Post by Alan McDougall on Jun 6, 2015 16:08:48 GMT -5
Note written in American English!
The Brilliant Madness by Alan McDougall
The account below is a much more accurate reflection of what really happened during my spells of mania at Kriel Retirement Village and the early onset of endogenous depression when I was working at Eskom at the age of 38. I was not lying when I first wrote about the manic depressive events in my life, (Which some of you might have read) at that point to me it was a true reflection of what happened, but sourced from a still mentally ill mind.
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I am now lucid mentally healthy and free from any additive agent, so the account below is as accurate reflection of what really happened all those years ago can be read as a true and accurate account of what really transpired.
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Before becoming ill I was an active Bodybuilder and fitness fanatic, who ran and trained every day, I had developed imposing physical appearances at a muscular 90 kg was in excellent health. In addition, my insatiable curiosity had led me to develop a formidable knowledge about the life around me; I estimate that during my somewhat protracted life, I have read over a thousands books on nearly any topic and source one can think of.
In addition, I was/still am happily married to a beautiful woman and had four beautiful school going daughters. There was nothing really to worry about!
My job at Eskom was really stimulating and I had absolutely no trouble coping with it until the unhappy events of manic depressive illness intervened and upset the apple cart.
From about the age of 38, I started to have very severe spells of melancholy, only finding out later out that these were due to endogenous depression, supposedly caused by brain hormones or neurotransmitters misfiring.
I also began to suffer from migraine headaches; some so severe that I would go into a state of shock, shivering, go as pale as a sheet, vomiting etc, until only morphine like drugs could ease the terrible pain. These migraine headaches were by far the worst pain that I have ever experienced, up to this day in fact.
Puzzled by these new symptoms I began to visit the doctor regularly, for this and other numerous complaints that began to worry me daily. I felt as if I had a tight band around my head which seemed to be squeezing it with terrible pressure, so sever that I thought my head was going to implode. I also started to experience, unusual for me, constant crippling fatigue, so severe that I felt I was dying or melting out of existence.
A very and negatively factor of how my life changed is that I had stopped exercising, such as my beloved body building jogging and bicycle riding, which were the means I used to blow off steam and removing excess stress.
Things began to be surreal at work and at home and I began to battle to concentrate, with a feeling of remoteness from reality. My nights, instead of rejuvenating rest and sleep that most people experienced, were being plagued by hideous nightmares and consequently unrelenting insomnia.
At work no longer my bright usual alert energetic self, to avoid passing out from fatigue at work, I would to lock the door to my office during lunch time and lay down to try get some rest to enable me to cope with the rest of the day.
I could not put my finger on why was I feeling like this way? On the surface to others I think I appeared quiet happy, without any real problems or troubles.
But somehow life had begun to lose its luster, color joy and intensity. The days and nights had become, in my mind, progressively darker, greyer, colder and very bleak. Wondered why I needed to continue to exist, but it, It seemed ridiculous to feel this morbid, considering that there appeared to be nothing obviously medically wrong with me and I had no reason to feel so awful and negative.
I simply could not put my finger on any reason for all this gloom. I was doing extremely well at work, advancing rapidly and considered by my fellow managers and the C.E.O. as an extremely bright young performer, with a very bright future in the Eskom.
Every night in my effort to go to sleep I would go into that strange state between wake and sleep known as Hypnagogic sleep, feeling someone or something evil was over looking my paralyzed body. I twisted and contorted as I tried to move or leave my motionless body and escape this horror movie and wake up.
I went to my G.P. church activities might have precipitated these unpleasant night terrors, which was perturbed and suggested I see a psychiatrist immediately. I resisted this suggestion by my doctor, been very reluctant to follow the doctor’s advice, because I thought she might have diagnosed me as mentally unstable.
The Doctor insisted I see the psychiatrist as soon as possible and I became a little indignant and insulted by this suggestion. I refused to acknowledge to anyone that there could possible be anything mentally wrong with me; mental illness had a huge stigma attached then, in which I wanted to avoid at all costs.
I felt it could affect my progress at work as Senior I.T. Manager, just like it did, ultimately and tragically did a few years later.
I finally relented to my doctor’s suggestion and agreed reluctantly to see a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist diagnosed me as being in the throes of very severe endogenous clinical depression, put me on an antidepressant drug and booked me off work for a week or so. The antidepressant drug he prescribed helped for a while and then lost its effect.
He then booked me to hospital for anti-depression drip treatment, which was suppose to bring me out of depression much quicker than by tablets. If was the first week in September and was snowing outside for the first time in many years.
My daughters made few snowmen because there was sufficient show on the ground in what was a snow event on the South African Highveld.
