Diagnosis

I went through a period of a year or longer when I had severe migraines nearly daily, so I had to quit my job.  At the migraine clinic they wanted to put me on anti-depressants, which in small doses are a standard migraine preventative medication.  Much to the doctor’s frustration, I turned them down because my psychiatrist felt they would get in the way of my analysis.  I shouldn’t have listened to my psychiatrist!  He didn’t give in and agree to anti-depressants until I’d lost my new job due to depression, and I insisted on having them.  Anyway, for the migraines I ended up on clonazepam, a pain killer to be taken when a migraine starts.  The doctor warned me that it was addictive, but said it wouldn’t be a problem as long as I only took it as needed.  There were two problems with that, the first being that I have an addictive personality, and the second was that I needed it almost every day.  It was given to me in liquid form—I was supposed to count out the drops.  As soon as the first drops hit me tongue, my whole body screamed out: “More!”  I quickly went up to five times the prescribed dose, and then just started drinking it out of the bottle.  I told my family doctor how much alcohol I was drinking, and how much cloanzepam I was taking.  In part it was a cry for help, every time I told him how much I was drinking, I was hoping for some sort of helpful reaction.  At the same time I wanted to be reassured that mixing the two wasn’t a problem, although I was sure it was—I wanted to continue abusing both.  And he just kept writing out the prescriptions whenever I asked for them.  Finally after several years of this, he started telling me that it was time for me to go off the clonazepam, without any instructions about how to do so.  For several years I tried to quit by reducing but it didn’t work.  I went back to counting the drops, and reducing by five and then ten for a few days, and then go right back up.  Then in 1997, I got a call to return to the US for my step-father’s funeral.  I was almost out of clonazepam, and decided to cold turkey it in the US where it would be difficult to get my hands on some.  Little did I know that cold turkying it from a high dose is like the D.T.s--you can die from it, especially if you’ve been mixing it with alcohol.

In the airplane, I put my earphones on and put a cassette into my Walkman, which produced horrible noises.  Thinking something was wrong with the cassette, I tried another, and then another, until I realized it was my brain that wasn’t working, instead of flowing together, the notes of music produced cacophony.  At home while everyone was busy making preparations, I lied down on the floor because strange sensations throughout my body made standing up and moving around too difficult.  Finally I was able to shift over to the couch in the adjacent apartment where my sister was staying.  At dinner time when my mother and brother called me to the table, my sister went in to say that I wasn’t feeling well enough to join them.  They said that I had to come, that I wasn’t the sick one.  (My mother and sister have Chronic Fatigue, so they’re allowed to have disabling symptoms.)  My sister brought my dinner plate to the couch, and after watching my unsuccessful struggles to lift my head and cut the food, she came and cut it up in bite size pieces—the reflex of a mother with small children.

The next day as the preparations continued, I could feel my state worsening.  I had no idea what was happening to me, but decided that it was necessary to use sheer will power to make it through the funeral.  My thoughts were becoming more and more fragmented; I couldn’t concentrate on the things I wanted to get done during the few days of my stay, so I started making lists.  That reminded me of my step-father, he was a list man in the last years of his life.  He always had a clip board with yellow legal paper on it, to keep track of his meds, and whatever else was on his mind.  It wasn’t until just before Joe’s funeral that his loss hit me, the grief welled up and I cried my heart out.  Instead of consoling me, a family friend told me I looked awful.  Which I’m sure I did, and everyone else looked irritatingly cheerful.  My mother kept saying “wedding” instead of “funeral.”  Who knows what was going through her mind.  She loved him dearly.  During the funeral I looked up and saw a group of angels descend to carry Joe to heaven.  It was a beautiful vision which I kept to myself.  During coffee in the church basement, I kept moving around the room to avoid being near my brother Peter.  I even asked some people to stay with me, so I wouldn’t find myself alone with him.  I hadn’t seen him in several years, and for some reason his presence was especially upsetting.  Joe was an alcoholic, a maintenance drinker, a martini man, who wanted us all to drink martinis in his memory at his wake.  And drink I did.  I couldn’t feel the effect, didn’t notice that I was getting drunk—it felt like I was drinking water.  I lost track of how many martinis I’d had at twenty. 

