When I was 20 years old, I had a tumultuous relationship with my father that was only becoming more tenuous as I approached adulthood. At one point, I had all my amalgam fillings taken out of my mouth and then spent a weekend at an intensive Tony Robbins retreat. Some combination of what was happening in my brain and in my life at the time triggered a chain of events that led me to be spend the better part of two decades on lithium.
I was in college, studying in New York City when I started exhibiting abnormal behaviors. Looking back, it was a pretty classic manic episode. I was acting very out of character, and my actions soon devolved into a full blown psychotic manic episode.
But any kind of symptoms you experience now, very quickly today, you’ll find there’s a prescription for that, or a label. Someone will quickly tell you:
“Here’s what you have for the rest of your life. And here’s what you have to take.”
That’s what happened to me. At the age of 21, I ended up tied in a straight jacket in a padded room. All of the dreams that seemed achievable weeks before were suddenly outside my grasp.
But I wasn’t ready to roll over and play dead. 15 years later, I’m finally off my meds. But it was a long complicated process to get to where I am now.
At the beginning, I just didn’t sleep for a number of days. But then that turned into a few weeks.
I was feeling fantastic, but thoughts were going so quickly that I couldn’t keep up with them. I was definitely exhibiting reckless behavior. I was doing things like speeding, driving through red lights, and getting into my car and driving with rollerblades on.
I was becoming a danger to myself and others. The irony though, is that while this was happening to me, I had a tough time recognizing it.
My sister saw that there was something weird going on. We spoke on the phone and I kept telling her how I was helping everyone in New York. I had emptied my bank account and was just giving money to people on the street.
She quickly told me she needed my help too, and I was more than glad to fly to her house to give my assistance. But when I got there, she had organized my whole family, and they wanted me to check myself in to a hospital.
But because of the nature of how I was feeling, I was in this elated state of mind. I thought I was on a mission to fix the world’s problems.
My family was able to get me to admit myself, because I was convinced that I would go to the hospital and help whoever was in there. And once I was in there, I felt like thoughts were going through my head at 100 miles an hour.
My whole escape was that I wasn’t letting them put me on anything that would sedate me. I would go to see new patients and try to help them with their problem. I thought I was the welcoming committee, but I was also in there as a patient.
One night I went to see a new patient, and he frightened me. I thought this person was the devil. I said I needed to leave and was told I couldn’t. So I ran out of the hospital at zero degrees with nothing on my feet.
I started running through the snow. My only thought was that I needed to get to the airport and as far away from that person who scared me as possible. I ran against the highway, and found a house and started banging on the window. This lovely couple was having a nice candlelight dinner. They let me in so that I could call friends and see if they’d pick me up. They soon realized that I was all in hospital clothes and tried to grab me, but I ran away. I found a garbage bucket and thought I could wear it as a skirt. It didn’t fit, so I threw it away and couldn’t find my pants.
All I knew was that I didn’t want to be wearing hospital clothes, and I needed to get to the airport.
Nothing was logical. Without hospital clothes I thought I could somehow get to an airplane. South America was my destination.
But in reality, I was naked walking down the highway. That’s what I looked like when the police pulled me over. I knew something was not quite right. They had the whole perimeter surrounded.
I was considered violent and unpredictable. Someone wrestled me to the ground on the highway, and I was brought back to the hospital. This time I was in a straight jacket in that padded cell. They put me on Heldol, the most powerful antipsychotic around, for four days. It brings you to a complete stop.
I was crawling on the floor and drooling for four days.
Post from: BlissTree
The Lithium Chronicles: I Am Bipolar. Not Disabled.
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