Beauty for Ashes Part 6

Me and My Shadow

I dropped my basket.

(Vivi in Secrest of the Ya Ya Sisterhood)

I wish I could say life got easier, my biggest battles behind me, but that is not what happened.  I faced opposition and struggle at every turn.  My family refused to accept that I was a changed person.  Their reaction was to pretend nothing had happened.  My siblings were wrapped up in their own lives.  My dad distanced himself, and my mom tried to hang onto the theory that if she just had her baby home where she could keep an eye on me, I would be fine.  But I knew the truth.  I knew the darkness and big black monster that had swallowed me before were waiting just around the corner to do it all again.  They would never grow tired of shredding my mind in little pieces like peeling bark off a tree, and I was terrified.  Giving my mind a command and having it completely ignore me was horrifying.  Knowing that, by the power of my own mind, I would have eventually died was a terrifying thing.  I have been in places where I saw a person who made my skin crawl.  Something about them seemed dangerous or unseemly, so I would stay as far away as I could.  I was feeling that way again, only I was feeling that way about my own mind, and I could not leave it and walk away.

My friend Diana who helped me find a doctor was the one person who understood that what had happened to me had changed me.  Diana was quite possibly the closest to an angel a person can be.  She is the person who helped me deal with my anger.  She did something no one else had ever done.  She confronted me with it.  We went out for lunch one day just before I moved to Minot.  She said to me, “I see something in you that worries me, because I have dealt with it in myself.  You are so angry.  If you continue to use your anger as a weapon, it will eventually destroy you.  Be smarter than I was.  Ask God to tell you where it is coming from.  That is where you start to eliminate it.  He will show you.”

Her saying that to me made me angry, but deep down I was relieved.  Finally, someone had spoken to me in a way that seemed to get through.  She had not told me to quit being angry; she had given me a place to start.  Not long after that conversation I asked God to show me where my anger was coming from.  I knew it had roots in my childhood but I did not know exactly why or where such intense anger came from.  It took years for my prayer to be answered and a bit longer to get free of it, but it did happen.  I have Diana to thank for that.

It was also Diana who gave me a book on setting boundaries.  One of the first things my doctor had me do was write a list of every person in my life.  Then he told me to cross off every person on that list who was needy, continually taking from me, and causing me stress.  He told me I needed to learn what it was to have healthy relationships and how to draw people to me who were healthy.  Making lifestyle changes would show I was willing to accept I had the illness.  I would have to leave denial behind. 

And the illness?  I have now reached the place where a more formal introduction is necessary, for this is the place in my story where bipolar II, my particular type of the disorder, and I were formally introduced.

            Bipolar is a mood disorder.  As human beings, we experience a plethora of different moods from week to week or even day to day.  When we are in a good mood we are happy, upbeat, and optimistic. When we are in a bad mood we are sad, down, and are more inwardly preoccupied.  These are all examples of "normal" behaviors.

            A general definition of bipolar disorder is that it is the experience and expression of extreme moods.  But actually, it's not the extreme moods that define bipolar disorder; it is the inability to control these moods (Mondimore, 1999).  Bipolar disorder is broken down into four parts:  bipolar I, bipolar II, cyclothymia, and bipolar not otherwise specified (bipolar NOS). Persons with bipolar I exhibit the classic symptoms of bipolar disorder where there are extreme manias, plummeting into deep depressions. Individuals in this category have periods of time when they are in remission only to move back into the extreme highs and lows once again (Mondimore). Bipolar II consists of extreme depressions and not fully developed manias called hypomanias.  Individuals in this category have depressions so severe they are often misdiagnosed as having depressive disorders rather than bipolar (Mondimore).  Some develop full-blown mania, while others continue to have hypomanias.  Individuals who experience cyclothymia experience neither fully developed manias or depressions (Mondimore).  This information gives a little more concrete background for bipolar as I continue on with my story. 

