[Author’s Note: As part of the #BareYourMind campaign, here’s a story of my experience being bipolar. If you struggle with mental illness, I encourage you to share your stories as well. Let’s work together to de-stigmatize mental health in our society by giving it a human face.]
I wasn’t just riding in a train. That would be too pedestrian for the likes of me. No, I was in the belly of a giant steel worm, of course. Hell, I might as well have been Paul Atreides from Dune, an interplanetary messiah riding that worm toward world domination.
In reality, if you’d seen me on that grimy train that day, you most likely would have witnessed a guy smiling like a fiend to himself. Definitely a guy with which you wouldn’t want to share a seat. Meanwhile, my mind was in overdrive with swirling thoughts. Fanciful and pointless imaginings were racing through my head at light speed. If I had been in an MRI machine, no doubt my brain would be lit up like a Christmas tree.
Though there was a tempest scraping the insides of my skull, with ideas appearing and disappearing like debris tossed about in a hurricane, one thought sat at the eye of the storm: disdain for the “average man.” I myself was no longer average, you see. I had had an apotheosis, rising above the dull, unthinking masses thanks to my enlightened state. As the kids might say today, I was “woke.” I knew the secrets of the universe and the truth path to happiness in this earthly realm.
That path to happiness didn’t include the stereotypical American dream. There was no bliss to be found in the nuclear family, the house and the white picket fence, the wife and the 2.5 kids. The homes of suburbia were mausoleums, tombs for the middle class. I’d grown up in one of those houses of the dead, where my family had shambled like mindless zombies from one sad moment to the next.
No, that life was not for me. I would break the cycle of mediocrity. Unfortunately, this great epiphany had occurred to me somewhat late. You see, I was already the formerly-proud owner of just such a mausoleum. I had the wife and child, with another on the way (so I guess I was up to 1.5 kids, give or take). A sticky conundrum to be sure, but in my mania those details seemed like a minor blip in my master plan for world domination.
A modern Narcissus, I had fallen in love with the reflection I saw grinning back at me from the train’s window. I was the greatest thing since that proverbial sliced bread. I was the king of the world, and everyone was going to find out the good news soon enough. And as everyone knows, a monarch does whatever he wants. This includes deciding he didn’t have to go back to his suburban tomb. So, I let the train carry me past my usual stop. There were other adventures that awaited me.
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I'm a writer, speaker, and an advocate for everyday heroism. I have over two decades of experience in the practical application of literature, philosophy, psychology, and other disciplines. The culmination of my work is the Live the Hero program, a life philosophy that promotes personal development combined with service to others. Live the Hero combines the wisdom found in the arts and humanities with the latest discoveries related to research in heroism science and positive psychology. You can learn more at livethehero.com.
In reality, if you’d seen me on that grimy train that day, you most likely would have witnessed a guy smiling like a fiend to himself. Definitely a guy with which you wouldn’t want to share a seat. Meanwhile, my mind was in overdrive with swirling thoughts. Fanciful and pointless imaginings were racing through my head at light speed. If I had been in an MRI machine, no doubt my brain would be lit up like a Christmas tree.
