Category: Bipolar Disease

What Do You Get When You Cross A Desert Box Turtle and Jack Russell Terrier?

~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 1 Comment

I’m afraid that my spouse will leave me one day.

Not because of anything I did or said, but rather, because of the things I didn’t do.

My bipolar disorder is treated by amphetamines.  And when they begin weaken I find myself incredibly tired; painfully tired.  This fatigue is called the cliff.

My spouse has the energy of a Jack Russell Terrier and wants to play and play and play.  Problem is, I’m sullen, I’m racing on amphetamines, I crash at turn three.  And he keeps up the frenetic pace: movies, plays, parties, happy hours, garden walks.

Like now.  I’m so tired I could cry, but he’s invited me out for a movie.

How often can I say “no thanks, I’m so tired,” before he finds another Jack Russell to play fetch?

It’s not that I don’t want to see a movie or play, attend a dinner party or picnic at Ravinia, stroll through the Botanic Gardens or Morton Arboretum, I simply don’t have the energy.

I’ve tried to fake it, fallen asleep during concerts and movies; so fatigued that I don’t even stand up at intermission; mind-numbing sleepiness causing me to forget names of close friends or our destination.

How many respectful declines will he hear from me before he invites a surrogate, my body-double, my understudy, my replacement?

 

Oomphlessness

~ Harlan Didrickson

It’s odd, this.

All my life I carried some kind of drive, as though the first-baseman-mitt-sized hands of a dad pushes a shy son to join the group; nudging, like the dog’s wet muzzle flips your hand like a pancake in order to be petted; knocked, like the brass-ring a toothless lion holds loosely between jaws, and which falls against a brass plate sounding more like the dinner bell than the formal announcement of a visitor.

This propulsion, like a jet plane, carried me to soaring heights where earth stretched like a night watchman and people, critical to life, shrunk so small so quickly that they hardly mattered.  Wouldn’t you think things of such importance could be seen from above?  Monuments can be seen; impact can be seen; destruction can be seen.  But people or their self-designations like importance or starvation or anger or bigotry or religion or anything, anything they’ve said or thought or threatened you can’t see.  You can see evidence, like ugly scars; at night lights dot the darkness like worn drapery holding back dawn, but some areas appear engulfed in flames, such a wide swath of light that I’d heard it told that the moon, once proud of its subtlety, is thinking of moving on, to Mars or Neptune maybe, a planet looking to adopt a real satellite, not some space junk.

The experts (who, self-admittedly, know very little about mood disorders, and even less about proper treatments) have identified this lack of oomph as a signature symptom of depression.  Ironically, the less oomph the more depressed.

Perhaps people have created a number of different systems all designed to manage oomph.  Clocks are oomph speedometers; birthday’s are oomph reminders; corner offices are oomph autobahn; retirement accounts are oomph cruise control.

Without oomph it would appear that I have no where to go and no reason to go there.  When you live with a mental illness you’re still in the same pool with everyone else.  It’s just that you’re knee-deep at the shallow end while everyone else with oomph keeps swimming back and forth and back and forth and will eventually join you here at the shallow end.  As they pass one or two might’ve noticed your inertia and may ask why you weren’t swimming, do you know how to swim, are you afraid to swim?

Oh no, I reply, I am oomphless; my brain doesn’t produce oomph; but in a world that places a high value on one’s degree of oomph, I think it’s better that I look like I have oomph because everyone that has it, is absolutely convinced that everyone has it, and those that aren’t using theirs are. . .

Are not oomphless.

Personal Assistant Career Application: Word Problems

~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 1 Comment

So you’ve always wanted to be a personal assistant to the wealthy, the famous, the powerful!  Oh, the perks you tell yourself; the glamour; the benefits; the cocktail conversations!

To be a successful personal assistant you’ve got to produce, produce, produce anything asked of you, since you are an extension of them (but one they keep hidden like a blemish or disfigurement – which you’ll quickly discover).

But here’s an excerpt from a “PA Application” specifically asking how you would handle odd situations in order to avoid adding further stress to your boss’s life.  A PA is, after all, the gasket between their boss’s expectations and the reality which most of us endure.

