At church on Sunday, Jim and I were part of a panel; the topic was mental health. Jack, the moderator, showed a video of Latter-day Saints talking about their personal experiences with depression. Then a young married man spoke of his depression and anxiety, which started in high school. Jim talked about manic depression (I’m not a toy magnet! I'm a person who experiences mania and depression.) and some of our specific experiences with mania, which freed me to be subjective, to try to convey a little of what it’s like to live in my body.
I have had many psychiatrists and therapists over the past 35 years. Although I hate taking psych meds, I realize that had I been born 40 years earlier, before the drugs, I probably would have spent years in locked mental institutions. My manias have been severe and debilitating. Psych meds, for all their limitations and side effects, have allowed me to live a full and rich life.
I’ve been psychotic three times (or, as Jim says, two and a half): in 1983, in 1995, and in 2003. During the last two, I was sent from the emergency department to a locked psychiatric unit.
In 1995, I was given Haldol, a powerful anti-psychotic, and slept for 18 hours. When I awoke, I felt wrenched back from the dead; it was horrible. My brain had failed me. How could I ever trust myself again?
I resisted taking meds. I had birthed six children without as much as a Tylenol. I didn’t want to take pills every day. But, I trusted what the professionals said, that other episodes would follow, in more rapid succession, if I didn’t medicate against them.
Psychotic mania is terrifying. However, in hypomania (literally: below mania) I'm more productive and creative and need little sleep. My confidence soars.
Close your eyes for a minute and remember a time in your life where you were very happy. It could be monumental, like the day you got engaged or married. It could be the birth of your child, the birthday you got the best present ever, or learning to ride a bike. It could be looking into a baby’s eyes and getting a smile, receiving a bouquet of hand-picked flowers, or seeing the afternoon sunlight through autumn leaves.
With my diagnosis, I got the message that that level of happiness is dangerous for me. Without taking pills every day to prevent hypomania (and therefore mania), I wouldn’t be trustworthy, reliable, or dependable. I wouldn’t stay sane enough to be a good marriage partner, raise children, and live a normal life.
Even on medication, any really big, creative idea of mine is suspect. I constantly second-guess myself. If I feel elated and energized, have a rush of ideas, or just wake up early, I have to question myself: did I take my meds last night? Do I need to take more?
These pills dull my edge, harm my memory, make me tremor like an 85-year-old Parkinson’s patient. I have to hold onto the railing while walking downstairs.
It took me two days to recover from the panel. That surprised me. Today, I realized why. I’ll tell you about it next week.
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Tuesday, July 17, 2018
40th Reunion
Last month, on our way back from Spoleto USA in Charleston, SC, we drove to my alma mater for my 40th college reunion.
My mom’s older sister, Helen, didn’t graduate from college. Mom once commented that Helen was embarrassed about that, but Mom said it wasn't as important as Helen imagined it was. A degree didn’t define a life.
I graduated college, but never went to graduate school. I chose to be a full-time homemaker and mother to eventually six children. I don’t regret that, but I often wondered if I could have done more: sought an advanced degree and career when my youngest entered first grade.
Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sisters: an elite all-women’s college, on the Main Line outside of Philly. From 1974 to 1978, when I was there, the issue of what a college-educated woman should do with her life was a contentious one. An undocumented quotation of M. Carey Thomas, the first dean and second president of the college, had two versions: "Our failures ONLY marry" or "ONLY our failures marry."
So, when I chose to get married a year after graduation, and had my first child two years later, I struggled with the expectations of what I should do with my life.
At our 40th reunion, the class of ’78 held a meeting. After elections (the current board ran unopposed and were reelected) and business (including a report on donations and a plea for more), the president suggested we all take a few minutes to introduce ourselves. I was sitting in the second row, and looked to be about the third speaker. Adrenaline flowed as I debated what to say. I had consciously avoided reunions, attending my 5th and 10th but none since, to avoid facing the issue of M. Carey Thomas’ expectations.
I decided to forge ahead, to stick my neck out, to be honest. I said my name and then said, “I became a Mormon, got married, and had six kids." Then, I rather militantly continued, "If you look down on me for that, I don’t want to hear about it." I might have been shaking when I sat down.
As my other former classmates (about 30 women, none of whom I knew well or shared classes with) introduced themselves, I discovered that some of them are having outwardly ‘ordinary’ lives.
Over the course of the weekend several woman approached me separately and thanked me for saying what I did. They said that my honesty had helped set the tone. I wasn’t the only one who had struggled over the years, not ‘measuring up’ to the Bryn Mawr standard: not getting a PhD or producing a new translation of The Iliad (Greek is a thing at Bryn Mawr, ancient, of course.)
The general consensus was that, at age 61, we've come to terms with life, our choices and circumstances. Life is much more complicated than our 20-year-old selves could have imagined. There are heartaches and disappointments, but also triumphs, and deep joys, with or without accolades or a tenured position at a major university.
