Seven years ago I had an attack of pathological enthusiasm. ... I believed I could stop cars and paralyze their forces by merely standing in the middle of the highway with my arms outspread. . . . I suspected I was a reincarnation of the Holy Ghost, and had become homicidally hallucinated.

To have known the glory, violence and banality of such an experience is corrupting.

- Robert Lowell, poet (bipolar I)

I was increasingly restless, irritable, and I craved excitement; all of a sudden, I found myself rebelling against the very things I most loved about my husband: his kindness, stability, warmth, and love. I impulsively reached out for a new life. I found an exceedingly modern apartment in Santa Monica, although I hated modern architecture; I bought modern Finnish furniture, although I loved warm and old-fashioned things. Everything I acquired was cool, modern, angular, and, I suppose, strangely soothing and relatively uninvasive of my increasingly chaotic mind and jangled senses.