In the year 2000 when I was first becoming manic, put myself into more and more risky situations…
You see I read some books by Ken Keyes that talk about being happy all the time.
You can see a scan of a page from one of his books here:
(from this thread: )
One of his main ideas is to have preferences rather than demands…
So if you don’t get what you prefer you feel neutral rather than having a negative emotion.
After I while I got good at that and only had extremely mild and short negative emotions. I also had a double dose of Zoloft every second day and none the other day… I believed that it allowed me to rapidly change my core behaviors/beliefs.
Ken Keyes says that we’re perfect observers viewing the drama of life where we are like characters on a stage. I thought that I’d change my behavior to whatever I felt like at the time rather than playing a normal role in life.
Anyway I became content with how things were going. Everyday life was bliss. But I wanted it to be even better. I turned the lounge of the 8 bedroom flat I lived in into a “pleasure palace”. I offered free Coke and cigarettes to whoever wanted them. I talked to strangers about the books I had been reading.
I wanted to visit people in prisons because I believed that they simply didn’t know the proper way to be happy. The main way to be happy in the books was to have love - to love and care about everyone.
Anyway I was trying to meet with the guy in charge of the prisons. First there was a receptionist behind some glass. They knew what I was studying in university - I think they were using facial recognition because I hadn’t ever had a history of bad/crazy behavior. They could have had the id photos in a database. They said that I needed to write a letter or something to get an appointment.
At the start of the night when I was taken to a mental hospital I thought to myself that I was prepared to sleep out on the streets. I wandered around in the bad part of town and met drug dealers and prostitutes. I visited the police station a few times asking where to find criminals. They said they’re all around that suburb. One strip club I tried getting into refused me entry. A club the police recommended me to turned out to be a gay club - I figured it out when I was given a free condom. The police thought what I was doing was dangerous but I said that it is ok for soldiers to go into battle. I was very alert and I had my hair greased back and I dressed like an assassin. I sometimes used deliberate body language… e.g. when they told me to get in the police car they told me to sit normally - I had my body really spread out.
They said to see a psychologist but I told them that I already had an appointment the next day. They said they wanted to take me in for “observation” and I assumed that they meant I’d be released after a few hours. They had to give me a few doses of sleeping tablets before I fell asleep. But before I did there was a noisy patient yelling near my bed. I opened the curtains near my bed really loudly and that made the guy become quiet.
If I had known the police send people to mental hospitals I would have been more careful with the police.
I think lately nothing much bad has been happening in my life. I had been escalating my threads a bit. But now there have been consequences - I can’t post about certain things until after July 1.
After I got out of the mental hospital I soon started saying some crazy things. But two of my flatmates didn’t like it and I got kicked out of my flat. I then stayed in my new room most of the time. I felt really suicidal and got Zoloft again. I had a big dose because apparently normally it takes 2 weeks to start working. I stayed very depressed for a few years.
So anyway, I think if there is no perceived danger to keep a person who is trying out new things, they will try out crazier and crazier things. After all novelty is a form of pleasure.
So fortunately there are concrete consequences for my posting behavior. My happiness didn’t depend on the approval of anonymous people. But it does depend on having a continued privilege of posting here.