I discovered that a classmate I’d never known before lives in Arlington, about 6 miles from me. We meet a few weeks ago and had a lovely walk on the Minuteman Bike Path, which coincidentally goes near both my home and hers. As at the reunion, it was wonderful talking to someone who in some way shared that formative experience. She also had felt the weight of “Mawrter” expectations, but had come to a place of peace with her life. Have we learned a little wisdom?
My mom’s older sister, Helen, didn’t graduate from college. Mom once commented that Helen was embarrassed about that, but Mom said it wasn't as important as Helen imagined it was. A degree didn’t define a life.
I graduated college, but never went to graduate school. I chose to be a full-time homemaker and mother to eventually six children. I don’t regret that, but I often wondered if I could have done more: sought an advanced degree and career when my youngest entered first grade.
Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sisters: an elite all-women’s college, on the Main Line outside of Philly. From 1974 to 1978, when I was there, the issue of what a college-educated woman should do with her life was a contentious one. An undocumented quotation of M. Carey Thomas, the first dean and second president of the college, had two versions: "Our failures ONLY marry" or "ONLY our failures marry."
So, when I chose to get married a year after graduation, and had my first child two years later, I struggled with the expectations of what I should do with my life.
At our 40th reunion, the class of ’78 held a meeting. After elections (the current board ran unopposed and were reelected) and business (including a report on donations and a plea for more), the president suggested we all take a few minutes to introduce ourselves. I was sitting in the second row, and looked to be about the third speaker. Adrenaline flowed as I debated what to say. I had consciously avoided reunions, attending my 5th and 10th but none since, to avoid facing the issue of M. Carey Thomas’ expectations.
I decided to forge ahead, to stick my neck out, to be honest. I said my name and then said, “I became a Mormon, got married, and had six kids." Then, I rather militantly continued, "If you look down on me for that, I don’t want to hear about it." I might have been shaking when I sat down.
As my other former classmates (about 30 women, none of whom I knew well or shared classes with) introduced themselves, I discovered that some of them are having outwardly ‘ordinary’ lives.
Over the course of the weekend several woman approached me separately and thanked me for saying what I did. They said that my honesty had helped set the tone. I wasn’t the only one who had struggled over the years, not ‘measuring up’ to the Bryn Mawr standard: not getting a PhD or producing a new translation of The Iliad (Greek is a thing at Bryn Mawr, ancient, of course.)
The general consensus was that, at age 61, we've come to terms with life, our choices and circumstances. Life is much more complicated than our 20-year-old selves could have imagined. There are heartaches and disappointments, but also triumphs, and deep joys, with or without accolades or a tenured position at a major university.
I discovered that a classmate I’d never known before lives in Arlington, about 6 miles from me. We meet a few weeks ago and had a lovely walk on the Minuteman Bike Path, which coincidentally goes near both my home and hers. As at the reunion, it was wonderful talking to someone who in some way shared that formative experience. She also had felt the weight of “Mawrter” expectations, but had come to a place of peace with her life. Have we learned a little wisdom?
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
Vortices
I listened to Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking a few weeks ago. It’s in the standard bibliography of grief books. I didn’t read it three years ago, because her experience seemed so different from mine: her husband had a massive heart attack. A husband of thirty-nine years, dying at the dinner table. A world apart from a 26-year-old son dying of leukemia. But, she’s an excellent writer, articulate, honest, and insightful, and her memoir of grief helps me process mine.
Without warning, memories suck her into a powerful vortex of grief. It happens in places with a connection to her husband. She tries to avoid the places, but there are too many memories in too many places.
My vortices are fewer and further between these days. The most constant is listing my children. The winter before David died, we rented a house in the Catskills for our annual family ‘Summer Retreat’ in August. Not knowing if we would even use the house, we had done no further planning. He died Wednesday, August 12th. On Sunday we had the visiting hours at our former-funeral-home house, followed by a service at church. Monday we packed quickly and left for the Catskills That afternoon, as I sat in front of a large picture window in the country kitchen, I started a menu plan and grocery list for the week: days across top of the page and people down the side. Jim, Mary, R’el, Peter, Matt... and I was plunged into an emotional chasm that took my breath away. For 26 years, there was no hesitation. It was always Matt, David, Annie. Now there was a gaping black hole after Matt’s name and before I could get to Annie’s.
That vortex remains. Early on, I’d name my children in random order, but that would confuse me and I’d desperately count, unsure if I was missing a living child. Without consciously thinking about it, I settled into naming the three oldest (David is the fourth), then the sixth and fifth. That still leaves me befuddled: it feels like way fewer the six minus one. But I just can’t go in age order; my heart rebels. Trying to avoid a vortex, I find myself teetering on the edge.
Without warning, memories suck her into a powerful vortex of grief. It happens in places with a connection to her husband. She tries to avoid the places, but there are too many memories in too many places.