In this section you will be presented with a series of actual situations which faced top-level Personal Assistants.  Please select TWO and in a brief essay,
describe how you would handle the situation.  Your answers will help us assess your creativity, dedication to service, and results orientation.  When you are finished, put down your pencil, remind yourself that every working day as a PA will resemble this test, oh, and you’re top salary will be $10/hour.

1.  Your charge, an adept 14-year old boy has recently been expunged from AOL and his mother (your boss) insists that the charge did nothing wrong, and insists that his privileges be reinstated immediately (including a formal letter of apology and one-month free service).  When you discuss the situation with the charge he insists he did nothing wrong.  You contact AOL as the family representative and discover 2 issues: A) The charge was kicked-off because he was downloading reels of porn videos; B) Only the Mrs. could reinstate the account (given it was her account).

2.  Your boss owns 3 dogs, all of which move to Fisher’s Island for the winter via the family jet (as was explained to you during your interview).

Dog 1:    Silky Terrier (size: Toy: 7″ tall x 9″ long (excluding tongue), 5 pounds),
and is a constant traveling companion via a shoulder-bag carry-on.


Dog 2 & Dog 3:     Bullmastiff (size: Gargantuan: 27″ tall, 135 pounds),
guards country property in neighboring state; aloof; maintain a distance.

You are summoned into your boss’s office and told that the next weekend is when the “pets” should travel to Fisher Island.  Wonderful, you’re thinking, strolling across the tarmac, the toy terrier in a Louis Vuitton doggie bag, and the 2 Mastiff’s flanking you on both sides.  You climb the small stairs into the Bombardier Global Express and make yourself comfortable while attended to by handsome staff.  “The Gary hanger?” you ask.


“Gary?  Oh no. . .impossible; we’re taking that to Valencia for the Ryder’s Cup. . .”  Well, you think, should I ask about the Citation or the Astra (normally on a 24-hour hold for Nanna); “Waukegan then, the Astra or. . .”  She stops you with a flip of the hand; “I thought you’d figure it out, but I guess I have to spell it out. . .O-H-A-R-E.”  “Commercial?” I gasp.  “American.  And the Mastiff’s are in the country so you’ll have to get them there, then drive them to the vet for papers or something. . . American has cargo limits of which I’m certain you’re apprised. . .”   Now what?

3.  As powerful as she is in corporate America, she’s able to master only one recipe: spaghetti.  And she uses only one brand and only one size of the very specific brand: Decca No. 12 (not No. 11 or No. 13).  She plans on making New Year’s Day dinner for 25 Fisher Island friends and expects Decca No. 12 to be amply stocked when she opens the pantry door.

It’s December 29 at 3:30 pm when you discover that no grocery store of any size or affiliation in the state of Florida carries Decca No. 12.  You call the family’s local grocer here who will immediately send a case to Fisher Island.  On December 31 at 1:30 pm Immelda calls from Fisher Island inquiring about the spaghetti; she assures you that it hasn’t arrived and the Mrs. will not want to start the New Year (furthermore, hasn’t ever started a New Year without Decca No. 12 since 1968) without the ingredient which assures culinary success!  What do you tell Immelda?  What do you do next?

Good luck and we’ll score your test and post the results!

What It’s Like

~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 2 Comments

 

Upon awakening I remember that today is just one more day in a long line of days and while I know there’s an end to the string I can’t yet see it.  Still under the weight of Clonazepam I haven’t heard Jenni bounding down the stairs ready for a romp.  This hour or two is what I call my lay-over: I’m between medications neither of which are therapeutic; both of which masquerade symptoms of my mental illness.  Heavy and lethargic I pause a moment bedside to take a 30 second assessment of mood, same as last time, whenever last time was.  My memory of yesterday is monochromatic: I’m aware that things happened, but their details blend into the blizzard; yesterday and yesterday’s yesterday and all their predecessors simply disappear during the night.  Even painful arguments, bad news, anger and disappointments flee and aren’t carried forward, but get stopped at the border; most get turned away; a handful are waved through, arbitrarily, and sit idly, stuck, their reason or purpose kept by officials at the border; memories without purpose are like pieces of truck tire littering the highway; of no use.

