Live Mental--Life With Bipolar Disorder, Among Other Things: Rides, hats, and bears...Oh my!

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Rides, hats, and bears...Oh my!

Wow! It's been a long time since I've put imaginary pen to paper! It seems time has simply slipped away while I have been gearing up for my next move...whatever that might be.

We have now entered the time of year where the brain is coming out of hibernation and like a big surly bear, it sleepily raises its big black nose and sniffs the air discovering....SPRING! Hello chemical change. The ride has ceased the plummeting and now begins the swing back up, up, up. Some of us fly higher (mania) while others get a nice energetic taste of insanity (hypo-mania), and then there are still others who sense the shift of seasons, dread daylight savings time, and look forward to the energy boost that takes us from reluctant slug to prolific creativist (medicated).

The thing about this time of year is that this is when the most suicides happen. This is also where the numbers in institutions increase, and the bill for the thrill of summer is much like the cell phone bill...pay now, get your service later. So my dear friends, hang on to your hats. If you are a slumbing bear, just waking up to remember there IS still life to be had, hang on...it's coming and procede with caution. If you belong with somone who is a slumbering bear...well, you better hang on as well, because it may be a bumpy ride!

L

Life' s little ironies

I sat on a stool at the end of the counter watching my friend, inventory merchandise she had just received for her natural foods store. We were just catching up on all the gossip in small town Powell when the door was flung wide and a woman who looked to have wandered far and away from the red light district of some other state (none of the towns in Wyoming are big enough to have red light districts) made a rather dramatic entrance.

“Sarah, where is your mother,” she asked, though it sounded more like an exclamation than a question as she hurled the words like small pebbles at my friend. She stepped forward slamming the door shut behind her, its little jingly bells that announced a new caller sounding wildly with the force. The woman took another step forward toward the counter glancing briefly my way, and then dismissing me once she had determined me of no use to her. I heard Sarah answer but what she said was lost to me as I stared in fascination at the woman.

Her hair was a very yellowed bleached blonde with dark roots of about two inches. Her makeup was thickly caked on her face, her eyes painted with frosty baby blue eye shadow. She wore a white tank top that was low cut and kept falling off one shoulder. She had on a wide black belt over her hot pink miniskirt, which was so short it hardly qualified as one. Leopard tights and high-heeled boots completed the ensemble. She was tall and thin and I had the impression of taffy having been pulled to distortion.

But it wasn’t the ensemble that had me entranced. No. It was something else. There was an energy emanating from her; a kind of frenetic-ness that had me both fascinated and frightened. She was hurling words at my friend so fast and with such force, I expected to see Sarah thrown backward from the impact as if hit by bullets. I realized I was staring openly, my mouth ajar, and quickly shut it. I felt as though I was watching a human bomb detonating right in front of my eyes. I couldn’t even concentrate on what she was saying, or even understand it for that matter. I marveled at Sarah’s composure and ability to decipher what the woman was saying, such was the speed of her dialogue.

In my mind it seems as though the conversation was lengthy, but in reality I believe it only lasted a few minutes. The woman left in the same manner she had come, throwing the door open. It swung shut with a swoosh of air, leaving a final benediction of the small jingling bells. I looked at Sarah and said, “What was the matter with that woman? She acts like she’s on drugs.”

Sarah smiled calmly, “No she’s not on drugs. She’s a friend of my mom’s. She has a mental illness called manic-depression.” (bipolar disorder)

I stared out the glass door, still able to see the woman’s retreating form. I sighed, looking up at the ceiling for a moment feeling drained and thinking, “I am so glad I don’t have that.” I was frightened by what I had witnessed and I was so relieved to know I wasn’t like her.

It wasn’t too many years later as I sat in a doctor’s office looking at the ceiling that I remembered the incident with the woman in Sarah’s shop. I was in a psychiatrist’s office and he was in the process of diagnosing me with bipolar disorder, otherwise known as manic-depression. Generally I appreciate irony in life. It is often amusing. In this particular case, though, I was not amused.

Live Mental--Life With Bipolar Disorder, Among Other Things

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Rides, hats, and bears...Oh my!

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Life' s little ironies

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