            The next few years are hazy for me.  I think a lot happened, but I have it out of sequence.  What I do remember is that I moved a lot.  I left my parent’s home to go stay with my cousin Rob, his wife Diane, and their three kids.  I loved being there.  As a child I had made it clear that I was going to marry Rob when I grew up.  But Diane came along and spoiled my plans.  I’m so glad, because aside from the concept of not marrying family members, Diane is a gem.  I think I was trying to run away from my illness, thinking I would leave it on my bed at home like an unwanted jacket.  I was still struggling with accepting I would always have bipolar.  It had become my shadow.  I thought I would find solace, but actually I was being driven toward closure in one particular area, the death of my grandma.

            My grandma Blanche’s death rocked my world.  She had congestive heart failure and a plethora of other issues, but mainly I think she gave up.  She was tired of living.  I believe my grandma suffered from bipolar.  She had been on antidepressants in the past but would discontinue taking them, telling my mom they did not work.  She would become agitated at times and would take an over the counter pill called “Calms.”  She also carried around a small flask of whiskey in her purse just in case she might become overwrought.  She was not an alcoholic, but I believe she did self-medicate in order to control her moods.  I remember she did not like having kids around, because they made her nervous.  Everyone talked about how grandma did not like kids or that she was difficult.  I think it was because she was bipolar.  That is why antidepressants did not work for her and that is why she did not like a lot of kids around causing noise and commotion.  They over stimulated her. 

            I think she saw her foibles in me, and that is why she connected with me.  There is a story my parents have shared with me about how my grandma had in mind a different woman for my dad, but my dad upset the apple cart by falling in love with my mom.  My grandma was horrible to my mom for years, and when my mom had me, my grandma commented that of course my mom would have to have a girl.  My dad responded by making it clear that she could either get over it or never see her grandchild.  My grandma must have had a radical change of heart, for she often told me my mom was dear to her heart, as tears ran down her face.  She would tell me how awful she was to my mom.  I would simply pat her arm and tell it was all okay.  There is no way for me to explain the importance of her presence in my life.  I think that she was not as kind to some of her other grandchildren, and I am sorry she was not, for they did not deserve that, but for me, she was a lifeline.  I cannot account for the way she treated other family members, but I will say I would not have survived my childhood without my grandma, and I do not over exaggerate here.

            I loved talking to my grandma.  She would sit in her chair by the sliding glass door and look out into the yard.  She had different kinds of bird feeders on the deck, and she was an avid bird watcher.  She was smart and sarcastic, and I loved her stories.  There were a lot of things she kept to herself.  She would have been a good poker player I think.  So when she did tell me something of her life I would listen. 

            All these memories and more I recalled as I stayed with my cousins.  I had never truly mourned my grandma’s death.  I did not know how.  But one Sunday, as I sat in church, I realized I was sitting in the same spot she usually sat in when she was well enough to go to church.  I looked out the window and saw the little cemetery where she was buried, and I felt a deluge of emotion spring from a long hidden place deep inside me.  I got up and quickly left the church, heading for my car.  I drove back to the farm, which was right behind the church with a large canal in between.  The tears were raining down in sheets, making it hard for me to see as I fumbled my way into the house and up the stairs.  As I opened the door, I saw everything as it was when I was a child.  I walked over to the place where my grandma’s chair had been since before I was born.  I sat down on the floor, rocking back and forth, remembering every little detail about my grandma as the tears rolled down my face in silent benediction. 

            I had not been sitting there long when Rob came bursting through the door.  I looked up at him as he walked over to me, “What are you doing here,” I asked.

            “I saw you leave and thought I should follow you.  Are you okay,” he asked, his face showing such concern and love that I simply crumpled, my emotions finally breaking through.  I began to sob as he helped me to my feet then held me as I mumbled something about finally realizing grandma was gone, and how I did not want to experience more of life without being able to share it with her.  I cried and cried and he cried with me.  Then he told me he loved me and that I always had a home with Diane and him.  He told me they were so happy to have me with them.  And before the church service was over and all the family had come home, I found closure for Grandma’s death. 

            While I was staying at Rob and Diane’s I felt I should find a job, so I began to peruse the papers.  There was not much I was interested in except an ad for a person to run housekeeping on a guest ranch in Dubois, Wyoming.  Dubois was about 70 miles from Kinnear where I was staying.  The job provided room and board and a pretty decent salary.  I could work there during the week, and on my day off I could spend time with Rob, Diane, and the kids. 

