I've had four manic episodes in the 21st century.
In 2001, after 9/11; in 2013 after my fourth year of living with a girlfriend who had Parkinson's; and two this year, in 2021.
Before these episodes, I suffered from manic-depression—now called bipolar disorder, because it's an American tradition to banish truthful description in favor of weasel words.
I was bipolar from 1963 to 1999.
36 years of big ups and downs—during which I still managed to be a highly successful advertising copywriter in Johannesburg South Africa and on Madison Avenue.
In 1999, the disorder went away. Some of us outgrow it in our fifties.
Also, the fact that I've run 5 miles a day for most of my adult life may have something to do with this welcome release. Maybe I ran my brain into chemical balance, what with all the endorphins and dopamine released by the running.
1. Four Personality Changes in Less than a Week
This last manic episode, which ended a few weeks ago, was most peculiar, in that I underwent four personality changes.
Personality change #1: a mini-mania triggered by the fact that I had not run my 5 miles a day for six weeks because of a pacemaker-replacement operation (this had nothing to do with being bipolar because there’s no depression). During this personality change I was super-productive, slept at most 5 hours a night, and worked all day writing poetry and prose.
Personality change #2. For 48 hours of no sleeping and no eating, I took to re-arranging everything in my apartment, which required totally crazy physical exertion, lugging big boxes of stuff around, moving my bed, etc. I kept at it for two nights and days, until my apartment accorded with my #2 personality's wishes.
I was so crazily obsessed by this immense physical task that when my roommate interrupted me, I yelled at him. Totally unlike me: before that, I’d yelled at only two people in all of my 76 years.
Personality change #3. During a phone call with my girlfriend, I suddenly became speechless and couldn't talk at all. My lips and tongue were unable to form words. By the time the ambulance people arrived, I could speak again. They checked all my vital signs—heart, kidneys, blood pressure, blood sugar—and pronounced me okay. They still wanted to take me to a hospital for a doctor to see me. But I wanted to go see my own doctor who knew my medical history since 1990. I dismissed them and took the subway to my doctor who'd taken the afternoon off. So I returned home. All this time I walked in this slow and bent-forward position like an ailing Frankenstein.
Personality change #4. That night I started shaking uncontrollably. During the other three personality changes, I felt that I had agency and control. Now I did not not feel in control of myself at all. The next morning, after sleeping badly, I woke up shaking all day which continued for three days.
Now I recalled that I'd spent weeks seeing things that were not there. I'd be sitting on the toilet and looking at a tiny insect with legs, moving its tiny body a millimeter on the white-and-black tiles. But when I put my finger on the bug, it turned out to be a speck of dirt. I'd be sitting on a park bench and see two people on a bench twenty yards away. Then I 'd go over for a chat. But there was nobody there; the bench was empty.
These are all symptoms of Parkinson's, which I was familiar with from having lived for four years with a girlfriend who was diagnosed in the first four months of us living together.
So I knew I had Parkinson's.
What to do? I knew the disease would cut my life short by five to fifteen years, so I immediately decided to cut down the 32 projects I wanted to finish before I die to an essential seven.
Then, as the days passed, the symptoms went away. I realized I did not have Parkinson's. I was myself again.
WTF Was It All About ?
The big absurdity of these personality changes was that they happened instantly. I would switch from manic Evert to physical-exertion Evert to speechless Evert to shaking-all-over-for-three days Evert in a split-second.
A doctor friend emailed me that it must've all happened because my blood-sugar level may have been dangerously low because of 48 hours of no sleeping and no eating.
He's wrong, because the ambulance people found my blood-sugar level fine, even after 48 hours of not eating. Also, I think there’s more than that at stake: what drove me to re-arrange my apartment in the first place? Why was I huffing-and-puffing like a madman, knowing that I was driving myself beyond any physical capability—but just kept on going?
But I Gained A Big Advantage from Being Four Everts
There was one beneficial outcome to this total absurdity, an absurdity that Sartre and Camus could not have imagined when they invented existentialism.
I came out of it with the amazing facility of being able to write a first draft of a poem, a song, or a prose piece that didn't need revision. The first draft was the final version.
Have you any idea what a blessing that is? Have you ever tried to revise a 140.000-word novel seventeen times, as I have?
The Eve Dada Rule
In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell proposed the “10,000-hour rule.” The key to achieving true expertise in any skill is simply a matter of practicing for at least 10,000 hours.
I would like to propose the Eve Dada First Draft-Final Version Rule. Somewhere in your 50s, 60s or 70s, long after you've become skilled at your craft because you did your 10,000 hours in your 20s or 30s, you might achieve an even more important skill: to write exactly what you want without need of revision—whether it's an essay like this one, or a song or a poem.
Yesterday, for example, I sang an entire song—chorus, verse and bridge, complete with lyrics—into my Sony recorder.
A few mornings ago I woke up and wrote this poem in ten minutes. No revision needed.
STARTING A POEM WHERE IT BEGINS
I like to start a poem with my frenzied Napoleon
engaged in sweet battle in my soul mate’s Waterloo
the moistness of heaven a yummy oasis on earth
like when I claim the toilet with an almighty pooh
that’s how it feels between the me and the you
a little like dropping the word persnickety in mirth
something funny and kinky about that persnickety
it neither denotes girth or premature birth
except the dearth of any hapless and finicky dignity
that might pervade the frisky and spoken-for wang
happily ensconced in that green Waterloo
where life ends in both the whimper and the bang
where neither claims any observable victory
but the bearable joy of a sweet little death
more like an affirmation of life
two lungs drawing happily on one big fat breath
an affirming flame and all that
pull down thy vanity says the poet at bat
April can be a very mild month
sometimes a song needs a bit more of synth
you know the bubble and squeak of the rock of a Kraut
I have no idea what this poem is about
I prefer a twist to the howl of a John Lennon shout
I prefer my partner’s vagina to any retreat on our planet
though the sinking of cogent teeth in a ripe pomegranate
attains the reasonable ranking of at least second best
and then there is silence--for which a prince claimed the rest
but also there’s life mocked in infinite jest
and so may your journey, your lackadaisical quest
as the rhymes of the day blithely crest in your breast
forever with emollients of poetry be blessed
Ten minutes. That's all it took.
I have no idea if it's any good. But I do know there's no need for a revision.
I also do 1,500 words a day on my memoir—My Father's Wrath: Growing Up White in Apartheid South Africa—and those 1,500 words don't have to be revised either.
For a writer, this is nothing short of a miracle.
So it all ended rather well. Except for this: no way do I want to repeat it. One Evert is more than enough for me, thank you.
Here’s a link to my latest YouTube music video of a song I wrote, produced and sang.
The title is rather appropriate:
Who Am I? (Identity Crisis) by Eve Dada (my artistic nom de plume).
If you enjoy my music video, perhaps you might want to subscribe to my Eve Dada YouTube channel. Once I have a thousand subscribers, I become a YouTube Partner, and then they allow you to email them for advice on how to proceed with your YouTube channel in order to reach more viewers.
Double-click and enjoy.