Speed Scrabble

 I’ve always enjoyed the board game Scrabble, though sometimes I’ve become impatient at its slow pace and drawn-out finish. Nowadays, Jim and I (and some of our kids when they visit) play ‘Speed Scrabble.’ Like the board game, each player initially receives seven lettered tiles. Instead of creating one large crossword on a board, each player creates an individual crossword in front of them. Every time any player uses all their available tiles, everyone picks another tile until they are gone. Then the first person to complete their crossword using all their tiles wins.

The last few weeks of working on my memoir have been stressful. Initially, I was weaving a tapestry of my personal narrative. Then I read Bill Stride’s memoir of schizophrenia, Voices Inside Me and realized I needed the recollections of people around me to balance my own distorted perceptions. In my manic mind, everything I thought and did was completely rational, until I was injected with a powerful anti-psychotic, slept for a day and a half, and woke up in a sane mind and shattered heart.

I imagined weaving these recollections into my story, intermingled with my memories for a richer, fuller tapestry.

But the two interviews I’m processing this month point in totally new directions. It’s overwhelming. How can I pull apart this tapestry I’ve woven and start fresh?

Then this morning I thought of Speed Scrabble. In that game, it doesn’t matter at all whether you have ever created words with all your tiles in any of the turns. Only the last round matters, finishing a crossword using all of the tiles in front of you.

Sometimes when I play, I create a beautiful, elegant, long word (maybe even with an X, J, or even Q) and build my crossword around its perfection. Then comes a crisis point where I simply can’t fit more tiles onto the existing structure. With great reluctance, I dismantle my work and start fresh. But it’s not like ripping a tapestry apart or knocking a house down. It’s just playing around with the tiles, experimenting with new combination of letters to form a complete crossword structure.

Realizing that this morning helped me over the latest panic. I don’t have to destroy what I’ve made. I just need to play around with the pieces and discover new connections.

Not much of a housekeeper

 My ambition is to publish a memoir on my experience with manic depression (a.k.a. bipolar disorder). I’ve read over a dozen mental illness memoirs. I’ve realized that each memoir is written exclusively in the first person. While that is an important part of the narrative, for me it is imperative to hear from other voices, loved ones who watched from a vantage of sanity. When I’m manic and psychotic I am convinced that I am thinking clearly, more clearly than ever in my life. More clearly than anyone in the world. Only when I recover do I realize how distorted my thinking was, to put it mildly.

So, I have hired a skilled interviewer to talk to those close to me, they who have seen me in my mood swings. I’m in the process of watching these recordings and transcribing them. I will incorporate their insights into my memoir.

One of my brothers said, “She’s not much of a housekeeper.” This took me aback (be careful what you ask for). I’ve pondered his statement many times. It stings, but he’s absolutely right.

Of course, “not much of” is a pretty loose term. I’ve been in houses with more clutter than I can imagine accumulating. But the comment is a fair assessment.

It reminds me of a slumber party my mom threw for me when I was in fifth grade. I bought fancy pajamas with a matching sleeping cap and cloth boots from the Sears catalog and invited a few girlfriends to sleep in our living room. Dark-haired Rosemary, who was very proud of her Italian heritage, complained that her mother scrubbed the kitchen floor every week on her hands and knees. I laughed and said my mom hardly ever mopped the floor and never got down on her hands and knees.

After the party I told my mom about our conversation. She was mortified that I would admit such a thing to anyone, but especially to a girl with a mother of such habits. At the time, I wondered what the fuss was about. It never occurred to me that the floor was excessively dirty. Now I sympathize with my mom.

As may be typical of manic depression, my housekeeping reflects my moods. When I’m in an elevated mood, the house nearly vibrates with clean. Jim can sense it as he enters the house. Other times it’s much too much effort to keep up. Dishes pile up; the floor doesn't get swept much less mopped or scrubbed.

I’m grateful for my brother’s honest comment. It’s so easy to maintain a fantasy self-image. It’s good to look in the mirror and really see what's there. What everybody else sees in an instant.

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.

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.

Speared Like a Fish

This memory is from a visit to St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. For years my parents owned two condos on Sunset Beach north of Frederikstead and generously invited me (and many others) to share America’s paradise.

