Read an Excerpt
The Formula
Seven Steps for Healing from Depression and Manic Depression
By Alicemarie Joana O'Neill Balboa Press
Copyright © 2015 Alicemarie Joana O'Neill
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5043-4072-4
CHAPTER 1
Is it Depression, Manic Depression, or Am I Just Plain Crazy?
Our minds and our spirits are constructed of marvelous features. Our mind enables our existence and our operational maneuvering in this life. Our spirit provides the incentive for living. Spirit gives us meaning while the mind provides reason and direction for that meaning. When they are operating properly, we hum along in a united, healthy manner. When there is discord within them or between them, nothing operates properly. If one is affected, both are affected for they are a team. Mind and spirit complement each other and rely on each other for success. It is not necessary to have a particular belief system regarding spirit. It exists and operates whether or not we believe in it. It provides the breath of life.
There are times in all of our lives when we question why we are here and what life is really all about. Along with our purpose, we examine our dreams, our hopes, and our wishes. We may be examining life, or we may be groping, trying to find meaning in life, especially in our own lives. For some of us, that examination becomes intense and painful. There are certain characteristics, or clues, that may reveal difficulties or an underlying issue that needs to be addressed.
Consider the following statements regarding your attitude and especially your moods:
* You have an overwhelming feeling of anxiety as if you are drowning on dry land.
* Life circumstances seem hopeless.
* It is difficult to get out of bed in the morning, or alternatively, you have trouble sleeping, or interrupted sleep.
* Everything is a major effort.
* You have lost your energy and feel helpless.
* You have lost interest in sex.
* Your appetite for food is gone/or insatiable.
* You feel as if you are in a dark tunnel with no light in sight.
* You have lost your joy in living.
* You feel like this will never end, your life will never improve.
* You have an overall feeling of worthlessness.
* You are using alcohol or street drugs to medicate or even out your mood.
* You are contemplating ending it all.
If the majority of these characteristics apply to you, you are likely depressed. You may feel that you have tried many treatments and/or medications and still find yourself in this place of desperation. The good news is there is real hope. You can be treated. And there is a formula for recovery.
On the opposite side of that same coin, the following characteristics can indicate a parallel mood disorder:
* You feel euphoric.
* You believe you have superior abilities, even though you may have no training.
* You are not sleeping, or sleeping little but fitfully.
* Your speech is rapid, and you talk nonstop.
* You have lost your appetite for food.
* You are hypersexual.
* You are spending large amounts of money indiscriminately.
* You are easily irritated.
* You find yourself using alcohol or street drugs to slow down.
If the majority of these characteristics apply to you, you are likely manic. When a person exhibits characteristics of both depression and mania at different times, he or she is termed bipolar, or manic-depressive. Features of depression alone, without the mania, are termed unipolar. These are serious illnesses and spiritual maladies, and they can be effectively treated on both levels.
The latest figures give a sobering picture of the state of mental health in America:
• 6.9%, or 16 million American adults live with major depression.
• 2.6%, or 1.6 million American adults live with bipolar disorder (manic depression).
• 18.1%, or 42 million American adults live with anxiety disorders (which are often experienced in tandem with major depression and bipolar disorder.)
• 8.4 million (approximate) adults have co-occurring mental health and addiction disorders.
• 26% (approximate) of homeless adults staying in shelters live with serious mental illness.
• 24% of state prisoners "have a recent history of a mental health condition."
In our culture depression and manic depression are considered mental illnesses. They affect our behavior toward ourselves, our behavior toward others, and they make life difficult. We may become indecisive or make uncharacteristic choices. Our thinking is affected as well as other mental activities. These maladies of the mind and spirit also affect our will. We tend to believe what we are thinking. And that is the dangerous aspect of these illnesses. Our mind may tell us that all hope is lost, that we are losers and will never amount to anything. It is a lie! Our mind may tell us that we are invincible, untouchable, and greater than other people. This also is a lie.
When we are suffering with depression or manic depression, we cannot trust our thoughts. They are tainted. They lie to us. We must find others whom we can trust. This is just as problematic, for when we are strongly manic, we tend to trust the wrong people. With depression, we do not trust our own judgment about people; we can become paranoid and trust no one. We are impaired, and we must find a way out.
