In 2001, I became one in more than two million adults in the United States who have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Bipolar, or manic-depression, is a treatable illness distinguished by extreme mood swings, such as euphoric highs (mania) or lingering and often devastating depression. Taking a leave of absence from my job, I began seeing the doctor who initially treated me in the psychiatric hospital. Even as he put me on medication to help control it, I did not understand what it meant to be bipolar. Take your medication and you should not have another occurrence. Never once did he tell me I should also seek therapy.
With each monthly visit, I got worse instead of better. He did little else except change medications; each time the prescriptions increased in strength and in number and kept me in a perpetual drug-induced stupor. I lost my appetite and my will, along with one-third of my hair. I became incontinent and started wearing Depends underwear. Out of desperation, my mother moved me and my daughter into her house, where she literally kept me alive with meal-supplement drinks. She fired my doctor and began an exhaustive search for a one who was familiar with treating bipolar patients.
After resigning from my job, I began flip-flopping between deep depression and mania, oftentimes, going days without sleep, and frequent bouts of exaggerated optimism and self confidence not only made me feel on top of the world, but that I owned it. My tireless activity and kinetic energy tired those around me. Then, without warning, I would fly into rages, viciously attacking anyone around me. Most of the time, these manic episodes showed up as anger-fed blowups with my daughter and became almost a daily routine. Once the fights started, it was as if someone else was in my body doing the screaming and hurting. I felt powerless to stop. My daughter moved in with my sister and her husband to finish out her last year of high school, while guilt ate me alive.
I felt totally undeserving of Life. I had always been so responsible, so dependable, so efficient. Now I could not hold a job or even take care of my daughter in our own home. I felt everything was my fault. I figured that if I had not gotten sick, I would still have my job, my home, my and my daughter. I felt so helpless and useless.
As finances became strained over the next year, I attempted to work several times, but lost them quickly. I lost one over an explosive argument with a supervisor. The next one lasted barely a month before I was terminated. Within a week, I was back in the hospital on a 24-hour crisis watch. Even with new medication and anger-management classes, I simply could not get a grip on the perpetual cycle of mania and depression that was destroying me and my family.
For a while, it was easy to give up and go back to the hospital, either as a voluntary admittance or get Baker-acted B which happened often. It did not matter how I got hospitalized because in the psychiatric ward, no one expected anything from me. My day was meticulously planned. All I had to do was wake up in the morning. Oftentimes, I wished I wouldn't. I felt I had let my family down in the worst way possible.
For a short while, I tried living out of town, close to my older daughter and her husband. Shaving one night, I started scraping deep on the inside of my wrist with the razor. I was not suicidal. I just wanted to see if I could make myself hurt as much outside as I was hurting inside. I called the Crisis Line, but hung up. Moments later, the police and an ambulance was at my door. I was sent to the psychiatric unit of the nearby hospital. This was the final straw for my family. Neither my daughters or my mother would speak to me after that. They finally had all they could take, and my recent self-induced injuries told them I did not want help. The only person who was still speaking to me was my sister, the Negotiator. She acted as go-between, but she could only relay messages I did not want to hear.
Once released from the hospital, I drove aimlessly for hours. For the first time in my life, I was totally alone. I had no idea where I would go, or what I would do. My tears fell like rain on that cold, wet December night in 2003, and I began praying. Spotting a pay phone at a convenience store, I turned in. The light over it seemed to beckon me like help from above. Unsure of whom I would call, or what I would say, at 1 a.m., I inserted coins. Moments later, I heard my mother's sleepy voice on the other end of the line. It sounded like someone else softly begging, Mama. please let me come back home! I won't let you down.
