Beauty for Ashes part 5

Upon Entering the Labyrinth

I felt a cleaving in my mind

As if my brain had split;

I tried to match it, seam by seam,

But could not make them fit.

The thought behind I strove to join

Unto the thought before,

But sequence raveled out of reach

Like balls on the floor.

(The Lost Thought by Emily Dickinson)

            I have previously described what I would term my external experience in Minot, North Dakota.  But it is only one side of the coin, for the other side requires an explanation of my internal experience.  I explain my adventure with bipolar disorder as similar to finding one’s way through a labyrinth.  Overall, that is what I feel has happened to me.  One day I stumbled upon a labyrinth and was driven into it by outside forces, never to completely find my way out. 

            At one time my memories of what was happening inside my head were vivid.  I remembered how losing sanity felt.  Now, however I must admit it is somewhat difficult to recall with the intensity I once had, the moments of extreme encounter with bipolar disorder.  I have made it a point over the years to try to describe what the illness feels like as it is marching through my head so that others who do not experience it may have some idea of what it is like.  My goal for a long time was to come up with the perfect image that would personify the experience. But then everyone is different, and what might bring it home for one person may do nothing for another.  Indeed, even those who also have bipolar use different imagery than I might use.  So I have learned to explain it the best way I know how, allowing that the listener’s imagination may help them identify.

            When the world first started going dark, it was a gradual thing.  As I mentioned before, I experienced depression more than once.  So I was not really alarmed to find my thoughts growing more negative and my perception grayer.  It had happened before.  In the past, however, I had plateaued out and then moved back to normal.  This process is called cyclothymia.  Cyclothymia is when a person experiences depression but does not dip down into severe depression.  Then the individual will return back to a more balanced state.  This type of depression happens more than once and can either stop completely at some point or become more severe after a time (DSM IV, 2000).  For me the latter was the case.  The outside world and my experiences created a kind of dark pressure on my mind, and when I went into therapy thinking I would obtain relief, the therapy compounded my situation causing more distress.  The sessions plunged me further and further into depression as we delved into the different catastrophes of my life. I withdrew from social settings and began to skip classes. My sleep patterns were erratic at best, and it became more and more difficult for me to sleep at all. I could not concentrate in class and my grades began to drop. I just could not keep all the balls in the air. I felt like a ribbon unraveling from a spool.

            I had the appointment for testing for disabilities, mentioned previously, where I cried all the way through the tests. I was so exhausted, depressed, overwhelmed, and frustrated that it was difficult to make my mind focus for such a lengthy period of time. It was too much. The tests came back with severe clinical depression. Surprise. Surprise.

 The lady at the vocational rehab center kept in contact with my counselor. She had me come in once a week just to check in. By this time I had lost color in my vision.  I pivot most every detail off that one moment, for it was the turning point for me psychologically.  Obviously, things had to be pretty bad already in terms of mental psychosis for me to experience a psychotic feature, but it was after that moment of losing perspective to a gray world that I began to lose feeling as well.  I just simply quit feeling anything at all. 

            At first the numbness that had taken over was a beautiful thing.  I had been so tormented by the fire of anger, and the constant pressure from traumas that were fighting to get past the wall I had them trapped behind, that to feel numbness was wonderful.  I thought, “Finally.  A rest!”  What I did not understand was that numbness has a price, for it is not about feelings being anesthetized, though that is a part.  No, there is a chemical problem in the brain and that problem has an effect on the body and the soul as well as the mind itself.  Now I could split hairs here about what is the mind, soul, brain, and so forth, but really what it all boils down to is that the price paid is the loss of control.

            Break it down any way that feels right but when you wake up one day and the essence of who you have known yourself to be has been taken hostage by a rogue mind, titles have little meaning.  I have described depression as clouds, a blizzard, and many other things.  Every analogy fits.  Some days I feel as though I am covered by a heavy blanket of dark clouds.  Other times I feel I am in a blizzard, my equilibrium obliterated.  But when I was in Minot, every possible description weighed in and then, finally, I was trapped in a car as it raced out of control.  There was no way out, no steering wheel, and no brakes. Most of that time I felt that way.  My mind raced at the speed of light, yet my body moved as though in slow motion, every muscle screaming in pain.  It was as though someone was in my head flipping switches, shutting everything down.  Flip!  Flip!  One switch after another was turned off without my permission.  As I fought to wade through the black sludge of depression, there was a part of my mind that was whizzing like a racetrack, while the rest of my mind seemed to be suspended in confusion as all the stimulus from the world slammed through.  Only the dulling of my own senses made the experience doable—like the way a snowfall seems to localize sound.  Then there was the flipping of switches.  My motors skills were flipped off and that was terrifying.  One day, my ability to walk seemed to just vanish.  Then it became difficult to move my hands and arms with any kind of fluidity.  I had so little energy that physical movement rendered me exhausted.  I could not comprehend what was happening to me.  My body was literally shutting down. I couldn’t form complete thoughts and it was difficult to speak.  When asked a question it took an eternity, it seemed, for me to understand what was being asked.

