Chocolate Covered Bacon

Delusion 

de•lu•sion 

dəˈlo͞oZHən 

noun

an idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument, typically a symptom of mental disorder.

One of the problems with being bipolar, at least with regard to my flavor, is that it is filled with delusions. When I was diagnosed with Bipolar II my counselor told me the difference between Bipolar I (what we used to call Manic Depression) and Bipolar II is that if you are Bipolar I you walk down the street buck naked thinking you are Jesus Christ. Personally, I’ve never thought I was Jesus Christ.

For me, being delusional came with being bipolar. Had my bipolarity been more severe, those delusions would have turned up as psychosis. Instead, they would in my teenage years manifest themselves as paranoia, and later in my early adult years as delusions of grandeur. I remember coming up with many get-rich-quick schemes or business schemes, or plans for ministry. In my mind each plan was well thought out, and made perfect sense. However, to the rational person not one of my ideas was well-founded. One example would be when I decided to take out a $30,000 loan so I could attend computer school and become an IT expert. The problem was that while I was and am an intelligent person, I did not possess that aptitude for computers, computer networking, or network security, all of which were part of the program in which I was wishing to participate. Nevertheless – and keep in mind that this was all before my diagnosis – I managed to talk my mother into co-signing for the loan, and began taking classes. Less than a month later I was in deep water, so deep in fact that I was overwhelmed by the massive amounts new information thrown at me. So I quit. That’s what bipolar people often do when they can’t move on. They leave the task unfinished, which was for me just one of many.

 One of my more recent delusions happened a few months ago when I started working a third shift job. Although I had worked third shift in the past, it had been many years since I tried adapting to an overnight work schedule. My entire daytime routine was thrown off balance, and within days of starting the job I was forgetting on a fairly regular basis to take my medication. When I did remember to take my meds, my mind and my body did not know what to do with them. Consequently, I began to spiral back into the old bipolar me. Within days I became depressed. Suicidal thoughts began to creep back in, and I got the most delusional idea for a business scheme I had come up with in a long time: I would get rich making and shipping chocolate covered bacon. 

Before you think me too crazy, you need to realize that while the idea sounds far-fetched, it is not without precedent or merit. Bacon is extremely popular, as is chocolate, and the combination of the two is being done to this day. Also keep in mind that I am a very good cook, and in some people’s opinion qualify to be called a chef. Armed with my culinary knowledge and years of experience in the kitchen, I decided to make an experimental batch of chocolate covered bacon and see how it tasted. To my surprise, and the surprise of a few members of my family, it turned out delicious. I posted pictures of my product on Facebook, and declared myself open for business which netted me two orders totaling over $100. But that was during the holiday season, and as quickly as business took off, it dried up.

 To make a long story short, I decided to make a more concerted effort to take my medication on a daily basis, and I quit the third shift job. Slowly I began to see the idea for chocolate covered bacon for what it was, a delusion. I never did make millions by shipping chocolate covered bacon overseas to the millions of people in China like I had planned, nor do I even make it for my family anymore. In fact, I can’t stand the stuff anymore having eaten more of it than anyone else. Had you told me in the beginning that I was being delusional, I would have argued with you and tried to convince you that you lacked vision for good ideas. On this side of the delusion, however, it is plain to see that it was all a crazy scheme.

Bipolar Diagnosis

I never had a whole lot of confidence in psychologists, psychiatrists, biblical counselors, or anyone else in the mental health field until I was well into my forties. I grew up in the 70s and 80s when the scientific study of the human brain and human behavior was at best experimental.  Many mistakes were made in those days by well-meaning mental health professionals, and sadly much to the detriment of the patient, and sometimes to the family. In my case it was both.

Throughout my life, from childhood to adulthood I visited a handful of psychologists and psychiatrists, and two bible-based counselors. Each one listened to my story, determined something was wrong, but except for one, not one of them could tell me I was bipolar. Maybe I did not give them enough time to figure me out, because the one who did spent the better part of a year with me sorting out the pieces of my life. But in the early days of evaluation what little information that could be gathered lent itself to mere speculation. In my elementary school years my parents were blamed. In my teenage years my behavior was blamed on the way I was raised in my elementary years. As an adult doctors and counselors blamed it all on the emotional and spiritual baggage I was carrying around with me.  One psychiatrist even came close to finding a diagnosis, saying I had mood swings, and prescribed medication to help control them, but that was not enough to effect a positive change.

One reason doctors had such a difficult time understanding my behavior and giving me a proper diagnosis was, because up until 1980 anyone with any type of mood disorder was simply labeled manic depressive. At that time the term bipolar disorder started being used and distinction was being made between full blown mania and hypomania. For me, however, and anyone growing up in the 80s with Affective Mood Disorder, the matter was further complicated, because it was not until the end of the 1980s that doctors began making a distinction between adult and childhood bipolar disorder. The reason why this was messy was, because anyone born in the mid to late 1960s was during this time of enlightenment coming into their adulthood. Therefore, doctors evaluating teenagers in late adolescence and early adulthood were just beginning to get a firm grasp on the evolution of the disorder. In other words, many doctors did not even realize how the disorder was changing, and the effects those changes were having on those of us trying to make sense of the hell in which we were living.

For me that early diagnosis was simply that I had mood swings, which was so obvious a child could have come to the same conclusion.  And so I slipped through the cracks and went untreated and improperly diagnosed for another twenty years. During this time I was verbally abusive to my wife and my children, perpetually depressed and suicidal, unable to hold a steady job, and headed for a breakdown. Thankfully, I did have a complete and total breakdown, for had I not, I would have never reached that rock-bottom point in life where I had no other choice but to seek help, and subsequently, finally get diagnosed as Bipolar II.  My counselor, Jerry, being a brilliant man did what others could not do and put the pieces of my life together and came to conclusion that my problems were not much behavioral, as they were the sum total of a mental illness that I had been living with my entire life.