Читать книгу Madness: A Bipolar Life - Marya Hornbacher - Страница 23

July 1997, Nine A.M.

One hot, sunny morning, three months after I first hear bipolar disorder from Dr. Beedle, I am suddenly, floridly mad. Just like that. Mad. I am going along, minding my own business, when I find that I have gone completely over the edge. Why today? Who cares? I am not thinking a bit about that, because, as I said, I’ve gone insane and couldn’t possibly care less why. You don’t wonder, when you’ve completely lost it, how. You were going about your morning, and now you are mad, and you can’t remember what it was like before. You will never really remember. Your life breaks in half, right there. Sure, I’ve been crazy before. I’ve been crazy all along. But this is different. This is fucking nuts.

Because I haven’t told Lentz about the suicide attempt in 1994, he’s diagnosed me with bipolar II. Bipolar II is a little milder than bipolar I (though it’s still hellish); bipolar II has more depressive episodes than manic ones, and when the manic episodes occur, they’re not as severe. I don’t know it yet but I’ll soon find out: what separates bipolar II from bipolar I is a manic break. Bipolar I is harder to manage, harder to treat, and often, because of the extremity of the disasters caused by full-blown mania, more likely to mess up the patient’s life. On this summer morning, I experience that defining break. I go from bipolar II to bipolar I just like that. A doctor might put it this way: I go from sick to really, really sick. For the average Joe, I go from having an illness “just like diabetes!” to being flat-out crazy.

But I, cheerfully mad as a hatter, am entirely unaware that something has snapped and will never be put back together. Here we are: it’s Tuesday, and now we are quite mad. Not mad as in moody. Mad as in under the impression that I am God.

I am driving through the city. I am speeding. It seems that I have had a good deal to drink, to calm my nerves, for I am just a touch nervous. I woke up this morning and things were a little off. I went to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and stopped in the doorway. Glass covered every surface. I vaguely remembered throwing the coffeepot at my husband’s head. Hell. No coffee. There was blood on the floor; I checked my feet, which were covered with shallow cuts that were more or less painless. I wondered absently if they really were painless, or if I was numb.

It occurred to me that I had to leave immediately, and I went upstairs to collect my purse and shoes. I made it as far as the car when I noticed that I wasn’t wearing any clothes. Oh, for goodness’ sake, I thought to myself, and went back into the house shaking my head. I put on my blue-flowered sundress, and then realized I ought to shower, so I took a shower, and stepped out soaking wet, my dress clinging to me, and then there was a fold in time and now I am driving, very fast. I am downtown. I am speeding through a parking lot, honking at nothing. I run inside a building and find I am at my husband’s place of work. I kiss everyone hello, despite their surprise (perhaps they are surprised because I am all wet?), and I babble excitedly and my husband calls Dr. Lentz and kindly escorts me back to my car and sends me on my way, and it is very important that I put on lots of lipstick, it’s always good to look nice for an appointment with a shrink, it makes one look much more sane, and I am pacing in his office, Please sit down, Marya, really, would you sit down? Have you taken your meds? Are you suicidal? Have you been drinking? Does your husband know where you are? Did you drive here? No, you certainly cannot leave—

Inexplicably, I am in the car again. From out of nowhere, Julian is here and is driving and I am bouncing up and down in my seat, we are going on an adventure! We’re going to California! I want to move to California! Or New York, let’s move to New York! I find a bottle of vodka under the seat and drink most of it because I am clearly a little agitated and shouldn’t be seen like this, it’s embarrassing. And now we are at a hospital. Why are we at the hospital? My husband looks worried. I am sitting on a gurney and they are taking my blood, which apparently I don’t care for because I bat them away and shriek that they are invading my privacy and this is still America and they can’t just do whatever they want. Then, for no reason I can see, I am being wheeled along a corridor. I say I can walk perfectly well and hop up and wheel the chair myself, though the person in the blue pajamas declines to get in; and they unlock a large door and we are in a safe place and they take my shoes.

I sit here in the hospital room painted the shade of pink that is supposed to make people calm. I examine, enchanted, my feet in their blue hospital footies, while someone speaks in soft tones to me and says I am psychotic, but it’s going to be all right. I put on my hat, unperturbed, and ask for some crayons.