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My ankle was broken during a hockey game when I was sixteen. The pain was so intense that by the time I got to the hospital an hour later I couldn’t bear it any longer.

If the doctor had given me a choice between suffering from the pain or cutting my leg off at the knee I would have chosen the amputation. I would still be paying for the mistake if he told me the best evidence calls for amputation and gave me no other option other than suffering for the rest of my life.

This sounds absurd. But, what if the pain was in my head? According to a recent article in the BBC News Magazine (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15629160), they did something even worse in the 1950s – they amputated part of people’s brains.

They lobotomized people with depression and bipolar (and other issues) because it was the best evidence-based treatment at the time. From the article, “But from the mid-1950s, it rapidly fell out of favour, partly because of poor results and partly because of the introduction of the first wave of effective psychiatric drugs.” Chemical lobotomies became the evidence-based treatment of the day.

Today’s evidence-based treatments are so much more humane. Or are they? The tools are more refined, but the goal of treatment is the same: cut off the part that is broken. We are no longer poking ice picks into people’s eye sockets, but are still trying to accomplish similar outcomes.

This video It explains the three stages of bipolar disorder: Crisis, Managed, and Recovery. It reveals the results of an important recent study by the National Institute of Mental Health that you will find shocking. There are many who wish the study would remain buried, but as they say, “The cat is out of the bag now!” Be sure to check it out and share your comments.

In recent months, discussions about the boom and bust cycles of our economy going back to the Great Depression have been the focus of many news stories. During boom cycles, too many of us experience periods of inflated feelings of power or delusions of grandeur, characterized by excessive risk taking and out of control spending. During bust cycles, many of us experience periods of indecisiveness, black and white thinking, loss of energy and fatigue, even feelings of worthlessness and suicidal thoughts. These reactions are classic symptoms of bipolar disorder.

Companies can and do prosper during times of economic turmoil. What do GE, Disney, HP, Microsoft, and Apple have in common? They were all startups during steep declines in the U.S. economy. GE started during the panic of 1873, Disney started during the recession of 1923-24, HP began during the Great Depression, and Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft during the recession of 1975. Even today, while the economy is in the worst down period since the Great Depression, Apple is thriving. All these companies realized that they had an advantage by adopting a different mindset, a different way of seeing the crisis. Instead of succumbing to the situation, they saw it as an opportunity to innovate and grow.

One of the many traits of being bipolar is the ability to see the world in a different way. Many might say it is a curse, but it can also be a gift when looked at from a positive perspective. This change in perspective can literally help you to see with greater clarity.

From early childhood, we have been taking tests to assess our understanding of the world. These tests have had a profound impact on us in ways that we are often unaware. They have created a world view that places too much importance on passing the test and not enough on learning more about ourselves. In some ways, the tests themselves have gotten in the way of what the goal was in the first place.

I have been wearing glasses for almost thirty years. Every year or so I take a new exam to make sure my prescription is still the same. The test seems simple enough: the clinician shows me letters at different sizes and asks me to identify what letters I see. Anyone who has a driver’s license has taken a similar test as has anyone who wears glasses or contact lenses.

A few years ago I discovered a major breakthrough that has completely changed my life. It has brought my life into focus in many ways. I share it with you in hope that it will help you to see better too.

“You don’t know the half of it” is a once-common phrase that is generally applied to negative things. It usually means that you don’t really know how bad it is. It is easy to see how bipolar people can use the phrase to describe how horrible bipolar disorder is to someone who does not experience it.

image by John Forward

I imagine many people would expect this article to be a rant on how people without bipolar disorder have no idea how bad we have it. I am sorry. It is not. It is for those who already know how bad it can be. They may not know the half of it, either.

I often joke that depression is so terrible that we sometimes wish we were dead and we act so badly during mania that everyone else wishes we were. It is good for a laugh, because we all know it has some truth in it. The horrible symptoms of depression and mania that can occur when an individual is in a disordered state are well known. They include physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, social and career/financial dysfunction.

