Circular Insanity

Casey Catherine Moore

I’ve never cared for the term bipolar,
The term supposes there are two of me, instead of a thousand.

“Bipolar” thumped my ears across a desk at the turn of the 21st
century, and I felt

divided, disconnected, despondent.

Bi split me in two, by an up and down line with a masthead
on fire at the top and an algae-covered anchor
buried under the sand at bottom of the sea.

I was never in the middle, never in motion, never flying
and drowning at the same time. Never still.

IT BEGAN WITH MINERAL SPRINGS.

5th Century BCE: We were split in two by Hippocrates,
who said we were driven

by excesses,
radiating yellow, midnight black bile,
mania and melancholia.

Aristotle gave reverence to yellow mania and black melancholia:
divine, inspired fuel, wings for
buzzing brains that power poetry, art, and music—
the electricity rooted in us like elder laurel trees, mapped,
predestined with our biology.

IT BEGAN WITH MINERAL SPRINGS.

They did not always blame us for the fires and floods, but plunged us
into water instead of euthanizing us or locking us away,
ashamed of and shaming us for seasick moods
in the centuries that they forgot we were human.

In 1850: Bailarger split us in two. We were marked by:
folie à double forme, “insanity in two forms.”

In 1850, again: Falret, after the centuries they burned us
as witches, dubbed me and my psychotic sisters possessed,
on Valentine’s Day: la folie circulaire, “circular insanity.”

Folie, folly, fantasy.
Circulaire, circular, in orbit.

When I first held the phrase on my tongue, it conjured a vision of
round, spinning magic in me, sometimes in slow motion,
sometimes sharply shifting up and down,
sometimes vibrating, sometimes in a constant spin.

Marked by fiery heights and frigid depths, but also
always, always in motion.

No one gave us the chance to be still.

At the turn of the 20th century: We were split in two again,
they called us: manic depressives or maniacs while numbing us
with barbiturates and prescribing “intellectual rest”
for women who would write, eccentric artists, and wistful
philosophers.

They silenced us when even Plato, Aristotle, and Artaeus knew
we released the fuzzy black and yellow bees in our blood through

pens,
paintbrushes,
music notes,
bodies,
and voices.

But they did not believe we could be still.

IT BEGAN WITH MINERAL SPRINGS.

In 1950: Cade saw a natural mineral could calm guinea pigs.
When weren’t we guinea pigs?

In 1970: We took Lithium into our bodies.
In 1980: They stopped calling us maniacs.
Then they split us in two with a word, bipolar,
tearing us apart from our sweet cousins, wholly sad depressives.

Yet, in naming us bipolar they denied our middle stillness,
muffling our movements, locking our wheels,
and splitting us in two again,
just as they discovered how to heal us.

IT BEGAN WITH MINERAL SPRINGS:

5th Century BCE: Lithium.
First found in mineral springs in Northern Italy,
then absorbed into our bodies through salt baths.

Lithium.
A steady spell that lost its voice through 2500 years of euthanasia,
burnings, electric eels, bloodletting, sedation, and lobotomies.

IT BEGAN WITH MINERAL SPRINGS:

Back when the glowing bees buzzing
inside mixed sweet honeys of
poetry, art, music, dance, philosophy.

We have always used these arts to tell you who we are.

Mania and melancholia,
la folie de circulaire,
folie á double forme,
manic depression,
bipolar disorder.

Now they finally notice we are
sometimes still, with shifting,
iridescent mollusk moods as we move, as we create, as we hibernate.

We have stillness—naturally in quiet moments grounded in our
bones—and stillness through medicine.

More than bipolar, more than two poles,
more than high and low,
mania with melancholia
both on a shifting ring.

We appear in many forms, many colors, not two,
and we have the chance of moments of stillness in between.

Now: I fuse my split self back together and
find my bumblebees’ grounded stillness in the hive within the
beginning, mineral water, and poetry.

I am not bipolar.
I am filled with la folie circulaire avec périodes de tranquillité—circular
insanity, with stillness.

But bipolar is so much easier to say.

ABOUT THE POET

Casey Catherine Moore is a bipolar, bisexual writer, educator, and activist. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of South Carolina with a focus on Classics, Latin poetry, women’s and gender studies, and queer theory. Casey’s work, which centers gender, sexuality, and dis/ability, can be found in academic and creative publications including The Comparatist, Sinister Wisdom, and Samfiftyfour, and Bourgeon. She co-produces and co-hosts the queer spoken word series Homo Stanzas and has been a featured poet for Busboys & Poets, The Nail Salon queer cabaret, Capturing Fire, and the 2022 March for Medicare for All Rally in Washington, DC. www.caseycatherinemorephd.com IG: caseycatherinemoore