            The struggle against suicide was an ongoing battle. Every thought was a plan to end my life successfully.  I fought against it.  I quit driving my car and walked everywhere, because I was afraid I would hurt someone else in my need to exit gravity.  When I finally ran out of reasons to end it all, I had run out of energy to follow through as well.  I have a picture in my mind of a big shapeless monster glancing back at me with a sly grin as he takes over my mind, shutting it down.  I have no doubt I would not have lived until the end of the term because my body was quitting on me.  No one can tell me the brain is not an incredibly powerful organ.  Mechanical failure on the part of the brain allows the mind processes to become errant, which can ultimately cause one to be destroyed.

            While my time in Minot was the darkest time of my life, it was not the most painful.  It did give me tremendous clarity.  I came away from the experience a completely different person.  There would be no more rebounding from depressions like I had in the past.  My mind had shattered like a glass dropped on a cement floor.  I was broken, yet there was a new strength in me, for I was able to put things in life in their respective places.  I simply compared them to what had happened in Minot.  If they did not measure up in magnitude, then they were not going to destroy me.  Why be afraid of crossing a small stream when I had forded a raging river? 

            Most importantly, though, was what I learned about God and what I was continually learning about Him.  What I discovered there at the “end of all things” as Frodo says to Sam in The Return of the King, was that God had not abandoned me.  He was not disgusted by all my wounds and weaknesses.  He forced me to make a decision as to whom I would serve, Him or me, and He also began to show me He had not forgotten me.  I did not know what He would ask of me, but I decided that I had already come so close to being dead; if He were to require that of me, it wouldn’t be all that traumatic and it would end my life, which did not seem such a bad thing anymore.  A very cynical or morbid train of thought, I admit, but it is congruent with my state of mind at the time. 

            I rode home with my mom driving while a family friend drove my car.  I slept for two days straight with a sleep aid we had gotten from a psychiatrist I saw right before we left.  I had gone in to the school with the doctor’s note saying I must be withdrawn from school.  The dean told me he did not care if I was having mental problems, they would not assist me with my situation.  I would pay for an entire term of school without any credits.  He was a horrible man.  Uncharacteristically, I simply bowed my head and walked out of his office.  Putting one foot in front of the other was hard enough without exchanging verbal fire with an idiot.  I just prayed silently as I left the building that he would have someone in his life one day who suffered with what I was suffering with.

            Once I was home, life went back to “normal”, or at least that is what my family was hoping.  One of my sisters was getting married and things were getting a bit unsettled around the Clapp household.  I had no money, no job, and one prescription of medication that stood between insomnia, insanity, and me.  My family did not want to look at me any differently than they ever had.  They thought I was just temperamental and “Chief Thundercloud” as my parents called me.  What I was, was very sick, and I could feel it.  My mind was broken, and as with most broken things, no amount of pretending would fix it. 

            I had a good friend whose husband was a doctor.  Through him she found me a good psychiatrist who could get me pointed in some kind of direction.  I was lost as to what to do.  Our society does not talk about mental illness and how to get help.  We hear about cancer as children and know that radiation treatments and chemotherapy somehow go along with it.  We hear about diabetes and are familiarized with the word insulin, but somehow we are not taught about what to do when the old thinker falls apart.  The only terms I had heard in association with mental illness were crazy and insane asylum. 

I was lost in figuring out what to do.  All I had been told in Minot was that I had severe depression and insomnia.  I would not have known to go to a psychiatrist had my friend not taken care to make the appointment.  The realm of mental health is somewhat confusing in terms of who one should go to for a particular mental problem.  It took me a long time to get it all straight, and even then I conferred with one of my professors, Dr. Kim Kjaersgaard.  She gave me a clearer idea of the differences between titles.  Counselors deal with every day issues.  Counselors do not have to be licensed and range from summer activities counselors all the way up to counselors who have doctorates. They usually see clients over a short period of time.