            I called, had an interview, and got the job, simple as that.  I was off and running.  I worked at the ranch a full season and stayed on through most of the winter as well.  It was 10 miles off the road back in the mountains.  What a beautiful place.  Actually all of the Dubois area is beautiful.  I spent time there as a child, for we had distant relatives who had a cow camp in Dubois.  When I was a child, Dubois was like a ghost town.  Only ranchers and hunters went through the small little town.  My mom’s mom, my grandma Esther, told me that during World War II they had little one room buildings where they placed the wives of those who had gone off to war.  She had lived in Dubois with her parents and then as the wife of an officer who was in the war.  She did not have fond memories of living in Dubois, but I do.

            The best years of my life I spent in Dubois working at a little salon called LaCurl Beauty and Barber Salon. Pete was the barber and Darlene the hairstylist.  She hired me once my season on the ranch was finished.  I never had so much fun doing hair.  It is the only time in my life I remember being thrilled about waking up and going to work.  And while I did really well in the summers, the winters were difficult to make ends meet.  I would work at a local hotel and a restaurant as well just to have enough to make it from month to month.

            Dubois had gone from a ghost town when I was a child to a tourist draw.  With Jackson Hole, only 90 miles away and becoming so overcrowded with tourists, many began to drive to Dubois to stay.  The population of Dubois would triple in the summers, but in the winters it would drop to about 1000.  People did not spend money unnecessarily, so that often meant they did not get their hair done in the winter.  For me the financial strain and stress was too much.  I was not regulated, which meant that we had not found a medication that would stabilize my moods, so I often felt I was on a teeter-totter, popping up and down most of the time.

            Another factor, aside from financial stress, was loneliness.   I wanted something special for myself, but all the relationships I had ended in disaster.   I wanted someone for me who I could experience life with, but I was too damaged to be able to have a health relationship.  The immense loneliness added to season changes, financial stress, and long work hours, caused a quick slide down the slippery slope into depression.  I knew I needed to go home.  What I was doing with my life was not the answer.  I packed up and moved home again. 

            I was home for a time, and leveled out some.  My family was still struggling to come to terms with my illness, as was I.   Those who have bipolar and their family members need to be able to address their grief as they work toward management of bipolar disorder. According to Bipolar Illness and the Family (Hyde, 2001), there are several stages of grief that both the person with bipolar and their family experience. The first is called anticipatory grief.  This happens at the beginning when the family and the person with bipolar first find out that the individual has the illness.  This type of grief results in anxiety and depression due to imagining what could happen.  Education and a clear understanding of the disorder are vital.  This would also include future progression of the illness as well (Hyde, 2001).

            The next type of depression is acute grief.  This type of grief occurs when the individual actually manifests aspects of the disorder.  This is the time when major decisions are made concerning the person with the disorder.  These decisions span from whether to hospitalize the individual to how to aptly manage the individual’s bank account.  These big decisions can disrupt the family unit and often cause hard feelings between any number of members including the person with bipolar.  Communication is key during this time. Sharing the burden rather than leaving it up to one or two family members may more evenly distribute the load (Hyde, 2001).

            The third type of grief is chronic grief.  This grief is experienced by family and the one who has the illness.  It is the sorrow that occurs when dealing with bipolar disorder on a daily basis along with all the changes that have to be undergone just to function for all involved.  This may include medication and its side effects, therapy sessions, and the loss of life as it was as well as the knowledge that the illness will never go away.  Communication is vital, and counseling may help the family sort through their grief as well as the individual with bipolar. It is important, however, that the grief is observed in order to move past it (Hyde, 2001).   

            I am not exactly sure how my family worked through the grieving process of losing the person I was to a mental illness, but I know how I did it.  I combined confrontation with retreat.  What I mean is that I did a massive amount of research, arming myself with all I could find on bipolar II, and then I would retreat from too much inundation by moving to a different place.  My way of self-medicating through most of my life has been to change scenery.  That is a habit that has been difficult to overcome, mainly because it works…for a time.  Then it makes everything worse.  Between my graduation from high school and my early thirties, I moved around about 30 times.   So it is not unusual for me to say I was home less than a year before I decided to go work for a friend on a guest ranch she and her husband owned in Shell, Wyoming. 

