"megalomania keeping me company"

Confessions of a Manic Depressant

an autobiographical essay by Nicky
with an original poem written and artwork by the author

though that I am in shadow, I am forged of the darker dreams,
in the lies that are awake, they are not dead but dreaming,
in the spirits that walk, and the shades that are sleeping,,
In the eyes in the mind, they cannot see the ill emotions
they would turn and walk around in their devotions -- they pray,,
I am the one that is with the Shades that belong to god Hades,,
walking and talking of philosophy as well as looking for answers,
in the time -- without a season, mourning without a reason
in the dreams that come after death, faith will forever pass away.

As I had stayed in a mental health unit, I had been told many years that I do not have a mental illness or even a learning disability. It was something that others had tried to convince me that I am well or stable minded -- it was a lie that was spoken of by Christianity. I am coming to terms with the fact that I have manic depression, and the truth of it is something that organized religion will refuse to understand. The only one that would know the truth is the manic depressant themself. It was in May of 1999 that I learned that I have the disease and looked at it as something that needed medical attention. When I was going to church, they were not able to see the dark, contorted emotions that go along with the shit that would go along with manic depression -- the emotional torment that would drive one into a nervous breakdown or to go into self-destruction. I should know because I had been going to church for five years and followed the teachings of Christianity. The whole time that I had gone to a Charistmatic church, I had been the subject of people that refused to have an open mind and judged me because I would dress in black, write poetry that is something out of a nightmare and do surealistic drawings. One had told me that I needed to be delivered from my writings and the imagination that would be the driving force of my writing. All I was able to see when I would go to church are visions of a dark, gothic nature. While the pastor would be preaching a sermon, I would picture him without any flesh or without eye sockets. This was something that I had a thing for even while I was going to high school, I would be making heads of monsters and other strange creatures -- which made me the suject of much persecution, but then I did not give a fuck since I had a vision with it. I did not see it then, but a friend of mine that I went to high school with said that I had a gift of a dark mind -- this friend was one that I lead to Christianity, five years before I knew that there was something wrong with me. One could say that my life is on the right time line as a horror writer before me, one that I didn't read as a young teenager -- one that shares a birthday the same month as I do, the writer I am referring to is H.P. Lovecraft.

My peers in College of Du Page would say that I have the same ideas as what Lovecraft would come with as if he was alive in the late 1990s, but instead of being from New England -- one that is from the Great Lakes States. As a child I was quite peculiar as well, I sought the company of adults than with my peers because I had been called many things including weird even by my former fiancee of a year and a half -- I was thinking that this mirrored H.P. Lovecraft's brief marriage to his ex wife who was also five years older than he was as my ex was five years younger than me. Though As I would write this narrative, one would not see what is truely going on inside of the mind of a manic depressant. For many years I had sat in the pews and watched the children pray, but as I would sit there -- there was a void not even their God can fill. That as I would go walking around at night -- the thoughts that stand will not end, that I would still see that girl who had allowed the car to run inside of a closed garage and I could still hear the chilling letter that Pastor Holmes had read at a Bible study. Though many years that I had been told about God's love, I would see that and say that he had walked away from them. Living a year in Iowa was something that left me -- alone with the thoughts of suicide and megalomania keeping me company. I had been told that mental illness belonged to the devil for many years, and that was something that I once believed openly as well as preached philosophically. Though I had been taught things out of the Bible, I didn't feel that they were true because it left nothing for open thought. Religion did not have all of the answers that did not bring back someone my best friend had been close friends with who had died of a drug overdose, now that will be two years (someone that was friends with a girl I dated in January of 1996, she also developed a drug problem. This is when I had learned that I would have boughts of deep depression.)

There are times when I would ask myself if the Welbutrin that Dr. Larsen gave me in May is working, or is it making it worst. In the eyes of a manic depressants, the pictures that are in their mind are very dark shades of gray -- even though one would say, "Cheer up" or "Don't look at the world so grim." These are things that are a crock of shit, and things that are stirring inside are darker and becoming more deformed. This is true when one's peers are disrepecting and would torment them with cruel remarks calling them unbalanced, unhealthy, and in ways -- evil. I prefer being called misunderstood, and think differently -- that is how I would come to terms being a manic depressant.

It is in the mind that would be left haunted by bouts of megalomania and dementia, in the eyes of Christianity; we are called demonically possessed because something is not right with the human mind. It would be as nightmare that would happen as one is awake -- this is the desription of a nervous breakdown, when one feels that everything is coming down on them or they feel as they are in a casket with a blanket of dirt being poured on them while they are not dead like they are already in Hell. As one would sleep, they would feel like they are being visited by the Shades of Hades -- the harrowing nightmares that would appear in form of a Demonic God devouring his followers. The thoughts that are alone inside of the mind of a manic depressant, of what would drive one to injest a bottle of asprin as did the basketball player from Chicago who was going to play for the Dallas Mavricks or to take a razor blade to their wrist.

In the eyes of the followers of the Christian Church, one would never understand the thoughts that are inside of one that is a manic depressant unless they with sit down and take the invitation to walk with them. Walk with them into their mind to see the dark, contorted emotions that are inside of their minds as well as my own mind -- the things that are there are as dark as a drive by shooting or a pastor who is fixing on street drugs such as cocaine and herion. These nightmares are the things that walk with the Shades of Hades -- inside of the thoughts that walk alone in the minds of a manic depressant. It is part of how a manic thinks even if they are sitting in a pew of a spiritual church, but as they are told these things -- the truth is left unseen in the eyes of their peers. In my time that I had been reading the Holy Writ as well as studying philosophy, I felt like they were trying to crucify me because I am mentally ill. In the thoughts that are in my mind -- they cannot see the dark, brooding emotions that are inside. For that I am one that had stayed a few days in a hospital, they don't do shit for the ones that are ill except for giving them a drug and say that everything will be fine -- they don't treat the person as well as the fucking illness.

They will not begin to understand the thoughts that are inside a manic depressant, and they will always call them deranged, demented or crazy. It is the words that would cut worst than a razor blade to the wrist or a gun where the trigger is pulled in one's mouth like what Kurt Cobain had done in 1994, inside of the mind of a manic are things which are unspeakable in the open especially if they are living in a small town. In the mind that stands alone are the things that are kept locked inside -- slowly tearing them apart. This holds true with me as I had spent five years believing, and then later questioning all the things that I had been taught. During that time, I spent many years coming to terms with the illness that will always following -- driving me to write this confession; a confession of a manic depressant.