ā€ -Kay Redfield Jamison

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Yes, I feel your resonating understanding thereā€¦

I feel you do believe in a higher power, as for myself ironically came back to Jesus through Buddhism.

Canā€™t figure it, but it does account for a strengthened Faith that was missing before.

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I do not believe in a higher power, I know I donā€™t know of a higher power. I would prefer one exist to guide us, but that guidance isnā€™t there in my explorations.

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What is power? Is there not a highest one?

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So far they only remember a higher one.

Meaning: 2 sorts of things

1that remembrance is fixed to a quantity
2that power equals to a state ( mind, region, condition, tell)

So a higher one is complex by definition, and whatā€™s delineated here, is an attempted dynamic, thatā€™s more compact, a reduced quantity=less volume into a smaller space

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So it is safe to say I do not believe in a ā€œhigher powerā€, I am just well versed in the bible as far as understanding (and occasionally misunderstanding) most of its text. The mania induced a hyper religious state in my mind, one that I cannot afford to pursue, nor can I pursue due to my lack of belief.

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To me that sounds more like ā€œsuspension ofā€ ā€” a state where you believe uncritically. The dream state while awake.

Kids live there until they learn how to tell truth from ā€œmake believeā€.

Role players like to TRY to return to it.

Thatā€™s why D&D & Comic Con is a thing.

And. I suspect. Ecmandu.

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Haha, maybe It was certainly uncritical. Interestingly enough its how my mother was at time to time, we have the same disorder. So she would get hyper religious at times too. She continued to somehow maintain belief, but I donā€™t know how she didnā€™t drift off into the realm I did without risking her life.

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ā€¦.because just because youā€™re paranoid donā€™t mean theyā€™re not after you.

ā€¦and stuff like that.

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Had a thought about the Venn diagram ,upon waking

That itā€™s pre formative, rather than affirmative-( is there a difference? Sure ) but it consists of something other than merely an act,

And if scared, or being scared of your own shadow, someone will chase you, or something,

A childish preoccupation of the overall preoccupation of the overall effect of the accumulated darkness of the feedback of all prior boundaries that says NO, donā€™t go there.

That pre figuration sets the stage for the blinders that has the horse whining to see how is one to react? (ā€¦ to pre form or preform -that is the question)

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ā€¦because insurance would sniff you out?

badumbum ting?

lol jk but srsly

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I guess I canā€™t afford it mentally or financially ahha.

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WWW_3_Angry:

Correction: to preform or perform that is the question. Some can get to Faith by accepting otherā€™s fervent belief by a sort of overindulgence often mistaken by a repetitious performance and sustained religious practice, often mistaken for an obsession.

Others need not convince themselves by rote behavior , constantly reminding themselves, as if checking if the cat in the box was still alive, but gain that knowledge, I call it gnosis, through a prior preformance that set the stage through considerable effort and work, a series of miracles, minor and major, which needs no further repetition. The fear of non existence slowly lifts the drab fog covering the scene.

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You are such a beautiful person WW lll ANGRY.

Wipe that Catholicism shit from your memory it does more harm than good.

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