Speeding Down Route Two

This morning I took three white plastic baskets into our walk-in closet to sort the laundry. I was in a hurry and didn’t want to take the time to pull the hamper out into the bedroom.

As I knelt to reach into the hamper, I suddenly remembered a scene in that closet nearly 23 years ago. On November 5, 1995, in the midst of a head lice infestation and after an autumn of riding high in what we would soon learn was a hypomanic episode, I turned my closet into a sanctuary. Details of that evening are disjointed, but I remember sitting on the floor in the closet together with Jim, who was cross-legged and leaning against the wall. I wanted to show him the perfect Christmas gifts I had bought that week. I now realize I was talking fast and not making any sense. At the time, I studied Jim’s face as I talked and reported to him, minute by minute, his changing thoughts. He later told me I was spot on with many of my observations. I could read every muscle of his face and caught every nuance.

I later learned that Jim was afraid to leave me alone with our six children, ages 4 to 14. He called a friend, Jo, to come and take me to her home. I was thrilled to go: a girls' night out.

At Jo’s house, I became agitated. I was convinced that evil men were conspiring to kidnap my oldest daughter. Don’t ask me how I ‘knew’ this; but I was entirely certain that she was in imminent danger. Jo and Bill had daughters, and I shifted to concern for their safety. Jo and Bill didn’t seem to be paying attention: I couldn’t convey to them the desperate situation we were in.

So, I walked across the room, yanked a framed picture off the wall, and smashed it on the floor. Sometime later, a doctor-friend, Greg, must have come by with his minivan: the next thing I remember is Jo and I sitting in the middle bench seat as Greg drove down Route 2. I imagine he was driving about 60 or so. I was obsessed with my paranoid thoughts and frustrated that no one was listening or taking me seriously.

This I remember quite clearly: I unbuckled my seat belt and reached for the door latch. “I can just get out here,” I said.

I can still feel Jo reaching over me to pull the seat belt back across me. “You don’t have to do that, Mary.” I was younger and stronger than Jo, but I acquiesced and stayed in the car.

Later that night I would be admitted into a locked psychiatric unit at Waltham Hospital, near Brandeis. And that’s another story.