Numerous other antidepressant, antipsychotic, and tranquilizers drug both singular and in combination were tried on me without success. It all seemed to be utterly hopeless and death was becoming more and more attractive to me than life.
I really started to contemplated suicide. Nothing seemed to be helping get out of this awful rut. I received psychotherapy without avail, my descent into the terrible hell of the horror of the black hole of depression continued.
Consequently I was, hospitalized over many times over the following years, in an effort to bring this demon under some sort of control, with limited success. I received many electroconvulsive shock treatments ECT.
This did help a little, but thinking back had a bad effect on my short term memory. Because it had become impossible for me to perform my work at Eskom in the expected manner, I asked for and received a reassignment at work where I did not have to cope with personal problems of staff as I did when I was the IT Manager of the region I was responsible for.
My performance at work and home began to deteriorate. Communication with those close to me, my staff at work and boss got considerably worse by the day as I had progressively began to withdraw more and more into my inner being. My previous strong religious conviction and faith in God weakened considerably.
The depression phase continued to get worse; my doctor was perturbed and suggested I see a psychiatrist immediately. I also felt physically ill most of the time with flu like symptoms often got nauseous and full of aches and pains.
The headaches continued and the sensation of a tight band around my head got worse and worse, until it seemed as if my head might implode. Now very sick indeed, a fearful sense of hopelessness, despair, desolation took over my thinking. A sense of gloom, dark bleak coldness and emptiness took control of me and it felt to like I had lost my eternal soul.
My mind or brain if you prefer, began to race with uncontrollable terrible thoughts, so that it became almost impossible to get enough sleep at night. If I did manage a little sleep it would succession of nightmarish micro-sleeps, which of course did not ease my increasing fatigue during the day at work.
These uncontrollable non-ceasing, racing thoughts, when I think back were the first early symptoms of Mania.
Had I been a Stephen King and put some of these horrific nightmares and fearful night terrors into a movie script, I might have become very rich.
I had to now work under the supervision of people much less qualified than I was and who, in my opinion were my intellectual inferiors. I also had to prop up these unqualified people and some of them took the credit for my work.
My family watched helplessly as I descended further into hell on earth, not really understanding. They could not seem to comprehend what was really happening to me and I think they felt it was some sort of weakness, lack of backbone, character weakness or moral fiber. Especially my Father who absolutely could not comes to terms with this enigma and was most disappointed at my apparent failure in life.
Even my closest friend Tony Martin, came to me at work one day, saying he and his wife had discussed my problem the previous night and concluded that I was not ill but suffered from some sort of indefinable weakness.
My daughters also did not really understand and felt they had lost their father who they had relied on and looked upon for advice up until then.
Reflecting back now, I am very sorry and regret that all this unpleasantness happened to us, but it was beyond my power to simply heal myself and avoid this long drawn out event that affected the whole family, in the negative.
To some people at first it was a case of having to pull myself up with my own shoe strings. Because I felt no one really understood what was happening to me, to avoid further conflict I receded into myself and away from all those I loved.
My daughters no longer had a father to depend on and I could not perform my parietal duties in the manner I would have like to have done, if I were healthy.
Because, it became impossible for me to cope with an even an easier occupation at work, such as my new position of Industrial Engineer, I got myself boarded from Eskom in 1987,( At the very young age of only forty seven).
After my retirement instead of improving my mental health continued to get worse, until it progressed into very a severe episode of psychotic, bipolar depression or manic mania at the Kriel Retirement Village, some years later.
Luckily this extreme episode of extreme hypermania only happened after I had retired in 1987 and no one saw me at work in this state which would have been disastrous, to my ego.
Manic Depression after my retirement from Eskom by Alan McDougall
The depression and mania continued to get worse, I felt I had bad flu constantly and felt nauseous and full of aches and pains all the time.
Constant headaches continued the tight band around my head got tighter and tighter until I felt my head was really going to explode.
Terribly sick and in abject despair, desolation, dark bleak coldness and horror descended like an eternal nightmare into my tormented mind. I could no longer sleep and went night after night without rest until some on nights
I finally managed to fall into a nightmarish succession of small micro- sleeps, plagued with hideous continual nightmares, that in no way helped my ever-increasing death- like, fatigue.
My daughters also did not really understand and felt they had lost the beloved father they had looked upon admired and respected up until then.
Reflecting back now I am so very sorry and regret this happened but I could nothing to stop this awful family tragedy. It was a case of having to pull myself up with my own shoe strings. From this point on I receded helplessly away from all those I loved from their. No longer there, had my daughters had to cope on their own, without my counsel, love and wisdom from this point on, (which they did so wonderfully and for which I am so very proud of them).