Therapists deal with issues that are a bit more complicated. They generally have some form of licensure as well as graduate school in the degree of master’s or doctorate.  They tend to have more long-term contact with clients. 

Then there are psychologists.  Psychologists usually have doctorates.  They can work at just about any level of the psychology field from testing to teaching.  They are generally better equipped to deal with those who have mental illnesses or other proclivities assessed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV).

            Psychiatrists have medical degrees with a semester of psychology added on top.  They are able to prescribe medications where others in the psychology field may not. These definitions are what I use to help me keep track of the different titles.  When trying to find someone in the psychology field to work with, it can be daunting if one has no idea what the different titles mean.

             Therapy is very helpful for those trying to navigate life with bipolar.  Therapy teaches coping skills and allows a safe place to vent or just discuss what is going on.  Therapy is also a place that equips one with tools to manage behavior much better in a world that does not suit.  It is important when looking for therapy, to remember that not everyone is a perfect match.  It may take trying a few different people to find the right combination of bedside manner and technique that will work best.

I would have done much better with therapy, but it costs money and my psychiatrist prescribed me meds.  He was not a therapist.  So I was faced with a decision, meds or therapy.  Early on that did not seem like such a big deal.  I did not know I would need medication for the rest of my life.  Even if I had been educated with some kind of inkling of what should come next, I would still have been groping in the dark because there is no rigidly set path for navigating bipolar.  Managing bipolar disorder is very much about trial and error.  Unlike most other illnesses, it can be better treated by active participation from the patient.  People who have mental illnesses are redefining the way the doctor/patient relationship is geared.  Patients have taken the reins and begun to let doctors know how they can help the patient rather than the other way around (Szegedy-Maszak, 2002, p. 55).  I learned early on that I had to take control when I walked into the doctor’s office because they were most often relegated to an educated guess when making a decision about my treatment. I thought, “I can make an educated guess, and I have an advantage because I’m aware of what’s going on inside my mind!”  When I enter a doctor’s office, I am hiring them, and they are my employees until I terminate their services.  That is now the way I view my relationship with the medical community.  What a change in mindset that is from where I started! 

It took almost a year to come up with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.  Process of elimination was invoked, and after eliminating physical anomalies, severe clinical depression (unipolar), and attention deficit disorder (ADD), I was awarded a diagnosis.  I say awarded, because having a diagnosis gave me a definitive clue to what was going on with me.  It took me a while to accept it, for I was young and the idea of living my life taking a medication for a disease with no cure in sight was a bit difficult to comprehend. 

Then there was the gigantic stigma attached.  Stigma is the bane of effective treatment for mental illness and that includes bipolar disorder (NAMI, 2007).  Because of stigma, it is rarely acceptable to talk about mental illness or admit to having it.  Not admitting to having a mental illness keeps one from getting treatment.  It seems it is more acceptable in this society to say one is an alcoholic than to say, “I have a mental illness.”  Stigma is the reason there is poor funding for organizations that would help those afflicted, and stigma is the reason those who are sick cannot afford treatment.  There is very little financial help for those with mental illness, and insurance companies fund only a fraction of mental health services if at all. I know this from personal experience.

I did come to terms with having a mental illness.  I still struggle with it, and sometimes I am exhausted from battling it, but I did come to terms with the fact that it was real in my life and something that needed to be addressed.  The ultimate goal for me was to get to a level of balance and once I achieved balance I would be able to maintain having a life and having a mental illness. 

  Two of the most effective ways to meeting the goal for maintenance is medication and psychotherapy (White, 2007).  Many tests have been conducted to determine whether psychotherapy in conjunction with medication is better than just one or the other. In an article interview by Thase (2006), four forms or models, of psychotherapy were used in studies.  The first model was psychoeducational therapy, which is based on educating the persons involved in the study about their illness.  The second model used was cognitive therapy.  This is where a person learns to reframe their thoughts.  This method has shown to be beneficial in those with depression.  The third model was family-focused therapy where the family becomes involved in the person’s treatment and a support network is formed.  The fourth model combined interpersonal and social-rhythm therapy.  This is where an individual is taught personal rhythms in their every day life by creating daily schedules and learning to address what is going on inside them (Thase). 