My medicine awaits: nine orange pills like little life preservers, taken at three different times throughout the day.  The Teva variety lift you quickly, like a propulsion ride at a theme park, but their half-life is only a few motivated, buoyant hours until the bridge disintegrates beneath your feet and down you go, debris tumbling to the bottom; the lethargy is impossible to escape, like a tar pit or a muddy slope, incapacitated you reach for your next dose.  My goal every day is simply to be productive and purposeful.  Incomprehensible on my own.  I hate the fact that my daily life couldn’t produce if not for these nine orange pills.  But without them depression causes my torso to ache, it demands darkness and silence, it prohibits hope, it sleeps.

As usual, at this hour I’m so tired I struggle to fix dinner, to talk to my partner; watching TV, if I wasn’t eating I’d be asleep.

This is what it’s like.  Probably a good thing I won’t remember this tomorrow.

Pages From The Past (Journal Entries, 2010)

~ Harlan Didrickson

The vestiges of my past hang at the back of my closet: Suits, shirts and ties organized by color and pattern; shoes and belts; whimsical cufflinks rest in velvet-covered nests in a wooden box; kaleidoscope silk kerchiefs lay folded in a drawer next to ironed linen hankies.  These things wait, set aside or put-away once the armistice had been agreed.  But these armaments which were once crucial to my survival now gather dust in a similar fashion to the life which wore them.   Like a warrior returning from a campaign, I now stand in unfamiliar territory: what once was my life is now my past.  I wish my reinvention were as simple as a down-sizing or relocation or economical result; but mine occurs as the result of a collapse of comprehensive proportion; I simply went mad.

My madness manifested itself in a broad incapacity to hold things together:  think Pandora’s box unhinged, and all of life’s graces emancipated from the mind which held them captive; a purging, or emptying of clutter; raging torrents of once-organized-now-disassembled debris of thoughts; memories like photographs tossed to the winds; a palette of emotion falling face down, once true colors now soiled creating strange and unpredictable influences; flair, forte, savvy and knack bundles ripped open, their dusts snaking across the ground or swirling in the air; fresh conversations gushing at first but slowing to the trickling of archaic chitchat; a tool shed of implements strewn across the prairie; and an inky sense of dispassion swabbed across its interior.

Blindness eventually annexed madness: an incapacity to witness authenticity:

June 26, 2010

 Yesterday turned into one of the worst days I have had in a very long time.  My niece is visiting us and I guess I was a little edgy about that: she’s a precious yet precocious girl; but having someone new in the house, especially one with such unbridalled passion for life is, well, overwhelming.  And the places that I normally go to enjoy quiet time, the lakefront for an early morning walk with Jenni, was filled FILLED with people in various colors of spandex and rubber all waiting for the start and/or finish of some race or another.  Therefore, the cadence of steps while walking a dog was intermittently interrupted by throngs of sweaty people moving in packs like gazelles down the savannah.  It just didn’t turn about the way I had expected, and change is incomprehensible.  My partner of 25 years is such an incredible sport through all this: so supportive and understanding.  And while I like the euphoria and focus the Adderall does provide, it also gives me a sense of urgency about things which I am am uncomfortable wth and unfamiliar.

By the time my group support meeting rolled about I was already feeling very irritiable, and had it not for my niece’s preference to remain sequestered in our Edgewater home as opposed to an adventure amidst world-class art and history museums, my other choices were a room full of depressed or manic middle-aged gay men (where are all the young and beautiful depressed or manic gay men I’ve often wondered) or the crippling jaws of a ravenous city whose downtown was infested by oblivious and awed visitors, unaware that the city is our home, not some ruin on the mediterranean; given those bleak options I may have opted to simply stay in the relative safety of my backyard and enjoy its serenity.  Perhaps there’s nothing I really want besides not having this mental illness, as it wreaked havoc on my yesterday.

The breakdown which occurred emptied out the contents of my mind; in the past two years I haven’t so much as been piecing them back together as much as letting old things back in if needed.  There are some memories best forgotten; there are some experiences best left in pieces; regrets seem to have their own distinct pile; I do feel somewhat hobbled together, as though the first me, the pre-breakdown me accumulated things like an attic; and for the most part many of these things, while important at the time, ceased in their importance, and therefore were forgotten.  There are piles and piles of those things; there are sharp pieces of glass and mirror strewn everywhere, memories of moments when my appearance seemed important: but more that anything, there is an emptiness I feel, as though I were walking about an outdoor market an smelling and squeezing and weighing items which might make their way into my mind: the harbor this morning; Jenni in a puddle; Nick’s smile after his first mouthful of a warm dinner on a cold night; winning at cards; I want to learn to be okay with less.  Less is lighter and mobile.

