“Mr. Big” Goes to the Loony-Bin

Mr. "Big" in the flesh

I was just a pretty normal, happy-go-lucky guy, spinning my way through life until bipolar depression got a grip on me and kicked my ass. I went from having a successful career and being married with a white picket fence at the top of Bel Air to mid-life crisis in a heartbeat, and in another heartbeat life got so bad that I earned a ticket into a psych hospital. So what happened?

At age 44 everything seemed old and boring, to sum it up, and I thought life needed a big change. So I quit a 10 year marriage and a successful 18 year career in financial services with a radio show — all within a few months — and planned on flying to the Philippines to help out the Tsunami victims. Then I was going to go to Costa Rica to start a juice-bar — maybe a chain of them. It all sounded pretty good to me until I met a doctor, fell in love with her and her two kids, and moved in with her for a year. After she almost killed me with a boot- kick that ruptured my spleen, all my plans sort of went awry. Needless to say, my mood changed from happy-go-lucky to pretty f**king bummed out — to the point where clinical depression led me through the gates of a mental hospital. I had not ever envisioned nor planned on spending much time at such a place, yet somehow there I was — without a job or family or assets at age 46 — in my peak earning years. I’d always imagined things would turn out a hell of a lot differently by the time I’d hit middle-age –yet there I was. Not taking my kids to ball games or out on the yacht for fishing trips with their friends, not wealthy enough that I could do anything in the world I wanted to do and on the way to an early retirement so I could take up all sorts of cool hobbies — but homeless, jobless, savings blown and without family — not even a dog — and in a nuthouse. Mr. Big, Mr. Radio, Mr New York, The “Mayor of the the Gaslight”, the fun guy everyone loved and wanted to be friends with, who’d had the world by the nose, the man, Tom Rees — flat on his ass and without an ounce of energy or desire to fight back. That, my dear readers, is the position an untreated depression with a bipolar 2 mood disorder can take someone and drop them into within a few short years.

Of course there is an upshot to all this. Maybe this is how life was meant to go because you have a few epiphanies along the way, and the course of your whole life changes. Maybe you were on a path to nowhere, and your best friend had written a book called “Shallow Man” — and you were that man. Maybe you really thought you were happy before earning all that money, but were empty inside, like an egg without the yolk. Maybe you became spiritual where you never were, and maybe you recognized the value in truly helping others where that never meant a damn to you before. Perhaps you came to recognize what a true, blue, lie-down-on-the-tracks-for-you friend was, where you thought you knew that before. Maybe it’s possible that having to walk through a nightmare was just what you needed to set your life on another track that would lead to TRUE happiness, to inner satisfaction the likes of which you’d never felt before, and to a spiritual peace that you had never been able to sense before, much less even dream about.

Nobody loved a night out, a drink, a girl, a party, a disco-ball, a big white tent, drinking buddies, naughtiness, fun, a buzz, the beach at night, a bar at a ski resort, a club in NY, traveling, eating, a cigarette, or playing at 100 other things more than I did. And nobody worked as hard for all that fun and believed he deserved it more. No one loved life as I thought I loved life….. until it all came crashing down.

I can only tell you that no matter how bad it seems , it can get better. No matter whether you have had serious thoughts that perhaps the world would be a better place without you, it wouldn’t be. And no matter how hopeless things may seem at some point in your life, especially if you are prone to depression — they can get better than you ever dreamed possible. Take that message of hope and never let it go, and if you know someone who needs that message, spread it. It’s the truth, so help me God. And just in case you may think all this insanity turned me into a reborn Christian or a religious fanatic, it didn’t. But it did alert me to a higher plane of existence out there that we can all have a piece of if we reach for it. It’s worth it, and all that you have to go through to get there, wherever “there” is.

OK, enough soapbox stuff. Disco-balls and naughtiness are still in my head, but generally they are just at a different priority level. Who knows, maybe that’s just called growing up — something else I have always had a problem with. Enjoy the blog. I’m selling nothing but truth and honesty.

Author’s Note: I’d be remiss to not thank my parents, my best friend Steve Wilson, my sister Liz, Paul Royer and Dr. Joe Haraszti for helping save my life and make me a better, happier man for all I have been through. Thank you special people for being there and helping me start a second act which I feel will be more fun and meaningful than the first.

Related articles by Zemanta

• bipolar (bipolardisordertreatmentsblog.com)
• 8 Ways to Help Your Bipolar Loved One Cope (beliefnet.com)
• Back to school with bipolar? How college can unleash mania (cnn.com)