            The results of the studies showed that psychotherapy does make a significant difference in those with bipolar disorder when it is applied with medication.  There was a reduction in relapse and an increase in the amount of well-time where the person was not experiencing either mania or depression.  What was interesting about the information gleaned was that even though there was evidence to show that psychotherapy makes a difference in the long-term outcomes of those with bipolar disorder, it was unclear about psychotherapy making a contribution to a more speedy recovery, or even increasing the likelihood of recovery (Thase, 2006). 

            I truly believe I would have found balance and made peace with bipolar much sooner had I been able to afford therapy.  I know I would have been able to deal with traumas in my past sooner than I did, and that would have made my overall health so much better.  But a story is what it is, and a life is lived the way it is lived.  I have no regrets.  I did the best I could with the information I had.  What I discovered on my own armed me in a way few I have met with the illness have been armed. 

            I remember very clearly the day I left my doctor’s office having finally accepted my diagnosis.  The irony is that I was stepping off a curb just like the one I stepped off of in Minot the day my world changed.  Only instead of rain and gray, this day was sunny and I could see the light rays bouncing off the colored cars in the parking lot, creating mini sundogs as they illuminated and spun into the air.  The doctor said I must fight my illness. I must fight for the right meds, fight for a healthy life, and fight myself for sanity.  I watched my foot as it stepped off the curb out in front of me, my toe touching lightly the pavement as I put on my sunglasses and smiled.  Fighting was something I definitely knew how to do. 

Beauty for Ashes Part 4

Invited by Trauma

"Lael, you are so much like me.  And because you are I am going to tell you something.  You are going to go through your life trying to straddle the fence between your will and what God wants for you until one day He is going to drive you to a place that has no way out.  Then He is going to say, “Make up your mind.  You either follow me or you don’t.  There is no more in between for you.”  Then you will make your decision, but not until then.   Then you will be fine.  I know you will”

(My Grandma Blanche)

            I was raised in a Christian home.  Christian means many different things in this country so I will be specific as to its meaning in my story.  My parents showed their children that God loved them and that they might have a personal relationship with Him.  My mom taught me about God’s love for me and that I should love others.  I learned the stories in the Bible, and I learned about a man who died for me so that I might live.  I accepted it all, and at a very young age I committed my life to the purpose of living it for God. 

            And then the bottom fell out of my young life.  All the things I chronicled earlier happened, and I did not feel that God was there with me—ready to catch me when I fell off that limb I was stranded on all by myself.  I felt abandoned.  I was alone, and I became angry.  So when a little voice whispered into my thoughts, “He doesn’t love you.  If he loved you he would never have let all this happen to you,” I was more than prepared to believe it.

            I listened to that little voice and out of all those I felt anger toward, God was the one I was most angry at.  On top of that I felt guilty for being angry at Him, and not just a little scared of His retribution toward me.  I went to a legalistic church that really did not really teach a relationship with God.  It taught rules and how to work one’s way to heaven.  It condemned where it should have loved, and it taught guilt as a weapon God uses to get one to do what He wants.  I was taught that anger toward God was evil, something one should never feel in order to be a “good Christian.” 

I grew up with two very opposing views of who God was and what His role was in my life.  I was not sure what to do about the discrepancy.  What I did not understand was how God could hang me out to dry as a child, allowing people to do bad things to such a helpless little girl.  So I decided that He did not like me and while I wanted to get to heaven, if He did not have much use for me, then I sure was not going to pressure Him into a relationship with me.  That reasoning seems absurd to me now, but as a child it made a lot of sense.  I was used to people not liking me so why should God be any different? 

            I remember my mom buying me notebooks for school that said, “Be patient.  God isn’t finished with me yet.”  I had a green, blue, and pink one.  They had little Precious Moments characters on the front.  I remember thinking that maybe when God was finished with me He would like me better.  On the other hand, I pondered, He might just decide that He was finished simply because He could not do anything with the mess that was me.  I wondered if I was like a piece of paper He had begun to draw a masterpiece on, but had screwed up.  And because I was a human being, He could not wad me up and throw me in the trash.  Maybe He just forgot about me instead.  These thoughts and doubts rotated around in my thoughts like a spit over a fire, churning up my hatred of myself and turning up the heat on my anger until it was all I could feel. 

