32 Comments

Fascinating.

When you mentioned your Protestant exorcist father, I thought, “dang, Stephen is an endless well of wild experiences.” Thanks for sharing.

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Yeah, I really need to write more about my family. My childhood was wild. But I want to do it in a way that's respectful to them. I see them regularly, and I love them deeply, despite our differences.

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That's awesome. Sounds similar to my parents and me. That kind of enduring relationship is increasingly rare these days.

I totally get the difficulty with writing about them or your childhood though. I pretty much avoid it too, especially since my parents read every post I publish here.

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Yeah, it's a difficult thing to navigate.

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Great content here. The shimmering images, how easy it is to write, the hypersexuality (which people rarely discuss), the importance of sleep, taking responsibility- all of it. And the Frankl quote has been a favorite of mine for a long time for the same reasons. Wonderful characterization.

I'm curious: Do you ever get DYSPHORIC hypomania? Where you have all of the energy and drives of mania but instead of feeling good you're filled with rage and violence? I've only had euphoric hypo/mania twice in my life; every other time it's been like supersonic suicidality and I find my destructive impulses impossible to control. But I know not everyone has that.

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I get something that I can only describe as "flickering." It's like I start rapid-cycling between manic euphoria and manic despair/wanting to hurt myself. It literally switches minute by minute.

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That sounds awful. I’ve always felt bad for people who rapid-cycle; my episodes last at least a year (usually longer). Worse in that they feel like they’ll never end but better in that I generally know what to expect on a daily basis. Rapid-cycling has always seemed like it would be a nightmare.

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Rapid cycling only happens to me when it's *really acute*. Thankfully that isn't common these days.

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There are so many rich layers to what you've shared here- and vulnerable as hell. I don't want to hyperfixate on a singular area, but reading about your experience in seeing the "demons" cast out was incredibly meaningful to me. Especially with your journey to attempt to reconcile that part of your life - trauma, really.

I grew up attending a very, very small church with 3 services every Sunday (we went to all 3) with a session of 'deliverances' at the end of each service. And the same people were having demons cast out of them every week. I'm still trying to come to terms with and process these experiences. When I was six, my dad tried to force me to go to the altar call and I hid under the pew. When my sister was 8, she was a picky eater and my dad had the pastor come to the house to cast the "demon of anorexia" out of her.

But no one will talk about it or help me understand what was going on.

A friend recently shared with me the psychological phenomenon of "demonomania" - and it's finally helping me make sense of what I might have experienced. But, hearing stories like yours is incredibly healing as well. Thank you for sharing - I really appreciate it.

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Thanks for sharing, friend. It sounds like we come from similar backgrounds. I'm totally down to talk about this privately if you'd like.

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Once again, you are writing things that resonate too closely for comfort, so to speak. I don’t think my highs are high enough, my lows as low enough to be diagnosed, but I get it. I’ve stabilized for most of my life just using the numbing of SSRIs, but a few years back, when I started to realize that 1) long-term use of SSRIs were having some side effects (related to jaw issues, ignoring of physical pains that otherwise might provide important information), and 2) I couldn’t *feel* as deeply on SSRIs; I couldn’t cry; they helped the lows but also took away the highs, and 2.5) the made me “dumber”? I would shrug my shoulders and put up with things rather than obsessively try to understand them…. when I realized these things, on top of not liking to be reliant on meds anyway, I stopped taking them, and the stable family life and marriage started to crumble. I realized that my marriage and family were built on a foundation of a medicated me, and I was told on Tiktok that that wasn’t the “authentic” me, and that relatively “good” life fell apart.

These days, I go back and forth (according to the mood) about whether or not where we are at now (single dad) is “better” for all involved. The things you share here reinforce some of the lenses I look at self, life, and world through.

Meditation and Buddhist teachings are absolute game changers. It’s almost as if the Buddha himself were a bit neurodivergent, and he left us insight into how mind works and helpful practices for those whose “self” and world wouldn’t hold still.

I struggle right now to *want* to stabilize. Right now, the highs are good enough and the lows are manageable enough to get by, but when I look at my life through the lens of long-term sustainability, I have concerns.

