The Normal

Sorry for the long hiatus between posts. It's the consequence of three things.

First, the academic year here at the Army War College has again gotten underway. I've been very busy.

Second, I've felt tired a good deal of the time, for reasons I don't really understand. I had supposed it might be a manifestation of the mood disorder. The disorder takes a variety of forms, including a waxing and waning of energy level. But after living with this frequent fatigue for a while and talking it over with my therapist, I don't think that's the case. It seems to be more physically based. It may be simply that it's taking me longer to get used to my workout regimen than I anticipated.

Third, I haven't had much to tell you.

Actually, that's not quite correct. I've got plenty to tell you. I'm just not that anxious to do it.

It's funny. On the one hand, I grew up with, and to some extent have internalized, the stereotypical American male tendency to play the strong, stoic type. On the other, I've had a lifelong itch to share what I think, feel, and believe--it's the central trait that has made me a writer. And I can think of few things more worthwhile than to communicate candidly about what it is like to live, day in and day out, with bipolar disorder. So you'd think it wouldn't bother me to get on with it.

But despite everything, there's still the urge to keep silent, to just be "normal." As if anyone were normal. And yet the desire to be "normal" exerts a powerful tidal pull, intensified by the ubiquitous signals in our society that reinforce it. It puts me in mind of a soliloquy from Equus, Peter Shaffer's amazing play. In it, the psychiatrist Martin Dysart meditates on the nature of his work:

The Normal is a Holy Ghost. . . . The Normal is a murderous, non-existent phantom. And I am his priest! My tools are very delicate. My compassion is honest. I have honestly assisted people in this room. I've talked away terrors. I have relieved many agonies. But also--beyond question--I have cut from them parts of individuality repugnant to this God.

As I hope by now is obvious, I consider bipolar disorder an illness that I happen to have. I don't think of it as something that defines me and certainly not as part of my individuality. I wince every time I hear phrases like "he's bipolar"; to my ears it's the same as saying that someone with cancer is cancerous. No: the part of my individuality repugnant to this God is the part of me that has the courage to be genuine. And neither my psychiatrist nor my therapist nor my friends try to cut it from me. All too often, I want to cut it from myself.