After the wake I went to stay with my friend Jane and her son Max.  I continued making my lists, but could no longer write, so I recited them to Max who noted them down for me.  He was also there to open jars for me and things like that, because my hands were pretty much useless.  We made a trip to Fred Myer’s with my list of things to purchase while in the US, and found everything I wanted, and a bit more of course.  Then we stopped at a music store to get a CD that I wanted.  Outside of the store I stood and waited for Jane to come and get us.  Max waited patiently for awhile and then asked what I was waiting for.  “For your mother.”  “But we live just over there,” he pointed to the apartment building.  That’s when it hit me how confused I’d become.  I didn’t see my mother that weekend because it’s much rarer for her to get to see my brother Peter, and he was just there for a short visit.  On Monday morning Jane went off to work and Max went off to school.  Panic hit me, what was I going to do?  I knew I wasn’t well enough to take care of myself, and that I’d been relying on a ten year old to help me keep it together.  My mother called saying that Peter had left, and that she wanted to go out for breakfast with me.  I replied that I was having a hard time staying in my body, and didn’t think I could possibly sit up in a chair.  Now you’d think that would set off alarm bells in a therapist’s mind, even a grieving one, but she asked again several times and then gave up saying she’d find someone else to have breakfast with.

A little while later I vomited bile up on an empty stomach.  My throat was on fire and felt like it was swelling shut.  It hit me then that I needed to get to the hospital immediately.  I called my father, and was able to utter: “Come now,” without any explanation.  I waited and waited, but he lived far enough north of town that I realized it was going to take him too long, and called 911.  By the time I dialled 911 I couldn’t speak, so the operator told me to tap once on the phone for yes, and twice for no, so she was able to get some information while the ambulance was on its way.  In the emergency room for quite awhile they thought I couldn’t speak English.  Finally, with a huge effort, I was able to say: “Born here.”  I spent about eight hours in the emergency room and during the first few, my speech continued to be extremely fragmented.  I screamed and screamed and screamed for hours--I’d never been in so much pain in my life.  The nurses ended up coming to ask me to stop screaming because it was frightening the children.  Being in that much pain and not being able to scream was torture.

At some point both of my parents arrived.  They waited in separate areas, after that many years of divorce they weren’t comfortable talking to each other even in an emergency.  My mother was in the doctor’s office while they spent hours running tests on me, waiting for the results, and running more tests.  Periodically the nurses made me stand up to have my blood pressure taken, and I’d holler out in pain each time.  At one point, my mother looked at me and asked me in what sounded like a condescending tone: “Can you say: I’m an alcoholic.”  “Sure I can say it, do you want me to spell it out for you?”  While the nurses were out of the room, she tried to convince me to go to our cabin in the countryside with her.  She’d make sure I wouldn’t be able to drink.  (It’s three miles from the cabin to the nearest place to buy booze, but I didn’t have any money anyway.)  Now I love being at the cabin dearly, but suddenly it was the last place I wanted to go.  I imagined being “locked up” in the forest, with my mother there to drive me even crazier than I already was.  I think that the nurses talked with my parents separately, and picked up on the fact that there were some problems there.  One of the nurses came in and asked my mother to step out; she then proposed that I go into the psych ward voluntarily, adding that while it sounded scary, I should think of it as my own space.  I liked that idea.  I needed a space of my own in which to heal.  One other thing I remember about the emergency room was that I kept bringing up my brother Peter, and repeating to myself: “I’m not going to shut up!”

My father manned the wheelchair while a nurse led us up to the psych ward.  Each time we hit a bump in the floor, and there were many of them, he had to slow down and wheel me over as gently as possible, because the bumps were so painful.  My right arm had curled up into an odd position in which it remained frozen for about a week; it was more comfortable to hold it up in the air, so I used my left arm to prop it up.  The nurse asked me what I was doing.  And my father replied matter of factly: “She’s doing the Egyptian.”  He cracks me up sometimes.  The elevator turned out to be another torture device.  At each floor, it dropped down a bit, provoking more waves of pain, so the nurse stopped the elevator between each floor, giving me time to recover before going to the next.  I thought we’d never make it to the seventh floor.

I was put in a room with Julia, another creative woman on a manic rip.  We were the perfect roommates.  I spent most of my first days in bed, due to the pain, with a bunch of pillows to prop myself into the least painful position.  When walking, the pressure of my feet hitting the floor was excruciating, so when it was meal time, I tip toed as lightly as I could to the cafeteria.  One of the nurses had told me that I had to do things for myself as much as possible no matter how painful it was, in order to regain my muscle use.  The food trays weighed a ton, I’d struggle to lift them while doing my best not to scream out.  The other patient’s stood around, to help out if necessary.  We all helped each other out as much as we could.  Each day we filled out our menus for the following days, which were prepared by gourmet cooks.  That was special to the psych wing, because they understood how important it was for us to learn or relearn the pleasure of eating.  If someone didn’t get as much as they wanted of something, someone else would give up their share, there was also lots of trading going around at the table, so everyone ended up with exactly what they wanted.  One day a Ukrainian man who didn’t speak a word of English arrived.  It took the hospital several days to find a translator.  In the meantime, one of the patients who knew the Ukrainian national anthem taught it to us, so we could sing it to him to keep him company. 

