Ed Renehan

Memo, March 10th, 2010:

I am a 53-year old husband and father. I am a writer whose work has been published by Oxford University Press, Doubleday, Basic/Perseus and other imprints. I am a guitarist and singer who studied with acoustic blues legend Gary Davis when I was a teenager, and at age 20 shared equal billing on a record album with Pete Seeger. I am an entrepreneur who has spent many years on the front lines of publishing. I am bipolar (aka, manic depresseive). And I am a convicted felon. I've just finished a relatively brief and easy (but nevertheless humbling) stint of minimum security federal incarceration. On the day I self-surrendered to begin my sentence, I did so with relief. Like the disgraced lawyers, lobbyists and stock-brokers with whom I played endless rounds of racquetball, I deserved to be where I was. I consciously, albeit manically, brought myself to that place.

Manic depression is an incurable progressive sickness deriving from a chemical imbalance in the brain. The disorder has a large genetic component. It is never the result of any form of substance abuse, although it often fosters abuse in undiagnosed sufferers who, desperate for relief from their roller-coaster emotions, try to self-medicate. Those afflicted wth the disorder bounce wildly between crazed flights of self-important exuberance and violent crashes down into despair. Highs and lows can last hours, days, weeks or months. Suicide is common. As one ages, the highs become higher and the lows exponentially lower. During advanced manias, the sufferer engages in escalating episodes of reckless, self-destructive behavior. The heroin-like rush of living on the edge becomes an addiction. Familes, careers and whole lives are ruined.

At the peak of mania, bipolars are often of a mind that the world exists - and sometimes must be adapted forcibly - to serve their ambitions and convenience. When I am thus elevated, I know that nothing and no-one outranks any material of social need I might have. My wants - including my wants of unconditional acquiescence and validation - are to be met at any cost. I am loudly and sometimes violently contrary. Rages come as naturally as breath. Virtually all actions are ill-considered and frequently vengeful. Later, after mania subsides, I acknowledge these wrongs in myself and beat myself up over them, but I am too despondent to put them right. The energy is not there. Nor the courage.

During my last great mania before my diagnosis and the start of my treatment, I engaged in especially reprehensible behavior which resulted in my pleading guilty to a Federal charge of Interstate Transportation of Stolen Property. I also pled guilty to a lesser-related charge based on the same conduct in Nassau County (NY) criminal court. My sickness does not exonerate me. I understood what I was doing. In an act of crazed vengeance against people with whom I'd argued, I put all I had at risk in order to reap a comparatively puny amount of cash - money I did not need. I am guilty. We must fall before we can rise. As the Buddhists say: All is learning.

Shortly after I began a regular regime of mood stabilizers, a colleague told me he hoped my doctors would not make me so "well" that I would no longer be able to write books or imagine new enterprises. It is his opinion that at least some short manic flights - bursts of inspiration - are necessary for all creative people; and he