Funded massively by the pharmaceutical industry, partly because it is one of their biggest profit centers, there have been countless studies about bipolar disorder and how to move people from crisis through managed stage to recovery. There are many who argue over the choice of tools to address depression and bipolar, but nearly everyone agrees on one thing: depression and bipolar are horrible mental illnesses that need to be removed from our lives. They don’t know the half of it.

Depressed individuals have a shorter life expectancy than those without depression, in part because depressed patients are at risk of dying by suicide.1 However, we also have a higher rate of dying from other causes.2 Some researchers conclude that we may be more susceptible to medical conditions such as heart disease.3 I had an experience that might point to another cause that we need to address: we don’t treat many health issues because we think they are just symptoms of depression.

Last winter, I went through one of the deepest depressions of my life. It was very intense physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It was a beautiful experience, but that is for another article. The physical aspect is what I want to focus on here.

My physical experience this time was far more intense than any other depression. I was in tremendous pain throughout my body, but especially in my digestive track and chest. I was also completely drained of energy. It took a tremendous act of will just to get out of bed. It was so intense that I found myself reviewing my life in search of any other time that I had similar experiences.

I gave a talk the other day for NAMI Santa Rosa about my next book and a woman remarked how different it is from my previous ones. I said that my first three were about me being the black swan.

She asked if I was referencing the movie called Black Swan and I have not seen it yet, so I do not know if it is related at all to Karl Popper’s concept from the 1930s that I was referencing. Have you seen it? Does it mention Popper? Should I see it either way?

Popper suggested that if you observe only white swans, you are using inductive reasoning to extrapolate that all swans are white. This was falsified when black swans were discovered by the English naturalist John Latham in 1790. Science was forced to change the hypothesis that all swans are white by the new evidence.

I noticed it when I was first diagnosed, but have been watching the phenomenon ever since. I have seen it happen in so many people that it might be true in three quarters of the cases. What is even more amazing is how fast it happens. Bipolar may be the fastest path to perfection known to man!

I have been working on more thorough assessment programs for my new book and think that I have found a breakthrough. Through the assessments I have it traced to the exact moment that it happens. I wonder if you can help me verify my research with your own experiences and share your ideas on how to improve upon it?

Every single day I think about the time I tried to kill myself. It is one of my strongest and most detailed memories. I mention it in passing in my talks as if it is just a point of reference, but it has a profound impact on my every thought. I have not heard the bipolar or depression world debating pro-choice vs. pro-life suicide, but it is an internal debate that I often have myself. I wonder if others have had similar thoughts?

My debate is further colored by the suicide of my best friend Santiago. I think about his hanging himself every day, and the effect it had on everyone around him. It is another memory that is so strong it could have just happened. It too has a profound effect on my every thought.

The other day I was showing a visitor around San Francisco and he brought up suicide when we drove by the Golden Gate Bridge. He asked how many people have jumped off (over 1,200 so far) and whether they have put up a barrier yet. I found myself sharing my internal debate and chose to take the pro-choice side.

It happened several years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. My depression was too much for me and I tried to end it by taking my own life. The physical sensations, mental activity, emotions, and spiritual desolation were the deepest I had ever experienced. I thought it was the deepest anyone could go and the only way out was suicide.

I was wrong. I have since been much deeper in every way – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. I am currently in the deepest depression of my life. It has been going on for five months now, yet I don’t feel overwhelmed at all. The level of depression that once almost killed me now seems like a walk in the park. So does this one. Since it doesn’t overwhelm me or control my reactions to it, I wonder: Am I even depressed at all?

The diagnosis of mental illness is the most dangerous time for many of us. Overwhelmed by fear, confusion and the numbing effect of over-medication, we are vulnerable to any messages that can have long-term consequences. It was during my first months after diagnosis that I fell victim to the myths of mental illness.

