Touched with Fire
The first time I heard the words “manic depressive” I was about eleven years old. It was in a psychologist’s office in reference to my mother. That phrase had little weight to it since, at that point, it had no meaning to me. The therapist might as well told me my mother has dissociative fugue (wha?).
When I was 15, I was in a biology class with one of the most influential teachers I would ever have. Mrs. W was frank and animated, enough of a dynamic teacher to get me - the consummate artiste - absolutely fascinated with biology. With each biological system she introduced, I found myself researching it further on my own time. One week in early spring, she introduced the brain and the possible genetic and operational anomalies that can arise. Manic depression was one of those brain disorders she discussed. As I wrote my detailed notes on the lecture, she was interrupted by the class bell. I promptly gathered my belongings and rushed up to her after the other students had headed out. “Mrs. W,” I started. “I think I have that manic depression thing.”
She looked at me thoughtfully for a second. “There’s no way. If you were manic depressive, there would be no hiding the symptoms and you would need a slew of medications just to seem relatively normal,” she finished while shuffling some papers with a smile. “Don’t worry, Marie. You’re not manic depressive.”
To be honest, I was crushed by her certainty. She didn’t know about my previous suicide attempts or my annual springtime blues. She didn’t know about the weeks of crying myself to sleep or the screaming matches with my father over things we had both forgotten about by the time we started screaming. Mrs. W didn’t know these things and yet, I took her word for it. I mean, it’s not like I was a flaming lunatic, right?
A year later, one of my morning classes was interrupted by a friend I had walking into class seemingly on auto-pilot. She sat near me, as she always did, and looked at me with the blank stun of trauma in her eyes.
“Jay hung himself last night,” she said slowly. “He was manic depressive and wouldn’t take his medications because he said they made him unable to feel anything. He was so depressed so I talked to him on the phone. We were talking and he was crying and said he loved me and he was sorry, but he just couldn’t anymore. Then there was silence. Just… silence.” Her eyes flashed a glimmer of unspeakable pain before glazing over again. “When we got there, I had to… I had to cut him down.”
I just held her hand while she stared into space. I knew then, somehow, that I knew what Jay had experienced. I never wanted anyone to have to mourn for me the way they were mourning for him.
Fast forward another two years. It was my first year in college, the first time on my own, and yet I knew something was off. Late one early spring evening (see a pattern here?), I was reading a fabulous book by Kay Redfield Jamison called “Touched with Fire: Manic Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperment”. This book changed my life. As I read the second chapter, it listed these brilliant artist’s symptoms… and they looked much too familiar. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I rifled through my backpack and found a highlighter. I will highlight all the symptoms that I’ve experienced, I told myself. I nearly highlighted the whole page of symptoms.
Within a week, I took myself to the university psychology center. The psychologist seemed surprised to see me… in fact, I had met him only a few months previously at the President’s Scholars welcome ball - I was a President’s Scholar and he had been on the board which had granted me this privileged college experience. And then there I was, trembling and speaking too quickly, telling him “I think I have bipolar disorder.” He seemed to want to wash his hands of me and quickly referred me to my parent’s health insurance, which I was still covered under.
Thanks to my parent’s health insurance, I was referred to a Psychotherapist and professor at a neighboring college. Dr. Lisa was probably the single most influential therapist I’ve ever had in my whole life. She was the one who encouraged me, told me the things I didn’t want to hear, heard me out when I was being irrational and even put up with my med-resistant ass for a year and a half. It is because of the life skills she taught me and the sympathy she offered from my life’s serial tragedies that made me value my experience and life for the first time as a whole.
There’s so much more to this story, but even writing this incredibly quick recount of the beginning of my journey has been exhausting. At least I got it out there. To learn the rest, follow my story here…
In the meanwhile, some excellent sources to get yourself informed… I have read all of the following, otherwise I couldn’t in good faith recommend all of them so highly…
►National Alliance on Mental Illness
►Crazy Meds Talk - Talk to People Who Know
►Electroboy - From a guy who knows…
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Current Cocktail:
Lexapro 20 mg QD
Seroquel 50 mg QD
Former Medications:
Antidepressants: Prozac, Wellbutrin SR, Wellbutrin XL, Zoloft
Stabilizers: Zyprexa (atypical antipsychotic used as stabilizer like Seroquel), Depakote
Benzos (tranquilizers): Ativan/lorazepam
The Mood Charts
Some explanations:
Green line = # of hours slept
Yellow triangle = Mild Anxiety
Yellow rectangle = Moderate Anxiety
Yellow rectangle with red center = Severe Anxiety
Blue-green triangle = Mild Irritability
Blue-green rectangle = Moderate Irritability
Blue-green rectangle with red center = Severe Irritability
Red dot above date = MISSED MEDS
Aug 2007
Sept 2007
Oct 2007
Nov 2007
Dec 2007
Jan 2008
Feb 2008
Mar 2008
April 2008