My wife while also not really understanding was a brick of strength and without her love, I would now be dead. I cannot express the depth of my regret to my wife and family for the loss of their beloved father and husband over all these many years I have been absent from them.
“I do, however feel hurt and humiliated that they have lost respect and admiration they once had for me, due to no fault of my own”. I now felt a total failure in life and wait for death eagerly. At time of writing this document, I no longer feel this way and have made in my opinion a remarkable recovery! Sometimes from the deepest darkness the greatest light can shine forth.
I have lived long enough and ready to go into that dark unknown dimension beyond death. I love my wife dearly and eternally and she will always be my soul mate. My lost faith in God and my rudder to guide my life now in my twilight years has returned and I no longer feel lost the vast ocean in the doldrums of existence.
I became afraid to get up in the morning, afraid to go to work, afraid to drive or go anywhere, afraid to try to go to sleep due to the awful dark horror that night brought, afraid to wake up and face the new day.
Instead of the blessed sleep and rest of normal healthy people experienced.
Does the reader now begin to understand the true horror of depression? Nevertheless, read on there is more. Paranoia and uncontrollable obsessions haunted me day and night.
Finally I became catatonic, in a continual stupor in a mental hospital with vacant, eyes dead lying looking up at the ceiling and not responding to any stimulant became so catatonic that I reverted back to the fetal position for a time.
I remember this as some sort of a vague coma. “Can anyone just try to relate the hell on earth that I have had to live in for all those many years of horror?
I was afraid to get up in the morning, afraid to go to sleep. When I slept, it was a coma, sleep, full of nightmares. I could not taste food; sight became dull, eases seemed to be deep in sockets hidden and dead, skin dry and flaky, hair oily limp, together with a host of other host of unexplainable aches and pains all over my body
A feeling of being remote from reality and felting physically and mentally sick all the time, I felt and looked years older than I really was.
I lost many days from work by being, hospitalized on numerous occasions. My hands and body continue to tremble and shake all the time and I was sweating constantly. I contemplated suicide.
Nevertheless, so ill by then I could not even then come remotely close to motivating myself to commit suicide.
I was all too much effort I was too tired much too weak to contemplate doing myself in. Indeed any activity no matter how small was no just too much for me.
I just wanted to cease to exist. To the reader all this might seem extremely self-centred and it is indeed the case, one becomes, while in the grasp of this terrible illness, very self-centred and loses touch with those around you who love you.
After these episode of mild hypo-mania my mood swings became much more severe and pronounced. Held for ten long years in the iron grip of very severe three monthly swings from the very depth of depression and despair to absolute total high insane of manic psychosis.
The extremely destructive out of control mania started to become very frightening to myself and all those around me. This phase if not quickly brought under control can devastate one's life and the lives around you and can even lead to death.
It is the true horror of the awesome power of the brain and mind-gone berserk, wrong and descent into the unspeakable unexplainable hell of the very strange world of true insanity.
From this experience, I know that the brain when malfunctioning is so enormously powerful it can throw one to the floor with such power and severe convolutions that nearly every bone in the body can be broken.
Any psychiatrist, neurologist or surgeon will verify this.
My psychiatrist then put me on lithium and a well-known (Antimanic drug). This approach appeared to help somewhat and I was reasonably balanced for a time. I stress, however, that I continued to have severe mood swings, even while on these anti-depressive medications and mood levelers.
My illness continued to get worse becoming so bad that I had to take early retirement at the young age of 47. This had a further devastating impact on my self-esteem, self-confidence and every area my whole life.
I felt humiliated embarrassed and a total failure in life and that I should never had been born questioning my very existence. I developed an enormous inferiority complex and became very ashamed of myself.
Feeling everyone looked on me with contempt and pity. I could no longer enjoy socializing as I did when I was healthy.
My patient wife and children and friends were all very worried and saw the manic/ depression still in my view seeing it as some sort of a lack of backbone of moral fiber or mental weakness. I must pull myself together somehow.
They could not comprehend that I was physically, pathologically and mentally sick to the point of death.
To find some sort of relief, I started a secretive hazardous habit and, disastrous trend of substance abuse.
I consumed vast doses of prescription and over the counter painkillers, extremely addictive benzodiazepine combinations nothing gave me relief.
These drugs made things much worse instead of better, and could have led to my death, due to drug toxicity.
If any young person or indeed anyone reading this account, never ever touch drugs, not even once, or you will be a slave to them for life and they might indeed take your very life. If you never touch them, you will never miss them. Don't start smoking
I had by now lost most my faith in God and started doubted his very existence. My rudder was gone and life had become a ship in the doldrums of oceans of existence. I had no purpose any reason to live or do battle with the evil reality that is manic depression. It was simply bigger and stronger than I was.
