For some, bipolar illness is a gift. Oh, it can be burdensome to an extreme if we aren't watching things that trigger depression carefully. (Actually, manic behavior is a reaction to depression, so if we keep an eagle's eye on the depression and treat it appropriately with meds, diet changes, exercise, and rest, mania is going to subside largely, in my view.)

The flight of the eagle with its long, broad wings and its keen sight and powerful soaring flight suggests to me that the same features are given to us with bipolar giftedness. The secret in making us content lies partly in our ability to make the soaring flights beneficial to life, not predatory, as the eagle must do to survive and feed its young. Even at that, the eagle possesses great ability for gentleness with its eaglets.

We've all been little eaglets until maturity awakens us to the fact that we have a capacity for goodness and positive life experiences that we may use to help our neighbors struggling in their efforts to leave the nest and to fly.

I always look at the paintings a psychiatrist has in his/her office. So many of them seem to use trees, flowers, etc. It's as if there is something missing in their sensitivity to art.

I will always remember the bronze statue of a cougar poised to attack in my psychiatrist's office. It was a powerful image that stood out in my mind for years. Somehow, it had a very humbling sense attached to it inside me. Now, years later, I would have preferred that he had an image of the eagle in flight in his study. That would have been an enduring image, too, as well.

Please take heart in this condition. The bipolar person is so valuable in life and has so much to give in the way of kindness, understanding, optimism, and care. Those are the elements of the eagle's flight that we want to materialize. It works to heal our wounded psyche as well as to build the wings of the eaglet.

The image of the eagle is strength, vision, and flight. Try placing one in a cage, and it doesn't fare well at all. Life can be like a cage for some, but freedom is an interior thing.

Much of real life is an interior work in ourselves. The eagle thrives alone and soaring.

[Odee]

I feel as though any mental illness has an unlimited capacity to give, inspire, create, and nurture as long as the illness has been overcome.

It's hard for anyone to find productive value in an illness that can hold them back. But the success of moving forward is where the kindness, understanding, optimism, and care begin (as you listed.)

Only by feeling closer to remission do I feel like I have an experience that lifts me above the person that I originally was.

Nice post, Odee.

[manicminer]