            On the outside, I went from a weak little girl that everyone walked on to a tough as nails young lady.  With every hit I took or persecution I endured, I pulled more into myself, my thoughts damning me even as on the outside I appeared more in control and confident.  The anger was a smoldering sheet that divided my ugly inner self from what the outside world saw.  Even now I am intimidating, though I am no longer driven by anger.  So many of my friends comment on my ability to scare people by just a look, as if that is an impressive trait.  They have no idea the price I paid for that ability.  The more this process went on in my young self, the further away I drifted from God, and the further away one gets from God the more difficult it is to hear Him speak.  I was lost, trying to straddle a fence between an idea of eternal security and the desire to walk away from the God who had created such beauty in the mountains and vistas I had grown up with.  Yet, He had somehow managed to screw me up completely.

            The sexual trauma from high school had served its purpose well in my life.  As I mentioned before, in early childhood I had made a decision not to feel.  What that really translated into was that someone would hurt me and I would feel intense pain, but on its way to the surface, anger would kidnap the true emotion and take its place.  However, with the sexual trauma, anger no longer had to be a kidnapper.  My emotions were trapped in a glass box, and whenever I was faced with an emotional situation, I felt nothing in terms of genuine emotion.

            My choices in relationships became very poor.  I chose men who would abuse me emotionally.  Maybe it was to see if I could feel anything, and I used them as a tester.  Maybe I wanted an excuse to leave, so choosing a jerk always left me an exit.  I don’t know.  I think that I hung on to that idea that I might take a dud and make him into Prince Charming.  I knew that was not possible, but I tried over an over.  I also think I stuck with what was familiar.  Unfortunately when you have been around abuse long enough, it can become familiar.  I really did not feel I could do any better for myself.

            When I was 19 and off and on into my 20’s I dated a guy who was very abusive mentally.  I could not seem to get free of him.  I understand now why abused women go back to the men who abuse them.  Some of the reason is intangible, but part of the reason may be that the man represents a dream, and after putting much time and energy into the man and the dream, we do not want to walk away, for then it becomes time wasted and failure.  I believe that I also felt what went wrong was my fault, as he was ever ready to point out, and I wanted to get it right.  For my part, I feel that bipolar disorder had really begun to swing, moving my moods further and further in opposite directions so that I became volatile as they became distorted.  Just as some people cut themselves to equalize the chaos inside, I ran to different places, and situations that kept me occupied enough to not have to look inside myself.

            I was hopelessly stuck in the rut of a relationship that was destructive, draining me of every resource.  I was exhausted, tapped out from the turmoil it created.  So at one point after I watched my, then fiancé drive off right in front of me with another woman, I made a drastic move and relocated to Minot, North Dakota.  What followed in my wake were remnants of my harmful relationship, the death of one of my dear friend’s son, and the death of my best friend in the whole world—my champion and advocate—my grandma Blanche.  I mourned none of these experiences.  I simply closed a heavy door on them and walked away.

            Minot, North Dakota.  My memories of the place are distorted and have little color.  I firmly believe that Minot was the turning point of my life on several levels.  I went there to attend school at Minot State University.  I planned to go into deaf education.  I thought I had it all figured out.  I would leave behind my past life, the past trauma and drama, and would simply just become a new me with a new life.  That is not what happened, of course.  I tried to start a new life with new experiences and new people but my past was a yipping little dog that would not leave me be. 

            Have you ever been in a blizzard?  Having grown up in Wyoming, I can say I’ve been in a few.  It is the most bizarre feeling.  One minute the world is wide open with views as far as an eye can see, and the next minute the snow has encapsulated you in a swirling mass of white where you cannot even see your hand in front of your face.  There is a surreal quality to it because you feel suspended, yet your mind knows your feet are on the ground, and even though there seems to be nothingness outside the white swirling, you know that cannot be reality because you remember you have seen a different view of the very place you are looking at.  But if you are in the blizzard long and are not tied to something that will hold you to your course, you will begin to believe there is nothing but the white swirling snow and the howling wind.  You will lose all sense of direction and will eventually become lost in the white death that awaits you.  As I continued with life in Minot I felt more and more as though I was caught in a blizzard. The chaos of exterior stimulus from school, work, and personal interactions with others, and internal repression of my emotional feelings made up the blizzard, and I became lost in the fray.  I tried to live, but I was not anchored to anything that would keep me from losing my way.  I had been running from God for quite some time and I was not willing to tie on to Him for guidance through the blizzard that was my life. My life had been a storm for quite some time, but the difference in Minot was that it became a blizzard and was happening in my mind as well. I was beginning to believe I could not rely on my mind to obey or respond correctly to commands I gave it.  

