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Bipolar in Barbados: A Memoir of My First Manic Episode: Bipolar in Barbados, #1
Bipolar in Barbados: A Memoir of My First Manic Episode: Bipolar in Barbados, #1
Bipolar in Barbados: A Memoir of My First Manic Episode: Bipolar in Barbados, #1
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Bipolar in Barbados: A Memoir of My First Manic Episode: Bipolar in Barbados, #1

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Christian was a normal young man in his early twenties living a regular life in Toronto with a great job, until something unexpected happened when on vacation in Barbados. It was as if a bolt of lightning had struck his brain, changing it forever and completely altering his perception of reality.

Bipolar in Barbados: A Memoir of My First Manic Episode is a personal recollection of the events leading up to an unknown illness which was later identified as Bipolar Type 1.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateMar 30, 2018
ISBN9781386798545
Bipolar in Barbados: A Memoir of My First Manic Episode: Bipolar in Barbados, #1

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    Bipolar in Barbados - Christian Browne

    Prologue

    For over a decade I tried to bury the details of what was supposed to be my only manic episode, the one you are about to read. As anyone who has either experienced mania themselves, or seen it in someone else, you know that there is a vast amount of information and stories that come out of the process. This memoir is a summary of my experience and it is in chronological order as best as I can remember it. The journey begins and ends in Canada but the manic episode is triggered and occurs in Barbados.

    Basement living

    It was fall of 2004 and I had just moved to Toronto to begin an engineering co-op term. The accommodation I had chosen for the next four months was a basement apartment in the north of the city. My family warned me about taking a basement apartment in the fall months due to the lack of natural light and the colder temperature underground. It didn’t bother me at the time so I shrugged it off.

    Pentecostal church

    In the city I was closer to family and was able to meet up more often. One day my uncle invited me to his church so I accepted the invitation. In the last few years at university I had made a decision to find a church nearby wherever I was living at the time and to attend on Sundays. All of the churches I had attended were traditional ones and were mainly Anglican. My church experience to this point did not prepare me for my uncle’s church.

    We stepped into a large room where about 20-30 people where singing and dancing in the aisles. People were on the floor laughing and some were crying. I had not seen anything like it before. These people looked crazy I thought.

    What is going on here? Are these people okay? I asked.

    They are just overflowing with the Holy Spirit, my uncle said.

    Coming from a very conservative Methodist and later Anglican background, this was all foreign to me. The Holy Spirit was not something that was usually discussed and when the topic was brought up it was not described in the way I was now seeing. It all seemed very odd to me, I couldn’t understand it.

    Later we went up to the altar where someone offered to pray for my eyes so I wouldn’t need to wear glasses. He was wearing glasses himself. I thanked him and politely declining stating that I liked wearing glasses (which was true). The main reason I declined was because it doesn’t build much credibility when someone is trying to heal you of something that they haven’t even healed themselves of. That was my first exposure to a Pentecostal church and what people were saying was a manifestation of the Holy Spirit.

    Is she the one?

    I never went back to the Pentecostal church but began attending the Anglican church a short walk away from where I was staying. It was a good community of believers and the services were very traditional which appealed to me at that time. As is the case with many churches today, the demographics have changed and the congregation was older. I had engaging conversations with many people within the group but as a young man in a new city I was seeking people my age to connect with. Having had some bad experiences with relationships prior to moving to Toronto I began praying to God to show me who He wanted me to be with. This had not been my approach in the past. I distinctly remember praying for God to guide me to someone. The very next day at church a young woman sat next to me. I had never seen her before that day. We had a good conversation after the service and exchanged contact details. Returning home, I was so surprised by the event and asked God Is she the one? Meeting her was an answer to my prayer that I had just prayed the day before. The moment I met her I knew that she was the woman I was going to marry.

    Effortless

    Around that time things began feeling effortless. At first, I thought perhaps it was just the feeling of falling in love. But it was something different, very unusual coincidences. Later I found that there was a name for it, synchronicities. Even if I were running late, buses and trains would seem to arrive right on time. If I forget my umbrella and it looked like it would rain, it would start just as I arrived at my destination. I would look for something that was missing and know exactly where to look. Songs on the radio or in a store would speak to me in my current situation.

    There was also a sense of confidence and assurance that everything would be okay. I

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