My Habeas Corpus

Once I was released from the hospital - and back into my parents' care - my mom and I went and stayed in a guest house/mother-in-law suite on a church friend's property. The house had light pastel colors and a very peaceful feel. It was clean, it was a little comforting. It was good to not be back in my parents' house yet. My mom and I stayed their maybe 3 nights. The second day a friend came over. Becca was in massage therapy school. She brought her table and gave me a full body massage. Something about the act and experience was so healing. I think it helped that I knew her. I think she was praying for me and maybe sharing kind words. I felt strengthened. The first night there, I had gone to sleep craving the nothingness of sleep, still so antagonistic towards the thought, concept and act of existence. When I woke up though, I felt refreshed. I decided I wanted to live. Hell, I even wrote a poem about it. Maybe it was the medication stabilizing me finally. Maybe it was...

After the attempt there was the mandatory 72 hour watch of being on lockdown in the hospital. It's good I was there. I still wanted to die. I found a drawstring on my basketball shorts. I was in the shower area. I tried to form a noose type thing. That rope was so weak and there was nothing to jump off of and really it was too much effort to try and figure out how to end things, how to escape the pain of the reality I abhorred. So I went back to napping. A conversation with my psychologist who had been meeting with me at the time actually helped wake me up. He actually came to the hospital and visited - he's the only doc to ever do that. It said a lot. He asked how I was doing. I made small talk. I made jokes. I was always trying to see the funny part of life, find the joy, laugh at the bad...there was so much bad. And he stopped me. He stared me dead in the face and asked why I was laughing. I said because I said something funny. He told me none of it was funny. I had just tr...

Do you remember how I said that this all began with a day I was supposed to be lifeguard at the pool? This was after the sweeping the floor day, which ignited the whole series of events. On D-day, which I suppose means diagnosis day, I had such an ironic job of being there to save other people's lives. And yet I was losing mine that day. But that was 15 years ago. Today at work I was writing about summer camps, about safety rules, about lifeguard stations and keeping the pool area safe from hazards. It's so bizarre how far I fell, how far I've come, how unusually life unfolds. It's been a good day. Outside of work I've been involved in the business of life guarding a friend - helping her manage the things that could cause her to drown. Sometimes this fills me with a sense of peace and security to know I have a cushion of years between me and some of the darkest memories. But other times I'm just dazed. I have to fight back that fear of if and when it all mi...

They told me what happened while I was asleep. My youngest brother came in and found me. He tried to wake me up. I wouldn't wake up. He knew something was wrong. They called 911. This time an ambulance was warranted. This time I did need to go to the hospital. They gave me charcoal. I think that means I must've thrown the medication up, but I didn't remember that. When I came to I was intubated. I was in a hospital bed with my parents and my sister staring at me. My sister was so terrified. She was so sad. I remember her face, her eyes so vividly. It's strange to look back and consider where my mind's eye was. I didn't really see my parents. I saw my sister. I saw how much she loved me. I think she told me never to do that again. I still felt so empty inside, and like I'd tried to escape life but I was still so trapped by it. I went back to sleep. They took the intubation tube out. I remember using the restroom and noticing my shit was black. Guess that wa...

The first time I was prescribed xanax, the medication hit me hard. It was like things went a bit slow motion but I was still awake. I think it was supposed to be a low dose. I went to my friend's mom's house to meet her for tea. At that time my mom set up various plans for me. I believe it was during that tea that I showed that friend an emancipation document I wrote stating that I did not want to be in any kind of custody under my parents. It was kinda my own little bill of rights and throwing off of the family shackles I felt. If memory serves. I know when I showed Carolyn that document she told me it was a "very serious document". That's all I remember her saying. Nothing about looking into the situation of investigating what was going on with my parents. Carolyn served us tea on some very nice china in a sitting area where she had new couches. The medicine was effecting my movement. I was lifting the glass and spilled some. I couldn't control my arm. Carol...

Google that term. You will read about how anti psychotic meds can cause jerky movements. Now a doctor never shared that term with me. But I found it one of these times I was trying to make sense of everything. I don't know if that's what happened, but I do know I had a side effect of uncontrollable leg shaking. It may have looked minor, but my knee would jerk/vibrate/ making jittery reactions whenever I was just sitting. It was terrifying. My physical body was not in control. This was new. This was in fall of 2004. Between the months of June and maybe August, I'd try to go back to college, given up headed home, tried meds on meds, my mom tried to baker act me, I talked my way out of it - because I was literally beyond stressed about living in an abusive home and no one would help - and I was sent back home, my mom enrolled me in community college, meds made me drooly, zombie like, unable to concentrate. Would I ever be able to sit in church again? Would I ever be able to ...

I've shared some very crucial parts of how my story began. I've shown those deep moments of anger, vulnerability, loss. And much of this in the name of defense - to once and for all defend my sanity. But I think, as I turn these pieces over in the cool light of morning, that I can't tell the whole picture reveals some strangeness, some caverns of instability that I may have become to intimate with. I guess what I am saying now is I see how these moments - taken merely on their own - show me how deeply lost I was back then. And how even now I feel a see saw of good and bad times that can make sometimes for a rocky day to day - and that is all the while with all my experience white knuckling this current experience to maintain stability. I won't say I'm bipolar. That is a defeatist term to me, when speaking of myself. That is a confinement just as the hospital is a confining space. I will say. There are times when the lense of bipolar can be a helpful tool. The world...