Home » Mind & Soul » Depression » To Madness and Back - Page 3

To Madness and Back - Page 3

© John McManamy

Oh, I had the one-liners coming. I was floating on air. On a return visit to New Zealand I was even nice to my ex-wife and her boyfriend. Somewhere, I found the time to fit in a brief fling with someone who had just left her husband.

But the high was beginning to turn on me. Sometimes I found myself snapping at people, which was very uncharacteristic of me. Once, on the tram, on my way to work in the early morning, I found myself on the brink of physically attacking some wise-assed teenager. I actually got up out of my seat and went for his neck before I caught myself. And then there was the issue of my six month salary review.

Based on my performance, I was certainly entitled to a substantial raise. No, it was not delusional. The delusional part came in thinking I couldn't be replaced. When the editor failed to make me a decent offer I quit in a huff, bitterly resentful over his treatment of me. Furious, in fact, in a blind rage. I told my colleagues what had happened and they looked at me like I was crazy. Didn't anyone understand?

Hell with them, I thought. I'll just apply for another job. But this time there were no takers. No one would touch me with a ten-foot pole. I happened to encounter one of the paper's big name journalists in a nearby pub, and he literally turned his back on me, pointedly refusing to acknowledge my existence.

I was nothing, a non-person, a pariah.

Meanwhile, I would walk for hours - occasionally breaking out into a run - feeling the cold fusion inside my psyche pulsing and surging and desperately seeking a fast way out. Going to sleep was like the Fourth of July. All I had to do was close my eyes to experience the fireworks flashing onto my retinal screen. I would open my eyes only to find shadows and objects merging in the dark into an ominous new hellscape. I was on the brink of breaking out into full-scale hallucinations, and I knew that fairly soon I would be going mad

I'M NORMAL! I wanted to shout. I've always been normal. This was just - stress - that was it. New location, crazy working hours. I just needed to slow down, that was all.

But no, that wasn't it, I decided in a Damascus Road flash of insight. I needed a religious experience, a spiritual transformation, a zen moment, a cosmic turbocharge. Then everything would be fine, better than fine, in fact. Perfect - I could walk the earth as an enlightened being. I'm ready! I let God know. Plug me in.

The copyright of the article To Madness and Back - Page 3 in Depression is owned by John McManamy. Permission to republish To Madness and Back - Page 3 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.