            The summer I spent in Shell was full of drama.  For one thing my friend was still grieving the loss of her son who had been killed in a car accident a few years before.  I do not think that kind of loss is something one ever gets over, but I was surprised to find the soft compassionate parts of my friend’s personality seemed to have shriveled up, and what was left of her was suspicious and bitter.  She seemed to me a person marking time, and that made me very sad. 

            That summer Rob’s eldest son Josh was in a car accident and almost died.  I left the ranch to travel to Casper, Wyoming to be with my family while Josh was in the hospital.  I stayed there for a couple of days until he was out of danger.  Prior to Josh’s accident by a month, my grandpa Pill, my dad’s father, had died.  I felt as though I was being bounced from one tragedy to another.

            It was very hard on me mentally because I was trying to weather the tragedies in my life, do my job, and be a good friend.  The latter was the most difficult of all, because my friend began talking to other workers saying that I was not doing my job well.  Then she accused her husband of having an affair with one of the guests.  She made a scene at the camp that was up in the mountains where my friend’s husband and a group of guests were lodging before heading out to go hunting.  Apparently the guest my friend’s husband was supposedly involved with was among the group of guests, so my friend went tearing up the mountain, tore up the camp chairs and tents, and then told the guest she was to leave immediately. 

            During this little event, I had been left with the running of the ranch.  I was left with taking care of dining room schedule, reservations, issues with the wranglers, and housekeeping duties.  On top of that, the group that my friend booted off the mountain, ended up in the office in an agitated state, demanding all sorts of compensation from me.  There was a bit of a language barrier, as they were European and very upset, but I managed to get through it.  By the time I got them on their way to the Cody airport, I was fuming.  I decided it was time I put into practice my boundary setting skills. 

            When my friend returned with her husband, she acted as though nothing had happened.  She explained that she had talked with her husband, and they had straightened things out.  She was ready to end the conversation when I said, “Okay.  Wait just a minute here.  We are not done yet.”

            She looked at me questioningly.  I took a deep breath and said, “We have been friends for a long time.  But if you ever take advantage of my friendship like that again, or talk about me behind my back, we’re through.  Are we clear?”

            She was clearly shocked, but managed to stammer out that she did not know what I was referring to.  I proceeded to lay out what had happened, how she had dumped everything in my lap and left me to clean up her and her husband’s mess, ending with, “We will never be good enough friends for me to clean up your marital messes.  What I did this time was so that the rest of the staff didn’t have to deal with it.”

            She reluctantly admitted to talking to other staff about me and apologized.  I forgave her, but I could not be a good friend to her any more.  I am not a person who holds grudges, but when a person betrays my trust, I do not generally have any use for them in my close inner circle.  It kind of saddened me, the severing of our friendship, because I do not have a lot of close friends, but whatever ones I have, have to be loyal and they have to care about me enough to treat me with respect.  Maybe I am pushing it with such requirements, but so be it. My sister, Jayme, is my best friend along with my friend Shawn. My sister has been a part of my life for over 35 years.  My friend Shawn has been my friend for over 20 years.  Relationships like that are hard to come by.  They take time, and I guess part of it is me; I just do not need a lot of relationships in my life.  But I really hate to lose any I have, and that is what happened with my friend and the ranch situation. 

            I learned a valuable lesson about setting boundaries.  Sometimes it is painful to be told “No,” and maybe just as painful for the one setting the boundary.  However, it helps maintain personal health and integrity to not spend so much of one’s self on another who is willing to take advantage.  It did not kill me to draw lines with my friend, and I realized I was more willing to reap the consequences of setting those boundaries than the consequences of not.

            In the fall, after the summer tourist season ended, I went home utterly exhausted.  My friend from the ranch had been very upset with me, because I had originally told her I would stay through the fall to help with hunting season, but when I realized she would have enough staff I told here I would be going home.  When she tried to guilt me into staying I reminded her of the toll her decisions had taken on me and that it was here choices that drained my resources too quickly to extend the season further.  I limped home, dragging my battered brain along behind me.  I have to say that I was not ever really equipped to handle the partial running of a large guest ranch.  My mind was just too fragile.  But I did not know that.  I kept trying all these different things because I knew I should be able to handle them, only to find that it was just too much strain on my mind. 