As I was trying to make sense of what was happening to me, I was given a list of the most offensive comments anyone could say to the mentally ill. I’m sure you’ve heard of at least some of them. Examples include: “snap out of it,” “you can do anything you want to if you just set your mind to it,” “get a grip,” and the worst one of all, “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.”

While the Advocates are well intentioned, the result is quite the opposite.

One of my earliest memories is of learning to ride a bike. I remember the fear, exhilaration, and hyper-awareness, along with the tension in my body and how my breath became both more rapid and shorter. I was outside of my comfort zone and challenging myself to grow. It was also a blast!

My father had a wisdom common with most dads. He didn’t push me down a steep hill and hope I survived; he ran along next to me making sure I was not too far outside of my comfort zone as to be incapable of handling it. He taught me one of the most important lessons that day about what it is to be human. We need to challenge ourselves to grow, while at the same time making sure we don’t go too far outside of our comfort zone.

The thrill of learning something new and challenging myself to grow has been a constant companion ever since my first bike ride. On too many occasions, I took on challenges far outside of my comfort zone and was either debilitated by the fear and lack of skills, or took risks that caused more harm than the potential reward from succeeding.

We often hear people make the distinction between HAVING Bipolar and BEING Bipolar. Rarely, do we hear a distinction comparing Bipolar to Bipolar Disorder. I coined the term Bipolar In Order ten years ago to help make the distinction, but wonder what it means to you?

Bipolar used to be called Manic-Depression. Mania means that we are elevated. Depression means lowered. Bipolar means that we have two poles (high and low), so it is meant to replace manic-depression as a more acceptable way of describing the same thing. Or, is it just more marketable?

I am no expert on mental health crisis intervention. I have only seven personal experiences to base my opinions on. Nonetheless, it is not a stretch to say that there are some major flaws in the system that should be addressed. I know I am not alone in such an assessment and hope that we can share our ideas for how to make it better.

In trying to better understand all of the points of view, I have spent a lot of time discussing it with all sides of the debate. I gained some great insight from those who identify themselves as part of the anti-psychiatry movement. I could be wrong, but it seems that much of the hostility that they have comes from bad experiences when in crisis. I have a unique perspective on such experiences because I was once hired to stay with someone during his lockdown in a psych facility. I saw first hand how bad it can be while I had the clarity to know what was going on.

When my first book The Bipolar Advantage came out, I almost made a version of it replacing my name with Steve Jobs to send to him. The two of us looked so alike at the time that even Apple employees would come up to me and ask if I was a Steve when I dressed like him.

I have heard many people postulate that Steve is bipolar, so I thought the stunt would get his attention. The book cover was easy for people to mistake as him and with his name on it the legal team would be wondering what it was about. The crazy idea was that they would show it to him and he would contact me because of it. He has been a hero to me and at the time I was obsessed like so many with finding examples of famous people who were bipolar.

The recent announcement that Steve Jobs is stepping down reminded me of my old fantasy. Back then I was convinced that his success was a result of being bipolar and it was proof that we have advantage, which is partly why I named the book The Bipolar Advantage. He may be bipolar, but the fantasy really says more about where I was at the time than anything else. Like so many others, I needed to find things that made up for the horrors of the condition. If we could just survive all of the terrible things about mania and depression, perhaps we could gain something from having been through it.

There was a demo of a video car racing game at the mall the other day and I became fascinated by the reactions of the people who were trying it out. I stayed around for a couple of hours and did an informal study of the phenomenon.

I watched almost 100 people drive into walls and other cars and asked 25 of them what they thought was the reason for so many crashes. Almost to a person, it was the fault of the car. Although they sat in seats that were identical to those in a race car, they said it was too twitchy, loose in the corners, and was nothing like driving a real car.

I was ready to conclude that the game was not very good when a man came along who drove incredibly fast without crashing at all. I asked him his secret and he said that he had taken driving lessons at a race track and practiced often in a real race car. He concluded that the game was very realistic and those who thought otherwise were trying to compare it to a normal car. He said the problem is they don’t know how to drive and the game is not at fault.