Getting Older with Bipolar

Photo by Jakub Kriz on Unsplash

On New Year’s Eve I sat by the window that looks out onto the bay and stared right into a thick fog. The seawall wasn’t there. The marsh beyond the inner passage wasn’t there. The dusty grayish white of the old curtains that frame the window extended out into the distance and covered my whole field of vision, as far as I could see. Which was only to the panes of glass. Nothing beyond.

I made no resolutions this year.

In April I will turn 60 and a few months ago my doctor put me on lithium to moderate the recent break I’ve chronicled here. Unlike the weather outside that day I’m not in a fog. In fact, those closest to me comment on how well I’m doing. I’m positive, dependable, attentive, much less volatile and, seemingly, happy. But I’m not a morning person anymore and I cannot bring myself to write at all. I haven’t posted here since early December. Even reading is difficult.

The fact is I really don’t mind. I just want to be with my family and friends, understand my wife’s triumphs and struggles, connect with my daughter as she comes of age in a world of technology void of privacy that I find so difficult to understand (which is ironic, because my daughter is critical of me just putting out every thought, every secret, online for anyone to read), and celebrate my friends as we all face our twilight years. Get outside. Work. My job in retail is just fine.

As the fog closed in I felt liberated. 60 is a wonderful age. I recently read that your 50s are terrible, because you think you’re young while no one else does. At 60, you’re just old. Someone will offer you a seat on the bus and you’ll get on with your life, which still may be a very long life indeed.

Lithium has been equally liberating. I’m not dull, just a bit more content and a bit less striving for things that aren’t very likely to happen anyway, like me being a financially secure author or a great investor. It’s not a dream killer, it’s a settled mood that takes me by the shoulders, shakes me, and yells “get over yourself and pay some attention to the things that are truly important!” It also helps me come to terms with the fact that the things that are truly important are a bit more boring than the high-flying fantasies of mania or the earth-shattering revelations of depression. With healing as with age goals don’t disappear, they just become more realistic and reasonably achievable.

I’m not dropping goals as much as I’m sifting through them, pulling out the gems and disposing of the rest. And I’m remembering things. Fragments yes, fragments torn from the fabric of life by years of inconsistent moods and questionable behavior, but memories nonetheless.

Memory, at best, presents us with shards of our lives. I’ll be in the car with my daughter listening to music and in one of her songs I’ll hear a sample of something meaningful from my past, and a whole world of pop, fashion, people and places will return. I’ll get a friend request on Facebook from someone who I’m sure I have no idea who they are when a random post that drops a maiden name will bring back something significant. The meditation technique I have learned, and regrettably, erroneously taught, discounts such memories in its relentless focus on the present moment. Too much therapy, on the other hand, keeps a person trapped in the past, giving memories undue influence over the present. As we age we need to come to terms with what memories we have, and recall how they shaped us as they continue to mold our personality – for good or bad.

Marketers recycle and repackage old trends and sell them back to the young to make them feel groundbreaking. Seeing and hearing what we thought was so defining of our generation come back around from our kids or grandkids makes we old people realize that we, too, were probably similarly duped when we thought we were cutting edge. For Christmas my wife gave me a picture from 2019 of our daughter, dressed in white, running through a vineyard giving two thumbs up. Our daughter wondered why I didn’t get a print from the present. I treasure that photo and she sees it as detritus from the past, irrelevant to the person she dresses herself to be today. Memory is the purview of the old, and we spend an inordinate amount of time there.

A few years ago I wrote a memoir about 16 years of my struggle with bipolar disorder. It tells all, or so I think, for I think it’s all true. Maybe. It’s very hard to lay down and process memories during a manic episode, and I’ve had lots of manic episodes. I’ve decided to serialize this memoir, called The Places I Lost It, in this newsletter, chapter by chapter, over the next few weeks. In this age of tell alls by Prince Harry and his like my story, as incendiary and sensational as it is, is unlikely to be picked up by a major publisher. I’ve learned from my experience with my two published books that the effort and cost that go into promoting a modest book by an independent publisher that pays the author pennies per copy is not really worth it. But I think my memoir is really good and I’d like it to be read. Read by someone. So I’m going to share it here.

Meanwhile, back by the bay, I left the house and entered the fog to take a walk. I could barely see a few feet in front of me. But I focused on a point where I knew the best view of the water lay, and the creeping black shadows of two cormorants emerged, their necks parting the water like snakes teetering erect. I’m older, and I’ve emerged from one of the most difficult episodes of bipolar disorder that I’ve ever experienced with most of my life intact.

There’s always something out there in the fog. Something with a haunting beauty that shares a touch of terror of what may come next. And come it will. And it won’t be what we expect, and it won’t be too different from what came before.

Meanwhile, I did contribute a chapter on meaningful work to the new book Remarkable People. In the book twelve authors share stories and life tips to help anyone overcome adversity and achieve success. Please have a look at it and possibly buy a copy here.