The locust had eaten most of my youthful life. (30 years).
Depressions Evil twin Extreme Mania
Mania, the evil sister of depression, is so very delightful and seductive at first, so and euphoric and wonderful, that the manic creeps in without me or my wife realizing what was happening It became a slowly descent into manic psychoses but I was unaware of this because I was feeling so gloriously happy and full of love.
While the depressive phase of bipolar disorder is extremely bleak and dark, the outcome of the destructive extreme high mania phase is even more horrifying, “if possible”.
In the upper peaks of mania, you come face to face with true madness, complete insanity or psychosis. Both the peak and the valley of the sine wave of manic depression can result in the same end and outcome death.
I come now come to the most difficult part in trying to relate to the mentally healthy somehow to explain what goes on in the extreme manic mind, while they are completely insane, mad or psychotic, in a way that they can come close to comprehending this place of strange unending fear terror and horror.
To anyone that would still think I am weak after reading what follows, if they have sufficient courage should follows me into the dark terrifying, notifying strange reaches of the bizarre my insanity and depression and come out sane and alive and survive like I did. “I dare them,” walk in my shoes and then comment!
I have to try my very best with all the skills of my gift with the written word to take the reader with me on this journey of terror and horror that goes on in the basement of my chaotic maelstrom mind and brain, when I am in the relentless unrelenting grip, grasp and throes of this evil psychotic, insane madness of manic insanity.
As I felt so tremendously high, energetic and good, in the first stage of mania, I immediately stop all my medication, throwing it down the toilet when no one is looking.
I tried my very best in this early stage to fool my wife and family that I am completely normal and just feeling very well indeed.
I could control myself and appear to be normal at this early stage of mania even fool my psychiatrist by giving him all him all the correct answers to his questions.
For example, he might ask, “have you been hearing voices, seeing visions or hallucinations lately? Although I am indeed experiencing all these, I will untruthfully reply indignantly, “of course not, do you think I am a schizophrenic?”
He might then ask, “Who are you”? “Have ever thought you are someone special like God or do you think you are God”? I replied by lying “no of course I don't think I am God” (in my mind I know I am god).
He will perhaps then ask, ‘are you taking your medication properly/, to which I will again lie saying “absolutely religiously”. Of course Mania was so seductive and pleasant that I was absolutely positive I was healed and had thrown all my medication down the toilet.
The psychiatrist assuming that I was telling the truth would come up with a wrong conclusion and make a few minor adjustments to my medication that I have absolutely no intention of taking.
Thinking back to when I threw all my medication down the toilet and the consequences thereof.
The previous control of my symptoms was removed a terrible episode of manic/ mania began to emerge.
I began to spiral uncontrollably upwards into a maelstrom of total manic psychosis. I was, however, complete unaware of this danger at this stage and felt certain I am in absolute control of myself. Mania is so delicious seductive, pleasurable , euphoric of the early stages , especially the feeling of omnipotent God-like power and supposed God-like intelligence and wisdom .
I am sure no drug could give as pleasant high I wanted to spend eternity in this happy glorious joyful beautiful state, where I became extremely loving to my wife and anyone I met
It became an absolute imperative, in my mind that nothing should interfere with this bliss and ecstasy and I had to sustain it no matter the cost.
Nobody could convince me, that there is anything wrong with me and anyone trying to reason or suggest that I was unwell made me very indignant, Irritable and very angry.
Please note that what I am about to describe in the following paragraphs, is not the mild sometimes, beneficial hypo-mania of high performing persons of history who also had this disorder its mild form.
This mild form of mania also exists in a large number of great and creative persons. It was in these remarkable people that had the huge energy of mild mania one saw in people like, Winston Churchill, Ludwig Van Beethoven, William Blake, Napoleon Bonaparte, Charles Dickens, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Sigmund Freud, Ernest Hemingway, Abraham Lincoln, Jack London, Robert Cowell, Michelangelo, Mozart, Isaac Newton, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Vincent Van Gogh, King David, and King Saul.
Looking back now and after much careful reflection, I note that the trigger my mania was caused by very unbalanced brain neurotransmitters, causing my brain to race and race and begin burnout like an overloaded fuse. Thoughts, came with non-stop obsessions and uncontrollable non- thinking, trying to know the inscrutable?
I was absolutely obsessed with religious thoughts, thinking I were God and was going to sort out evil mankind? How could the universe expanding if it is everything? What is absolute nothingness? Is infinity possible? Why do we exist, is there a God, Infinity?
How could God exist for eternity and how could he be infinite?, these thoughts started a circular thinking non-stop racing thoughts in my brain as I tried in vain to understand the impossible to understand impossible concepts, such as infinity and eternity?
