My
husband wakes up for work at 5:30am. I am sitting on the couch, watching the
news. He already knows what my answer will be, but he asks anyway. “Have you
slept at all?” I shrug. He knows I haven’t slept. He knows I haven’t slept in
days. He is stoic, but I know if I look up from the television, I will see his
expression. It will be a little sad. It will be a little frightened. I can’t
stand the thought that I have done this to him. He sighs and walks away. I
assume it is to gather his thoughts and begin again. He makes us each a cup of
coffee, mine in my favorite heart shaped mug. He uses the fancy, flavored
creamer. He knows exactly how I take my coffee on mornings like this. After so
many years of mornings like this, he knows too many things. His kindness breaks
my heart.
He sits
across from me and mutes CNN. He begins to gently pour his words on me like round fat warm summer rain, each
drop pregnant with the possibility of growth. I know he is praying that something
he says will land on fertile ground. Grow something stronger and more
resilient.
He says,
“This is what it feels like to live an ordinary life.”
He says,
“This is what it feels like to sleep in the dip in the mattress, worn soft in
the middle after years of dreaming, belly to back.”
He says,
“This is the way people drink their coffee.”
He says,
“This is the way people grow old.”
I can
barely hear him over the din of sounds inside my noisy head. This is the way
mania affects me. It makes me feel like my head is bursting at the seams,
cracking open like a cicada shell. Like a cicada who has slept for seventeen
years and whose wings are finally free to rip open the dark. When I am like
this, I want to start fires. I want to plant roses at midnight. I want to
gamble away our savings. I want to wager on horses and new dresses. Impulsivity
nips at my heels.
He says,
“Take your pills, Honey, and try to remember what it feels like to sleep
through the night.
He says,
“Be still and this will pass.”
“I don’t
know if I want it to pass this time.” I say quietly. It has been long enough
since my last manic episode that I have almost forgotten the unspeakable pain
and shame that follows. Almost forgotten, but not completely. I know with
certainty that I have said these words before. Still, he listens patiently,
nodding to indicate he is taking it all in. I know he
will never understand just how dark the darkness can be, or the way it feels
taking the first few steps into mania. It feels almost euphoric. Euphoric,
until the madness sets in.
Sunrise,
sunset. Sunrise, sunset. We go around like this for a few days, then I relent
and call my psychiatrist. I pretend that I am angry, but really, I am so very
relieved. My doctor is responsive. He listens to the calm way I say, “I’m not
feeling well.” He listens but he also watches my knee shake, watches my hands
flutter across my lap like little birds. He decides it is time to update my
medication cocktail. Add a new mood stabilizer. We choose together, the one
with the least possible side effects. I am ready. I crave sleep like a lost
lover.
After so
many years of doing this, I know that calm will find me. I understand that I
will sleep and wake to a different view of the world. I understand that I have
an illness and need medication. Still, there is a very fundamental part of me
that harbors the shame of hurting the people that love me most. I am devastated
at the idea that I have sent my husband off to work with the image of me - hair
wild, eyes wilder, drinking coffee, glued to the worst news of the day. How do
I reconcile my desire to be well with my willingness to slip back into the old
patterns? Shame can be as bitter as any pill prescribed to heal. Shame, and the
ugly things we tell ourselves to feed that shame. I will
have to remember to talk with my therapist about this. I will have to write
down what I am feeling and thinking today, so that when the memory of this
fades, my treatment can still be effective. I have begun to keep notes for her,
so that I can tell her each important event, before the medicine sooths the
hurts and I forget again, about the cicada and the coffee and the roses.
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