The daemons or guides or spirits teach me and show me fascinating things. The more I work with them the clearer what they show me becomes. I constantly ask and check whether or not the stuff my “daemons” show me is just crazy nonsense, and from a purely practical and functional standpoint, it is. But from a deeper perspective, it all aligns uncannily well with what so many other mystics have taught: Jung, Campbell, etc. The deepsight is real, and so are the fees and costs of maintaining it. Thank you so much for your thoughts and sharings about what it is, how it works, and duties and responsibilities surrounding it.

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Thanks for sharing, friend, and it sounds like you've been through a challenging time. I understand the dilemma over meds and a "true" self. I guess, for me, life without meds so utterly, horrifically unmanageable that it's an easy choice to stay on them. But it isn't so simple for everyone.

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I’ve always said that art is in the in between waiting to be found. I was playing Madden in Sega once 25 years ago or more and had to pause to write a poem down before I forgot it. It just suddenly came to me out of nowhere while playing video games. The ethereal.

Robert Plant writing stairway stuff

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Incredibly powerful. Thank you for sharing!

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Thank you for reading ❤️

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Thank you so much for writing about bipolar disorder and mental illness.my ex- and children’s father suffers, and we’ve—and he of course, much worse—have really been through the wringer. It’s intense. Almost impossible to describe or convey to “normies.” Much to say here. A relief to find you. And yes, wasn’t it Justin Trudeau’s mom who said she was addicted to the mania..? She couldn’t/wouldn’t get help until she was able to face that addiction.

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Thank you so much for sharing. It is a horribly painful thing, and can truly devastate the people closest to the one suffering. <3

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" I feel the effects of these images physically, as if they were drugs injected directly into my veins; as if they were visual cocaine. They come without context and of their own volition like living, breathing entities."

Man, this line hit.

Thank you for sharing this, Stephen. To the extent that I can relate to this, my experiences rank about a 1 on the scale of 1-10, where 10 is what you're describing. It's like saying I know starvation by saying I fasted for a day one time.

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Thanks so much for reading, friend ❤️

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Nailed it

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Thank you

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Wow!! What a ride, man. Powerful. I struggle with diagnosed OCD. I take meds for it. It's not as intense as this, but I get the idea and relate a fair amount. Powerfully written.

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Thanks so much for reading, man. OCD is a living nightmare, and I’ve similar heard it described as a sort of possession. Hope you are managing well.

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This was SO fascinating! Thank you for writing. I have two friends with the condition, so it’s interesting to read about it, as they don’t really speak on it.

Very great point on gay rights and relationships too.

I loved Melancholia and it partly inspired my novel, Acid Christmas.

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Melancholia is an absolutely extraordinary movie. Now I need to read your book.

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A fascinating read which almost immediately triggered the thought “what is the opposite hypomania”? Because I think I am that. I am glad to hear you found a great partner. Must be the name! 🙂

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Thank you for reading, friend <3

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Thank you so much for sharing these experiences. When I read your words about the "daimon" I was thinking about my own experiences with what I call my "daimon." I actually call him "Captain Howdy." My life changed when I started writing and it was like I moved my mind into a whole other world. It changed everything. I like to joke that once I began writing life became "life-lite." Before writing I would cry and then have terrible lows and sadness and also had nagging depression. Now I cry and think "Can I turn that into a story?" and then back to a normal day.

Writing has cured my nagging depression and taken away the feelings of "What am I doing with my life?" I often have the same experiences where a story and words that don't seem to be mine flood my brain and then flow onto the paper almost all at once. Discovering writing has been an enormous life experience and it feels like kismet some days. I was an illustrator and graphic designer for many years and still am but it never felt like writing has made me feel. I am so grateful I can write these words to someone and not feel crazy. You're the best Stephen!

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Mr Palahniuk talks about "the woo-woo" as well. Mr Palahniuk said he became a different writer after he got hit on the head and other artists have similar stories. My hit on the head was when my friend died suddenly last year and that somehow seemed to channel into my writing and I never looked back. So odd. I feel like a teenager again but without all the depression!

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I think we have similar relationships to writing. We do it as a form of medicine. It's a way of feeling less alone.

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Absolutely.

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I asked AI to make an image of DMT. This is what it did. I Kinda like your pic.

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