June 28, 2010

The Adderall seems to make me very anxious and quick to draw conclusions.  I find myself to have a very short fuse.  Without the Adderall I felt that the world was moving slowly. That my mind wasn’t filled with this scratching sound, as though the inside of my skull was being scratched by long fingernails; or white noise which fills my head with noise.  I find I am soothed when I am surrounded by quiet and calm; I find that when I ride my bicycle I am surrounded by quiet and calm and the errant tinkle of a passer-bys bell.  I haven’t felt euphoric since the first dose of Adderall a week ago.  What I do feel is a need to move.  To be doing something.

I’ve been waking earlier than normal these past recent weeks.  Because of that I have been taking Jenni out for her walk.  When I was struggling with my sleep meds for the past year, Nick has been kind enough to get dressed, even in the harshest of conditions, and take Jenni for a walk.  She doesn’t seem to mind the weather, though.  There were days upon days when I literally couldn’t pull myself out of bed in the morning.  And on quite a few of them I’d find myself sleeping past the time Nick would leave for work.  It was all a very difficult time, and not one in which one learns very much; I was dealing with all the symptoms of mania or depression that I never really spent much time on me, or what I would do.  One of my biggest losses is my lack of desire.  There’s nothing propelling me towards anything.  It’s not that I feel adrift.  It’s that I don’t really feel anything.

In these past two years I have surrounded myself with an environment in which I feel safe.  It is quiet when I need it to be quiet; there are guests when I know there should be guests; I can nap when I feel tired (which is still daily); it’s as though I’ve created this little world in which I live.  And I’m very comfortable here.  It’s when I venture outside of the environment that I feel most terrified; crowds; noise; hostility; aggression; these are the things which unnerve me.

The coffee is set to brew at 6:00 a.m.  We’ll load into the car after that and go to the lakefront for a walk.  I hope that this too doesn’t become common place.  I just wish I knew what was normal from what has been reengineered.  I yearn for the mental march of my first fifty years; these past two year of reconstruction have been uncomfortable and confronting.  Much like, I assume, the construction of an adolescent.  Except that society accepts the adolescent, where society shuns us.

 July 7, 2010

The anniversary of my breakdown was met with a variety of emotions: On Sunday, 4 July my partner and I were on a bike ride from Winnetka to the Botanic Gardens.  It was a warm and muggy morning and we had already logged a 1.5 hour walk with Jenni earlier that morning.  But there were a number of bicyclists already on the narrow trail and often they would pass us at a high rate of speed or say “on your left” to alert us that they were passing.  All these things seems normal enough, but for me they were very stressful.  Eventually I couldn’t even achieve the Botanic Gardens and had to stop by a lake and under some crab apple trees for a rest.  More than physically tired, I was emotionally tired and felt myself on the verge of tears.  I was deeply saddened by the reflection of my former self, my post two-year self and his physical and mental strength to ride a bike in a crowd, and this present timid, cautious, and moody bicyclist rattled by the velocity by which he was being passed.  After some time had passed Nick graciously offered to ride back alone to the car and return, but I idiotically and stolidly mounted my bicycle for the return trip to Winnetka.  Once back on the trail, again we were passed by menacing and reckless cyclists which aggravated my sense of diminished capacity, and which catapulted to the present my mentally weakened state.  This sadness disintegrated into an overflowing of tears and weeping which sidelined our forward progress towards Winnetka.

July 10, 2010

It feels as though I’m sinking into a lower depression.  The days seems harder to muddle through, and without the Adderall, I’m afraid I wouldn’t be of much use.  Nick being on vacation is making me a little nervous as I know that he likes to be busy, and frankly, though I provide a lot of the housework around here, I’m afraid that he’s going to want to do more than I’m used to doing.  So I will try to keep up.

The crying spells from last weekend alarmed both Marge and I and it’s something I should start to talk to Corey about.  Perhaps we should start experimenting with anti-depressants again.  I’m not too concerned that they will trigger mania; mania would be a relief from this constant, senseless existence.