2013 The Year In Review From A Mental Health Perspective

It’s been a long time since I had a manic episode, but I certainly remember them vividly. One of the hallmark components was an intense sense of urgency. I lived entirely in the moment, a state of being at once exhilarating and terrifying. It was as if I had been cut loose from the restrictions of time; I had no past or future. My existence resembled the reality described by William Blake – infinity in a grain of sand and eternity in an hour. When one is strapped to the nose cone of a rocket one does not think much about time – one thinks about each instant as it happens.

An essential element of living successfully through every manic moment, for me at least, was the ability to move wherever, whenever, I wished. Boundaries of any sort were anathema to me. I was always ahead of the moment, faster than reality, pushing life along so it would catch up with me. I was ready for whatever came next even though I had no idea what that might be. I flicked the ashes off my cigarettes before there were any. At bars and restaurants I always paid in cash – using exact change – so that I was free at the exact moment anxiousness set in. To fully embrace the feeling of absolute freedom I felt it was necessary to believe I was already prepared for what was to come. I was hyper-vigilant.

With this in mind, I am writing my “2013: The Year In Review” column, now, while there is plenty of time to do so and I am not feeling rushed.

2013 The Year In Review From A Mental Health Perspective

As we gaze upon 2013 sinking into the setting sun it must be noted that it was, in many respects, like years past and years to come in that it contained days, weeks, and months. What then made it noteworthy? Well you may ask. From a mental health perspective 2013 will be remembered for two dramatic bits of social engineering. First is the introduction of specially designated parking spaces for the mentally ill. (This had the ironic, unintended consequence of creating a sub-class of so-called “pseudo-whackadoomians” – people feigning mental illness in order to poach these preferred parking places.)

Second was the Whackadoomian Act, which mandated a quota system for hiring the mentally ill. (Congress attempted to exempt itself from these quotas by claiming that idiocy should qualify as a mental illness. A landmark Supreme Court case rejected this gambit.)

Apart from that, 2013 was pretty quiet from a mental health perspective. See you in 2014!