In bed, my thoughts raced, I’d regressed to early childhood, and was flooded by memories that came up chronologically as the days went by.  With the memories came new connections and understandings at lightning speed.  I felt like I was coming to a better understanding of myself.  One day I discovered that at the end of the hall you could turn left, and there was another hall which led to the laundry room.  About a week later, I noticed that at the end of the new hallway, there was another hallway which led to the nurses’ office.  Finally I noticed that the hallways formed a rectangle that I could walk around.  I was like an infant exploring my environment.  When I’d arrived, I was given a calendar, which kind of baffled me, I wasn’t sure why I’d need it, but I put it on the wall facing my bed.  As the days went by, I discovered that it helped me remember which day today was.  I checked the time regularly.  At first I couldn’t read the clock, then gradually I started to be able to make out the time, but I couldn’t retain it in my memory, so I’d have to keep checking.  After I week, I was able to tell time again.

I was in very high spirits, and constantly made up little songs and dances.  Because of my wobbly state, I especially liked to sing: “I wiggle and I wobble, but I don’t fall down.”  Because I was wobbly, I wasn’t allowed to use the exercise bike, but I was allowed to sit on it as long as I didn’t pedal.  I spent a lot of time sitting on it, pretending I was cycling, and enjoying the view out of the lake and of the mountains.  I really got into the comedy shows on TV, and somehow managed to get special permission to stay up late for the late night comedy shows.  I began doing mime imitations of the patients, for the other patients to guess who I was miming.  That’s not a talent I’d ever had before.  When I was finally allowed outdoors to walk down to the lake, I’d even imitate the movements of the Canadian geese, and next to the salmon pool, I lied down to imitate the salmon movements.  Chris, who was a ballet dancer, was impressed with my imitations, of the geese at least—I probably looked pretty silly as a salmon.  Watching TV with all of its ads for rampant consumerism really got the depressives down.  So I started doing skits of consumers, who for example were delighted with their new purchases and were sure that they’d found life long bliss.  When the most depressed woman on the ward smiled at one of my skits, I had a moment of great satisfaction.  One day the team of psychiatrists came around to my room saying that they’d heard about my comic talents, and they wanted to see my mimes.  They really cracked up because they could guess each patient that I was doing.  They asked if I was going to be a comedian when I got out.  I would’ve loved to, but didn’t remember myself as being particularly funny before I got into the hospital, and imagined that my comic talents would come to an end when my health was restored. 

Each morning we had a general meeting, with discussion first, and then our daily schedules were handed out.  One morning during the discussion I disagreed with another patient, Chris, about something.  I didn’t think it was a big deal—we both had valid points of view.  But the nurses decided to separate us and not let us participate in any of the same groups or go outdoors together.  Chris and I had been getting along fine before that.  One day by the cocoa machine he told me: “Stop being so Jane Austin.”  I got what he meant immediately, and realized that he was right.  (When talking with other patients about what they were going through, I tended to give out too much medical information, rather than simply being supportive.)  Then I said something to him in French for some reason, and surprised he answered back in French.  We got to talking, and it turned out that he’d grown up in the same small town in Ohio that my mother had.  And that he’d spent his childhood playing in the park behind my great grandfather’s company.  I knew a little bit about my mother’s side of the family, but it was from Chris that I learned how illustrious they were: he recited the history of the family since their arrival in America.  After the nurses laid down the separation rule, he’d make paintings each day and tape them up on the wall outside of my room, so I could see them from my bed.  There were odd connections like that with many of the patients.  One of the other patients and I discovered that we shared the same day dream of buying the exact same house, which we thought was in the best location on the lake, and with a lovely garden and so on.  It’s a city full of houses you can dream about, so that was a funny coincidence.  Another woman who’d been an activist when my mother had been was surprised to discover how many people we knew in common—we had lots of stories to tell.  There was a woman I hadn’t talked with much, who seemed to spend most of her time in her own delusional world.  She sang with a beautiful voice.  One day I confided in her that I’d always wanted to be able to sing, and how much it frustrated me that I couldn’t sing if my life depended on it.  She cheerfully said: “That’s not a problem, you can hum!”  She hummed a song, and then asked me to hum one.  We took to humming together.

There was one patient, Ann, who desperately wanted to be able to jump out of the window and kill herself.  Whenever she brought up jumping out of the window, we’d tease her not to forget her parachute, and things like that.  That really freaked the nurses out; they forbid us to tease her.  But Ann liked it, she knew we were trying to get her to laugh and cheer up, so we made sure to tease when the nurses weren’t around.  The relationships between the patients fascinated me, as did the thoughts racing through my mind.  I desperately wanted to get my hands on video camera so I could record every detail, but that never would’ve been allowed.  I was living something extraordinary, and wanted a record of it.  Writing would’ve been too slow, laborious, and incomplete.

