Chemist or Fool

 A few months ago, I did a very foolish thing. I spied little chunky white grains on the kitchen counter. My mouth watered, and to satisfy the sudden sweets craving, I licked my finger, touched a few grains and put them on my tongue. I immediately spit out the dishwasher detergent. But it had looked so inviting! I gained new understanding of poisoning among roving toddlers.

My mom broke her hip in 1984. (I realize with a shock that at 61, she was younger than I am now) I went to New Jersey with little R’el and one-year-old Peter to help her.

One evening I walked into Mom’s kitchen and found Peter under the sink, a plastic container of dishwasher detergent open beside him.

We called poison control and were told not to induce vomiting. Dishwasher detergent is very caustic and further tissue damage could be caused by vomiting it back up.

I was touched when 24 hours later I received a callback, checking on Peter. He was fine, no worse for the experience. As a young mother, I appreciated the thoughtfulness and care.

Norry and Sunbury memories

 Jim gave me a tremendous gift last Thursday. We spent the week in Maryland and Virginia, visiting my brother and his wife, my niece, and four presidential houses (Mount Vernon, Monticello, Montpelier, and Highlands) in Virginia.

Thursday night he booked us at the charming Stained Glass Inn in Sunbury, PA, kitty-cornered from my old elementary school, St. Michael Archangel. (It’s now called Saint Monica.)

Friday morning Jim had a business phone call and I took a ‘walk’ with R’el: talking on the phone as she walked home from Bellevue Hospital and I explored the south side of Sunbury. When Jim was free we walked along the sea wall dividing Sunbury from the Susquehanna River. I don’t know why we always called it the sea wall, it must have been my dad’s name for it.

I read that the ‘flood wall’ was conceived after a disastrous flood in March 1936. Native Americans had told British colonists that Sunbury flooded every 14 years. Built near the confluence of the north and west branches of the Susquehanna River, it has suffered many floods over the years. The flood wall was officially finished in 1951 but was already protecting the city from flood in 1950. I remember in 1960 my dad telling us that the river had flooded: I was about four years old.

After the walk along the wall and seeing the profile of Shikellamy, we drove to Northumberland, the town across the river where I lived until I was nine. We called it Norry. I felt like Scrooge in Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol, every sight bringing up memories: there’s where the pond was where we ice skated; there’s the street sign that I would swing around calling, “Annnnniiiiieeeee! Can you come out and pla-aaayyyyy? I wasn’t allowed to cross the street and Annie Scully lived across King Street and Seventh Street. So many memories came rushing back and I savored each one.

679 King Street was vacant with a notice in the window. We learned from some people on Eighth Street that a doctor lived there and that perhaps he had died. Since the house was unoccupied,  I peered in the back porch window and remembered practicing piano and meeting the washer repairman. I felt free to walk in the yard, pointing out to Jim where the forsythia, lilacs, magnolia, apple trees, grape arbor, peonies, cherry tree, and sandbox (with plentiful splinters) were. It’s mostly grass now, with one large evergreen to the side. The peach tree, which always looked sickly, was surprisingly healthy. The yard is small; how does it hold so many memories?

What a gift. Thank you, Jim. 

Home-making

 Today Jim and I drove to the home on the “little mountain” that Thomas Jefferson developed over 40 years of his life.

As a teenaged girl I was infatuated with the Thomas Jefferson of the movie, 1776, which was released as I was turning 16. Thomas Jefferson was tall (no boys in my junior high school were as tall as I was) and boyishly handsome with his red ponytail and knickers. Now I prefer the piercing blue eyes of William Daniels (John Adams), but in my girlish eyes it was all about Thomas and how he played the violin for his beautiful and beloved wife. 

Living in Massachusetts for the past 20 years, and influenced by my Adams-phil husband, my feelings for Jefferson had waned.

But Monticello rekindled my appreciation of the man. Jefferson designed so many thoughtful touches to his home. I love how he filled his entry hall with maps and objects of interest. He placed his bed in the wall, opening into both his study and bedroom, so convenient. And his books: he owned about 10,000. We moved closer to that number, buying four books in the gift shop at Monticello along with three at Mt. Vernon.

Both the tours of Mt. Vernon and Monticello emphasize the tremendous work that enslaved people were forced to do to create and maintain these plantations. I’m grateful for the ongoing work to document and bring to light the efforts of countless unnamed people and the need to live up to the ideals of American liberty for all people.

On a lighter note, I’m thinking about house decoration and home. We attended the Washington DC Temple open house with Xiomara and our grandchildren. Jim and I started our marriage there 43 years ago. We stayed with my oldest brother and his wife. Visiting my niece, a busy mother of five children, reminded both of us of raising our children. When R’el was about four, I helped her paint the alphabet, one upper-case and one lower-case letter on twenty-six manilla folders. We taped them together and posted them around the kitchen wall above our heads. We had no living room in those days, just a dedicated playroom with toy shelves and bookcases. How did we ever manage?