My vortices are fewer and further between these days. The most constant is listing my children. The winter before David died, we rented a house in the Catskills for our annual family ‘Summer Retreat’ in August. Not knowing if we would even use the house, we had done no further planning. He died Wednesday, August 12th. On Sunday we had the visiting hours at our former-funeral-home house, followed by a service at church. Monday we packed quickly and left for the Catskills That afternoon, as I sat in front of a large picture window in the country kitchen, I started a menu plan and grocery list for the week: days across top of the page and people down the side. Jim, Mary, R’el, Peter, Matt... and I was plunged into an emotional chasm that took my breath away. For 26 years, there was no hesitation. It was always Matt, David, Annie. Now there was a gaping black hole after Matt’s name and before I could get to Annie’s.
That vortex remains. Early on, I’d name my children in random order, but that would confuse me and I’d desperately count, unsure if I was missing a living child. Without consciously thinking about it, I settled into naming the three oldest (David is the fourth), then the sixth and fifth. That still leaves me befuddled: it feels like way fewer the six minus one. But I just can’t go in age order; my heart rebels. Trying to avoid a vortex, I find myself teetering on the edge.
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
Thoughts in a waiting room
Eleven days ago, I was sitting in a large wooden armchair enjoying the sound of water burbling over the artifical rocks in the four-story atrium of St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, waiting for my son, Matt, to get out of surgery. When my friend, Amy, heard that I was escorting Matt, she asked, “Are you OK with this, or will it give you flashbacks from the time you spent in hospitals with David?
I was surprised by her question. I hadn’t consciously connected the two. But, hadn’t I? When Matt offered to take a 6:30 a.m. Uber to St. Vincent, so I could do the hour drive to Worcester a few hours later, I knew I wanted to be with him from the start. That’s what moms do.
In Maxine Hong Kingston’s memoir, The Woman Warrior, she describes her Chinese grandmother going to the airport hours before a plane carrying her relatives would land, sitting, waiting, willing the plane to cross the Pacific from China to Los Angeles. Trusting in the power of concentration and attention.
I love that image, though I didn’t expect my presence to change any outcome, (the surgery went well, by the way), but I knew I wanted to be there. The father of a friend of Matt’s, years ago, stopped breathing during a minor surgery. His friend’s mother was at the hospital, alone, so I went and sat with her in the ICU waiting room. She recounted an amusing incident: when he woke up in the ICU, he asked how it went. "You stopped breathing," she told him, and his eyes widened in wonder. Five minutes later he asked, “How did it go?” She told him again: his eyes widened. Over and over this scenario played out, until his short-term memory returned.
Waiting for Matt, the memory of that day came into my mind. I was glad to be there.
I pondered Amy’s question; as I did, I was grateful Matt wasn’t at Walter Reed or Mass General. That might bring back ghosts. The restroom at St. Vincent uses the same automatic paper towel dispenser, from Georgia Pacific, as Mass General. How many times I washed and dried my hands, waiting for the results of David’s lab work, or for his blood transfusions to be completed. For fifteen months, I kept my Mondays and Thursdays open, never knowing how long the appointments would last, or if the day would end with an overnight stay.
All of that is fading into the past. It was so much of our lives, as we lived through it, and as treatments failed, and David lost weight, weakened, and died. Next month will be three years, it feels recent and in the distant past at the same time.
I was surprised by her question. I hadn’t consciously connected the two. But, hadn’t I? When Matt offered to take a 6:30 a.m. Uber to St. Vincent, so I could do the hour drive to Worcester a few hours later, I knew I wanted to be with him from the start. That’s what moms do.
In Maxine Hong Kingston’s memoir, The Woman Warrior, she describes her Chinese grandmother going to the airport hours before a plane carrying her relatives would land, sitting, waiting, willing the plane to cross the Pacific from China to Los Angeles. Trusting in the power of concentration and attention.
I love that image, though I didn’t expect my presence to change any outcome, (the surgery went well, by the way), but I knew I wanted to be there. The father of a friend of Matt’s, years ago, stopped breathing during a minor surgery. His friend’s mother was at the hospital, alone, so I went and sat with her in the ICU waiting room. She recounted an amusing incident: when he woke up in the ICU, he asked how it went. "You stopped breathing," she told him, and his eyes widened in wonder. Five minutes later he asked, “How did it go?” She told him again: his eyes widened. Over and over this scenario played out, until his short-term memory returned.
Waiting for Matt, the memory of that day came into my mind. I was glad to be there.
I pondered Amy’s question; as I did, I was grateful Matt wasn’t at Walter Reed or Mass General. That might bring back ghosts. The restroom at St. Vincent uses the same automatic paper towel dispenser, from Georgia Pacific, as Mass General. How many times I washed and dried my hands, waiting for the results of David’s lab work, or for his blood transfusions to be completed. For fifteen months, I kept my Mondays and Thursdays open, never knowing how long the appointments would last, or if the day would end with an overnight stay.
All of that is fading into the past. It was so much of our lives, as we lived through it, and as treatments failed, and David lost weight, weakened, and died. Next month will be three years, it feels recent and in the distant past at the same time.
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