BIPOLAR VORTEX
How former attorney Zack McDermott sur vived a terrifying ‘tornado of madness’ that nearly ruined his life
One sunny afternoon eight years ago, lawyer Zack McDermott sprinted through Manhattan’s Tompkins Square Park, convinced he was being filmed for his own TV show. In a psychotic break, he dropped to all fours in the dog run, exposed his buttocks and encountered someone he imagined was Daniel Day-Lewis on the basketball courts. The now-34-year-old author of the book “Gorilla and the Bird: A Memoir of Madness and a Mother’s Love” (Little, Brown and Co., out Tuesday), tells The Post’s JANE RIDLEY about living with bipolar disorder, and his journey to better mental health.
I’M crying on the L train subway platform, my hands clasped behind my head like I’m a captured soldier, as two NYPD officers confront me.
It’s Oct. 29, 2009 — a cold day — but I am barefoot and shirtless, wearing just a pair of Adidas soccer shorts.
The officers cuff me, and I’m confused. “You’re not real cops, are you?” I say. One of them replies sarcastically. “No, there’s a costume party later,” he says.
In my disordered mental state, I believe him. “A party!” I think. “I can’t wait.” The way I see it, there’s a good chance either Jay-Z or Kanye West will be there.
That was me in the midst of my first psychotic break. The policeman couldn’t possibly have known that his
humor fueled my delusions. In that moment, I sincerely believed that I was the star of my own reality TV series and that cameras were following my every move, like I was Jim Carrey’s character in “The Truman Show.”
I was 26 and a first-year public defender working for Legal Aid in Brooklyn. I’d often represented mentally ill people in court. Now, I had become one myself. The psychotic break was one of three I would suffer over 2 ¹/₂ years as a result of bipolar disorder.
I’d say my problems started during the summer of 2009, when I was juggling my demanding legal job with ambitions to become a stand-up comedian. I’d done a few gigs and had plans with a producer friend to film a pilot for a television series starring my comic alter-ego, Myles, complete with a distinctive Mohawk haircut and handlebar mustache. We had rented out a studio in Union Square and held a casting call.
My goal was to create a half-scripted, half-improvised TV show, the likes of which the world had never seen. On a maximum of four hours of sleep per night — sometimes none — I scrawled a creative manifesto on the walls of my East Village apartment in red Sharpie and paid a professional photographer to take pictures of the writings.
But all was not well. I felt invincible and full of myself, a telltale symptom of the disorder I had no idea was brewing. Unknown to me — a guy who somehow thought Larry David had nothing on him as a comedian — my life was already starting to spin out of control.
It came to a head that beautiful fall day, when I left my apartment and jogged through Tompkins Square Park. I looked at my surroundings and thought, “Wow, all these homeless people and passersby are extras in my TV show!” When a man I thought was Daniel Day-Lewis showed up following my dog-run invasion, I was ecstatic. I figured my producer pal must have used his genius to call in some celebrity connections.
When I interrupted a soccer game on the Lower East Side, pulling down my shorts to show off my buttocks, I had no idea that I was behaving oddly. I thought it was comedy gold.
The delusions were still raging that night when the cops caught up with me in Williamsburg. Disoriented and barely clothed, I was hauled in to Bellevue hospital, where the team determined that I was a danger to myself and others. They detained me in the psychiatric ward, administering a large dose of antipsychotic medication. Bellevue managed to track down my mom, Cindy Cisneros McGilvrey, in our hometown of Wichita, Kan. It’s funny — my nickname for her was the Bird, because of the choppy way she always moved her head. But when she found out what had happened to me, she really flew. The Bird booked a flight to New York immediately and came to collect me after a 10-day hospitalization. I was officially diagnosed with bipolar I, a mental disorder characterized by manic episodes, followed by severe depression — and, in cases such as mine, bouts of severe psychosis.
The plan was for me to recuperate in Wichita. The Bird and I returned to my apartment to pack some things, my walls still covered in Sharpie. Anyone — myself now included — could see that a tornado of madness had blown through. I collapsed in a corner. “I’m insane,” I sobbed. The Bird knelt down and rubbed my back. “You’re going to be OK, Gorilla,” she said, using the pet name she had given me years earlier, when my face and body became as hairy as an ape’s. “This will pass.”
We flew back to Kansas the next morning. While there, I worked with various doctors to find the right meds, many of which made me feel like a zombie. I finally found a psychiatrist I liked and went back to my Legal Aid job in New York after two months.
But that wasn’t my last brush with psychosis. In 2010, I traveled back to Wichita for Christmas and lapsed into mania again.
This time, I surfaced naked and lost in a cornfield. I ended up in a state hospital, detained in a ward that also housed violent criminals and sex offenders. I was psychotic and scared; guards literally had to chase and restrain me.
The Bird was there for me, but I was in a bad place, fully convinced I was a holy prophet with healing powers. My belief was confirmed when I caught sight of my back hair in a mirror, spotting an outline of the Virgin Mary. “You can’t ever let me shave it,” I told the Bird.
The Bird showed the staff photos taken of me when I was sane. She wanted them to see the human being behind the crazy man. To show them I was loved.
Again, I recovered convincingly enough to return to New York. But despite being on mood stabilizers, I suffered another break in February 2012, when I was living with roommates in a Lower East Side apartment that became infested with bedbugs.
My mind was racing. The hair on the back of my hands seemed to dance, as though I were on some kind of acid trip. I managed to calm myself down for a brief spell with the mantra “If you are breathing, you won’t die,” and, after calling my doctor, went directly to the emergency room.
I was admitted to Gracie Square Hospital on the Upper East Side. To me, it felt like a dystopian government facility. I was kept there for four days.
My doctor later said to me, “If there’s one thing we know with you, once an acute manic or psychotic episode starts, it becomes wildfire incredibly fast.”
Other parts of my life were moving fast, too. Three months later, I met my now-wife, Aurélie Hagen, on a Manhattan sidewalk. She’s from Belgium and quickly learned all about my mental illness. We got married in November 2012.
Aurélie, who is 33, knows what I need when I am in a difficult situation. She does a remarkable job of making me her focus when I am sleep-deprived or stressed.
And then there’s the ongoing support from the Bird. Now 57, she has stood by me the entire time since I’ve been diagnosed. We’re in touch all the time. If she doesn’t hear from me for a couple of days, she’ll send me a text: “Gorilla report?” And I’ll reply, “I’m fine.”
I’m now pursuing my dream of becoming a full-time writer. I realize how lucky I am to have my mother and wife and wish everyone had that level of support. If everyone knew the symptoms of bipolar disorder, it would make a difference for so many people.