My finite mind tried to arrive at by precise and finite means the explanation for all inscrutable mysteries of the universe as well as, the enigma of evil, the enigma that there is no such thing as nothingness?, what is time?, what is life?, what is the of purpose of life?, what is energy?, know the mind of god?, is evolution true?, what is gravity?, what is god?
What came before the big bang of creation?, how many dimensions are there in existence?, are there other universes beyond ours, what is outside the boundaries of the universe, Will the universe continue to expand forever?, what is forever?, is there life after death? Is there a heaven or a hell?
What was the purpose of life/, is life meaningless? etc, I felt unreasonable urge to know and understand everything in existence, that it is imperative for me to urgently unravel all mysteries to know the inscrutable mind of God and become one with the infinite eternal divine sublime reality.
On, on, and on day and night, without rest trapped in a cycle of questions, only coming up with unacceptable answers, which forced me to repeat the whole cycle again and again. A never ending unsettling uncontrollable flood of disturbing thoughts that gave me no rest, day and night.
I finally came to the conclusion that everything under the sun was meaningless and futile and I might die in ignorance
I became a helpless victim I would not admit to anyone that something was wrong with me, because of the fact that I felt so unearthly wonderful.
To reiterate, the first symptom of mania is the lifting of depression one feel so very wonderful, I stopped all medication, privately without the knowledge of Denise my wife.
Once I reached the higher level of mania, where I no longer had any control over myself. I went into long altered states of consciousness, sometimes for weeks at a time, before some normality returned.
Energy became boundless with no need for sleep or rest I was absolutely without fear or inhibitions, stopped sleeping, develop extreme, sublime, exalted grandiosity, ecstasy, joy, wonder, delight, rapture bliss, elation, bliss, euphoria, hallucinates constantly and has bright eye-lid visions, stops, eating and etc, etc.
Who would ever want to give up a beautiful state of mind like this?
Everything was so much brighter, more intense, each colors are more beautiful, smell much more acute, food tastes wonderful, sleep is not necessary, endless imagery from constant reading. I began to read the bible non-stop and, researching debating every topic with myself in my mind, by writing it down, thinking and laughing at the fact that I now had a godlike understanding of existence. I wrote constantly filling up both sides of the pages of notepad books on everything that flooded my mind.
My eyes became bright with my hair shining and skin looking healthy. Losing weight rapidly as my appetite decreases to nothing and in the end to the point of stopping eating or sleeping altogether.
Everything became vivid and bright so glorious, beautiful colors of flowers grass, trees, sky, stars; everything is now observed and recorded in the minutest detail.
All these to me holy visions, were unearthly strange and indescribably beautiful much more vivid than I had ever experience previously. Was I now in heaven on earth? I went outside at midday and gaze directly into the sun, until I saw a tunnel opening into the heavens beyond.
Why I did not burn out my eyes is a mystery to me because I did it many times? On a few occasions Denise caught me doing this incredibly stupid thing and shouted at me to stop. I thought I could absorb energy directly from the sun, thus making it unnecessary to eat anything.
Like an overloaded incandescent light under the strain of much too higher voltage/amperage, for which it was designed, my brain neurons began to light up all at once.
Reflecting back, I know now if I had continued in this extreme state of an extremely high state of-mania, I would have gone out in a blaze of glory, burned, blinked out, and died.
While like this I was absolutely abnormal and dangerous to both myself and those around me.
If I were told by members of my family or doctor that it was imperative for me taken my medication as I was not well, I would get very angry. In this altered state of consciousness it was a ridiculous suggestion to my irrational mind that anything was wrong with me.
I felt very healthy and thus I lied to them informing all to the fact that I had been taking my medicine as prescribed by my doctor.
If they persisted I would become belligerent, angry, and irritable and start to avoid contact people who I perceived as mere mortals not understanding my high and exalted self.
In my mind I thought I knew everything, did not need or advice from anyone, anytime and that I was the very essence of the transcendent and magnificent being of light....
It then progresses to constant non-stop rapid uncontrollable thinking, wild laughter, and increased sense of humor non-stop talking. Acute sense of taste smell touch & vision, sound everything became even more acute, in this advanced phase of manic madness. I was convinced I have developed a sixth sense, that I am God and must correct my mistake in creating humanity, by killing them all and starting all over again, with a better plan,
While I perceived myself as very sane, extremely intelligent and in full control of myself, because I was God, but in reality I had become increasingly delusional, started to hallucinate, hear sweet voiced and beautiful visions of other worlds realms, dimensions other, universes, and heaven. I saw colors that did not exist in our world I became the mega-mind or Superconsciousness and I was in constant communication every sentient being in the universe.