The flesh between my shoulder blades crawled. I was certain that I’d be speared like a fish at any moment.
When Dad suggested a night dive off the Frederiksted Pier, I was delighted: I’d never been on a night dive.
Diver Dan, our friend from the local dive shop, met us at the pier in his pick-up truck to drop off the heavy gear. The dive plan was simple: as dusk fell, we’d each prepare our gear (buoyancy vest strapped to the 3000-psi air tank, regulator screwed on, weight belt around the waist, mask and snorkel in place, fins on feet, and lights on wrists) and jump off the pier into the water. In an hour, Dan would return and be waiting for us in his boat. Climbing onto his boat, we’d be able to get back on the pier easily.
Dan hefted the tanks and weight belts from the truck bed and set them down near the pier’s edge, then stood expectantly. “Need any help?”
“We’re all set, Dan, thanks a lot.”
As we sat at the edge of the pier, a group of four or five teenage boys roughhoused toward us, horsing around, pushing each other and talking loudly. One boy slammed another towards Dad. The second boy’s arm flew out and hit Dad on the side of his head, hard. Dad shook his head slowly and looked dazed.
“Sorry.”
Dad turned to the first boy: “Whatcha do that for?”
No answer; they continued down the pier, jostling and jabbing each other, laughing as they went.
“Are you all right, Dad?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. Let’s go.”
We jumped in the water and started our descent. The sandy bottom sloped gently down to a 25-foot depth at the end of the pier. Brown clawless Caribbean lobsters scuttled along the sand; boxy, improbable trunkfish with big bulgy eyes, honeycomb skin, and tiny fins navigated among the sponges; juvenile French angelfish, bright yellow stripes on black, fluttered past.
Usually during a dive I’d swim slowly, quietly taking in the scene. The beam of my light changed the grey amorphous shapes to bright red, orange, purple, and yellow mounds of sponge and coral. But that night I hardly noticing the beauty around me, obsessed with the space between my shoulder blades. I vividly imagined the pier above us, convinced that evil men with spear guns were waiting patiently for us to swim into range. We’d be easy targets. Usually I was proud of how well Dad and I conserved our air, barely moving our arms and legs, breathing slowly and deliberately to stretch out our time underwater. But a cold, black fear possessed me. Scuba diving was not worth dying for. The dive dragged on, but I was terrified of the moment when we would have to swim out from under the pier.
We swam along the north pillars, then turned around and headed back along the south. My depth gauge dropped from 25 to 20 to 18 to 15. At ten feet, I looked up and saw Dan, leaning over the stern, ready to help us out of the water.
“How’d it go?” Dan asked.
“The dive was wonderful.” Dad replied. “But there were some boys scuffling on the pier. One of them fell into me and hit my head, hard. I saw stars.”
“Who were the kids?”
“Oh, just some local teenagers.”
I listened silently to them, embarrassed at how my imagination had run away with me. The boys were long gone, and no evil men had ever been lurking on the pier.
For years I carried that night dive memory as a cautionary tale, that recreation is not worth dying for. Now, I understand the experience differently. Paranoia is a term bantered around easily. But the cold, black fear I experienced on that dive haunted me for years. Those spear guns were as real to me as the scuttling lobsters with their waving antennae. The skin between my shoulder blades still crawls when I think of that night dive.

Her Leaf Also Shall Not Wither

December 2003

Barefoot, I creep up the carpeted stairs in the dark

Drawn to the far attic corner.

I’m frightened, but am pulled forward.

Something draped in loose linen beckons,

Perfectly silent and still.

My trembling hand reaches out, my fingers grasp the cloth and pull,

Revealing a small, pinkish mass of many folds.

With tender curiosity, I study my brain.

Gently I wrap it in the cloth and cradle it in my arms.

I’m surprised how soft and smooth it feels,

Like a newborn, warm and supple.

Drowsy, I hold it close and lie down on the spare bed.

When I open my eyes again, 

I’m beneath a great oak in a large meadow.

My eyes trace the paths of the crooked limbs,

Spreading out and away into a thousand bends and branches.

Sap feeds every twig and leaf.

A warm breeze brushes my cheek and each leaf responds.

Peace seeps into me from the tree roots.

I close my eyes once more and drift asleep.

