"When bipolar I sometimes feel like God"

A sonnet about the polarized extremes of bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depression.

When bipolar I sometimes feel like God,

like Superman or the earth’s savior;

the rush from feeling like a demi-god

makes me believe I am a conqueror,

like another Alexander the Great.

Then I’m flung to the black chasms of Hell

when my wild moods now suddenly abate

(and rapidly cycle) that I cannot tell

the bottomless, infinite low’s apart

from the ecstatic, Olympian high’s.

These shifts in mood, subtle at first, outsmart

me as my disquiet intensifies.

      Most of my life is spent between these two

      poles of the spectrum--if you only knew!

Reviews

[SleeplessVolcano]

The world tends to say we are crazy if we "feel like God", but if he really lives within people, surely those people should feel like him?

The other extreme, of course, is the Messiah complex, which any slightly sane person would want to avoid.....you expressed these extremes beautifully!