Put on your seat belt and prepare for an exhilarating trip! “Invisible Driving” by Alistair McHarg is a fast roller-coaster ride through a full-blown episode of mania, riotously funny but also profoundly sad and even frightening. It’s a must read for anyone acquainted with Bipolar Disorder, closely or otherwise, or who wants to understand it better. In fact it would be a great read for just about anyone who isn’t easily shocked.

I have been fortunate to interview Alistair McHarg by email.

Invisible Driving is unusual for its fast paced manic narration. It gives the reader a great insight into the flighty, grandiose, irritable thoughts that the bipolar person experiences. You’ve carried it off beautifully, which probably makes it unique. What were the challenges in writing in this way?

As far as I know, the book is unique and unprecedented in this respect. My goal was to take readers inside the experience of mania, so they could see it, hear it, and feel it. I began writing without even knowing if this was possible. The greatest challenge was that I wrote it when I was “back on earth” so I had to mentally return to that manic place in order to recapture the speech patterns, intensity, and cracked logic. In doing so I risked sparking yet another episode. From a literary standpoint the technical challenges were immense – mania is another world, the language had to give readers a visceral sense of that strange place.

Writing the book must have been an enormous project. Can you describe your motivation?

It was a massive, difficult project. My motivation was a newly discovered instinct for self-preservation. I had led a life of self-destruction up to that point. It had become painfully clear that if I didn’t get a grip on Manic Depression, it would literally kill me. (Indeed, I realized that it was something of a miracle I was still alive.) The ordeal I had just experienced was so catastrophic that I resolved to do whatever needed to be done so as to assure there would be no repetition. I had no clue what Manic Depression was all about, but I understood that I had to find out so I could deal with it.

What possessed you to face and relive the misery of your illness to write the book?

At first it was a matter of personal archeology. I wanted to go over the events and write about them while they were fresh in my mind. The details were so unbelievable; I desperately needed to capture them, if for no other reason than just to make sure it wasn’t all some hideous dream. At some point an angry, vengeful determination was born, I wanted to drill down to the very core of this experience and reveal it entirely, the delirious humor, pain, magic, and intensity. It had been costly on many levels, and I became fierce about making it pay me back in self-awareness. It did, but not without a fight.

Towards the end of the book you wrote “From too high to too low, and back again, now I spend time solidly in the middle.” Was there a change in you that acted as a catalyst for recovery?

Absolutely, a sea change. I had always been a shy, reserved person – insecure, private, afraid of being known – and a stranger to my own feelings. The episode cracked me open like a pinata at a child’s birthday party. In “acting out in totally involuntary ways I unmasked myself, I had no secrets left; the private fears that ruled me were racing the streets like rampaging demons. Writing about those manic months was a grueling tutorial in what truly made me tick – an unpleasant revelation but an invaluable one. Seeing myself as damaged helped make it possible to forgive myself, which, in turn, made it easier to love others.

What positive things have resulted from your illness? Is Invisible Driving an optimistic book?

Anyone can be happy when things are going well. But in Invisible Driving you have the story of a man who faces his worst possible nightmare and emerges on the other side having gained his manhood, his courage, and his humanity. Indeed, Manic Depression has been a gift for me, and my battle with it a story of redemption and spiritual growth. In a very odd way I owe this illness my life, it taught me how to enjoy being me. As I wrote, and came to embrace the illness as part of me – not some alien invader – I began to relish the process of painting it out in all of its hypnotic fire and ragged glory.

It’s an excellent read. Try the first chapter of the book in Part 2 of this post, or pore through the excellent reviews on Amazon.

Tags: alistair mcharg, bipolar, depression, invisible driving, manic depression