One of my favorite all time writers deals with a thing called chronic depression. She isn’t open to talking open about it so I’m not sure if she has bipolar disorder or not but I’m inclined to think so. The reason is not so much evidenced in her moods so much as her writing.

Though I don’t know much about bipolar disorder, I do know that there are ‘down times’ and then there are ‘up’ moments also referred to as mania. During the manic moments, supposedly a person with bipolar can operate with very little sleep and can get a lot accomplished. This is why I believe this writer may be bipolar. Her best work is done sporadically and when she seems to be experiencing some sort of mania.

Mysteries are not my thing but when this writer releases a new mystery, I’ll read one. She once told me that she hit ‘writing mode’ one time and wrote an entire manuscript within four days. Surprisingly, it took her only another three days to make necessary changes for her editor. However, she didn’t decide to take care of the changes until three months after the editor sent her manuscript back to her for editing.

While her bizarre behavior is very inline with bipolar, sadly she is stricken with the worst of lows so I would be out of my place to ask for an explanation of her lows or her condition. She continues to refer to her condition as merely chronic depression. The lows for her consist of no one in our writer’s group talking to her for weeks on end. She will not visit with anyone and she will not answer her calls. Her publisher will not get a return call, nor will her agent. She is dark until she shakes it off and then she is normal for awhile.

The manic-type moments make me almost envious of her at times. We once worked on a quick project together and while I popped out 3 small articles in an hour, she cranked out seven and they were brilliantly written. She’s a gambler and I gamble too so we have a lot in common. She challenged me to find one mistake in any of her last four articles and so we made a $50 wager of which I lost. Her writing was superb. However, there’s a dark side to that as well. A friend of mine worked a very simple project with this writer several weeks ago and called me in tears. They were up against a deadline and apparently my writer-friend had slipped into depression. She had turned in five articles in two days and they were something of which a child would be more interested in than an adult. However, several of us pitched in and the deadline was met. Still, all of us had our eyes opened wide to chronic depression.

Chronic depression strikes anytime and will take anyone hostage. It is a disease which many feel like will be the death of them and sometimes it is.