Concrete at Alewife

Back in my energetic thirties, every few years I’d get the urge to become a long-distance runner. One sunny day in February, I made a new start. I drove to East Arlington, for a replacement windshield. The shop is about a mile from the Alewife T station (subway), the end of the Red Line. The snow was brilliant in the late winter sunshine, the sky azure, the puffy clouds matching the snow, and the temperature about ten degrees above freezing. I jogged down Varnum Street to the commuter bike path, then past the wide expanse of empty playing fields and under Route 2. My end goal was to touch Alewife’s exterior wall. I crossed the final street with my fists balled and arms pumping. Focusing on a strong finish, I sprinted across the wide sidewalk. Only as I took my third step did I sense something was wrong. Glancing at my feet, I realized with horror that my ankles were embedded in fresh, wet concrete. Behind me were two deep footprints. I started to bolt in guilty panic, but looking up, I noticed, for the first time, three workmen, in splattered tan overalls, watching intently. I was trapped; the young one could easily outrun me. Police lights flashed before my eyes and I saw myself facing jail time, and a huge fine, for destroying public property. How much did a new sidewalk cost? I sheepishly squished back into the street.
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” I grimaced and shook my head in sincere contrition.
“No problema, no problema. The back of the truck.” The smiling workman was pointing to a large tanker truck parked next to the sidewalk. Seeing my confusion, he pointed again.
“Water.”
I saw an old red hose wrapped around a steel wheel on the back of the tanker. Another workman walked to the truck and put his hand on the tap.
“No, it’s okay, I’m okay.” Mortified, I turned back toward the bike path.
“Water, water!” he said, helpfully.
Since they didn’t look poised to call the police, I walked over to the hose. The man turned the tap and I hosed down my legs; the concrete was caked halfway to my knees.
I admired my sneakers, whiter than they’d been in a couple of years. As I pivoted around to face the sidewalk, One of the workmen was smoothing the concrete with a long two-by-four, my transgression completely erased.
Blushing with embarrassment I apologized once more, then resumed my jog back toward my car. Feeling my ankles flex with each step, I gradually realized that by then the concrete would have been hardening around my sneakers and up my jeans. How would I ever have escaped the concrete boots? I was grateful for the kindness of strangers.

Hypomania and Sleep

A man at my bipolar/depression support group, who has “unipolar” depression and never experiences mania, was surprised to hear a group member express deep concern by the lack of need to sleep. This man, who had never experienced mania, couldn’t imagine the brain overriding what seems like an inherent, biological need for sleep.

You would think that lack of sleep would always lead to exhaustion. You might rise to the occasion and deal with a crisis by great effort, but eventually you’d collapse as sleep deprivation took its toll.

For 10 weeks of the summer of 1995 I was energized as I drove our six children, ages four to fourteen, 15,900 miles, to the 48 contiguous states and into Mexico and Canada. I was wise enough to go to bed by 11 p.m., but during the day I went full throttle: taking care of six kids, sightseeing, and driving at least 300 miles most days. By the end of the summer, I had accomplished my goal.

After our return, as the fall progressed, sleep became more and more optional. In hypomania, some people survive, even thrive, on no sleep for days. That fall, I only needed 4 hours a night.

I once told my therapist, David Battit, that I was always grateful that I did the trip before being diagnosed with manic depression (my preferred term for 'bipolar'). I wouldn’t have had the nerve to do it, after learning about mania and sleep triggers. He looked at me sharply and I suddenly realized for the first time, and then admitted, “It’s good I didn’t go manic on the road. All those kids, so far from home.”

I didn’t play the scenario through during that conversation, but now, 13 years later, with more experience of my own, and a knowledge other people’s bipolar stories, I realize that it could have been more awful than I could imagine back in 2004. My behavior could have become so erratic that someone would have called the police. I could have been incarcerated or at least forcibly put in a locked psych unit. What would they have done with the kids? Put them in emergency foster care or police custody until Jim could arrive?

And I would have been devastated afterwards. To have put my kids in danger. To have been totally undependable and unreliable.

Hypomania is a temptation I live with. When I’m having a personal pity party, I complain: Jim can have a great day of high energy and peak experiences with creative flow. When he jumps out of bed before his alarm goes off, he doesn’t immediately think, “Did I miss a dose of my psych meds?” But every time I have a peak experience day, I have to check in with myself: did I take my meds?

Most days it doesn’t bother me, and as I’ve learned to live with the drugs that tamp down my elevated moods, I find that I can still experience energy and creativity, and be productive. Pysch meds aren’t perfect: side effects range from annoying to debilitating; some cause long-term health problems, raising the risk of developing diabetes or kidney disease. But, for me, they’re the best thing I’ve got in my anti-mania toolbox right now. If there weren’t any psych meds, I probably couldn’t have successfully raised my kids; I probably would have spent many months or years in mental hospitals. They’re not perfect, but for me, for now, they are better than the alternative.

Without a Map

So, the book group, where my raspberry tarts got rave reviews, discussed a memoir by Meredith Hall. Here's my informal review.

Without A Map, a memoir by Meredith Hall, is a wrenching account of her lifelong struggle to make sense of a life shattered after she becomes pregnant at age 16 in 1965. She is shunned by her parents, and never even sees the baby she must give up for adoption. It is beautifully written. As with every memoir I've ever read, excepting Ruth Hazen's and George Hazen's exemplary works, I wonder how much of the story is changed for literary effect. I don't doubt the main events of her life, but, for example, did she really wander so purposelessly through Turkey and the Middle East? I imagine her survival skills were keener than she lets on, or her life's story might have been decades shorter and not made it to press. Also, there are big gaps in the story, especially, between that aimless trek and her marriage and births of her second and third child. And, as is common in the memoir genre, her villains aren't given rebuttal time. But the main themes of her story, rejection, a search for meaning in life, and redemption are wonderfully woven into a compelling story.