In my mind, I was truly God incarnate and my awareness expanded until I could see down the road of forever, within the infinite realms of infinity. I was convinced I was god. I feel that I am the incarnation of the sublime, wanting to remain in this state forever.
I continue to have vivid visions and dreams, so real that I still think some were real, I was communicated and dialogued some higher intelligences and absorbed huge amounts of unknown, mysteries, information and wisdom of the universe and creation. A kind voice asked me if “I would like to savor the moment?”
I cried out yes, yes, please , “but let me remember what I saw when I come out of the altered state of consciousness” Sadly I only remember a little of what I saw and heard and have recorded it in this document. .
I saw the future flashing before my eyes in rapid non-stop visions, I was afraid to close my eyes because images more vivid the any high definition television opened up before me. I saw great Kings riding stallions, archangels singing, planets spinning in the depth of space, the sound of stars praising God across the dark and infinite plane.
My eyes darted back and forth, back and forth, become red, and inflamed and terrifying to look into. I was in another reality beyond space and time where I existed outside time for which a blink of the eye equals eternity in our mortal reality.
I began to fear that I had transgressed god in some way and might end up in hell I became more and terrified in hopeless abject despair and horror. An ice cold fear of the possible reality of eternal abandonment by god in a horrible place overtook my every moment.
I felt as if like my body were in the process of dying as the energy started to drain out of my body and mind.
The whole situation reversed from its previous glorious and happy state, into paranoia fear, horrifying, terror and I became desperate to escape the horror of my tormented mind.
Was this hell? yes! I have experienced it already on this earth. One moment I would be in a state of extreme elation and the next belligerent, annoyed, hostile, aggressive and even violent.
I felt every person on earth is in bondage and it was my duty to free everyone from their chains.
Thus; I went outside and let all the neighbors dogs out, go to the local mall and terrify shop owners, herding more many terrified people into one corner of the shopping complex shouting out that I was god and I was about to destroys the earth kill them all for their unrepentant continual evil.
I went out of my mind with hysterical rage and anger until I felt as if my brain would explode. I know now that I was also unhinged mentally because of constant media reporting of rape, murder, killings, just prior to the democratic elections of 1994, that I had followed religiously on TV while still in a manic state.
Was I dangerous then? Yes! Very dangerous both to myself and others who crossed my path and if I had remained in this state much longer, I could have killed some innocent bystander or myself.
Then absolutely socially inappropriate I would walked around demented, without shoes or shirt and approach anyone in the street shouting scripture or philosophy, particle, micro and macro physic, astronomy and cosmology.
If they did not understand me, I got extremely with people angry calling them all a bunch of ignorant idiots. I would also remind every person I met, while roaming the streets like a wild man that end of the world was upon us.
I became obsessive-compulsive, about body hygiene and extreme cleanliness leading to me taking unnecessary baths 5-6 times a day, constantly thinking, could find no rest. I stop sleeping; millions of vivid thoughts, images and loud voices and sounds bombarded my tormented soul, day and night.
Nothing, I could do would not stop these horribly frightening unwelcome inputs from flooding my fevered sick brain. Sleep continued to elude me.
Evil dark cold bleak thoughts burned in the blazing furnace that was now my brain. My eyes are now blood red. Consumed, with ice-cold fear, I became extremely emotional weeping for no reason. Perhaps I was on the once again on the uncontrollable ride down to the pit of the depressive cycle of bipolar depression.
I was now completely out of control completely without fear. How could I fear if I was/were God?
The police arrived and as soon as I saw him, I grabbed his gun and told him to shoot me. I was totally without fear or inhabitation, afraid of nothing uncaring whether if I lived or died.
The young white policeman had never come across someone like me in his time in the force and was unsure of what was wrong with me but coached me gentility, great difficulty to go a doctor nearby. The doctor was terrified of me, with my wild insane appearance and had no clue of what was wrong with me.
Eyes glowing, darting side to side back and forth back and forth completely red with pupils dilated. Laughing and babbling hysterically like a rapid broken record on high speed, I found everything said or any event around me extremely funny, no matter how sad it was in reality.
By now in a doctor's consulting room the police, doctors were struggling to diagnose what was wrong with me this terrifying insane man in their midst?.
One of the doctors said to someone that “I was in the throes of severe vitamin withdrawal” I found this comment hysterically funny ridiculous and hilarious and burst into extremely loud laughter.
The doctor corrected me by saying “I did not say vitamin withdrawal” I said amphetamine withdrawal.”
I kept asking the police officer to shoot me because in my mind I was invincible and immortal and die. Luckily, for me kindly refrained. He was a kind and loving young man, who took my hand and tried his best to rationalize with me, because he realized by then, that something was very wrong with and that I was not a criminal.
