Blurry Coma Memory

We are nearing the end of March, and it is almost exactly 4 years since I last attempted to kill myself. It seems like an eternity ago, but that is far from accurate. I still to this day have no recollection of the entire day leading up to my hospitalization, my actual attempt, and much of what happens after my coma. It used to be that every night as I lie in bed trying to fall asleep I would rack my brain in search of any memory or even a glimpse of what I may have done, or been thinking that day, but nothing ever has come to me. I can now see things as a very vague and old revisited dream based solely on what I have been told and from the few memories I do have of when I came to after my coma.

As I look around the room I cannot recognize a single thing or a single person. I can feel myself frantically blinking trying to clear my blurry vision but nothing seems to help. I feel as if the weight of a thousand elephants is pressing on my chest. The heaviness in my lungs is almost unbearable. My chest burns to the point that I want to flail around and scream at the top of my lungs in pain as if I were burning in flames from the inside out. But when I think of moving nothing happens. “Move your right hand. Move your right hand. FUCK!!!! MOVE YOUR RIGHT HAND!!!” But nothing happens. I am so extremely parched that there are no words to describe what I would do for a sip of water right now. My mouth feels as if each surface was a piece of sandpaper. As I try to close my mouth to swallow in an effort to reduce my aching thirst I feel that my mouth will not close, my tongue is pressed down, and as I attempt to swallow I can feel myself gagging. I think to myself “Wow I am really fucking thirsty if it is to the point that it makes me gag.” But as I try to maneuver my tongue to push out this thing I feel in my mouth, again there is the sensation of gagging. “Ok, seriously what the fuck is going on here!” “I can’t see, I can’t move… What about talking, can I talk?” My attempt at talking was quite pathetic. Every time I would see something around me move, I would give everything I had in making an effort to say “Hey.” But I would not hear anything. “Ok, I know what this is, I know what is going on, it’s one of those totally fucked up dreams where you are paralyzed and can’t move. I hate these dreams. But why does my chest hurt so badly?” Instead some lady with nasty ass bangs and stringy hair came over to me and was I swear about ½ and inch from my face. This was nice it was the first person I was able to see or even was able to realize that it was a person. I later overheard someone say something about pneumonia. “Oh, that’s it. I must have really bad pneumonia that is probably why my chest is hurting, and I am guessing I am in a hospital, that is probably why I do not recognize a single thing.” So I try to swallow again and immediately have the sense of gagging. But this time to my surprise, my arm moves. It moves toward my face and then to my mouth and attempt to pull on whatever is consistently making me gag when I swallow.  I did not even get to touch whatever it was in my mouth before there were a swarm of people on me holding me down and in slow motion I see this needle with a full shot of some sort of fluid go straight down toward my right collarbone. Then this tingly float-y feeling and it was lights out for me. 

Bipolar Time Warp

Rip Van Winkle theory

It has been 7 years since I was first diagnosed with bipolar. But only 2 years since I underwent 9 ECT treatments. I have never felt as balanced as I do now, in my entire life. “Thank gawd for electricity.” But since I’ve come back to reality, I have noticed something. I seem to be about 6 to 7 years behind where I am supposed to be in more than one aspect of life. I have mostly noticed with the company I keep, or don’t keep would be more accurate. I seem to be lacking in the area of close girlfriends. Mine all left at the first sign of trouble with this bipolar thing. Same goes with the guys… I had a serious boyfriend before and during this bipolar thing began, and he left too, about 5 years ago. And I just don’t have much of anything in common with most people my age anymore. Everyone my age seems so grown up, and I’m so… well… not. 

Needless to say, all things happen for a reason. Now I have a wonderful boyfriend. He just happens to be about 6 years younger than me. As are all the people I tend to surround myself with at school. School, another thing most people at my age have finished and started careers. But I have a bit of time to make up.

Well a few weeks ago I was at the psychiatrist for my 3 month appointment. This is a drastic change from when I had to go two to three times a week. My last appointment was an awesomely uneventful appointment. There was nothing to report, and no meds to change. Now my appointments go more along the lines of a casual conversation you have when you ask “so, what’s new with you?” Rather than discussing my most recent manic episode, new side effects, or my long list of bipolar signs and symptoms.

While talking we got onto subject of me playing catch up in life, and having younger boyfriend who’s age coincides with the same amount of time I was so ill. I told him I had noticed this with many of the people in my life now… He said he calls that his Rip Van Winkle theory. I thought how brilliant, absolutely brilliant. That perfectly explains this. So, for those of you not so familiar with the story here is a very general summary.