I attempted work and school, but one cold, snowy day I found myself kicking the hell out of my car because it was stuck on a patch of ice in front of my apartment.  I was afraid, not of the anger, but of how violent it was and that I blacked out during my tirade.  I promptly went back into my apartment and called the pastor of the church I had been attending semi-regularly. 

            We met at the school cafeteria.  I’m ashamed to say I do not remember his name, but I do remember he was young and spoke to me with great empathy and the understanding of someone who has been in school and tried to make a living as well.  I told him I was going crazy to which he smiled, saying, “I don’t think you are going crazy.  You are just dealing with a lot right now.  Maybe it would help to see a counselor for awhile just to have someone to help you sort things out.”

            He gave me a name of a clergy friend who was also a psychologist.  I felt refreshed as we parted.  I had a way of dealing with things.  It would all get better.  But what I did not foresee was that digging through my past would unleash emotions I had not experienced in their entirety for years.  As we delved into my losses behind closed doors, in my exterior life I suffered from depression that continued to increase in intensity.  I began to fail my classes and often could not manage to get out of bed.  I suffered from a round of bronchitis that was so bad it lasted for two months, draining me of energy.

One of my classes dealt with special education.  We talked about things in that class that began to trigger flashbacks from my childhood times in school.  My mind had blocked out all of the bad experiences in elementary school completely.  But as I attended class and delved into my past in counseling, I began to have flashbacks that were like sections of a movie that played on the screen of my mind.  The pain of these moments was so severe I would leave the class sobbing, almost hysterical.

            I now know that forcing myself to look at issues that my mind had completely blocked out was not a good thing to do.  I have been told that the counselor I had been seeing should have been more in tune with my reactions to digging into my past and should not have encouraged me to remember such repressed events if my mind was not ready.  I agree, but I also think there was another factor involved that neither of us were aware of and that was that I was predisposed to mental illness.  And as I have expressed before, I believe I had already begun to deal with mood instability.  That instability started out small like the smallest part of a funnel.  Then it grew and continued to grow, fed by environmental influences such as death, sexual molestation, rejection by peers, and change.  My experience with bipolar disorder is that it follows this pattern until mood instability take control of one’s life.  My time in Minot became the top of the funnel. 

            I had gone home for Christmas but my trip home for spring break is the one I remember.  I was very depressed, and being with family did not help.  In fact, I remember being very bothered by the noise and commotion of my large family.  My mom had set me up a bed in the utility room, and I remember spending a lot of time there, just trying to get away.  The drive home had been scary.  I had driven all over Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho for years.  There are a lot of miles in between towns where there is nothing but sagebrush.  Even so, I never felt so uncomfortable as I did when I drove from Minot.  The drive home was very stressful—long stretches with nothing but flat ground.  Once I got to Billings, Montana I only had a couple of hours until I would be home.  But as I was filling up my car with gas I noticed a man leaning against a car that was so dirty you could hardly tell its color, watching me.  I was unnerved. I quickly put the gas cap on, locked the car and headed into the gas station.  I grabbed a pop and got in line.  The man came in and stood behind me. He was long and lanky, with stringy blond hair and he reeked of alcohol, chew, and sweat.

Does that stuff work?“ he said, pointing to the pepper spray on my key chain.

“Don’t know.  Haven’t had to use it...yet.“  I said glancing at him briefly.  He smiled at me suggestively showing yellow teeth lined with tobacco.  I looked away quickly to keep from gagging. 

The clerk looked at me and then at him.  “Oh it works just fine.  Don’t you worry about that,” he said.  I smiled at him as I gave him the money for the gas and pop. I hurried quickly to my car, strapped in, and took off. 

            As I was driving I thought, as I glanced in my rear view mirror, that I saw that dirty car behind me.  I chastised myself for being paranoid.  It had begun to rain and was becoming difficult not only to see but also to stay on the road.  Rain showers in the mountains are sudden and fierce.

            I turned off at a little spot on the road called Columbus.  I stopped at a gas station and went in to get some coffee.  When I came out I saw the car that had been in Billings, washed free of dirt to reveal anemic green paint.  He was sitting there, watching me walk to my car.  That is when I got really nervous.  I had not been imagining things.  I figured he was just following me to see if I had car trouble at some point where he would have me at a disadvantage.  My car was reliable but I had unwittingly shut the hood on my oil cap and it had put a substantial hole in the top. I had stopped at a dealership some miles before Billings and they had rigged it, assuring me that it would get me home, but I was still nervous and frightened. 

