Diagnosed

I was 15 when I was diagnosed. I knew the label before they gave it to me. Could feel it in my bones. Had read about it in the library. I didn’t need them to tell me what I was, I needed them to give me what I needed. And I resented that. Resented that I didn’t feel like I could fix it on my own. Resented that I would have to give someone access to keep from dying.

I was a sophomore in high school. Working class and estranged from my family I pushed myself to succeed so that I could both support myself and eventually make my way to college. I took honors classes and made honor roll. I performed and did tech for every school play. Was involved in at least 10 extracurricular activities. Started a youth organization through the Mayor’s office. Worked 30 hours a week at a local restaurant. And never slept.

Months passed without a full nights sleep. Most mornings would start around 5:30am and most evenings would end around 2:30am. During the 3ish hours I might make for sleep I would lay stiff in bed, heart visible in its beat in my chest. I would rest with panic and an ever shifting sense of reality. My mind would not, no, could not slow down. More than that my perception of myself and the world around me would not stay still. Shadows became three dimensional, ambient sound became nearly audible messages, time stopped and then sped up.

I was both convinced and terrified that something was trying to communicate with me. Something holy and dangerously dark. In these moments of terror and acceptance my name shifted, who I was altered. I remember laying there struggling to receive what I thought must be a gift or a calling. I struggled to receive it while simultaneously fearing that it had to kill me. Within this distorted reality my heart and head were acutely attune to both fatal despair and supernatural transcendence. They would fill me. Sometimes at the same time. Which felt like a tearing apart, a ripping at the seams, a suffocation, a death. Cutting into my own skin was how I could make room to breathe. It was a submission to a reality I could not understand. It was a gesture of willingness to live and to listen. It was a claiming and sometimes reclaiming of my body, my blood, my humanness.

And in the morning, when the alarm went off, I was me again. The experience of the night before could bury into a subconscious. I got dressed and moved on. The marks on my body a reminder, a warning, a comfort, a belonging.

There was no terror in the daylight. Nor was there tired. Not for a good long while. For months my brain and body propelled forward. Juggling what should have been an insurmountable number of tasks. Unstoppable in their motion. People called me strong, impressive, inspiring. They told me I was capable of incredible things. I believed them. I internalized those messages. I thought it part of my calling.

I knew better than to tell anyone. There would be no more praise if people knew my momentum came from mania. Instead everything would be suspect. Each action, each word. Nothing would be my own. When people find out you’re crazy all of a sudden you are no longer self, you are symptom. Your success, your failure. Your joy, your sorrow. They are not yours anymore. They are instead put through the filter of diagnosis. Manic-depression. People who once depended on you for your stability, your reason, your support, all of a sudden forget who you are. They forget that you were this sort of crazy before you ever gave them a name for it.

I knew that crazy could keep me from what I wanted. So I kept it close. Kept it close until it started seeping into daylight. Until my lack of sleep felt like a weight I could no longer bear. I was too tired even for vision. So I asked my Mother to make a doctors appointment. I told her I was having trouble sleeping and she made the call. Years of addiction, violence, and neglect kept me and my Mother far from one another. I lived a life apart from her. Sometimes daring her to see. Often still wanting her to reach out. But she never did.

On the day of the Doctors visit I wore long sleeves. I knew what I needed but did not want to reveal too much. Still the doctor pushed my sleeves up to find slashes and scars. I never tried to hide them, least of all from my Mother. And when the Doctor asked me how long I had been doing this, I looked straight into my Mother’s shocked eyes and said years. I wanted her to understand just how much she had missed. Wanted her shamed by someone with more authority than I ever had. It is perhaps the cruelest thing I've ever done to her.

What followed was a series of tests that searched both my blood and my psyche. I was ordered to find a psychologist and psychiatrist and both talked to me about what it meant to be bi-polar. At the time my once fevered pace had slowed, so they assumed I was deep in depression instead of just collapsing after months of mania. I did not tell them about the shapes that shifted, the words that hung heavy in the air with nobody to speak them, the light that burned rancid in my chest. They prescribed me Wellbutrin and sent me along my way.

At first things seemed to change. Psychosomatic or not, I felt happier. Was more capable of sleeping through most of a night. That holy and dark thing was something I could call out to but it would not come uninvited. It went this way for awhile. And then, it got much, much worse. I tried to tell them so. They increased my dose 3 separate times. They did not hear me. And still it did not change. So I stopped taking the pills altogether and told no one. Still filling my prescriptions. Cancelling my appointments. Giving up.

I found myself far from mania. Everything hung heavy and slow. The smallest tasks, insurmountable. Everything out to destroy me. One night I sat among a scattered pile of college solicitations. Options overwhelmed. I had been working to get to college my whole life. It was how I justified running myself into the ground. So that I could get out. I could get away. And in that moment it occurred to me that I would have to work this hard my whole life. Harder, even. It would never be easier. I would never have a safety net. I would always come from this broken and bloodied place. It would never get easier.