Before the young policeman arrived at the doctor’s office, the doctor had taken my blood pressure and said to my wife it was so high that I might have stroke and die. He subsequently tried to give me an injection to bring down my blood pressure, but I got into a rage and pulled the injection needle out of the hand of the terrified doctor, and threw it violently across the room.
After the policeman arrived, he calmed me down, by holding my hand the whole time, he asked me gently if one of the doctors present could give me an injection and I agreed, “saying the doctor could inject me with anything they thought I might need, to bring down my dangerously high blood pressure, which of course was not true because they used antipsychotic drugs to try to put me to sleep. I was so fearless that I said the doctor could inject me with any drug he wanted to, even poison like cyanide and I would not react, as I was a God-man”.
They subsequently gave me five or six injections of some concoctions (antipsychotic), in order to calm me down.
At first, these injections not seem to have any affect on me and the young police officer remained the only one in the room, which could keep me calm somewhat.
Unknown to me an ambulance had been called to take me urgently into a mental hospital on the advice of a psychiatrist, which one off the doctors had contacted telephonically.
On arriving at the local hospital now descending down and down into an almost coma state. The nurses injected me further with some unknown substances and began to drift off. I might have got as many as seven or eight injections, until I finally calmed down. I am lucky to be alive. In hospital, TV like visions on my eyelids continued to horrify and plague me so badly I was terrified to close my eyes.
Just by thinking and closing my eyes, I could see any member of my family or anyone else and observe exactly what they were doing at the time no matter where they on earth.
I had become psychic. I saw in this way, terrifying clear as day in full color three-dimensional moving images, imprinted on my retina I saw my of the past as well as the future.
After each vision, a “voice?” would say to me, “do you want to savor the moment?”
I also by just thinking about something, someone, somewhere or indeed and I saw what I wanted to she on my eyelids as one sees on a movie screen.
Don’t believe?, I do not care I know I have seen what I have seen I was convinced I could see into and hear telepathically thoughts in the minds of some living things, like our dogs but, especially humans. An uncontrollable cacophony and babble of voices from thousands of minds were flooding into my brain that became loud and unbearable.
At about 3am in the morning I escaped from hospital by jumping out of a window. It was mid- winter and I was freezing in my pajamas looking up into the dark sky waiting for the coming of god and his host of angels, alas in vain.
Outside in the dark of the hospital grounds I began to thirst, in the worst way, due to the effect of the eight injections previously mentioned.
My mouth was dry I thirsted. In my mind, there in the darkness of the early morning, I saw the slaughter of the innocents, I saw and heard a message from God to humanity; "mere mortal man, "I am not pleased with you". I heard God replacing world leaders.
Changing from knowing I was God to into somehow becoming his eternal enemy Satan. In my deluded mind, I was now the Devil incarnate and felt absolute terror of desolation, abandonment horror real fear of eternal separation from God in the Pit of hell.
I thought I had become very evil and deserved punishment from God for my sins I had done during my life. I was so very lonely out there in the dark of night that would come from my sin, and the utter hopelessness of eternal separation from god in waiting for the Lord Jesus to come and fetch me
It came into my and understanding that I might have committed the unforgivable sin against God and was doomed burn in hell forever.
I started to speak to myself and had visions of hell. I tried looking outward into infinity/ eternity/ nothingness and retracted my mind in alarm, in an effort to prevent myself from going completely psychotic, from the monstrous colossal undiluted evil I see.
Is this the evil eternal thing destined for the eternal abyss? I feel the desolation of this place, A place so evil so horrible even God will not look into it. I fear and think that God take hold of all evil beings, and thrust them all into hell, forgetting them there forever?
Were there still options left for me?. Who could help me now? Where was I to go from this terrible place?
That is the battleground of my mind. I believe I came out of this hideous madness by going to my creator calling out to God to help me, and he lifted me out again into his light with infinite power and love.
Love conquers all. It is the love of my family, my beloved wife, caring friends and wonderful doctors that I am alive still and able to write this account hoping somehow it could help someone else in a similar dilemma.
There is always hope. Be warned guard the door to your mind.
Going back to the first moment of awareness, when god was alone in the infinite darkness of ultimate loneliness,
I knew he had a good eternal reason for creating me and nothing evil would ever prevail against him.
I jerking awake from the coma, I see a glorious beautiful translucent light of many colors, light now dispelled the darkness of me brain. Hope eternal returns to me my misery turns to quiet peace. I felt final victory of goodness could be at hand.
I looked of creation and saw a view from the very highest of mountains. I looked out, saw there was no horizon, and attempted to look at and understand infinity.