The story of Rip Van Winkle takes place during the years before and after the American Revolutionary War. Rip, was a colonial British-American villager. He was a regular guy who enjoyed solitary activities in the wilderness. He had this tendency to avoid all professional labor, despite his wife’s constant nagging. Because of this his home and farm were pretty much falling apart.

So Rip went and tried to escape his wife's nagging, by heading up the mountain with his dog, Wolf. Then there was this other guy calling Rip’s name… This guy was carrying a keg up the mountain, and needed Rip's help. So, the two of them hike up the mountain to where there is a group guys. Somehow these guys know Rip’s name too. Rip drinks some of the guys’ liquor and falls asleep. 

When he wakes up his dog is gone, his beard is long, and his gun is rusty. Rip goes back down the mountain to the village and notices that he doesn’t recognize anyone. He finds out that his wife died, along with most everyone else. Rip doesn’t know that the American Revolution has taken place and that George Washington is in charge of things now. And now there is this other guy being called Rip Van Winkle who actually is his son, but all grown up.

As it turns out the guys up on the mountain were the ghosts of Henry Hudson’s crew. So Rip had been “asleep” and away from the village for like 20 years. So basically, Rip picks things up in life right where he left off about 20 years ago. 

Another Manic Night: 2005

All is quiet in the house, just as it should be; everyone is asleep, except me, like usual. I’m going on five days now, or is it six? If it’s three something in the morning do you count it as the next day or do you still count it as the night of the previous day when you are trying to keep count.

I am so incredibly exhausted.

Every muscle in my body is tense. I swear not a single muscle has had a single moment of relaxation in over a week. My eyes are bulging out of their sockets. They have been open as wide as possible for as long as I can remember, just as if someone has been holding them open all this time. When I try to close them all I see are strange flashes of light in neon colors. The flashes are so distorted that I try to make out what they are but can’t because it is too painful to look at the random images I see with my eyes shut, the contrast of black and neon makes the flashes so incredibly bright. This is ridiculous, its hurts to keep my eyes shut.

My stomach is burning. Much like the feeling you get in your throat from the carbonation when you drink a soda entirely too fast, only multiplied by like a zillion. When I sit in an attempt to relax, if I can even sit in one place for any amount of time, my legs are running a race against each other it seems. Both feet arched with the balls of my feet pressed firmly on the ground. Bouncing both of my legs faster and faster, as the left one is bouncing trying to bounce faster than the right, then the right leg trying to go faster than the left, imagine the calories I must be burning.

There is this disturbing feeling of guilt for hating everyone that is so peacefully asleep as they should be. I know I have done nothing wrong, but it sure feels as if I had.  For some reason the quiet hours of the night that slowly turn into morning, they are the loneliest and hardest to make it through, especially when I’m alone.  As I see the sun coming through the window my eyes begin to hurt, and I begin to cry, another sleepless night has passed making it six, when will this end?

That was a journal entry of mine from March 5, 2005. It was between hospital visits, and I had come down from NC to stay with my parents in FL until I could get well enough to go back up to my life in NC again. If I remember correctly this stretch of sleepless nights was not the longest I had been awake due to mania. I think the longest may have been nine or ten days. After a certain point it's impossible to keep the days apart.

I still worry that nights like that will return. Especially now with the schedule I am keeping because of nursing school. It's a constant source of stress for me. Everyone struggles with a sleepless night here and there, but when you have bipolar a sleepless night can trigger a cascade of symptoms that will make even the most balanced person become unstable again. 

And my asking, when will this end... well that's the thing about the stretches of manic sleepless nights, they always come to an end, a crashing end. Cycles are simply the nature of manic depression. I used to try and make it seem like things weren't so bad when I was on a manic stretch by joking with my parents and saying, what goes up must come down.  

Excuse My Mania

BEFORE DAWN

It’s dark out still

But for me it’s the birth of a newday

Between the highs…

Between the lows…

I will try to fall somewhere between the lines

On a good day my goal is met,

Between the lines I fall.

On a bad day I fall from the highs;

Just as quickly as the flicking of a switch.

To whom this may concern:

Please excuse Jessica from class today, for she is swinging from the highs and lows as if they were trees, and if you catch her in between, please tell her how things have been.

In high school if I was absent from a class it was necessary to have a note signed by a parent stating why you were absent. Usually, my parents were unaware of the fact that I had even missed class, so it was actually me writing the readmits. Whether I had crashed due to exhaustion from not sleeping the previous 3 nights, or if I was manic-ly moving at the speed of light through my hectic high school schedule, the writing of readmits was a regular weekly event. Not aware of the underlying reason for my truancy at that time this habit continued into college and was so cyclic that it could easily be predicted. If only life were as simple as having my mother write a readmit for the day to excuse my mania.