I cried quietly. Tears streaming out without effort. That night I ate dinner with my Mom and family. An uncommon occurrence. And nobody noted the tears that continued to pour. Nobody asked how I was or if they could help. Even after shocking my Mother in that doctor’s office she still could not see me. I was invisible. I always had been. I always would be.

So I followed up dinner with a bottle of aspirin from Sam’s Club. The industrial size. I left the house and drove to pick up my boyfriend. The last person I wanted to see. We drove around for an hour before I told him what I’d done. I started to regret my decision and asked him to go to the Emergency Room with me. He told me he wouldn’t. He had been in enough trouble, just getting back from rehab. So I dropped him off at home and drove around a bit longer. Finally stopping at Denny’s and swallowing a full prescription of Wellbutrin in the bathroom. I sat in my car wondering how long it would take. And eventually I drove myself to the ER.

I called my Mom from the payphone in the lobby. Was going to ask her to come and sit with me. I wanted some resolution with her before I died. Or some help from her to live. I didn’t know which. But before I could speak she laid into me about staying out too late. So I hung up the receiver and went home.

I went to sleep that night unsure if I would wake up. Happy to get some rest. But again I did not sleep through the night. My body pushed hard and acidic pills up my throat. Sometimes by the dozens. I woke up the next morning, alive, mouth and throat raw from the retching and resignation. I would not die this day. I was not disappointed. Neither was I pleased. A struggle I had always known would continue. I felt only quiet.

While driving a few days later it occurred to me. I was the only one I could rely on to help me. Not my family, not psychologists, not medication, not friends. I was in this alone. I would, in fact, have to fix it myself. There was some peace in this resolve. It was something familiar. This self sufficiency. This inability to rely on others. There was some comfort there. Some power. Still it was not a moment of triumph. It was a moment of chilled commitment to carry on.

Continuing to live required avoiding the edges. I would have to reduce the range that the pendulum could swing. I could not allow the stranglehold of despair or euphoric joy. Years of trauma had left me skilled in dissociation and I used this old tool in a new way. I would teach my body, my brain, my heart to shut down when it found the edges of emotion. I would numb out the extremes in the quest for balance.

Over time I found my stride. My emotions always hanging close to the middle. I slept through the night and rarely felt that old and holy calling. My pace slowed some but I was still highly productive. I told nobody about this crazy. Still fearing judgment. But also fearing unwanted intervention. Mostly fearing destabilization. The praise I received changed. People remarked on my calm. My cool and collected demeanor. They noted my ability to remain neutral among crisis. I was again, still, viewed as unshakably steady.

Thirteen years later and I do not know if that earlier diagnosis still holds true. I have seen mania in others. Seen some more extreme than mine, some less. I know that my ability to reign in the cycle of my emotions is a luxury not everyone has. And still I navigate the same turbulent waters. Still holding tight to my self-imposed barricades. Afraid of what might happen should they falter.

I have found a way to live. A way to create a life that can handle struggle and contentment and moments of happiness. It takes an unspeakable amount of work. Work in every increment of time. And it has come at a cost. It has reduced my connection to my own creativity, my ability to go into the depths. It has limited my capacity for joy and the elation of love. It has made me a smaller person than perhaps I could be. And some days I find myself questioning what I'm missing. And if it's all worth it. And what it would be like to allow myself the breadth of my crazy. What it would be like to have someone, somewhere, who could catch me. Some days I mourn what has been lost in order to maintain this life.

And still there is shame and secrecy. Still there is worry that telling means giving myself up to peoples preconceived notions. That it makes it so much easier to dismiss me. The whole of me. Still sometimes I worry that telling can only mean losing. Losing control, losing community, losing complexity. Sometimes I worry they will forget that I was this sort of crazy before I ever gave them a name for it.

I am not cured. There is nothing to cure. This crazy, this vacillation, it is still with me. Every day. It defines me completely, and not at all. It connects me and keeps me separate. It is the best and worst part of me. There are days I'm deeply grateful for it. And there are days I'm just surviving it. But this crazy, it has stayed with me. The only thing that has never left. It is my companion. And I wonder what it would mean to treat it like a love. A love instead of a secret. Something to care for sweetly instead of something to shut away. I wonder what would come of bringing it to the daylight again. Claiming it. Embracing it. Naming it. Defending it. I wonder what it would be like to understand that to do so is to care for the most vulnerable and powerful parts of myself. I wonder what it would be like to believe I deserve that. Unconditionally. I wonder what could come from treating crazy, mine and others, with reverence. With respect. What could I learn from that? Who could I be? I wonder what it would be like, for all of us, to stop holding this crazy alone.