I journeyed out onto the interstate once again praying that my car would stay in motion. Every now and then I would catch a glimpse of the green car but the weather was so bad I was forced to concentrate more on staying on the road.

I was just outside of Livingston, Montana, which is about 35 miles from Belgrade when I noticed that the interstate emergency light was flashing on a sign to the side of the road.  I tuned into the information channel on the radio and learned that the part of the interstate that went around and then through Livingston was closed due to 60 mile an hour winds.  I got off the interstate and headed into town.  I looked in the rear view mirror and saw the green car still following me.  I took a series of turns and lights and when I didn’t see him I veered off the road to a gas station.  I called home, and after several rings my sister answered.  I told her what had been going on and she said that if I was not home in an hour they would start looking for me. I went back to my car and headed out.  I did not see the green car again.

            The incident was significant because it was another traumatic event that was heaped on my already stressed out mind.  Probably under different circumstances it would not be noteworthy to document the incident, but sharing my story is like building a brick house.  In order to fully show what bipolar disorder has done in my life, yet also show who I am independent of the illness, I must lay a foundation that shows all the turns and twists that got me to where I am now.  So brick by brick I lay in events as they occurred, and I look at the importance of an event in terms of the effect it had on my life and psyche.  One thing I have learned about bipolar disorder is that it has to have help to become a player in a person’s life.  It has to be invited by trauma.

            I started back to school and work.  I had a job I loved at the Subway right across from the college.  It was incredibly busy at any given time of the day due to the college traffic.  It was not difficult work and they were willing to accommodate my school schedule.  What I liked about the job was my boss, Scott.  He was the best employer I’ve ever had.  The day I kicked my car into submission, he was the one who came and dug it out, telling me not to worry.  He looked after all his employees, and I grew to rely on his great managerial skills and his friendship.  So when I found out he was quitting, I became very upset.  Scott had a wife and kids.  He needed a better job and I understood that, but I was still very upset to see him go.  On top of that, my best friend there, Ken, got let go for complicated reasons I will not go into.

Ken and I had worked together almost since my first day on the job at the beginning of the school year.  No one liked Ken.  He was a grumpy bear who intimidated those he came in contact with.  He loved to insult the lack of intelligence his fellow co-workers displayed.  I saw through him immediately, and liked what I saw.  What an incredibly unique individual.  Ken was 28 and at the time that seemed old compared to my 23 years.  He had lived in Dallas, TX, and anyone could tell he was someone who had lived a rough life, aged far beyond his 28 biological years.  Perhaps that is why I connected with him.  I was aged beyond my years as well.  But what I think drew him to me was my fragility and the darkness that I was steeped in.  Ken wanted to protect me, and I guess I needed that, for I lost my head for a while in terms of sound judgment calls. 

We partied together, hung out together, I cut his hair, and we talked about all kinds of things.  I truly loved being with him because he was so strong.  He was not big, just under six feet and skinny.  He had dark wavy hair and a mustache.  He looked like a gangster. His father had died years back, leaving his mother, his older brother, and him.  His brother had a problem with alcohol if I remember correctly, and Ken was very protective of his mother who was a nurse.  I met her once when I went to his house to cut his hair. 

As I continued with therapy and testing with a vocational rehabilitation counselor who had been brought in to work with me because I had been diagnosed by the school as having auditory processing problems, work, and school, I slowly slipped out of touch with reality.  I felt the things I was to manage in my life slipping through my fingers.  I went off the deep end for a time, drinking a lot, hanging out with people I should never have been around, and had it not been for Ken, who knows what would have happened to me.  I do not remember much of what went on in Minot because my mind was taxed to its limit, and as all the things in my present weighed in, demanding attention, the tragedies from the past continued to bang on a door that was giving way.  At some point I began reading Schindler’s List, which is a fine piece of work, but not a cheerful piece.  I watched movies like In the Name of the Father and 8 Seconds, also not movies that are particularly uplifting.  My roommate, Kim, who was a gem, began to worry about me, especially when I stopped sleeping. 

            After I stopped sleeping, the depression took hold completely.  I remember walking out of a store with Kim.  It was a rainy gray day.  In my mind’s eye I can still see my foot extended in front of me, toe pointed, as I began to step off the curb, the yellow paint on the curb luminescent in the falling rain.  I glanced up toward the car and the surrounding landscape of the parking lot, shrubs, and streetlights.  Something seemed odd but I could not place a finger on it.  I looked back down at the curb and watched the bright yellow slide out of my line of vision like watercolors running down a canvas.  There was no color.  The curb was gray.  That is when I realized what was odd about what I had seen before.  All the cars in the parking lot were the same color…gray.

