This introduces Kenwood, Ken to his friends. Funny things keep on happening to our Ken.
The bipolar condition is interesting. It's like riding a bicycle. If you are bipolar, the countryside is hilly. You struggle up the hills and it feels as though you are climbing most of the time. Then you get the downhill runs of brief exhilaration which are over too soon. Imagine living in boring featureless countryside. You will never experience the exhilaration. It's tough going but you reach heights others don't.
It's like the tide. When the tide is in, my character's name is Tom. He's on a surfboard catching crazy waves. He's exuberant, buzzing with ideas. His fingers spark off the keyboard in the rush to make the best of it while it lasts. These creative spurts are delicious. Sleep is waved aside as irrelevant. Self-discipline is 100%. The blood coursing through his veins has turned to champagne. Salads are nibbled, alcohol is forsaken if the diet demands it. Excess weight can fall off at a rate of half a pound a day. There is an aura of voltage, a strong magnetic field that is visible to all, even the family dog. Especially the family dog. When high in the sky, it seems as though all the problems are resolved. Life is wonderful. He's never going to feel down again.
But, as night follows day, the down phase follows. After a few decades, you get to realise that the mood swings are inevitable, and so, to function at all, you have to learn a survival mechanism.
When the tide is out, life is more trudge than scamper. Frankly, it's better to hide because depression is contageous. Laugh and the world laughs with you, but when you're down, you're very difficult to live with. Sometimes you need to be alone, sometimes you need company but silence. You can perhaps manage to find the happy switch and behave like the Duracell Bunny for a while, but when you're alone in your bed you're not alone. Sleep is difficult and fitful. The brain is spinning like a demented hard disc, so fast it may disintegrate into a thousand fragments. You're an aeroplane in full screaming dive and it seems impossible the airframe is going to be able to withstand the pressue.
Words and phrases buzz around like a dark swarm of insects. If you waved some sticky fly-paper, you would catch the clusters of words that are fragments of arguments. The same old arguments, played out continuously and exhaustingly. The "what ifs" and the "if onlys". It's a noisy vortex, a shrieking tornado that nobody can hear but you. Why can't anyone hear the racket going on in my heaad ? The family dog looks up at you with his chin on his paws and thumps his tail. There's going to be no fun today.
This introduces Kenwood, Ken to his friends. Funny things keep on happening to our Ken.