There was a beginning prior to my manic episode, call it a breakdown, but I had the same overwhelming feeling to flee like I did in Montana with the keyed car incident. So, I told him about it, my therapist. I’ve never told anyone the truth about that, well except for here, but this is just writing.

I was so sick of Overwatch (the fucking game from hell bane of every mothers existence willing to beat your own child over smash the computer and killing the people who invented it type game) that I started smashing things and throwing boxes around downstairs to make my point for him to come down and help me unpack. I yelled, “Can you hear me now!!! Can you here me now?!!” Nope. The sound-canceling headset that I bought him was working freakin fantastic! What a birthday gift I bought. So I ran upstairs, threw a box across the room at the window (always making sure not to actually break a window… funny how I still think about these things) picked up the box again and threw it again the other way… I had his attention now. I didn’t like it, even at the moment, that I had him scared shitless, but honestly if he was not in the direct path of me and that computer… well, it would have been thrown out the window.

He got his ass downstairs and I continued to maniacally tear through boxes and throw things and demand him to trash it all. Meaning, the actual trash. I threw away everything from old print work that I had done to iPads and laptops. I just wanted it gone. What this really meant though, is that I wanted to be gone. I had the old feeling of leaving everything behind and just getting in my truck and driving away. I wanted to tell him to call his grampa. He would come and get him. I didn’t even want to take him there. Eventually, when I did calm down, I said to my son, “You have no idea how close I was to throwing your computer out the window! Hell I wanted to throw you out the window! You pull that shit again and I’m putting you up in a motel room and you can figure out how to live your life on your own.”

Cool. Really cool, mom. I did tell my therapist all of this though. I guess that is what started the serious conversation. He asked me if I was still taking my medication. I told him yes. I am not a walking cliché of the bipolar person who “feels okay so stops taking there meds.” Then he asked me when I had last seen a psychiatrist and I was honest with him that I didn’t have a psychiatrist in town. “Well how long has it been since you’ve had your medication checked out?” “About five years” “So, who’s filling your prescriptions?” “My PCP.” Long pause… obviously not okay with that. So I told him I lied to her, my PCP, so that I could just keep getting the medication. After all, it had been working for this long. His logical response was that I most likely have built up a tolerance to it. Yes, I get that, “but I’ve been feeling fine!” “Well now, isn’t that just the cliché of what a person with bipolar would say” he said.
Touché

I made it to the Tuesday appointment. Again, did not want to walk through that door. Did not want to get out of the car, but I had a book to give him. Simple enough to get me to walk through the door.

The last time he saw me, he saw a side of me that people don’t get to see. Unfortunately my son has seen it, but no one else. Not a stranger. It’s hard for me to really see my therapist as a stranger anymore though. We’ve been talking for nine months now. That’s a long time for the major crazy to just show up in full force out of the blue like that. I told him for all the years I’ve been going to therapists, this was the first time I felt like I was “in therapy.”  He took it as a compliment. I didn’t intend it to be. I actually hated the feeling, however, it probably is true that if after all of this time I can finally show my true freak show self to another human being, then he is really good at his job.

I had requested a release of my medical records from the St. Pat’s Psychiatric Unit and asked him if I could have them faxed to his office. Yes. And there they were…. He wanted to discuss them. He read them! Oh Shit! What the hell did I do?! What do I do now? I handed him the book. His face lit up for a second when he realized I was giving it to him as a gift. (“Don’t let the Pigeon Drive the Bus”, it’s a perfect reference book, besides I kept ranting that the pigeon was driving last time we spoke so… yeah.) He hands me a clipboard in return. I’m like, “what’s this?” “Oh just a release form so that I can disclose your treatment to a psychiatrist once you get an appointment.” Nice. I give him a gift and he gives me a release form. Perfect.

He did find me a doctor who only took cash. Weird as it sounds I got in the next day and am now put on a second medication. It’s what I didn’t want. The cocktail. The antipsychotic. Just the word scares the hell out of me. And that’s how I generally feel about all of this. Scared! My therapist keeps telling me how very brave I am to keep on walking through that door. He tells me that every time I see him now. That’s because I’m also brave enough to tell him I’m scared.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Childhood might have been about always finding a means of escape, which I was keenly adept at, but the teenage years took a dark turn. I no longer wanted to escape. I wanted someone to rescue me. I needed someone to recognize that my mind had taken control of my sanity and I desperately needed help.

