Survivors, Thrivers, and In Your Face

Bipolar. It’s like a sparkler burning and exploding in an orgy of red light dancing to the laughs and shouts of all those around. The light slowly flickers out. Then, there is total darkness until the next one is lit. This back and forth continues until the last sparkler goes out. Suddenly one feels all alone even though the others are just up the path. Their voices start to trail off. The darkness is all consuming like a blanket wrapped way too tightly around you on a cold winter’s night. The tentacles of illness start to wrap their victim who starts to gasp for air. His hands are shaking, and a general sense of panic sets in. Memories flash before his eyes, but none of them seem to help him find the path. Those thoughts and memories are hopelessly out of order anyway. Somehow, the night has turned to pitch black, and I can’t find my way back to the path. If only I had brought his flashlight or my phone with him to help light the way. I go through the woods, scraping my legs occasionally on the thorn bushes below me. No one else would understand even if I tried to explain what is happening to me. I finally finds the country house, closes the screen door behind me, and collapses on his bed for another night of fitful sleep. This night is some months after the start of that terrible, exhilarating, unbelievable summer, but the story really begins in 1977 when the weirdest kid in town came into the world.
I was born a dreamer in small town North Carolina. I was the middle child of a doctor and school teacher, and everything seemed to be idyllic in our little world. I was absolutely carefree as a child, and I had an absolutely wild imagination. Often, I would turn down play dates, preferring to play by myself, and my mom didn’t think anything of it since I was thoroughly entertained. I would run and climb trees with the greatest of ease, but around company, I was painfully shy to the point of being almost mute. Even so, I ran with the neighbor kids just fine. Things started to change the summer before first grade. I needed glasses, and I was fitted with a huge brown pair that would prove the bane of my existence. First grade started at very small private school inauspiciously enough, but midway through the first semester, the teasing started in earnest. I made friends, and I even had a group with who I rode bikes to school. However, they couldn’t help but give me a hard time, and I was too sensitive to take it in jest.
Fast forward five years and I finally reinvent myself by getting contacts, but this small improvement doesn’t really change things. I am not excluded from things, but I feel lost in the crowd. I felt that I was invisible to girls, I struggled at sports, and my self-esteem suffered as a result. My parents did their best to help me, but I was just a melancholy little kid. To further set me apart, I had taken up acting lessons and had gotten a part in a local theater production. Acting was a great thrill for me, but it further isolated me from my peers, and it really brought out my eccentric side. Ultimately, all I really wanted was my parents’ affirmation, but their response was lukewarm at best. Fifth and sixth grade passed by, and I tumbled from the frying pan into the fire. My school only went up to the eighth grade, but the elite prep school across town was k-12. As she so often did, my mom made an executive decision with my future moved me to the new school so that I would have a sure place to continue through high school. For the first semester, I really withdrew into my shell, but I did play football, which helped me meet people. I hadn’t gotten any more athletic, but I liked being part of the team.
My new obsession was music. I started playing the guitar, and I soon found a few guys at school that played too. We got a garage band going. This project stretched from the height of the Guns and Roses era in into the grunge period with Nirvana and Pearl Jam, and we rocked out “My Michelle” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” for the whole neighborhood to hear. This was fun, but my real interest was music from the sixties from the Allman Brothers to Dylan to Cream and Hendrix. My mom had been in the peace movement in the late sixties, and I wanted to recreate that era in my mind in order to understand what she might have experienced. The problem with all this was that I didn’t really have much musical talent beyond basic chords progressions. Still, it was fun except for regular fist fights with our drummer who insisted on picking on me at every chance.
Things started to go south as I started to experiment with drinking and pot. At parties, I would numb myself, and it shielded me from the social interaction that I really needed. It was around that time that I started to discover the extent of my mother’s drinking problem, and in a cruel twist of fate, I dulled the pain of this family illness with more drinking and drugs. It was rather like pouring gasoline on the fire and then adding some firecrackers to the mix, but I didn’t care. My dad, meanwhile, was too busy delivering babies at all hours of the night to notice the dumpster fire that his home life had become. My sister in her senior year was as rebellious as ever, and shouting matches between her and my dad were the stull of legend around the block. These conflicts only fueled my resolve to do whatever I wanted under the radar, thus avoiding the fights and confrontations with my parents. Despite all this chaos, all three of us children got great grades, and that seemed to excuse everything.