When younger moms have asked, I usually say, well, you only have 24 hours in a day. You do what you can and move forward.

But now we don’t have such a busy, demanding life. We can tour Virginia and let others raise children, focus on careers, sustain life. “Sustain life” is a phrase I latched on to in southern Indiana back in the eighties. At a church meeting a woman used it to describe her role as a mother of young children. There were certainly days where that was my goal. I hope I accomplished more; I know I tried.

As I sit here in Gordonsville, Virginia, listening to Bach on YouTube, I’m savoring the memory of our lunch today at La Michoacana restaurant we happened upon in Charlottesville and the sunshine on the mountaintop.

I’m looking forward to returning home and making it ever more of a home. Washington and Jefferson were gardeners: it’s time to plant mine.

My subconscious is my friend!

 I woke up Tuesday thinking, 'my subconscious is my friend.' Actually, I woke up remembering that I’d had a fitful night of sleep, waking several times during the night and realizing each time that I had been dreaming of editing DBSA Boston board meeting minutes. I didn’t remember details of the dreams, just the impression of spending all night puzzling out how to organize the minutes from the raw notes I had typed during the meeting as I struggled to keep up with the lively discussion.

But instead of adding the fact of my dreams to my stress level, I considered them in a different light. All night my subconscious was working on the minutes in many ways: multitasking in a way I could literally only dream of.

My minute-editing career had come to a crisis the week before. Through a series of events, 95% of which were of my own creating, I had to send a 4-month backlog of minutes to the board a few days prior to Monday’s monthly meeting.

Each month for several now I’ve promised myself to edit the minutes within two days of the meeting, while the discussions are fresh in my mind. With my current memory abilities, recall becomes much tougher as time passes.

And each month for several I’ve procrastinated and sent the minutes days before the next meeting rather than days after the previous.

Arising Tuesday morning with the new thought, that my subconscious is my friend, freed me to work on the edits of the Monday meeting with energy and confidence. My subconscious had attended that meeting and was hard at work processing it, not only the actual notes and memories but the emotional baggage and stress I've chosen to carry: all the resistances I have to sitting down and doing the task.

By Tuesday night I had emailed the draft of the minutes to my board members. And now I have 25 days to relax and enjoy and savor the experience of having a dreaded task completely, entirely, and utterly done. (And hope no one sends back any edits, I chuckle to myself.)

IS it me or my meds?

 I’m studying a book by David Karp: is it me or my meds? (Harvard University Press, 2006) I’ve been aware of this book for several years, and finally started reading it a few weeks ago. David Karp is a sociologist who taught at the prestigious Boston College for many years. He’s written or co-authored nine books. I met him years ago at DBSA Boston (Depression Bipolar Support Alliance). He graciously accepted my request to read my memoir draft. His comments were insightful and immensely helpful.

 

I had avoided his book because I had the impression that it was exclusively about major depressive disorder: unipolar depression. To me, there is a great divide between unipolar depression and bipolar disorder. In my humble opinion, the two are very separate afflictions.

 

(I’m losing the culture wars: as you know, I object strenuously to the term ‘bipolar,’ but the American language has moved on and ‘manic depression’ seems to be headed for the same dustbin as ‘hysteria’ and ‘childbed fever.’ But manic depression is actually much more specific and effectively descriptive than those other abandoned medical terms.)

 

Although David Karp’s book is largely about depression, he has plenty to say about psychiatric medication more generally. He interviews fifty people who have taken psychiatric medication and explores the interplay between medication and issues of self, authenticity, and relationships, including the relationship formed with the medication itself. He acknowledges the great positive impact many medications have had on alleviating human suffering while exploring the double-edged-choice I make each day as I ingest psychotropic drugs.

 

And it is indeed double-edged. Medication has allowed me to live outside a locked psychiatric unit continually for 19 years. Most probably it has also diminished my mental powers. It may be affecting my metabolism (higher risk of diabetes) and vital organs (lithium is hard on the kidneys and thyroid.). Over time I’ve learned to live within its restraints. Both diminishment and adaptation have existed side by side for the 26 years since I was first prescribed lithium. Am I married to the medications, as David Karp suggests? I’d never thought of it that way, but yes. In what other sort of relationship entered into as an adult is there intimate contact for 26 years, with the expectation of a lifelong commitment?

Who I am

 I’m going to be controversial here. I don’t mean to speak for anyone else, but I will speak my mind.

A common discussion at my support group, DBSA Boston, over the years is the difference between being bipolar and having bipolar. In introducing myself as a facilitator at the newcomers’ meeting, I soften it even further, saying, I have bipolar disorder.

Most people reject the idea that they 'are' bipolar and opt for 'having' bipolar. But about eight years ago a young woman I know declared, "No, I am bipolar." I puzzled over it, wondering which felt truer to me. At the time I wasn't prepared to embrace her statement. I felt it was limiting.

