Admit that I could write now a post that I might write during my usual fall fling, and it would have no effect whatsoever on how I spend my time, what I write. The Mary Joan of the spring and fall fling is not my real self; I wouldn't be happy if I could be that person all the time. I don't want to write the great book on manic depression. For the most part, I would like to put that agonizing part of my life behind me. I realize it is important now to record my perspective on what I might be feeling and saying a month from now.
I coped with the shame and agony of my illness by planning to write about it. The dilemma is my perspective when manic is warped. The rest of the time I am too ashamed of my manic excesses to want to glorify them. I am not proud of what I wrote in the hospital. I was acutely ill, and I made it impossible to get the help I needed by alienating everyone with my intellectual arrogance. My illness might not have been so terrible if I hadn't been ensnared by psychotic transference with Bill. If he had been a decent psychiatrist, he would have refused to treat me after November 1987. Yes I would have been devastated, but I would have gone past it. Now, I have only truly transcended Bill since I married Andy.
Bill encouraged me to disown my maternal self, encouraged grandiose career goals that I wasn't able to live up to when I wasn't manic, wasn't able to succeed at when I was manic. I have every reason to be nervous when I say, Bill said.
I should go back and comment on what I wrote during the spring fling. It should give me more perspective if I experience a fall fling. Actually, I know I will experience something resembling a fall fling; that is why I am preparing for it.
