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(Keith of brokenwhole, the blogger: I write a detailed introduction to myself an my main bipolar blog at the end of each posting. You'll see it at the bottom of this post. ‘I blogged throughout the whole experience, even before I knew I was bipolar, so I view my blog as a fairly unique testament about what it feels like to go through something like this.)

Blog Entry

Way back when I was still extremely manic, in the summer of 2006, I thought I'd overcome life-long shyness and adulthood depression to be this outgoing, gleaming force of nature. I'd talk to anybody and everybody. Before I was diagnosed and understood what was going on, Ben tried a little bit to restrain me, when he was around. But since it was such a new experience for me, being able to talk to people with such ease (even children!), I usually shook him off. And when I was by myself I was unstoppable.

For instance, I remember sitting next to a guy at Starbucks and overhearing that he worked for Bravo networks. So I told him I was planning on opening a big gay club in West Hollywood, called Karma, and would they be interested in doing a series about it. I can't believe my gall now.

There were countless other such incidents, many of which I no longer remember: they're lost in the mental fog of those days. So much activity in a short period of time that some of it is lost forever. In my book, which is full length, I recount a lot of incidents, but there are many I either don't recall, or couldn't bare to admit.

I thought I had the charm and intelligence to solve anybody's problems. Part of the tens of thousands of dollars I wasted during this period were spent on setting up a corporation and a website called customerserviceanytime.com. My idea was that people would contact me, and I'd be a sort of customer-service concierge to help them through intractable situations.

My point about all this is that my self-confidence in relating to others knew no bounds. And, most of the time, people had no idea that I was manic (I think). For instance, I met a famous designer at Barneys in Beverly Hills (another place I spent a ton of money). He saw me coming out of the changing rooms, all 6'6 of me, in a sort of black velvet punkish fur vest and smiled at me. I knew I was glowing. He told me he was looking for models, and we exchanged cards.

Now, eighteen months later, I'm becoming more and more stable every month (see my "mind-cure" project), and have gone more than a year without a serious manic or depressive swing. Most often now I'm more or less the same Keith I was before, although much more self-secure. (You couldn't go through a crisis like that and recover without gaining strength in yourself.) But on most days, I'm not a chatty Kathy.

However, if you checked my mood chart on the mind-cure page I mentioned earlier, you'll see some days where my mood was 4.2, and that meant I was slightly manic, and definitely susceptible to talking to complete strangers. But I'd been holding all of that in, too scared about where it might lead.