 I spent some period of time, weeks, in this state.  And somehow it seemed natural to me.  What I experienced was a psychotic feature with the depression.  A psychotic feature is a delusion or hallucination experienced during an episode (DSM, 2000).  I did not know that at the time, however, and what is more disturbing than the lack of color in my vision, was my willingness to just accept it without much alarm or questioning.  Over the years with doctors and study, I have discovered that lack of sleep triggered the psychotic feature.  Human beings need sleep.  We can go for a time without it, but prolonged lack of sleep causes the mind and body to malfunction. 

I remember going to vocational rehabilitation, and having them administer an I.Q. test.  I do not know the time frame after I lost color, for it is all a bit sketchy for me.  I remember that there were two tests, and they took four hours.  I cried through both tests.  The lady who was administering the test became so upset by my crying she had to leave the room.  My mind was like sludge, but there was still this little piece that was trying to give commands to the rest to perform, and the majority of my mind was rebelling.

The above incident is the last I remember clearly.  I do not recall how I managed to work three days a week but I am told I did.  I did not attend school.  It was just too much.  I suppose I selected the environment that felt safest and went on automatic pilot while there.  As I mentioned, Ken was no longer working at Subway, but he checked in all the time, and I think he told some of my fellow co-workers that something was not right with me.  My guess is that they knew something was wrong with me, for I know I could not have been performing on par, yet they never rebuffed me that I recall. 

When I was not working, I sat in the corner of our apartment on the floor rocking back and forth.  As the days ticked by and I still could not sleep, I began to lose mobility.  I reached a point where walking was difficult.  I knew that if I crawled over 19 squares of carpet, I would have reached the kitchen.  From there it was a mere four squares of linoleum to the bathroom.  I did not worry about bathing.  Just turning on the faucet was too complex an equation for my overtaxed mind. 

Kim was worried that she would come home and find me dead.  She was watching me disintegrate.  I had gone from functional to incapable in less than a school term, and I have no idea how she dealt with me.  Looking back, I wonder it was Kim who contacted vocational rehabilitation. They put a suicide watch on my house and called my family, informing my mom that she needed to come get me.  My mom had no idea what was going on. It seems understandable that she might be completely terrified when a stranger explained her daughter would not live to see the end of the term—the second time someone had told here her daughter would commit suicide.

            I have wondered how there could have been a suicide watch on me.  After all, I was inside most of the time, and I did not notice anyone looking through my windows to see if I had offed myself.  I have pondered this a great deal and have come to the conclusion that my friends were watching me.  I also think people at work who knew me fairly well were keeping an eye on me. 

            I remember Ken coming over one day to say we were going to go roller skating.  I looked at him and said, “You’re out of your mind.”  He just grinned, grabbing my jacket. I knew him well enough not to argue.  I remember sitting in his jeep, and I remember him paying the man at the counter, telling him my shoe size.  I did not realize he knew my shoe size. 

            Ken had his skates on rather quickly, and went out to skate a few times around the rink.  I, however, was having a hard time just getting the laces stretched to allow my foot inside.  My coordination was minimal at that time due to lack of sleep.  I have no idea how I even managed to walk to the car and then into the rink.  My body ached all over, and just blinking was an effort.  I managed to get each foot into a shoe, but lacing them up was too much.  I would smile at Ken each time he went by and nod at him when he told me to hurry up, but just could not get my skates tied.  I became very upset, not wanting to admit that I could not manage to tie my shoes, something a small child could do.

            Finally, Ken came off the rink.  I was bent over trying to tie my skates up.  I do not know how long he stood there but all of a sudden, his hands were replacing mine, his long, nimble fingers moving over the laces as they tightened then tied the skates.  He looked up at me then, brushing tears off my cheeks.  “I’ve never gotten to tie a girl’s skates for her before.  See, I told you I was Prince Charming!”  He grinned at my wry smile. 

            He skated around with me, holding me up as we circled the rink.  And when I was tired, he helped me get seated so I could watch.  Memory fades to black, but what has not faded is the love shown to me by someone who did not have to spend his Saturday lacing up my skates.  I was so blessed to have people in my life like Ken, Kim, my pastor, people at work, and the lady at vocational rehabilitation.  They all cared about me, and I have no doubt, had they not, I would not be alive today.