Victory in Every Fall

10.31.2024

Victory in Every Fall

by Kurt Warner

Around age fifteen, I began to have incredible difficulty sleeping. There was an utter exhaustion that descended on my consciousness all day, as if sleepwalking through life. This was in large part because every night, I woke up and became filled with what felt like an electric current that gave me boundless energy and made it impossible to sleep. My days in ninth and tenth grade generally followed the same familiar pattern. At night, electricity would possess my body. Consciousness became very happy and giggly and, above all, productive. The days were filled with reading, writing, emailing and doing extensive research. Several months of this ecstasy was then followed by a Faustian horror of being dragged down into deep, dark, and suicidal depressions.

I tried everything I was able to, medical and not, some things helped and others didn’t. There were few constants. Reading and writing were close to constant aids throughout all of it. They were amongst the best therapies for me. I wrote every day. First, my writing was in a daily journal. This gave a canvas for my rage and disgust and other feelings. It was and is to this day the best non-medical treatment. It enabled the description of problems to an invisible audience that seemed to listen and care. Writing enabled the validation of the nightmare. It helped — and continues to help — enabling memory of what was tried and not tried. The daily fight to get through day after day of the torturous thoughts and atmosphere were codified by writing and that codification ensured that all that suffering was not being done in vain. There is no way to fully express the wonderfulness that writing was in my life or the meaning that it brought. It even gave a sense of community, as so many authors, such as Hemingway or Plath, talked about suffering maladies similar to mine.

Reading was similarly effective. The issue with reading was that during the depression periods, concentration was so arduous that reading became impossible. During these times, everything was slow and languid and there was no memory of what was just read and in my brain the obsessions constantly asked the question, How are you understanding the written word? After a while, everything on the page was stumbled over. The inability to concentrate, the incredibly poor memory in the depression, and the thick, almost palpable mental fog truly made it impossible to read and especially to recall what was read. But when focus was possible and enabled reading, reading was very therapeutic. I always read and reading has always served to be one of my greatest strengths. It, in particular, gave a form of the community that was longed for. There is a certain camaraderie that is created when the author has suffered something similar. These connections became great consolations. Through my authors, there was a perceived community — even if they were not alive.

To this day, both writing and reading are essential strategies in my quest to overcome bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and a severe traumatic brain injury that I suffered. This resulted in experiencing one of the greatest honors of my life; on October 10th my book Victory in Every Fall: The Antaeus Approach to Overcome Disabilities was released. It is a book that utilizes the pain I experienced to help others alleviate theirs. I have found that there are few things more meaningful than making my suffering into something that can help others avoid theirs. This meaning, along with the joys of reading and writing, has been extremely helpful for me to mitigate the suffering I have and continue to experience.

I wanted to share my story with ADAA because they are an excellent resource and forum for others who struggle with mental health issues such as the ones I suffer from and many others. As a professional in the field and someone who personally struggles with bipolar disorder and OCD, I want to share my story to help others.

Discover more on Kurt's website: www.kurtwarnerbooks.com