The first stage of our empowerment is recognition. We are ill, and we must receive treatment. If we were diabetic, we would not hesitate to seek treatment. If we had high blood pressure or high cholesterol, we would listen to our doctor and follow a treatment plan. Unipolar and bipolar, diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol are all physical illnesses. They can all be treated. In fact, they must be treated or the body will be endangered. Untreated diabetes can result in many illnesses that can be fatal. High blood pressure can cause damage to the arteries, heart problems or stroke, and a host of brain and circulatory problems. High cholesterol can cause coronary heart disease and hardening of the arteries. Left untreated, diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol can all lead to death. Untreated depression (unipolar) and manic depression (bipolar) can also result in death, most often by suicide.
Depression and manic depression can be effectively treated — a statement I repeat throughout this book. In fact, not treating these illnesses is akin to self-destructive behavior. Keeping ourselves in a state of denial only worsens the problem for us as well as for our family and friends. Denial does not make the problem go away. Denial does not cure the illness. With denial, it only gets worse. Family and friends become frustrated. We tend to see only the extremes: either we get better by some unknown means or we end it. So many people see no hope in their situation. Isn't it worth trying to heal? Aren't our lives valuable enough to save?
The First Awakening
I began to identify the process of awakening awareness (consciousness), in part, through my experiences during a manic-depressive swing. It began in the state of depression. I was having serious thoughts about ending my life. In the midst of this turmoil, I became aware of a state of understanding superior to my own. It was a vague awareness in the back of my mind that became more and more clear. No matter how hard I tried, though, I could not integrate it and make it my own. I could not bring this awareness, this state of understanding, into my life or my own behavior. But I could feel this understanding on an intuitive, spiritual level. I felt that underneath, all was well. Though I could not directly access the understanding, knowing it was there provided a sense of hope. And hope was the one thing most lacking in my life at that time.
Then my mood began to swing into the mania. My manic moods usually came on gradually. The first episode, however, brought a sudden awakening of greater awareness. The understanding I felt began to blossom. The days fell into synchronous motion. The events, the people, the circumstances, and I all fell into the right place and the right time, fitting together like spokes on a wheel. I felt connected to people and to the events as they transpired. Yet I also felt apart from them. I was the observer, then the observed, and then the observer once again. My senses began to awaken. My hearing became more acute, more sensitive. My vision became sharper. I no longer needed my glasses to see distance. My comprehension and understanding began to open as well.
I could hear the whisper of the trees. I felt embraced by the wind. All of nature seemed to beckon me, and I belonged, like any other facet of nature. Everything was connected and interconnected, a part of a greater, grander whole. And I was no different from a bird or a blade of grass, the mighty oak or cresting waves. I felt as much an expression of the natural world as any other living thing. The beauty of the experience defies words. It utterly filled my heart.
As my awareness continued to expand, it was as though I had no boundaries to my senses. I seemed to perceive vision, hearing, and feeling in a panoramic sense, with Technicolor and surround-sound. The focus was crisp and clear. I remember thinking that I had only skimmed the surface with my past perceptions. There was so much more, layer upon layer upon layer of reality. It was all so simple, so elegant, and so accessible. I wanted to hold on to this expanded awareness, but there was no holding on. There was only the experience of the moment, and that was where I existed: in the moment.
I believed that this was my new reality. I thought this was where I would now dwell. I felt fortunate; I was able to spend increasing amounts of time here in this new reality. I found, however, that when my consciousness expanded beyond a certain level, I would lose my mental balance. Then I would drift back into the new reality once again. It was liquid; I moved back and forth into this expanded level of consciousness for a long while. Then, with no prior warning, I lifted off into the stratosphere. And I became lost.
I had moved into a psychosis. I did not feel connected to my normal reality. It was like a parallel universe: everything corresponded from one reality to the other. Like mirror images, my psychotic awareness reflected another reality. But the same laws did not apply. Hallucinations littered the landscape. One minute I was in line at a grocery store; the next I was racing my car against an unseen rival. The one clear awareness I experienced was that I was lucky or blessed, or both.
In the course of twenty years, I would experience four major manic episodes interspersed with occasional psychosis. In the early stages of mania, I felt the connection of all of life. In the psychoses, I lost my way. The episodes were always followed by severe, debilitating depression. It is different for each person. Some feel most threatened in psychosis. Others feel their greatest danger is during the high manic times. For me, it was in the depression that the real danger lay. I had to face the consequences of my manic/psychotic behavior and find some reason to stay alive.
Growing Rates of Depression
We are experiencing an epidemic of depression, and it only continues to grow in numbers. Understanding and healing depression and manic depression moves us forward. It is an enlightened step to take, one that must be taken.
