My First Manic Episode

According the NAMI.org one in five Americans live with a mental health condition. One in five! That’s insane, pardon my humor. They also say that 2.6% (6.1 million) of American adults live with bipolar disorder.

I grew up knowing that five of my immediate family members were bipolar (definition here). Now that number is six out of seven. The only reasons it’s not 100% is because my biological father killed himself last year. If you ever suspect someone is suicidal of if you feel suicidal please use existing resources. You can even text a crisis support line these days. Text NAMI to 741–741.

My mom was hospitalized for it several times during my childhood. The first time this happened we were taken to foster care for 1.5 years until she could rebuild her life, post-divorce from my bio dad, who she had just found out was a scumbag child abuser, in addition to being a wife abuser.

That 1.5 years always seemed like a long time to me since it was such a different environment from what I had been used to and the beginning of my relationship with my foster parents, who became like parents to me. Now that I’m on the other side of manic episodes, it doesn’t.

I had my first one in 2006, post move to the Wild West with a dirtbag boyfriend. There were too many changes, including the death of my foster mother, Lettie. I lost it. I got a job and then soon after, when I started to show a downward spiral, they encouraged me to resign… Too far into the hypo-mania (which is like a mini-manic episode that can spiral into full blown mania if it goes unchecked for too long). I threatened to sue them for discriminating against me because of an (undisclosed) mental disorder. If I had to sum up the reason in one word it would be grief.

I was mostly a pleasure to be around. One of my besties has told me that she really enjoys manic Ang, even though she knows she shouldn’t. I’m sassy and smart, with no inhibitions or self esteem issues. My depression of the last few months lifted and I was able to appreciate my surroundings more. The sky was bluer and the possibilities were endless. As it continued I would forget to eat, sleep, stay hydrated, and my paranoia over the law firm trying to stop my “lawsuit” grew. My dirtbag boyfriend got more and more frustrated and even punched a hole into the plaster wall of our rented apartment. As my basic needs became less and less important to me, they became a siren in the fog that I needed some professional help. The dirtbag didn’t like visiting people in the hospital so he tried to get me to fly in a plane by myself to my family. I noticed a lawyer next to me on the flight and spiraled into thinking that he was going to abduct me to get me to change my story and not sue them. I stood up (post doors closing) and yelled “I need to get off for personal reasons!” Thankfully mania didn’t stop me from realizing what 9/11 had done to incite panic in everyone on an airplane. They had to move the walkway back to the plane and let me off. My dirtbag picked me up very angry and said “I knew you were too sick to fly by yourself.” My internal dialogue then retorted with “Then why did you put me on a plane?” He then escorted me across the country into the hands of my sympathetic sister, Rachel. He went off with his friends to drink the days away.

My mom and sister took me to the ER to see if I needed to be hospitalized but I was coherent enough that the doctor decided that sleeping pills and a calm environment might right my ship. It didn’t. My mom knew firsthand how traumatic mental hospitals can be. Post-abuse from my “dad” immediately following the birth of her oldest child, she was hospitalized for postpartum depression. She was almost raped by a patient but no one believed her. She tried to escape to protect her new baby from her husband but an orderly caught her and dragged her back to her room by her long beautiful brunette hair. For poor people it is not comfy bathrobes in beautifully manicured gardens. It is typically yelling, screaming, tranquilizers if you don’t behave, bible study, and which face represents how you’re feeling today therapy sessions. It’s about containment and keeping the person safe while the doctors hopefully find the right chemical cocktail to stabilize the patient.

I was hospitalized for about two weeks. I mostly did arts and crafts and socialized. At one point I thought a patient was trying to get me to donate an organ to him because he had failing organs and I had signed an organ donation form when I was admitted to the hospital (Why would they put that notion into the heads of unstable people? How many people die in that hospital while in this mental hospital?!”). There was woman who was mentally impaired that kept trying to put a pen into the key hole to the outside. They kept yelling at her and threatening her. She reminded me A LOT of my foster mother, in terms of appearance, so I came to her “rescue” and told them to leave her alone and that she wasn’t hurting anyone. They saw this as hostile and give me a tranq in my buttocks and let me sleep it off. At one point they wouldn’t let me have pen or paper so I wrote philosophy logic problems o the bathroom mirror with my toothpaste, to help me make sense of my life. I refused to flush the toilet for that day in protest as well and then profusely apologized to the janitor who had to deal with the stinky mess later.

When I got out I was much calmer and even went out that night with my friends and dirtbag boyfriend to celebrate the new year. In the picture that is me, looking as drugged up as I felt, post-hospitalization, with my pretentious boyfriend. That very night my dirtbag heavily pressed me to have sex in his best friend’s parents’ whirlpool tub. I said no the first 15 or 20 times and then just gave in out of exhaustion. Does that count as a Me Too experience? I’m not sure but I DO know how it felt, and that was very disappointed in myself and numb.

He hadn’t visited me once in the hospital. We talked on the phone one time that I can remember, in which I told him that I wanted to break up. He said he didn’t disagree but wanted to know why. I said that it was because he was a selfish ass and that I didn’t love him. Somehow I ended up at his friend’s New Years Eve party anyway. I wish the mental patient had gotten her way but who listens to a crazy person?

I flew home, by myself, four days later and was back to work, at a temp job, two days after that. I did my best to not think about that time as I put my life back together. My dirtbag said that if that ever happened again he would leave me. I immediately found a psychotherapist to meet with once a week for talk therapy and for medication management. I’ve been on meds ever since then. I fortunately believed my diagnosis and have never felt the need to see if I could do okay without treatment. I was afraid to be happy for the next three or so years. I equated not depressed as a danger zone that could lead to mania again. Basically I was afraid to be happy. It was easy to stay depressed while I was with the dirtbag, as my needs weren’t being met. My shame over the whole incident helped keep me down too.

My psychiatrist finally got it into my thick skull that unless I was not meeting my most important basic need — sleep, I could relax. This is not to be confused with insomnia. This is more when you are too excited to sleep, which can be the depression lifting unfortunately. Coming out of the darkness can flip you into the bright light of all of the happiness you had been missing while depressed. I like to use the analogy of a light switch being turned on. The rule we came up with was if I missed more than three nights of sleep, or slept less than five hours for multiple days, due to hyper focus or excitement, then I would be on alert for another manic or hypomanic episode.

After I got this down pat I started looking for solid friends in San Francisco. I found them and Angela got her groove back. Oh, and I dumped the dirtbag.