It was hard for me to learn the difference between happiness and damaging mania. It’s something everyone who struggles with mania must learn. Here are some tests that usually work. Still, 30 years after my last attack of full-blown mania, I still don’t completely trust unexpected flattery and good news, and took precautions against mania first, when I was recognized by one of my heroes..
The brutally frank sexuality, negative portrayal of Jews, and the dislikable, womanizing main character in “Portnoy’s Complaint” by Philip Roth stunned and outraged readers, especially Jews, in 1970. It would have not that effect today if anyone bothered to read it.
The hardest part of reducing medication, for me, is feeling more feelings. It’s like taking a layer of bubble wrap off my emotions. I was screaming at people after my 2nd redution, from 3 pills to 2 to 1 and back to 2. At this level, I fall asleep and wake up better, I’m happier, more creative, and productive, and I’ve stopped screaming..
In 1970, I wrote an account of a 1968 spiritual experience that changed my life. An old friend found a copy and sent it to me during Passover week, 2012. It’s a link to a richly creative time in my life. I doubt I could write anything so lyrical or spiritual today. Ten years later, psychiatrists tried to turn the event into a symptom of a permanent brain disease.
Lots of Jews have emotional problems around Passover. Lots of Christians do around Christmas for the same reason. These are the big annual family holidays, celebrated mostly at home, with layers of family-specific memories and traditions. Any negative feelings people have about their families come into sharpest focus at these holidays. For many people, like me, calling these feelings “holiday blues” trivializes some serious emotional distress.
Stan Musial played as well as Ted Williams or Joe DiMaggio, and was a much nicer person. Why is he forgotten except by fans over 60, or in St. Louis?
I still consider New York’s Central Park sacred space. A man-made environment God would be proud of, for physical and spiritual re-creation of a mass society, is sacred. Hosting a receptive friend on her first visit was like seeing the Park for the first time.
What’s more interesting, the Dead Sea Scrolls or Manhattan’s Central Park on a spring weekend, my friend Becky Mercier asked, after Megan Wood Heldman and I visited both Sunday, April 1, 2012. “Too close to call,” we both replied. Part 1 of 2 is about the Dead Sea Scrolls.
For many Jews, bunnies, baby chicks, and colored eggs can’t hide centuries of unpleasant associations with the most important religious holiday in the Christian calendar.
Hollywood does not produce as many great romantic comedies today. Big studios, the Hays Code, and repertory companies of great supporting actors and off-screen craftspeople no longer exist. Talent and star power are not what’s missing.
Journalists gave themselves permission to be writers, not just chroniclers. We explored our reactions to the people, subjects, and events we wrote about, instead of trying to hide them. We used fiction-writing and story-telling devices to tell true stories. We became participants, even characters, in our stories.