ALL THE KING'S HORSES - (BIPOLAR) PART V

It had only been two days since our trip to Christen’s doctor.  She’d had to scrape herself off the couch just to take a shower and get dressed.  Now she was manic.  I wanted to squeeze back out that front door and never look back.  I wasn’t sure I could deal with this.  It was bad enough when I thought she’d lay on the couch until her skin grew to it, but this?  She looked so small under her comforter.  That, I could handle.  Suddenly I found myself feeling intimidated by her, even a little scared.  What if she does something dangerous and I need to stop her?  Would I be able to?  Does she have so much adrenaline pump-ing through her that she’s stronger than normal? My mind raced on. 

I topped off my coffee and asked Christen if she would come sit in the living room for just a few minutes, and help me under-stand how she was feeling this morning.  From the initial look on her face, it was evident that my perplexity was as unexpect-ed to her, as her behavior had been to me.  It seemed, momen-tarily at least, to snap her out of hyper-drive long enough to talk, though I noticed the physical inactivity slightly increased the tremor in her right hand. 

When my feet first hit the floor that morning, I’d planned to sip a hot cup of coffee and sift through my notes, maybe even begin typing.  I thought having the house to myself for a few hours while Christen lay emotionally comatose on the sofa would provide the perfect opportunity.  Sitting here listening to Christen, I realized how much I took for granted, like the
simplicity of waking up with a plan.  In dealing with being bipolar, apparently little things like that aren’t quite so little 
to Christen.    

In the few days prior to this episode, I’d noticed Christen getting an uncharacteristic sharpness in her tone, and an undeniable irritability she didn’t even try to filter.  I’ve known her a long time, this isn’t behavior you would have ever convinced me I’d see from her.  But there it was. Occasionally, even directed at me.   

While Christen was talking, I recalled having jotted a note to myself that the increase in irritability might be an indication
of a change in Christen's cycles.  I knew she had been trying to keep track of all these subtleties, wanting to understand her own disorder as well as provide helpful information for me.  There were so many crossover symptoms, but we ulti-mately concluded there had to be a connection between the increase in her irritability and her ebbing toward mania.

It was obvious how exhausted Christen was.  She'd spent the better part of two hours sharing her experiences with being manic.  Tears and more tears.  Christen needed to lie down, even if she couldn't sleep.

Before heading to her room, Christen walked over to her desk and removed a stack of spiral notebooks from the lower left hand drawer.  “Here”,  she said.  “I’ve been debating on whether or not to give these to you.  They’re journals I’ve
been keeping for the last two years.  All this talking is really starting to get to me.  Maybe it would be better if you just read these.  I’m not saying I won’t talk anymore, it’s just that my ears have been ringing and noise of any kind sounds like it’s turned up 1000 times.  I can hardly stand it.  I’m very aware that everything is over magnified for me right now.  Things that wouldn’t normally bother me are making me furious.  I think I just need to pull back for a few days.  I’m supposed to adjust my antidepressant when I feel mania coming on,  but sometimes the back and forth really screws with me.  It’s nothing personal, I just need you to leave me alone for a few days.  I seem to have adjusted the antidepres-sant too much and triggered some hyper-mania.  I’ll have to lower the antidepressant, which means I could drop back into depression.  Welcome to my life.”

With that, she disappeared into her room and closed the door.  I sat on the couch and began to read what varied between the chaotic to very dark writings by Christen.  She'd catalogued her experiences over the last couple of years.  Some ramblings were too bizarre to follow.  I found myself reading over them two or three times to piece together her scattered thoughts, wondering what medication must she have been on when she wrote.  

It would take weeks to sift through Christen’s journals, but I was thrilled to have them.  My eyelids grew heavy, along with my heart, as I read page after page of her life uncensored.  A picture began to form in my mind, an image of my dear friend shattered into countless pieces.  Like Humpty-Dumpty, I won-dered if she would ever be whole again.


Join us next week for Part VI of Christen's Story

ALL THE KING'S HORSES - (BIPOLAR) PART IV

I groped around for my phone to see what time it was, the clock showed 1:49am.  Seriously?  I rolled over and snuggled back under the covers for a few minutes, but there was no point trying to doze off.  My insomnia had been in full swing for several days, three hours of sleep was all to be had.  Using the ominous blue light on my cell phone to help me see, I quietly began the descent downstairs to make some coffee.