Individuals with depression and manic depression tend to be exceptionally sensitive to stimuli and particularly sensitive to their environment. Most people sense the world both consciously and subconsciously. Those with depression/ manic depression are no different. But (where I believe there is) a difference is in filtering the stimuli that we perceive. Many people can effectively filter what they allow to penetrate their energy fields (auras). We do it automatically and spontaneously. Those of us with depression and manic depression do not seem to have the same degree of discriminating or filtering stimuli. Too much toxicity enters our energy fields (auras), and our senses either shut down or go into overload. We are extremely sensitive to our surroundings and the people around us. We are like sponges, absorbing the energy of others and the environment. This results in emotional exhaustion.
Manic depression gives us a more complete view of the expansion and contraction of consciousness or awareness. In the manic state — the polar opposite of depression — the senses awaken. All six senses become more vibrant and awake. Vision improves, hearing is keener, and awareness expands past its previous limits. In the manic state, perceptions become extraordinarily acute. The sense of touch is also sharper and more responsive. We can determine much from the mere touch of a person. This may explain some of the increase in sexuality and sexual activity that is indicative of mania. And our personal boundaries are blurred. We are aware of the interconnectedness of all life. We feel a part of the universal whole; we do not feel alone. Consequently, total strangers are seen as part of ourselves and we allow our personal boundaries to fall away. Those who experience mania as the "happy manic" — a state of manic consciousness in which the person thrills to new perceptions and expanded awareness — perceive an elevated version of life. We laugh easily and often; we are having great fun. There is frequently an extraordinary wonder of life in this state.
With mania, we continue to climb ever higher on the manic ladder, or we may climb higher, then come back to the previous level several times. Up and down, in and out, we scale the jagged towers of mania. Those with bipolar II may remain in the manic state indefinitely. There is incredible creativity and productivity here. Theodore Roosevelt was thought to be manic-depressive. He fought his depression with a flurry of productive activity. In essence, he fought his depression with mania, and he remained in the hypomanic state for the better part of his adult life. He may have been one of the most productive presidents we have known.
Two extreme ends of the bipolar experience are cyclothymia, a variation of manic depression that has narrower mood swings, and rapid cycling bipolar, which is more extreme and debilitating. Along the manic continuum, we need little sleep, less food, and more space in which to create. Bipolar I moves beyond this level, invariably. It is a more serious form of the disorder compared to bipolar II. There is little control. Once we reach too high into mania, our judgment suffers; chaos and confusion take over. We can easily move into psychosis, where we have auditory and visual hallucinations. Our reach has exceeded our grasp. We do not know reality any longer, and we are adrift.
It is our destiny, it seems, to then plunge into the void of depression. We are at the polar opposite of the manic high. It follows that as high as we swung into mania, we shall swing as low to the other end of the spectrum. We now have moved into a major clinical depression. Where our consciousness once was expansive, it is now narrow and restricted. The pain is overwhelming. We have known the exhilaration of spiritual flight, and now we cannot even feel spirit. All is lifeless and dense. We have entered the dark night of the soul.
CHAPTER 2
The Dark Night of the Soul
Throughout history, religious communities have considered depression a spiritual condition. It is still viewed that way by certain cultures. And depression is often preceded by the word crisis: a spiritual crisis. It enters our lives with a collapse of the ego (which, here, refers to the "false self "), the same entrance as that of expanded awareness/consciousness. Saint Theresa of Lisieux is said to have experienced the dark night of the soul. She suffered for years with intermittent spiritual breakthroughs, which may be likened to conscious awakening into higher states of awareness. And Mother Teresa reportedly suffered from it for most of her life. St. John of the Cross, a Catholic mystic, suffered the dark night and wrote about it. It is a suffering of the deepest part of our being.
Depression does not always appear to be a spiritual crisis. If a person has no spiritual persuasion, he or she will experience depression rooted in the physical, psychological, and emotional worlds. It is identified and experienced by the individual's own frame of reference. But the spiritual reality is affected whether we believe in it or not. We may use different terms or categorize everything into psychological pigeonholes. This does not make depression any less painful than the recognized spiritual crisis. Depression, at its core, seems to question the why of existence. Why are we here? What is there to hope for? What is the point? These are spiritual or philosophical questions, even if no spiritual belief system is in place. And in the depressed state of mind, the answers are not forthcoming.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Formula by Alicemarie Joana O'Neill. Copyright © 2015 Alicemarie Joana O'Neill. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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