It was at the end of his second year of medical school that Dr Dov Degen became convinced he was the incarnation of Jesus. Frantically writing a manuscript and barely sleeping, he wandered the streets at night, flooded with thoughts about how to better mankind. “I just wanted to help everyone,” he said. “I had this idea of bringing a new Earth to the planet and healing everyone.”
He did not realise it then, but he was in the grips of his first episode of psychosis. Degen had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 19, less than two years before. Looking back, he described a perfect storm brewing: he had realised he was gay, a recent break-up plunged him into another depressive episode, and a psychiatrist prescribed antidepressants without mood stabilisers, which triggered full-blown mania. Then came the psychosis, an unstoppable stream of consciousness barrelling through him like a freight train.
Now 42, Degen recalled the experience during a sunny late-winter afternoon. “Well, I felt happy and high all the time so it’s not a state you want to come out of,” he said. He noted that psychosis does not feel like disaster at first; it can seem more like enlightenment, intoxicating, like existing in technicolour, with every moment more vibrant.