The house was chilly, but I loved sleeping with the windows open, the cool Fall breeze wafting across the bed, myself of course, buried beneath a mound of toasty warm blankets.
It didn’t make for great morning hair but, as far back as my memory would carry me, I knew I’d slept with the covers pulled over my head.  It wasn’t until spending all this time
with Christen, that the thought crossed my mind this peculiar
ritual might have meaning deeper than the mere practical application of keeping my head warm.  I did it year round; what was my purpose for it in the summer? 

Shutting down the probes of introspection, I concluded there was surely no big mystery behind my blanket thing.  It was more comfortable to concede my time with Christen simply had me psychoanalyzing everything about everyone, myself included.  It didn’t mean anything.  Right?  I just needed some coffee, apparently I needed a lot of coffee.  I put it out of my mind, and proceeded toward the kitchen. 

As I made my way downstairs, there was a faint fragrance of pumpkin spice coming from an unlit candle in the hall, and for a moment I could also smell the undeniable scent of freshly ground Columbian coffee beans brewing.  It welcomed me like a long lost friend.  My thoughts immediately transported me back to childhood.   So many mornings I awakened to the sounds and accompanying aroma coming from Grandma’s Pyrex coffeepot as it began its faithful percolating at precisely 5:45am.  I loved waking up at Grandma’s house.  Even now, I’m not altogether certain if the tradition of my morning coffee is the need of caffeine, or the sheer love of how it engulfs the house in the most glorious of memories.   Today, after only three hours of sleep, it was definitely the caffeine.

Rounding the corner to the kitchen, I saw that Christen had indeed made coffee and as soon as she heard me coming, had poured me a cup.  “Good morning!”, her cheery voice greeted me.  “What on earth are you doing up so early?  Please tell me I didn’t wake you with all my clanging around in here!”  I had no idea how long Christen had been up, but she was dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans; her hair gathered up in a ponytail.  She had pulled every dish out of the cabinets and drawers, and was cleaning every nook and cranny of the kitchen like she was on assignment from God with the clock ticking!

Sipping on my steaming cup of coffee, I slipped onto a barstool and tried to take in this scene as it unfolded in front of me.  I tried to act very nonchalant, but to be perfectly honest, it con-cerned me.  “Uhhh, no you didn’t wake me.  I just couldn’t sleep, it happens.  The joys of insomnia.”  Why I felt the need to speak slowly and calmly, as if not to startle Christen, I wasn’t quite sure, but I did.  “So…you couldn’t sleep, either?”, I con-tinued. 

While I waited for Christen to offer some explanation as to what was going on, my eyes darted around the room quickly; half trying to absorb as much of the scene as I could for my research, half planning a quick escape, which of course made me feel wretchedly guilty.  But the atmosphere was strange.  Christen was wound like I’ve never seen her.  She was moving faster than I think I’ve ever seen anyone move, and there was an air of disorganization about it.  She’d start working on one cabinet, and then she’d get distracted.  Next thing you’d know she’d be on to something else.  She gave a whole new meaning to bouncing off the walls.  Literally, she’d run into things every now and then, simply because she was moving so fast.  The closer I looked, I noticed a slight tremor in her hands.  Not a flat out shake, but a definite tremor.  She was talking really loud, and fast.  I hate to say it, but she just wouldn’t shut up. 

Between you and me, I genuinely sat there for a while wonder-ing if Christen had become so fed up with how depressed she’d been that she’d swallowed a few too many of something, and was just flat speeding!  How to describe what I was seeing, much less what I was experiencing in response to it, is beyond my ability to articulate. 

There’s a part of me that wants to soft-soap this; downplay it.  Toss it out because at least Christen was off that bloody couch, and back to some sense of normalcy where her depression was concerned.  So what, she was up at 2:00am doing some spring cleaning; maybe it needed to be done. But, she asked me to write her story.  My instinct to protect her in the telling of it 
must be limited to concealing her identity.  Not by fading into softer colors, the vivid reality of what I saw.

The truth is, I was greatly distressed by this whole kitchen scene.  Christen felt emotionally supercharged, hyper beyond anything I’d ever seen in my life.  She was a little disoriented
at times, and a bit unpredictable.  There was way too much energy in her.  I sat looking at her wondering if she would actually self-combust.  I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to do something.  Should she take something?  Should I call some-one?  Christen was bouncing off the walls in a room with glass and knives, and there I sat like an idiot without the first clue how to respond. 