As research for my memoir,, I just finished is it me or my meds? The author David Karp (whom I know through DBSA Boston) describes a support group meeting:

The meeting began with brief introductions during which nearly everyone said something like, “My name is Joe and I’m a depressive." After all the introductions, a young woman suggested that it would be far better if people said, “Hello, my name is so and so and I suffer from depression.”

A woman David Karp interviewed said:

Every time we take the medication it keeps constructing your identity as bipolar, or as whatever diagnosis, but you know, that is not who I am….It’s not, in any way, the whole of me. It’s a part of me. I am a teacher. I am a writer. I am a lover. I am a woman. [Mental illness] is just [something that] gets in the way a lot.

I have no intention of constructing anyone else’s identity, but lately I’ve been thinking that I am bipolar. (I actually hate that term, but for different reasons than the usual. Manic depression is so descriptive in a way that bipolar is not. I’m not a toy magnet, I don’t consist of two poles. I experience mania and I experience depression. However, I don’t particularly like the term ‘manic depressive.’ That does seem reductionist, as if I am totally in the thrall of those two states. I haven’t come up with a better noun (please suggest some), so for now I’ll use bipolar.

I checked out Word Hippo and found 273 (yes, I counted them: slow-news day here) adjectives for "vacillating between two extremes" and 49 "involving or having two extremes." Nouns are bipolarism, bipolarization, and bipolarity. I suppose it was too much to ask to web-search to satisfy me. (Give it a try, Matt. I so loved wrenmimic!)

Certainly when I’m psychotic or in a debilitating depression, there is something wrong. My life would be better, I could be more productive, better at relationships, if that didn’t happen. But the tendency to mood swings, the highs and lows (the 7-out of-10s and the 3-out-of-10s) seem to be ingrained deeply into the fiber of my being. The woman David Karp interviewed identifies herself as a teacher, writer, lover, woman. None of those identities is the whole of her but they are deep parts of her. They are parts of her identity. My manic depression isn’t the whole me, but it goes deep, very deep.

For the curious, Word Hippo suggests:

volatile, mercurial, oscillating, vacillating, capricious, spasmodic, undulating, two-faced, variable, unpredictable, changeable, unstable, erratic, inconstant, fickle, impulsive, tempermental, flighty, fluctuating, inconsistent, whimsical, mutable, fluid, unsteady, irregular, changeful, uncertain, unsettled, skittish, wayward, flickery, flakey, quicksilver, flaky, blowing hot and cold, irrepressible, wavering, excitable, protean, kaleidoscopic, moody, giddy, labile, active, movable, elastic, up in the air, unreliable, up and down, ever-changing, mobile, yo-yo, up-and-down, undependable, fitful, arbitrary, changing, random, varying, jerky, desultory, quirky, freakish, faddish, ungovernable, wild, haphazard, chance, vagarious, crotchety, constantly changing, ephemeral, shifting, transitory, frivolous, momentary, fleeting, peaky, short-lived, transient, impermanent, full of ups and downs, uneven, fluctuant, aimless, hit-or-miss, indiscriminate, unmethodical, casual, intermittent, chameleonic, sporadic, turbulent, along with waffling, fluky, directionless, orderless, blind, lost, reckless, offhand, iffy, sketchy, unsupported, off-and-on, objectless, quick-tempered, unreasoned, pointless, and more.

Not quite on the mark.

Moodswings

Last week I wrote a high-flying post, full of optimism and confidence. Since then I’ve spent some hours slogging through life. It's not really depression: it’s not the deep dark hole many describe. The self-loathing is absent: I feel a disappointment in my inability to accomplish what seems like reasonable goals on a reasonable timetable, but no self-hate.

 

This week, as my attitude towards my life has swung from optimism to, not pessimism exactly, but disappointment, I’m left wondering: is manic depression deep in my nature? Is it an essential part of my personality? Is it as immutable as my eye color and height?

 

I think it likely all of the above.

Yesterday morning I woke feeling discouraged. Monday is the day I have few outside obligations. When David was sick and I drove him to the Cox Clinic twice a week for leukemia treatments, I made no other commitments on Mondays and Thursdays. After he died, I promised myself I'd continue that schedule. Gradually obligations, freely entered into, crept back into my Thursdays, but I’ve kept Monday free, a ‘stay-at-home’ day. Each week it spreads before me like a field of freshly-fallen snow waiting for my imprint. And many Monday evenings I feel keenly a lack of accomplishment.

 

What if I accepted the ebb and flow of my moods as a part of me, just as the tides are part of the ocean? When I visit the shore, I don’t resist the tide, I carefully survey the beach for signs of the high tide mark, where the sand is completely dry and never drenched in saltwater. That’s where I place my blanket. If I've arrived at high tide, the surf is near the blanket, if low, I must walk a bit to enjoy the waves.