Yeezy & Me and the Magic and Mystery of Manic Episodes

I was moved to write my poor-selling, universally ignored novella Kanye & Trump last year because when I read about the notorious in-concert rants where Kanye expressed support for Trump before both being institutionalized and meeting Trump at Trump Tower, I felt like I knew exactly what he was experiencing. 

My gut told me that he was bipolar and having a pretty severe manic episode. This was based partially on the erratic, troubling nature of West’s actions and public statements and partially on the fact that I had also been diagnosed as Bipolar in 2011 shortly after the Phish tour that inspired the bulk of You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like Me. 

I honestly don’t know whether or not I am Bipolar. I feel like it is over-diagnosed. In my case at least, it felt as much like a guess as an actual diagnosis, though at the time I was oddly grateful to be deemed Bipolar by my psychiatrist because it provided an explanation for emotions and moods that were overpowering and confusing, in both positive and negative ways. 

Before a psychiatrist who would shortly thereafter stop seeing me because I didn’t visit her office often enough told me my soul-consuming anxiety and paranoia were caused by a Manic episode I genuinely thought that I was going crazy. I thought I was losing my mind, that it was permanent and serious and irreversible. 

I accepted the diagnosis in part because I was in an accepting mood, spiritually and emotionally. Deep into the Phish trip, under the influence of powerful psychedelics and stimulants, I had an epiphany that the world was fundamentally kind and that despite my intense anxiety and depression I would be able to finish the book I was working on and emerge from my struggles and internal turmoil with a new sense of wisdom, perspective and humility. 

I’m glad that I had that drug and mental illness-fueled epiphany even if it turned out to be deceptive. I believed that the universe was fundamentally benign in part because I was reading a lot of Eckhardt Tolle and that’s the core of his philosophy but I also believed that the universe was fundamentally kind because I needed to believe it. I needed to have optimism and faith that I would get out of the awful bind I found myself in. 

Without this delusional, ultimately unjustified faith I could easily have given in to hopelessness and despair. That faith carried me through a very dark time even if, from the perspective of 2018, I no longer believe that the universe is fundamentally kind and benevolent. The way I was treated by The Dissolve and The A.V Club robbed me of a lot of my delusions about mankind’s fundamental decency, as did the election of Donald Trump. 

So when Kanye started tweeting and talking about Trump, I instantly recognized the grandiosity and extreme thinking and weird messianic fervor of a manic episode, that need to make bold statements and see profound spiritual truths everywhere. I’ve compared a manic episode to spending time in a deep dark forest that seems to be the most mystical, magical, unique place in the world when you’re in it but then disappears instantly once the manic episode ends and your relationship with the universe, and God, and the sum of humanity becomes more normal and less extreme. 

I see the ugliness in Kanye’s public outbursts but also the yearning, the desperation, the confusion, the longing for certainty and stability in an uncertain and insane world. I was horrified by Kanye’s bizarre and offensive comments about black people choosing slavery but I was also touched that he was so open about getting liposuction for deeply cosmetic reasons despite his beloved mother dying from complications related to cosmetic surgery. It felt like a brief return of the Kanye we fell in love with, who was confessional and honest in a way that bordered on heroic. 

I don’t believe that the universe is fundamentally benign anymore. I am more skeptical, more suspicious and much less inclined to trust people and institutions than I was seven years ago but I’m idealistic enough to think that Kanye’s story can still have a happy ending, although I’m not sure either of us know what that might entail.  

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