Join us next week for Part V of Christen's Story

ALL THE KING'S HORSES - (BIPOLAR) PART III

Christen began to explain her bipolar condition from a more clinical standpoint, first.  She was right, I’d totally oversimpli-fied it.  She described five basic mood zones; the middle one being what we would consider normal.  Two zones above nor-mal representing varied stages of mania, the first one mild to moderate, and the second stage would be considered severe.  The last two mood zones would be drawn on a line below nor-mal, and represented two varied stages of depression.  The first zone being mild to moderate, and the second zone repre-senting severe depression.   In a repentant tone she whispered, "But yes, you're right, my highs are higher, and my lows are lower.  I'm sorry I snapped at you."    

She gave me a website to look up when we got back to the house. She felt it had some fairly decent information related
to bipolar symptoms but added, “Just reading about it isn’t
the same as living with someone who has it.  Bipolar depres-sion isn’t like regular depression.  I’ve battled major depres-sion since I was a teenager.  I’ve never encountered any-thing like bipolar depression; it’s debilitating.  One of the worst things about it, is that my doctor can’t just increase
my antidepressant until it snaps me out of it.  Too high a
dose of an antidepressant can trigger a manic episode.  It’s
a vicious cycle.  It’s a deeper depression than anything I ever experienced with regular depression and like I said, I’ve battled major depression for years.” 

Christen began to share some of her personal experiences with bipolar depression.  She said it hit her so hard one time, she spent six months on the couch under her yellow comforter.  Her voice became strained and tears streamed down her face as she shared the intimate details of that dark time in her life.  With every word she spoke, I could feel the depth of shame shrouding her secret.  Weeks without bathing, speaking, or eating.  The hours spent sobbing uncontrollably, pleading with God that if He truly cared, her eyes wouldn’t see the morning.  As if I were her priest, she confessed contemplating suicide to the point of checking to see if any combination of her medica-tions might end her nightmare.  Sharing in humiliation how she’d written each of her children a letter during that time, telling them she could no longer go on. 

She told me that medications she never should have been taking, exacerbated her depression, compounded the suicidal ideations, and had her so doped up she really didn’t realize everything she was doing.  Even so, I could sense her lack of self-forgiveness.  There was no convincing her she hadn’t traumatized her children.  She would receive no absolution. 
My heart heavy to free her from the unfounded guilt, I sug-gested that surely her kids were old enough to understand.  In a feeble attempt to comfort her I stammered, “It wasn’t
you, it was the meds.”

Carefully brushing tears away from what remained of her eyeliner, Christen riffled through the purse and pulled out another cigarette.  She took a drink of her diet coke, put the cigarette to her lips and lit it; still too bizarre a sight to com-prehend.  Cracking the window again, quite matter of factly Christen said, “It may have been the meds on THIS end, but
on THAT end, it was their mom, and it’s not something they'll forget.  It’s not something they let YOU forget.  I don’t think they really understand.  They just know they got a letter
from their mother telling them she couldn’t make it through another day.  They’ve never forgiven me for that; never looked at me the same.  Not that I can blame them.”

Her eyes welled up with tears again.  In a way I was glad, perhaps she wouldn’t notice the tears in mine.  I’d known Christen for several years.  She was divorced and had raised her two children alone.  I knew she loved those kids more than life itself.  There would be nothing I could say to ease the pain I saw etched in her face.  She would forgive herself the humilia-tion and shame she felt for everything she had shared with me that day, all but what she believed had hurt her children. 

I was beginning to understand why the symptom lists and arrow charts were so meaningless to Christen.  I would search the website when we got home and sure, it mentioned the need to have support from the families of a person who’s bipolar.  But there was nothing anywhere to prepare me for what I saw in my friend’s eyes, heard in her voice; could feel in the break-ing of her heart. 

We made the rest of the trip without talking; only the music on the radio to ease the sadness that permeated the atmosphere.  Usually silence would have bothered me, but it came as a cool-ing salve on scalded flesh.  With my head rested against the window, my thoughts searched the depths of all my friend had shared. 

Join us next week for Part IV of Christen's Story

ALL THE KING'S HORSES - (BIPOLAR) PART II

Christen emerged from her bedroom in a beautiful chocolate brown and sky blue top, and a darling pair of jeans.  Her hair was clean and fixed, and she was wearing makeup for the first time in the three days I’d been there.  I couldn’t pinpoint how long it had been since she'd showered prior to the day I first squeezed through the 2 foot opening in the front door.  She spritzed herself lightly with her signature perfume.

