Beautifully written, and too familiar.

My parents keep the 24 hour news channels on about 12 hours a day; frequently FOX, but CNN too. They are addicted to it emotionally. It is like a drug for them.

While my wife and I live nearby and visit fairly regularly, we spent 3 months earlier this year living 3000 miles away. When we returned to Florida, we stayed with my parents and, even though they hadn't seen us in months, they couldn't bring themselves to turn the tv off and have a conversation with us. It always had to be on, and they had to know what the latest was on the lost girl in Aruba, the plane that had crashed or was about to crash, or which anchor person was moving to a new network. It was sad.

I imagine the right-wing talk radio works in much the same fashion. It adrenalinizes them, and they get hooked.

Thanks for sharing this with us, Wil.

What the good Senator is referencing is a "suicidal" loop hole in the law. This was depicted wonderfully in Vera Drake, as women "of substance" could go to several doctors and make a case for being "unable to go on" if they continued with their pregnancy, and the mds would then send them to a plush clinic to perform the abortion. Those who could not afford such MD visits and clinic stays were forced to rely on lay abortionists like Drake to help them end their pregnancies in their own homes.

All the Senator's qualifiers aside (he is a squirmy maladjusted little twerp, isn't he?) I doubt such an exemption would be easy to come by in S.D., and one can easily see them resorting more quickly to incarcerating the suicidal to keep them from aborting, rather than saying "Well, gosh, if you feel that strongly about it just go ahead." Compassion is not on display in S.D. right now, and I doubt it will be any time soon. And if it is on display, it will have ENORMOUS religious overtones, as the good Senator shows us so eloquently.

Salem witch trials, anyone?

Beautiful and touching essay. You clearly capture the psychosis involved in your manic episodes and give your audience an amazing sense of the illness that they would otherwise be unable to imagine. It forces the reader to confront, in a more graphic and literal way, the realities and scope of the question you are posing.

As a nurse who has worked in psych for the past 26 years, my gut and immediate reaction to the question posed in this essay was “Of course not!” I realize it is a more complex issue than that, and that the drive to motherhood is extraordinarily strong, but I’ve seen so much of the tragedy that comes from this illness; the repeated hospitalizations, the repeated loss of employment, the inability to complete college due to the stress involved, the relationship losses, the physical torment that accompanies both the mania and the depression, the higher than normal suicide rates. As I write these words, I see very specific people I’ve worked with over the years, and their struggles.

Admittedly, I don’t see the bipolar successes as much. I tend to see those who spiral out of control more frequently. But I cannot imagine taking the risk of inflicting this illness on a child. When I ask the question, “Is there a history of bipolar illness in your family?” it is, more often than not, diagnostic.

As for your simultaneous period/mania/pregnancy delusions, it could be that you have some trouble handling the hormonal changes that accompany your menses. This is not uncommon, but also would not bode well for the enormous hormonal changes that accompany pregnancy.

The primary question I would ask is not whether there are newer, alternative mood stabilizers that would keep your illness at bay while pregnant. The question is the genetic question.

Thanks for sharing your story. Good luck with whatever you decide.