The funny thing about this intriguing disease is that most people only seek treatment while they are in the depressive phase, since the manic phase usually lends itself to increased productivity, creativity, and high social acceptance. Tonight my brain was ablaze and the 20mg of Zyprexa combined with Lithium were equivalent to dousing a grease fire with a bucket of water. The only way to control this episode would be to sit down in the day room and write this story about my departed roommate, Abe - but I doubt that anyone would believe me anyway. After all, I am in a heavily guarded psychiatric facility being treated for a psychotic disorder. Either way, I think this story deserves a voice, and with a brightly colored red crayon in my tremor-ridden hand I'll put to paper what my feverish mind cannot quite begin to comprehend.
My first impression of Abe encompassed all my previous misconceptions about a psychiatric ward patient. He was on the community phone yelling manically at the person on the other end. The only thing I could decipher from this conversation was Abe's persistent plea "Please take care of him for me!!" ... which I assumed to be one of Abe's children ... but I'm jumping ahead of myself.
During Abe's frantic and very loud conversation, a nurse was completing my patient profile and interrogating me with a mental health version of 20 questions. My wife just left after I was admitted by the front desk and the nurse told her she could return during visiting hour, which ran from 7-8:00 pm on Wednesday nights. It was an extremely difficult decision to admit myself to the hospital, but after making an attempt to end my life with a handful of Ambien and an X-acto knife on the previous night, it seemed like the only way to interrupt this downward spiral of paralyzing depression.
I knew it was coming, too. Like most bipolar patients, the ecstasy of a manic phase always ends like a collision into a brick wall with an unavoidable crash of epic proportions. Like the flick of a switch, my moods would change in my mind's own labyrinth of mercurial twists and turns but these moods were always interrupted with an inevitable dead end around every corner.
It's amazing how quickly and unexpectedly this change could happen. I was what those in the psychology field refer to as a rapid cycler. In the period of a solitary day I could experience the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. One good mood was sure to be followed by a terrible depression that could last for an hour or an entire day. I like to think of my manic episodes as sharing some kind of dysfunctional symbiotic relationship with my depressive episodes. This is the cause and effect cycle of my life that brought me to this institution, seeking some sort of stabilization or at the very least a reprieve from the daily stresses of living amongst the sane.
For an hour I was subjected to an intense interrogation about my recent mental state. Cindy, the unit's head nurse presented me with a myriad of consents and self-report questionnaires. For the most part, I quickly signed the necessary documentation, but two of the consents caught my attention. The first one stated that even though I voluntarily checked myself in and could leave at my discretion, I must give the hospital a 24 hour notice before being discharged. Another consent stated that I must wash my hands after using the restroom. I snickered briefly but Cindy didn't find anything humorous about the "Law of Proper Hygiene."
After all the paperwork was completed, Cindy gave me a brief tour of this facility that would be my home for an indeterminate amount of time. At about this time, Abe slammed the phone down on the receiver and began pacing frantically up and down the main hall ... back and forth, back and forth, all the while stomping as if to wake the devil himself, but a lesser demon was surely in possession of Abe's mind at the moment.
