For those who found this story to be interesting, I’d recommend listening to the associated This American Life episode. [1] It provides an insight into the int

For those who found this story to be interesting, I’d recommend listening to the associated This American Life episode. [1] It provides an insight into the internal experiences of somebody suffering from delusions. In his interview, Alan Pean tells a vividly detailed account of how he experienced the manic episode. He recalled how, at times, he would be able to rationalise the delusional thoughts away but they came so quickly, it was difficult to stay rational as the delusions had their own internal coherence. One memorable part of his story was when he described how he “escaped” from his third floor apartment building to get to the hospital: he locked his front door (which he thought was being watched by enemy agents) and then swung down from his balcony to the one below it and on to the ground, all the time telling himself to “Remember your training, remember your training” (while in reality, he’d never trained as a secret agent). In his delusion, Alan thought he would be killed by either a missile strike on his apartment complex or be shot by the enemy agents who were circling in for the kill. The interviewer points out the tragic irony that when Alan finally made it to the place he felt would be safe, that he was actually shot. Alan still finds it difficult to deal with the fact that a police officer was willing to take his life with a gunshot to the chest. I can imagine such an experience being deeply traumatic for those of us with good mental health but it must be much more difficult for someone already dealing with psychological issues. From a personal point of view, a woman in my social circle about 15 years ago was suffering from bipolar disorder. I’d known her for about a year but had no clue that she had any problems with mental health. Then one day my brother and I met her on the street while she was having a manic episode. We took her into our home to look after her. I can’t recall the details but we found looking after her to be a distressing experience. We invited other friends in common around to help as we felt very much out of our depth. The next day her parents took her to a psychiatric hospital where she spent a few weeks while the doctors found a combination of medication that helped even out the mood swings. [1] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/579/my-damn-mind http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/579/m...