I never looked into those thoughts until two weeks ago when I had an extreme manic episode and actually was rescued. Finally! 25 years later and I never even realized that’s what I still had to have, but finally, the right person was there at the right time. Really the right person. I’m not sure it could have been anyone else… No, not anyone else would have handled it as good as he did, my therapist. Not any other therapist, doctor, organization, professional of any kind. Of course, no friend or family member would have known what to do and this is exactly the type of thing that they need to Not Witness.

I was pacing. I was a pacing freak and I did not want to go in there! I saw that his car was gone and thought, whew, I’m off the hook, when I recognized the plates on a new car. Shit. I had to walk through the door now. Damn it! I knew I wouldn’t be able to sit down. I was going to panic and keep on pacing, rapidly forcing out my words that were running in circles and not making any kind of sense to me. And that’s exactly what I did.

I told him his office was too small to pace in but I did it anyway. Pacing in circles I guess. I remember I just kept on repeating “the system is broken, the system is broken” because I was trying to get in to see a psychiatrist to adjust my medication and hearing No, No, No when it came to my insurance. I was royally screwed! Which is the other thing I just kept on repeating. I really didn’t look at him the entire time so I have no idea what his reaction was to all of this ‘new me’ bombarding him out of the blue. It was entirely a oneway conversation, no, not conversation, rant I suppose. No, mania. Let’s give it its proper name. This is after all a blog about bipolar disorder.

I wasn’t paying attention to him until I heard him mention this Forrest Pines… Forrest Hill… Daisy Hill Puppy Farm… whatever the hell the institution is called in GR and I swung around to face him and yelled, “Do Not say that to me! Do Not start talking crazy talk!” Ironic isn’t it. He didn’t exactly stop though, gentle natured or not, I could still hear the crazy talk of me actually committing myself. So I was like, “I shouldn’t be here. You can’t help me. I gotta go.” As I bolted towards the door handle he asked me to wait just a minute and sit down. I refused. I left the door though and went to the window. He asked me to sit again. I finally did, because I like this person. I respect this person. And I was fully aware of just how poorly I was treating him.

He started out his career working for two years in a mental institution in Chicago, so he gave it to me straight. How bad it really is on the inside. How I would get thrown into the mix. Rooming with the people who needed to be there when I did not. The difference between voluntary commitment and involuntary. He basically scared the shit out of me so that we could come up with a plan so as to not ever let this actually happen. I was tucked up in a ball crawling out of my skin and shaking as we spoke.

Don’t remember the conversation. Remember calming down. Remember him saying he wasn’t going to fire me (my words) and he would be with me every step of the way throughout this process. I think that’s when I felt okay. Maybe that’s when I felt I could stop and breathe for a moment. I was back on even ground, somewhat, enough that he would let me leave his office. He wanted to see me again in a couple of days though. There was no question in that, just a “Tuesday at 2” or something like that. I was numb… He handed me a reminder card.

When I was a child, I always wanted to escape. Get someone to take me away somewhere. I don’t know why exactly I felt this way. It was usually on a train though. I would imagine my bed being a train car that I was being whisked away in as I fell asleep. Tucked tightly between my two favorite stuffed animals for the night. Totally protected. No one could get me as the train sped along the tracks and the gentle rolling of the engine eventually allowed me to drift off…

I’m not sure if I had a bad childhood. Truth is, I don’t remember most of it. Like, any of it. I have a few early memories of fishing out on the pier with my dad, exploring abandoned houses, laying out on the driveway at 4am to watch a meteor shower. That was a good one! He was away on business most of the time, so when he got back it was all about us. Yes, I’m definitely a “daddy’s girl.” Still am. But he was there for me, even when he wasn’t. He was present. He was the present parent.

My mother on the other hand… we had a different story. I remember her always in a string bikini laying splayed out next to the pool supposedly drinking “iced tea.” God I hated her. I reveled in the fact that she was a poor swimmer and if I wanted to I could drown her in the shallow end. Instead I did what felt the only healthy responsible thing to do (leave) and head out into the woods. Well, I knew she wouldn’t follow me there either. Might beak a nail.

So I grew up in the woods. I spent my days high up in the Beechnut trees napping in their long smooth limbs that would cradle me and sway with the beach breeze. Inevitably, dusk would fall and I would come home when it was dark enough to get scolded. My snotty ass comment would be somewhere along the lines of ‘why didn’t you just send my brother out to get me?’ We both knew his aversion towards the woods was probably worse that her own. Might get dirty.