A Young Mary Johnston

Last August, I hired my friend, Lori, as editor and cheerleader for my memoir.Then, early in the coronavirus lockdown, I experienced hypomania, that elevated state that can be the precursor of psychotic mania (hypo = below). I wasn't sleeping well and Jim and I were concerned.Perhaps writing about mania was triggering an episode, so I stopped writing it. After two months, I'm ready to restart.

In November of 1995, I woke up in a locked psychiatric hospital, shattered, crushed, devastated. I felt I'd returned from the awful decay and corruption of death. A few weeks later, I sat in a church meeting, convinced that I didn't belong, totally worthless and unworthy. I knew no one who had been psychotic, no one who had manic depression. No one.

I want to be the mentor that I didn’t have. The wiser woman who has been there, lived through it, who can assure the confused, frightened young woman that mental illness is just that: an illness. Unique in it’s effect on the mind and spirit, but manageable.

A few months ago, at Lori’s suggestion, I framed a snapshot that my dad’s cousin took in Washington State the summer before my psychotic break. The Mary in the picture grins, right hand on hip, leaning against the tan tent trailer. Annie leans against her with a five-year-old's grin. Skinny David folds his arms, his black wristwatch visible. Peter smiles from beneath a red baseball cap; R’el stands behind him. Matt’s hand rests on little Sam’s arm. Sam’s blue shorts barely peek below his large white T-shirt.

Mary’s smile is jubilant and confident. She’s in her element, fulfilling her dream of many years: driving to each of the 48 states, dipping into Mexico and Canada, and taking the whole summer vacation to do it. She has spent hundreds of hours pouring over a road atlas, counting the tiny mileage numbers to calculate reasonable day’s mileages, reading travel brochures, planning which National Parks to visit, consulting Woodall's to find campgrounds. Now she's doing it.

In three short months she’ll wake up in a hospital, wrenched back to sanity with an injection of a powerful anti-psychotic. She’ll be told she must take medication for the rest of her life. That she can't control her mind, can't be reliable without a daily dose of  pink pills. They will tamp down her enthusiasm, dull her intellect. But what's the alternative?

During those first dreadful days and weeks, she will feel alone and frightened. I want to be with her.