Tag: manic depression
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The Pattern of a Breakdown
As chaotic as madness is, there is a pattern to it. This latest episode, for instance: it really began in November, when we set the clocks back and lost an hour of sunlight. Even in Los Angeles, as we approach winter solstice, it turns dark before five o’clock. Each day in December, with its lessening…
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How Madness Hides
My smile in the photo isn’t a lie, but an attempt. It was my idea to take the family Christmas portrait, one of those last-ditch efforts to get into the holiday spirit. We took it Christmas eve. Sixteen hours later I crumpled into a corner of the kitchen, screaming about childhood and the demon in…
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Notes From This Recent Psychotic Attack
I had nicked my arm with a razor blade earlier in the season, and thought at the time that it would suffice. Just a little cut above the crux of the elbow, no more than an inch long, though deep enough to leave a scar among all the other crisscross of scars. It worked, for…
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How To Tell Your Kid There’s No Santa Clause
One Christmas long ago my Appalachian father, Ralph, took his revolver, climbed on the roof, shot once into the woods, came back in and said, “Sorry folks, but looks like old Santa just committed suicide.” It was a real hoot. The whole family got it. I was a kid, but didn’t believe in Santa Claus…
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You Don’t Have to Have a Merry Christmas
The darkest evening of the year was yesterday, though for most people, it was just the longest evening of the year. Winter solstice. The shortest day. Here, in L.A., dusk came along around 4:30. That’s too soon for me. Going to bed has, for nearly forty years, been a reckoning with the shadow that comes…