Sunday, November 5, 1995

Thursday evening, November 2, my 39th birthday. I rode the ‘stake temple bus’ to the Washington, D.C. temple. Before the Boston Temple was opened in 2000, our stake (a collection of 10-12 congregations) sponsored a temple bus a few times a year. We’d board the bus around 9 p.m. and ride 450 miles, arriving at the temple around 5:30 a.m. After a full day of worship, the bus would take us to a motel and early next morning we’d be back at the temple. I’d get back home Saturday around midnight, sleep-deprived.

A dangerous schedule for someone who was hypomanic, but we hadn’t ever heard the term and certainly didn’t know it applied to me.

Sunday morning I was back in my head-lice-infested household. My long hair was at risk. Our dear Finnish friend, Maikku, offered to drop by and nit-pick.

Maikku and I stood in the warm autumn sun at the bottom of our kitchen porch steps. She gently combed out my long brown hair with a very fine-toothed comb. Although she was picking up houseguests at the airport, she took the time to help a desperate young mother.

By Sunday evening, I realize now, I was far gone. I believed that evil men were plotting to kidnap our oldest daughter. I’ve tried many times to describe my paranoia. It felt like certain knowledge, as if I had been in the same room with these evil men and was privy to their conversations. I think I knew I hadn’t heard a conversation, but I was certain of the danger and furious that Jim didn’t take me seriously.
No one took me seriously. They took me to the emergency department instead.