“And those who were dancing were thought to be insane by those who couldn’t hear the music.” Nietzsche

I’ve never really gravitated to Christianity, but Plumb’s music is something that may just convert me. At 1:11am I discovered her song “All Over Again”. I was not expecting to feel so good already having been suicidal the previous night, but my mood took a slightly unpredictable turn.

“This song must have been sent my way by angels,” I wrote to my psychologist. It was quite the change from all my emails the previous night raging against Suicide Prevention Day and saying goodbye, and our session that day where I complained of being dead inside.

“It breathes life into every dejected cell of my body. I am overcome by an ecstatic force which moves me in spontaneous ways, transporting me into a trance. My whole being opens like a sunflower and is bathed in the light of God. I am resurrected.”

I had been grieving the loss of my mania, but perhaps the fire within me hasn’t been extinguished completely afterall. I want to go shopping tomorrow and get some new outlandish clothes from the retro store in town. I don’t care if it looks like I’ve stepped out of a circus! I also stayed up all night dancing in my living room, something which I sometimes do on my own. I then discovered that people actually come together to dance like this. It is called “Ecstatic dancing”, and there are two wonderful videos about it: “What’s happening to people in ecstatic dance”, and “Ecstatic Dance- Short Documentary”.

I must admit I found myself giggling as I began watching these videos, but I was also overcome by joy at finding my “tribe”. For months now I have been looking for a buddy, someone as wild as me to dance with under the moonlit sky dressed up in bright war bonnets. My treating team have all been freaking out and trying to control this unruly force which has erupted in me after 10+ years of depression, telling me about a client who had to be hospitalised because she stripped off her clothes and danced on top of a table while in this state. Yet I have never felt more like myself. It feels less like a pathology and more like a butterfly who has busted out of the cocoon after a long struggle. I don’t know where to find these people, but I know this is where my healing lies. And even though these moments of “mania” or however you want to see it don’t last long, I would be able to carry on knowing they will return.