The plain I saw went on forever and forever with no end. I tried to comprehend infinity and immediately started to retract, from this paradox of the incomprehensible.
I realized that it was futile to try to unravel the inscrutable When I got back home I noticed that I had become very creative writing papers on poetry, physics, history, philosophy, science, astronomy, cosmology, relativity and biblical interpretation Unique thoughts out nowhere and not found in literature just came to me out of the blue as revelation which I then documented onto my computer.
I found I had been posing questions that none no one internet had asked by doing my own research on all the subjects that interested me.
My mind remained constantly active.
Was this the last of the episodes? No! Nevertheless, up to the time of writing this article I have never experienced another episode remotely as severe as that detailed above.
During the 1990’S I thought I knew where the hideout of Bin Laden was and phoned the White House, to inform the then President Bush , where to capture him but, the Switchboard lady at the White House politely told me, that the President was on holiday and was not taking any calls, even from Almighty God himself
I often hear that every event in our lives serves a purpose, has a reason that and everything it we come out learning from them somehow. Did I become wiser better person?
Do any of the people who know me well, really think I have become a better person as a result of my years battling with manic depression, I think not?
In my opinion I perceive what has happened to me as purposeless and needless suffering , which if it had never occurred, I might have succeeded much more in the job at Eskom and had a much closer and loving relationship with my daughters and wife, that those of the bleak barren years that were stolen from me!
Maybe in the next life, if there is one, the reason, if there is one, will finally be revealed to me.
Anyone going through a similar experience is most welcome to use this forum if the administrator /owner permits it and I will do my utmost to help them in anyway I can.
You know this just might be the purpose I had to endure the horror of the most severe type of manic/depression, so that I might be of some help and comfort to others in a similar dilemma, knowing no matter how dark things seem to be there is always hope.
The onset of very severe bi-polar Manic Depressive psychosis, really, only began at Kriel Retirement Village few years after I left Eskom on retirement. It was at Kriel that I first became (To Denise’s my wife’s puzzlement and distress) very manic indeed, even psychotic.
Denise my wife of over 50 years had never seen me or anyone else in this frightening state of extreme hyper- manic/mania and did not understand what was going on with me.
She had absolutely no idea how to cope with this new very frightening situation. I think she might have thought in the early stage of mania, which I was kidding or putting on an act deliberately, but when my very odd behavior did not let up and got more and more outrageous by the day.
By then she knew that there was something very seriously wrong with me and that I needed urgent medical intervention.
Looking back I am feel positive that I could have avoided the illness becoming so bad, without, without drugs, especially the very addictive tranquilizers that had really messed me up.
Previous to this as a young adult, I had coped with stress and anxiety by blowing off steam by physical activity, such as a bodybuilder, enabled me to sweat off stress over the years. I have always been a highly strung person and exercise was always the method that helped me cope with life.
Unknowingly, I went to see the wrong psychiatrist, who put me of these tranquilizers, which, really, really messed up my psyche.
During the 2000's I took back my life and worked out my own solution in order to get well again stopping all unnecessary drugs that psychiatrist had put me on, by going cold turkey and almost dying by due to unspeakable withdrawal symptoms of the benzodiazepine extremely addictive drugs that I had been taking for many years.
These withdrawal symptoms went on for months and became in the early severe stages so bad that I had epileptic fits that put me in hospital. I have also stopped all the other junk the psychiatrists had had me on and have just been taking the mood leveling medication , mainly because Denise my wife, is rightly terrified me becoming the manic. I have not had an episode of mania for nearly 12 years at time of writing and am positive it will never happen again as long as I live.,
At present in mid 2015 I reside with my wife, at Sunninghill Johannesburg with my youngest daughter Desiree Gibson and her two children Chad 22 and Melissa 15 in and I am almost 73 years of age. These last twelve years have, indeed, been very happy; during this time at the Maroela Flats I finally began to come out of the smog of manic depression and decided to stop the addictive tranquilizers even if it killed me in my process. This proved so difficult that it took months to free myself completely from these extremely addictive drugs, even causing me to go into convulsions and be hospitalized
But at times I was insane or psychotic but only briefly during extremely high manic spells.
Real insanity is simply beyond description in the pain, fear and helplessness it brings to the sufferer (and family of course).
I am balanced now
A great many remarkable people have suffered from manic depression and it is sometimes called The Brilliant Madness
What other term can the medical profession use for this?
Alan McDougall
Alan Grant McDougall (South Africa)
Much thanks in deep and profound appreciation for all the love and tolerance shown towards me during those extremely trying times by me for all for all the love and caring of my precious wife and daughters, Shirley, Alison, Cheryl and Desiree.
Love Dad 74.5 years young!