            I stayed at home for a while and worked for a cleaning company.  My sister, Jayme, had graduated from college in Kansas City, MO, and came home for a while.  She worked with me cleaning houses.  I remember one day in particular we were cleaning a large townhouse.  The couple had a new dog and it was yapping incessantly.  For some reason I began to get very agitated and I could not think.  I began to sob uncontrollably, becoming hysterical.  Jayme had never seen me like that and was irritated, thinking I was faking to get out of cleaning.  But inside my head, the dogs barking bounced off the walls of mind like noise in a gymnasium.  There did not seem to be an end or beginning to the noise, and I felt I was going out of my mind.  I knew what was happening was very serious.  I was bordering on hysteria in the home of strangers because of a barking dog.  The situation did not call for my reaction to it, and that is how I knew I was not doing well.  I needed to take action before the panic I was feeling made it impossible for me to take action.

            I remember calling my boss, who was aware of my particular proclivities.  She told me to leave and she would send someone to help Jayme.  I put down the phone and left without saying another word to Jayme.  I do not remember driving home.  I remember sitting in my living room as I dialed my doctor’s number.  The receptionist knew me and asked if I was suicidal.  I said, “Yes.”  She asked if I had a plan and I said, “Yes.”

            She told me she did not want me to drive, but wanted me to see if someone else could drive me.  If not she said she would come get me.  We hung up and I began to call around trying to find someone who was available to come get me.  I did not want the lady at the doctor’s office to have to come get me.  I did not want her to see me like I was or be put out.  Finally, I determined I was in far more danger sitting in my parent’s house percolating on life ending possibilities rather than taking action to ameliorate the issue, so I decided to go for it.  It was about 10 miles to the doctor’s office.  I thought I could keep myself under control for that long.

            It was by the grace of God I made it to the doctor.  I did not remember how I got there.  Whenever a therapist or doctor asks, “Do you have a plan,” it means, “Do you have a plan to kill yourself?  If you do, then we’ll know it’s really serious.”  Over the years I have had so many plans that if I were suicidal today, I would just pull out one of my old plans rather than create a new one.  They have not been used, obviously, or I would not be here.  I’ve thought of every scenario to kill myself one can imagine.  I have never come up with one yet that assures I will not end up a vegetable, every part of my body unable to move, except my mind.  My mind would be fine.  Poetic justice?  That is one reason I have never killed myself.  The other is my mom.  I do not want her to have to live through my suicide. 

            So now that I am on the subject, let’s talk about suicide.  The lifetime suicide rate in those with bipolar is the highest of any other mental illness at 15.5%-19%.  The lifespan of someone with bipolar is decreased by nine years and they lose 11 years of good physical health (Preson, 2006).  So what is the big deal with suicide?  People say someone who kills themselves will go to hell.  I have heard others say it is a selfish death, having no consideration for those left behind who must reap the consequences.  Or how about those who say it is the wimp’s way out?  I have heard all these things.  I have even thought some of them, but here is another one.  How about the person who has struggled for decades to live with an illness that is slowly and quickly driving them mad?  Their family is exhausted both emotionally and financially.  Loved ones see it as a war that will never end but will only continue to drain resources until they run dry.  What about the person who decides they cannot watch their loved ones suffer any more from actions that cannot be controlled, because believe it or not, medication is not a cure for any mental illness? 

            How about this?  What about the God given right of a human being to live their life as they so choose?  What if they cannot?  What if that right is stripped away almost in the blink of an eye?  What if insanity is winning?  What then?   No person who plans a death and follows through with it is a wimp.  They might be something else but wimp is not it.   I pity the person who gets into a debate about suicide with me, for the questions I would fire back at them, they could not answer.  For me suicide is a back door out of a crowded room.  It is ever on my mind, and I have been medicated for 20 years.  I wake with the option every day and I go to sleep with it at night.  As long as my loved ones believe in me, I will keep fighting and I will not sneak out the back.  My advice to someone who has a severe judgment to render about suicide is that I have found the things in life I am willing to call into judgment on someone else, are the things I end up facing myself.