Manic Depression

Half my life ago, when I had just graduated from college, actually, I agreed to a psychiatric evaluation by one of the best of the best in Washington, D.C.  I did this to appease my mother, Emily Gilmore, because we were having a very difficult time finding a common language or even a common piece of real estate on which to stand and I thought, in my very determined way, that I would submit to this psychiatric evaluation and they could tell her that I was perfectly sane, perfectly normal, perfectly 100% okay and she could then shut up already about all the things that about which she was absolutely certain were wrong with me.

The psychiatric evaluation took forever.  By forever I mean two separate 8 hour days of tests and more tests and meetings and observations and more tests after that.  It was exhausting.  I am a person who has to get 100% on all tests.  I have to get A++ as my grade or I am just not satisfied.  I am that girl in school whose answers everyone else copied.  Who built a cathedral complete with stained glass rosary windows and a nave for her European History class project in the fifth grade when a simple drawing would have done.  Who made a super 8 movie of the best highlights of Great Expectations as part of her book report.  It is a sickness, I know.  This need for absolute perfection.  This need to always come in first.  This need to get the A.

When I met with the psychiatrist a week later to find out the results of my evaluation, I was certain he was going to tell me that I had answered every question correctly and that I was better than fine, I was superior (whatever superior was) and that I could inform my mother that there was nothing wrong with me at all.

Instead I was told that I was a genius.  I was also told that many geniuses suffer from bi-polar disorder and it was no surprise that I did, too.  That I was most certainly a manic depressive and that I needed to be put on medication right away.  That he was surprised I had made it this long without any intervention and he was thankful my mother had seen all the warning signs and loved me enough to send me his way.

Emily Gilmore?  Loved me enough?   This diagnosis was not the A+ I was expecting at all.  My world felt like it was crumbling around me.  Manic Depressive?  Bi-Polar?  Medication? 

I asked what this meant, truly?  He explained it would be necessary to titrate me on the medications and we would try Lithium first and see how I did.  But I would have to be monitored carefully and it would be something I would need to take for the rest of my life.

I remember looking at him with a very strange curiosity.  And then thinking to myself, honestly, that my mother had put him up to this.  That the two of them were in cahoots and that this was just her way of controlling me further.  That I was, in fact, perfectly fine.  In my mind, a person with mental illness is not the Valedictorian.  She did not graduate Summa Cum Laude from college.  She didn't get straight A's.  She didn't win national playwriting awards.  A person with mental illness lived in a box.  And drank vodka straight from a bottle to keep the demons at bay.  She didn't function in every day society.

So, I looked at this $400/hr. psychiatrist that Emily Gilmore was obviously paying off so she could finally control what was in her mind a very out of control daughter and I said to him, "If you had grown up in my family, you'd experience highs and lows, too.  There's nothing wrong with me, other than being born a Neal."

And then I walked out. 

I never went back to see that very expensive best of the best psychiatrist.  His diagnosis has haunted me for the last 25 years.

For the last three weeks, I've most definitely been experiencing a period of mania.  This was diagnosed by my own good doctor here in the Salty City just yesterday.  I knew things were not quite right when I was subsisting on two or three hours of sleep and yet having more energy than ever.  I felt positively high.  Higher than high, actually.  Colors, sounds, thoughts, tastes...everything was as if it had been turned up to 11.  I had no appetite and was talking 100 miles a minute. 

I knew I was headed for disaster and worried that I was going to start seizing and so I went to see my doctor.  She is one of the bigger blessings of my move here to Salt Lake, actually.  She totally gets me.  She understands that I would rather take a holistic route to wellness than a pill and she supports me in my journey.  That I found her here is no small miracle.

Unlike my meeting with the psychiatrist 25 years ago, I'm ready to admit that perhaps I am manic depressive.  That I do cycle.  That I have highs and lows.  That I am bi-polar.  I have a family tree that is so full of nuts you'd be hard pressed to find a branch without one!  So is it any wonder that I, too, suffer from a form of mental illness?

It is okay for me to be imperfect.  In fact, it is rather joyous to be imperfect.  I feel like I've spent the last five years writing this blog celebrating my imperfections. 

My doctor has supplied me with fairy dust (I'm not joking) to take for this recent bout of mania.  She actually knows that drugs and me are a very tenuous mix and we have to be careful just how much I take.  So I'm crushing pills into dust and licking bits off my finger.  I'll share that last night I slept for twelve hours from that little lick of dust.  Potent stuff is in there, potent stuff indeed.

And I dreamed.  For perhaps the first time in weeks. 

I am going to be better.  Better than better.  I am going to be well.

Comments

[bornfamous]

I'm so glad you found such a wonderful doctor who gives you fairy dust.

[Harl Delos]

There's not ANY symptom of mental illness that ordinary people don't exhibit to one degree or another. It's only when one's behavior is sufficiently off-center to cause problems that it's considered considered mental illness.

Everybody cycles up and down. Jane Pauley invented the term "bad hair day" for her downs. For others, it's more serious.

Perfectionist behavior isn't just found in bipolars (who have a chemical problem); it's also associated with those who were raised in highly critical homes (which obviously is behavioral, not chemical).

About 15 years ago, a therapist asked me why I thought I was a perfectionist. I thought, then said that if I got everything right, nobody would criticize me. He asked me whether it was working. I said that I didn't know, I hadn't quite gotten to the point of perfection.

Chemicals are required to solve chemical problems, and they're useless for non-chemical problems. I'm not just talking about industrial chemicals like lithium or valproic acid. Herbal teas are chemicals, too.

We're all different. Too much coffee keeps most people up, while tea relaxes them, but tea gives me the jitters, and coffee puts me to sleep. So if fairy dust works for you, go with it. If it stops working, then play around until you find something that DOES work for you.

Glad you found a doctor that you can work with. You're the one that's doing all the work, you know. She's just a guide, showing you the way through the jungle....

[Grace D]

There's nothing else to say but I love you and support you unconditionally, perfectionist or manic or whatever.

I know I speak for many, many others.

At your side,
Grace
xo

[stephanie e.]

Oh, how I wish you were here in D.C. with us. I would give you a giant hug, and we would exchange these sorts of stories.

Because of what happened to Lillian all those years ago, because of what happened to her daughter (my great-grandmother) and how she was looked at and talked about, and because of some of my own experiences (and cycles), I'm very sensitive about the ways and degrees to which the mainstream think some people need to be treated. I am so glad you walked out of that first office so many years ago and that in Salt Lake you found someone better.

I started to write more here about my thoughts on this (including the moments of brilliant creativity that can come with manic phases, such as the bout of creativity you described the other day), but it seemed like it would need further explanation/qualification, more than I could or should write out in a comment thread. So I'll just shut up. And say I'm glad you're sleeping again. And that imperfections can sometimes be and give rise to beautiful things, so much so that I struggle with calling them imperfections, rather than just differences. And that you are loved by many, I'm sure, not in spite of so-called imperfections but in part because of them.

[April]

I can't even begin to tell you how thrilled I am to have run across your blog. Saw it on 'Good Mom/Bad Mom' (mine was listed there today too) so I had to come find this person that was talking about mental illness.

Good to see another person being so open and honest about it.