RealMental

So apparently having Dr. Phil barge into your hospitalization is a bad idea.

Having Dr. Phil anywhere in the world where women can hear him? Bad idea. Put him somewhere distant and cavernous.

Having him personally up in your grill? Even worse.

Having him discuss your case with the media? What the fuck is that? HIPPA, dude!

The good news is that I have my new new official theme song. “Because I’m Awesome” by The Dollyrots. That’s my new motherfucking theme song: You’re stronger, faster and can spell. Yes, thanks, but I would use a serial comma after that penultimate item. And that sentence isn’t parallel. But whatever. It’s rock.

Anyhow, I especially like the little bratty spoken part at the end, which sounds exactly like me when I’m unmedicated. And hey guess what? Not medicated. And guess what? Not enjoying this. I called the doctor and discovered–here’s more good news–that I had an appointment today. I thought it was last week and I missed it. Then I realized that I had no fucking idea what day it was today.

I seriously had the following exchange at the office:

OTHER GUY: Hey, were you here on Friday?

ME: I have no idea.

The weekend was like trying to stand up in a squall, topped off by the unexpected arrival of a totally random four-year-old who came over and stayed for six hours on Saturday. He was with his dad, who was doing some work for my neighbor, next door. And I guess he needed some kind of supervision and it takes a village and all that, but sometimes the kids in the village need to stay out of the hut of the Crazy Lady until she gets her Depakote.

Incredibly, I found in the doctor’s waiting room a woman who was more fucked up than I was. She was having some difficulty affording her mental health care, and it was a really bad scene. The receptionist had her on the phone with some kind of agency. The doctor wanted her to come back in three weeks (anything above monthly is a big deal in our practice), but she couldn’t afford to. That’s how people slip through and get lost.

I stopped her as she was leaving. I told her I didn’t want to get up in her business, but I gave her a $20 because that’s what I had. Use it for whatever. She took it and looked at it like she was going to have to figure out what it was. Then she gave it back.

I go back in two weeks.

Originally published at Baldo.

Raise your hand if you’re struggling to function right now.

Well, so far I have. Thirteen days.

It’s been difficult because cigarettes and crazy people are made for each other. Smoking feels good when you’re manic because it’s calming. It feels good when you’re depressed because it’s stimulating.  It fills the reward centers of your brain with dopamine–something you don’t have a whole lot of if you’re crazy. You don’t need a prescription for cigarettes, even with the taxes they’re way cheaper than Ambien, and you get twenty little friends in a convenient flip-top box unless only the soft packs are left.

When I was inpatient I discovered that despite the variety in the ward–we were men and women, we were old and young, we were different races and religions, we had different conditions and symptoms–we all liked smoking. Several of us skipped “fresh-air break” because it’s not worth standing on a cement porch watching traffic for fifteen minutes if you don’t get to smoke. Instead we lined up at the nurses’ station for nicotine gum after our dinner trays.  My mom slipped me some extra on a visit, and I cultivated a distribution network.

Now gum is all I have. I chew it furiously at regular intervals. It makes me hyper and gives me gas, and even twelve days in I’m still coughing like a slot jockey at Binion’s Horseshoe. But chewing gum is actually a pleasant vehicle for drugs; it sure tastes better than Prozac.

I’m still about 17% iffy on the whole Bipolar II diagnosis, but I will say this: if I don’t take my L & L–lithium and Lexapro–I will put a cap in your ass.

I’ve never experienced the good side of mania, if there is one, which is arguable; I don’t become wonderfully productive, I don’t spend, I don’t feel superpowerful. I have agitation and rage. So life is pretty much about bouncing between depression on the one hand and agitation and rage on the other, and sometimes if you’re lucky you get them both together in a mixed state. When I’m depressed I hurt myself. When I’m manic I might give your ass a Boston Beatdown.

People don’t expect a Boston Beatdown from me, probably because I’m a suburban mom and kind of a little woman, but I can keep a smile wheat-pasted on my face while I assail your kneecaps with furious anger. I will hurl invective in the east Texan hyphenated-compound tradition: you shit-ass pig-fucking butt-sucker. I said something in a session yesterday that made my therapist laugh; you know how Dan Rather gets when he flips out? Well, it just made me angrier, such was my impotence, my insignificance, my inability to be menacing while boiling with rage inside.

Yesterday after kindergarten dropoff I went to a nearby coffee place to work, and I realized something: Adults in public are so noisy! A shit-ass pig-fucking butt-sucker two tables away was braying into his cell, wanting the number of that girl Melissa in Round Rock and then calling her to tell her about his upcoming bus trip in Central and South America and how he had to exchange a plane ticket for his brother. I was furious that I had come to a quiet place at last, had sat down, and had been assaulted by useless boring information broadcast by a shit-ass pig-fucking butt-sucker. I was ready to beat his ass down. And Melissa? Girlfriend, he didn’t ask you one question. No “How are you today, Melissa?” He’s a dick, possibly a narcissist. He wants to talk about himself while you go, “Wow, that sounds awesome.” I should have beat his ass down.

But I didn’t. Instead I came home and realized I’m several days behind in my L & L. I’m still acclimating to getting the household ready in the morning at 7:15. I’m distracted by profound struggles over going to school. The cat meows at me. I have fifteen things to do at once, and while none of them are individually insurmountable, their multitude edges me closer to a nervous breakdown. I deal with my child’s chronic health problem. I forget mine.

Watch out.

So I heard they took you in. Don’t worry. It happens.

Not trying to spread gossip, but in case Perez Hilton is right about why you’re there…well, that happens, too. Mental illness happens. And when it happens you work the program and get off suicide watch and get fresh-air break, and eventually you get your shoelaces back and can go home and start over, which is the closest thing this life offers to a miracle.

I can see you as the intense and possibly troubled middle brother. You’re the Dignan.

Plus side: Your family obviously loves you–I met your brothers doing press for The Wendell Baker Story–and I absolutely guarantee you that women find troubled geniuses fascinating, especially if they’re Scorpios with big noses and publicly-documented buttlicking fetishes. I’d hit that.

The drugs are initially constipating, but sometimes straining to excrete is better than wandering around in the wilderness like Margot Kidder. Also watch out for dry mouth. Get some flavored lube for the buttlicking stuff. I can’t lick a stamp anymore. My husband is sad, but at least I’m not a greasy stain under the Highway 183 flyover.

So there you have my advice to you, or to anyone else reading.

Kindergarten starts on Monday, so between now and then I am white-knuckling the days. I veer between “I’m not ready!” and “Fucking hell, can I get a village?” Sometimes I get schmoopy. Sometimes I get anguished. Sometimes I have the trots. Sometimes I think I’m going to run away to Montana and wait tables and have sex with cowboys. Sometimes I think it’s been about fifteen minutes since he was a baby. Sometimes it feels like he must be driving the car and shaving by now.

We got the official class letter from his teacher yesterday, and I couldn’t get through it without sniffling and plotzing.

“You cry so much,” my son said. “I’m going to help you.”

Of course my moods are not his responsibility, but under his own steam he came up with a plan: scaring me. I guess he reasoned that having the shit scared out of me will distract me from my tearful emotions. I have to say that he’s right–it does work, at least temporarily, when he jumps out from behind the door as I’m leaving the bathroom and yells, “ATTACK!” I forget all about our rite of passage and nearly soil myself instead. Babies are like cats with bells, but the five-year-old can be stealthy enough to give you a legitimate shock.

Helps with the hiccups, too.