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