THE PATH

The year is 2007 and I’m just now completing the writing of this book, which I began during the spring of 1999.  I can be a procrastinator, but there were also other reasons for taking so long.  My father past away in 2000 and this had a profound affect my disorder and eventually I ended up in a VA Hospital in Kansas for about six months. 

From what I understand, my manic episodes were much like those of others, except that one psychiatrist has told me that mine were mostly in a manic state.  Please understand that anyone with this disorder will also experience periods of depression and I most certainly have done that.  I would gradually find myself going into a euphoric state of mind, which was a “great high” at first.

I would suffer my first manic episode during my first tour of duty in Vietnam while serving with the 173d (Abn) BDE.  I was diagnosed with having Battle fatigue.  Little was known about Manic Depression in 1967 or at least in Vietnam.  I was so ashamed of myself for allowing this to happen to me, that I would volunteer two more times to go back to Vietnam. I felt I needed to prove myself to be brave.

I would not have another episode for sixteen years, but I’m confident that as I look back to some of the bazaar behavior pattern demonstrated throughout the years both in Vietnam and also during the years leading up to my retirement from the Army, I have had minor type episodes.