by Joseph Merlin Bowers
This morning while attempting to meditate, I had a very strange thought-God might be bipolar. I want to say that I prefer the term manic-depressive as a more accurate and meaningful term for the illness but will use bipolar here as it is in much more common usage today. I was remembering a recent fishing trip through the country along I-70 West of Denver.
I’ve seen most of the United States at one time or another in my travels and I’ve been in the Rockies much of my life, but I’ve never seen anything as spectacular as that country. My thought was that it was almost too much-overdone. One can visualize God being in creative ecstasy while making such places-creative ecstasy being characteristic of mania.
If one takes many of the Old Testament stories literally, some are indicative of unreasonable, unreasoned fury which often accompanies severe bipolar depression. My theory would certainly explain a lot of things that have bothered me since my earliest exposure to scripture as I try to believe in a powerful, compassionate God. .
If one attributes much of what goes on today as the will of God, as a friend, I would tell Him that He has a problem that needs to be addressed. I would be so brave as to advise God to find a good med and to talk to someone wise and understanding.
theunashamedschizophrenic 
I have met very few people that don’t claim to be bipolar. It seems to me that any person could be described as bipolar based on the loose guidelines for the disorder. Perhaps it is not always a disorder as in the case with schizophrenia, but is more often the result of emotion. Everyone goes through periods of happiness and depression. These cycles can correspond to real problems and benefits, but the emotions generated are so strong that it taints new experiences until we have unrational responses to mild stressors. Perhaps God just feels emotion so strongly that it becomes distracting and seems irrational. Wouldn’t you be stressed if you were God?
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I would indeed be very stressed if I were God. While many healthy people call themselves bipolar and many also have said that everybody is a little bipolar, they are not even close to being accurate. There may be some looseness in the guidelines for a diagnosis of bipolar 11, but not bipolar 1. This disease is not just strong emotion. Someone with real bipolar will experience dangerous, uncontrolled mania and/or debilitating, excruciating depression. Often there are no clear events or reasons. One just wakes up one morning extremely manic or depressed for no apparent reason. Some rapid cycle going from one to the other and back again very quickly. Some rarely suffer from depression but get very manic. More experience mostly depression. A friend who is bipolar has done very dangerous, crazy things while manic and another time found himself so down that he could not get out of bed for days straight. He needed intervention to get out of these extreme states. It took significant time.
This blog was meant more than a little tongue in cheek and is not one I am at all proud of.
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