You can look back, say, “Now I know that these are triggers, and I have to dodge those.” But before you have a manic episode, you don’t know what your triggers are because you don’t know what triggers are. bipolar disorder, you can’t know that you have that until you have it. That suggests you were doing something that you shouldn’t have been doing and that’s what you get. ZM: I’d shy away from “wake-up call.” It conflates mental illness with bad behavior.

I was lucky that it was so bad and intense and severe, because it makes it nigh impossible to deny that you got something that you’ve got to handle. I’m going to get prescription drugs, and once you stabilize me, I’m going to take stock of what happened and go, “OK, I just thought I was on TV for 10 days. I’m going to get care, even if it’s in a nightmarish place. ZM: I had too big of a support group, too well connected and smart enough, working as a public servant with incredible health insurance. MW: Besides the help from your mother, what saved you from long-term institutionalization? You can usually make some order of this and say, “This is going to be OK.” In depression, it’s very hard to find the “This is going to be OK.” You can go to the gym and hit the heavy bag. With sadness, you have a cry and you’re usually all right. You would almost welcome sadness, because you would at least be feeling something acute, because it means you’re still alive. You don’t even care enough to lift your head and look at it. The whole world looks like it’s in black and white. The crash, the depression period, is worse than being sad, not in degree, in kind. While you’re in it, you think it’s magnifying your best qualities. It can magnify your worst and best qualities. You’re making all these connections that aren’t there. Zack McDermott: You’re mainlining the universe in the manic phase. Mike Wold: What is bipolar disorder like? Real Change interviewed Zack in advance of his appearance in Seattle on April 7 at First Baptist Church, 1111 Harvard Ave, 7 p.m. It also covers his experience growing up working-class in Wichita, Kansas, and the stresses of mounting criminal defense for the poor and mentally ill people in New York City. She was “Bird.” His memoir, “Gorilla and the Bird,” is a complex look at the experience of being bipolar and how family support can make a difference.

He was “Gorilla” - his nickname because he was so big and hairy. Luckily, Zack had unconditional support from his mother. It was Zack’s first real experience with bipolar disorder. Days passed before Zack was convinced that he wasn’t being filmed. He ran through the streets, shedding clothing, dropped into a soccer game, shot a few hoops and was taken to a mental hospital.

It was the perfect New York street scene. When public defender Zack McDermott emerged from his apartment, he knew he was being filmed in a pilot for a comedy show.

Gorilla and the Bird by Zack McDermott