My husband arrived from France as quickly as he could.  He must’ve known there was something wrong with me all of those years, and it must’ve been as confusing for him as it was for me.  I was thrilled to have a diagnosis, to be able to tell him what had been going on, and that with medication I would do better.  I was allowed off the hospital grounds as long as I was with him.  He came to visit every day, and we took long walks in the nearby arboretum which was in full spring glory, and around the university campus, especially to visit the botanical gardens.  I still wasn’t steady enough to navigate well, and needed his assistance to cross the street.  We had a lovely time together.

I had regular visits with my nurse during which I could discuss whatever was on my mind.  My speech was still erratic, sometimes it seemed to be going to fast that I’d trip over the words, and at other times my speech was so laboured that I felt like I couldn’t put my sentences together, the way it was when I’d first arrived.  One day my nurse commented that my speech got laboured when I was speaking about something difficult for me—it wasn’t random.  I knew that my parents also had meetings with my nurse and doctors, but of course I wasn’t told anything about what had been said.  I wasn’t given a diagnosis; instead the doctors called me in and asked me what my diagnosis was.  There was plenty of literature lying around about various psychiatric disorders, all of which I’d read.  I told them that without a doubt I was bipolar.  They added that my alcoholism was due to self-medicating for my bipolar symptoms and that if I started drinking after I got out of the hospital, I should get into an alcohol treatment program.  I wish that they’d told me to go right away!  They also added that there were a lot of family problems.  And concluded by saying they’d never seen anyone as messed up as I was, and that they’d never had as much confidence in recovery as they had for me.  I knew I was a real mess, so I was grateful for their vote of confidence.

I was really manic, but I wasn’t delusional or suffering from grandiosity, I was just on a creative tear, which has turned out to be typical of my manic phases.  Julia and I began collecting pastel colored baskets in which the hospital had been displaying hydrangeas.  Every time we could scrape up a few bucks, we’d buy more.  Soon our room was overflowing with baskets which we intended to use for crafts projects.  It looked like we were preparing for Easter.  We covered the walls with our paintings, and sat up late at night making rugs and telling each other stories.  We liked to imagine what we’d do when we got out, what kind of craftworks we could make some money with.  Beautiful purple blossoms began falling from one of the trees on the hospital grounds, each day we’d gather as many as we could.  We covered the floor of our room with paper towels, and spread the blossoms out to dry, so we could use them for crafts projects, leaving a narrow path from our beds to the doorway.  During the day we spent as much time in the crafts room as we could.  Although there were lots of activities, all of which we enjoyed.

One day my nurse came and told me that the doctors wanted to see me, and that I could bring my teddy bear.  That sounded ominous.  The doctors told me that me insurance wouldn’t allow me to stay any longer, and that in any case they felt I was ready to leave, but they wouldn’t let me leave if I was going to stay with my mother or my father.  I was relieved to have acknowledgment about how difficult it can be for me to be around them.  They wanted proof that I would be staying elsewhere.  So Jane came in to let them know I’d be staying with her.  One of the last days I was in the hospital, when we were all sitting around the day room, it came up what an amazing group it was, we had difficulty putting words on what had happened between us, we’d found an unconditional love for our fellows, it felt like God had moved through us collectively.  We weren’t all believers, but there wasn’t any other way we could put it.

Loïc wanted me to return to Paris with him, or soon after.  I wanted to recuperate in Seattle, where I had lots of company, and could easily walk to the park, the lake and around the arboretum.  The thought of sitting alone in our apartment, where it would be difficult to get out and I wouldn’t have any company seemed unbearable.  And the truth was I really didn’t want to go back to living with him.  Although we’d had a lovely time, there was still that ambivalence, the knowledge of what living in an abusive relationship is like.  He hadn’t been violent in a long time, he hadn’t needed to—the psychological abuse, woven in with the lovely times, was enough to keep me under control.  And the truth was I wasn’t ready to be on my own.  I think the doctors would’ve allowed me to stay longer than three weeks if I’d had the insurance coverage for it.  At Jane’s place, I was still having real trouble getting around.  My mother called every morning while I was still in bed, and I couldn’t just get up to answer the phone.  There weren’t bars around the bed for me to grab hold of and pull myself up into a sitting position.  I had to roll over and drop onto the floor, and then crawl to the telephone.  I told my mother repeatedly how difficult and painful it was, but she just couldn’t find the patience to wait for me to get up and call her.  It was hard leaving the hospital, I’d never been so happy in my life.  I’d really enjoyed the stay.  What a change it was from the dreary life I’d been living.  Eventually, out of cash, I had to give in and return to Paris.  During the flight back I got up and vomited from nerves.  What was I going back to?  What would my life be like?