OK. Let’s keep this simple.

How do you survive when you have two disorders that afflict your brain? Both of which can drive you crazy. And one of which has already resulted in your being involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital for a two week “visit”? And the other of which might, in the not too distant future, see me wind up, slumped and drooling, in the corner of “memory care” unit of a nursing home?

In a couple of words? Very carefully.

You Do What You Can

I’ve heard of Bon Jovi. But I don’t think I’ve ever heard one of his songs-I’m a classical music kind of guy. Press me, and I would have said he’s a Limey-part of the “British Invasion” of yore. Why? Can’t tell you. Turns out, however, he’s a rocker from Jersey, right here in the good ol’ US of A. In any event, he and his band cut a COVID, song/video recently by the above name.

“Which,” you might fairly ask, “has exactly what to do with ‘the crazy twins’?” “True,” I’ll concede, “probably not a whole lot.”

Except the phrase is what first came to mind for this post as I’ve wrestled with describing how I’ve tried to first, identify, and then get help solving the two-fold wackiness of my brain. Which, as you probably know, is an organ that has been described as the most complex object in the universe. (With, no doubt, the exception of the ineffable, yet personal Lord God Himself.)

Up And Down. Down And Up.

That’s pretty much how the oldest of my two brain buddies works: bipolar disorder since I was about twenty-two. I was first seized with a doozie of a bout of depression when I broke up (for around the umpteenth time) with my first serious girlfriend. (Be sure to mention to my wife of 40 years-when you see her-that she was also the last serious girlfriend I had before we tied the knot.)

So bad a case of the blues, in fact, that it drove this pagan, for the first time in years, through the doors of a church I wondered by in the People’s Republic of Boulder. And from which, about an hour later, I emerged as a perma-dyed-in-the-wool Christian. And then, within a few days, took off on my first wild bout of mania. During which-get this-I briefly fantasized that I was the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Please! Don’t tell anyone about that. (BTW, if you don’t watch the video linked above about “The Republic,” you are really missing out.)

Oh. And did I mention that I was seized with that first bout of mania while I was on a pheasant hunting trip with Dad and one of his buddies in northeast Colorado? You know: shot guns all over the place. Can’t get into the gory details here, but I thought Dad was acting weird about my new found faith. My angry, no doubt paranoid accusations about what Dad had in mind for his nice Browning over & under late on a dark night when we were cooped up in an old motel somewhere near the little town of Sterling meant no one got much sleep.

No wonder a couple of Denver sheriffs showed up at the folks’ house when we got home, nearly frog-walked me to their patrol car, locked me in the back seat behind a black metal grill, and took me to the Mount Airy Psychiatric Hospital. Where, just like Hotel California, “you can check-in, but you can never leave . . .” At least without a court order.

So, What Was Worse?

The depression. No question.

Heck, maybe I couldn’t sleep much when I was manic. And I occasionally scared the bejeebers out of my wife and family with my highjinks. But blow my brains out? No. The exact opposite: happy dancing. I’ve written about the bi in polar here.

But the worst of the worst for depression? Amway. Read about our pain here. And, if you’re a real glutton, here. At least five years of beating our heads against that impenetrable wall. Rejection. After rejection. After rejection. Exhausting, sleepless drives from one coast to the other for quarterly, weekend “major functions” like Free Enterprise and Dream Weekend. Jump in the car after work on Thursday, drive all night to places like Louisville, KY or Sacramento, CA or Orlando, FL. Join a crowd of thousands of fellow distributors doing The Wave. And hear speaker after speaker say the same thing: “You can get rich, too, just like us!” Then, in the wee hours of the night, stagger upstairs to our bedroom, collapse on the bed, sleep a few hours, and then do it all over again. And, sure, a few did get rich. About as many as you could count on your fingers and toes in that huge crowd.

And If That Weren’t Enough . . .

Normal Pressure Hydrocephalous. Or, more mercyfully, NPH. Of, course, I’ve written about this one before as well here and here.

And, again, to keep it simple, NPH has three symptoms: lousy balance, urinary incontinence (Like the time I got stuck in traffic and pulled into the garage with sopping pants. And a bucket seat full of piss. But you don’t have to tell anyone about that little oops!) And, third, (as if that weren’t enough) dementia and eventually Alzheimer’s. Like, sitting in the corner of the “Memory Care” unit of the nursing home and wondering “Who are these people?” when your wife, kids and grandkids drop by for a visit.

So, there you have it. The crazy twins. But never forget what my old ditch digging boss, Slim Manley, used to say:

“From the day you’re born ’till you’re ridin’ the hearse, there ain’t nothin’ so bad that it couldn’t be worse.”