Soon Christen began digging under the mountain of clothes I’d estimated had been waiting a week to be folded and put away, and shoved them around the chair until her hand emerged with a lovely over-sized bright yellow purse.  With one of her famous sighs, she signaled it was time to leave.  Today I would accompany Christen to the doctor, never to be referred to as her therapist.  She didn’t dare risk someone finding out she was seeing one. 

Only hours before, Christen was wrapped like a caterpillar in a cocoon beneath her faded yellow comforter.  She looked gaunt, withered and drawn, as though life itself were draining out of her.   Now I stood watching her slip into her brown faux croc stilettos, thinking to myself how she resembled a butterfly about to spread its wings in flight.  Were they magic shoes?  Of course I knew there was no such thing, but only because com-mon sense told me there couldn’t be.  Truth be told, such a transformation came over her as the shoes were secured around her feet, I was tempted to try them on myself, to see what wondrous metamorphosis might await me! 

It was strange, she bounded out the door with a confident stride.  Shoulders back, hair loosely curled and blowing gently in the breeze.  Not an exact smile on her face, but one in her eyes that was quite engaging.  She looked herself.  It was the first time since my visit began that I felt I was seeing the real Christen.  Once inside the car, I scribbled a few notes to myself as I  pondered the phenomenon. I wondered if I might have an opportunity to ask her about it.

Radio turned to her favorite country station, we began the
long drive to the doctor without much conversation.  Christen opened one of the diet cokes she’d brought for us, then began rummaging around inside her purse.  To my utter shock, she pulled out a pack of cigarettes, lit one, and proceeded to roll her window down to let the smoke escape. 

Without taking her eyes off the road, Christen answered the question she knew I wanted to ask.  “Yeah, I’m smoking again.  I’m not going to do it long enough to get hooked, but I realized I was taking my antianxiety med, how should I say, not ex-actly as prescribed?  It kinda worried me."  I guess this was her solution, the prospect of cancer?  I said nothing. 

Whether she was deflecting about the smoking issue or not I wasn’t sure, but suddenly all Christen’s attention was focused on her negative experiences with medications.  Her counte-nance and tone of voice intensified slightly.  She began to tell me how many medications she’d been on, and the horror stories that accompanied each trial and error.  Mostly error. 

“That’s something you’ll learn about all this bipolar crap", her rant continued, “half the meds they put you on are worse than what’s wrong with you to begin with.  I spent the first year after I was diagnosed being bounced from med to med.  
I was either stoned out of my mind, horribly suicidal, or the meds were literally poisoning me!  I’m not kidding.  They had me so doped up I didn’t know if I was comin' or goin'.  One med we tried even made me obsessive compulsive.  Though I must admit, I didn't mind that one; got some serious organiz-ing done around the house.”   She smiled for the first time in two days.  I felt a subtle but temporary lifting of her mood.

Christen slightly shook her head as she began telling me about very serious side effects she’d suffered from one of the bipolar medications her psychiatrist had tried her on.  She said she would try staying on the various meds long enough to give her system time to adjust to them, so they would know which side effects were or were not going to subside, unless of course it was one she had a toxic or suicidal reaction to. 

“What exactly are the bipolar medicines supposed to do?"  It was probably my first ignorant question of the day, certainly not to be my last.  “How many meds are you on, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Christen shot me a glance I interpreted as being combined annoyance and moderate offense.  “Do you know anything about being bipolar?”  Her question wasn’t as rhetorical as
I’d hoped it might be.  The pause in her voice and nod in my direction, hinted she expected me to answer. 

“Well, I know it’s what we used to call manic/depressive disorder.  Basically, and forgive me if I’m oversimplifying it but, when you’re bipolar, aren't your emotional high’s higher than normal and your emotional lows lower than normal?”  My face felt a little flushed as I waited to find out how wrong my answer was.  Retrospectively, I think Christen deliberately sat in silence for the remainder of a song we were neither one particularly interested in hearing.  After what seemed like forever, she began to speak.

“Definitely an oversimplification.  I’m not sure what that’s even supposed to mean.  My high’s are higher and my lows are lower.  Did you read that in a book or something?”  Christen’s sarcasm cut through me with unexpected precision.  I had definitely irritated her, and she made no attempt at concealing it.  That’s quite out of character for her. Christen would never say or do anything to make another person feel stupid, or snap at someone like this.  I would soon come to recognize this as an indication she was starting to become manic. 

Join us next time for Part III of Christian's Story