College came sooner that I would have thought, and I continued my drunken, overachieving ways at a small liberal arts college in South Carolina. My social skills didn’t improve much, but I did make some good friends in my fraternity. I felt lost through four years including a stint studying abroad and backpacking through Europe. I really thought that my studies were my ticket to a great career and life. I was really driven by a genuine intellectual curiosity, but it was really fear of failure that drove me I pushed on through to graduate school with my diploma in hand but all sorts of personal issues unresolved. Something had to give, but I couldn’t see it at the time. Two years in it all hit the fan in slow motion.
I was a twenty-four year old graduate student just finishing up a year-long paid internship in Stockholm. The winter was rough on me, but generous quantities of vodka at parties help him endure. Much to my family’s surprise, I took up cross country skiing so that the grey winter didn’t overpower him. Still, I’m not much of an athlete, but I tried my best to keep up with the members of a university ski club with whom I enjoyed a weekly ski every Sunday. On one occasion, I even joins the group for an afternoon at the sauna. I reluctantly agrees to broiling in the sauna followed by a mad dash to immerse myself in the snow. Then we ran back to the sauna to warm up. That thrill was unmatched in his whole stay in that beautiful, frozen country. In the spring, my older sister, Helen, came to visit him, and she reported back home that I was back to his high school weight. I had struggled with my weight all through college. During graduate school, many of my nights spent studying invariably ended up at the Waffle House for a late-night “snack.” Everything seems to be going at warp speed for me, but I wasn’t complaining. At the last possible moment, I finished up and sent off my last internship log back to his school in the States and sets off to pack for his next big adventure before his return to the States.
Carl, my best friend in college, and I had been planning this train trip across Europe for three years now. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the whole map of Europe was open to exploring, and we wanted to take in as much of it as we could. I met Carl in Amsterdam, and we spent two days having a look around there, not forgetting to take the Heineken factory tour. On their first train journey, we set off at night towards Berlin. I wanted to take in the museums, but Carl naturally preferred the beer gardens. I won out, telling Carl that there would be plenty of time for beer gardens once they get to Munich. We both really enjoyed the Berlin Wall museum, which chronicled the many escape attempts East Berliners tried over the years to escape to West Berlin and freedom. After a fine three-day stint in Munich. Prague was the next destination on the trip. Prague is definitely my favorite place I’d seen so far. I loved the old town with its huge clock overlooking the square. He also marveled at its amazing bridges. On the tour of the castle and the surrounding area, we saw the odd little house where Kafka once lived. Carl, an English major in college, informed the crowd that this area was the setting for Kafka’s novel, The Castle.
The pace slowed some as they pull into Budapest and set off to enjoy the view from the old city, Buda, down to Pest where the magnificent white washed walls of the Parliament building could be seen across the Danube River. The remarkable thing about Budapest was that the local people pay no notice of them being “rude” Americans. The locals could have cared less, and it was frankly a relief after meeting more Americans than locals in the last cities they visited. We stayed almost a week, and Jim and Carl even took a side trip north to take in a local wine festival. The Europe trip concluded with a long train trip to Nice, France for a few days on the beach. Then, we hit Paris and caught all the high spots. Lastly, we headed back to Amsterdam for two days before flying back to the States. This trip sure was a whirlwind tour of Europe, but it was worth every penny. We went their separate ways in New York promising to stay in touch via Skype and to share our photos on Facebook.
After arriving back home safely in Gastonia, I started to realize that he hadn’t really stopped his breakneck speed since arriving in Stockholm almost a year ago. I felt reinvigorated. Since he had six weeks until school started back in Georgia, I looked for things to keep myself busy. My parent’s house was very quiet since they had left for a year-long sabbatical in Australia. In my quest to keep busy, I rode his bike twice daily, volunteered at a soup kitchen, and read as many novels as I can get my hands on. I even started toying with ideas for my thesis, which wasn’t due until next spring. In my remaining free time, he cleaned the house three times over, and I read the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Charlotte Observer almost daily. I took particular delight in phoning friends from graduate school to regale them with stories of my trip. To put it bluntly, I was in overdrive.
The one speed bump to the end of my summer came when I met my sister and her family for a week at a mountain resort. They didn’t call it a resort. It was more like a family camp really. Helen and her friend from high school had brought their whole families up for the week. They all marveled at just how active I am. I was riding his bike that I hadn’t touched last summer. I was going on hikes before breakfast and was fully participating in all the activities. The old me would have remained on the porch, quietly reading books for most of the week. They also couldn’t get over how thin I was. They started calling me “the new Jim.” There, his sister invited me to Brevard for the next weekend. She says that it must lonely all by myself in that big house.
Before heading for Brevard, I drove back to Gastonia to pick up the mail and to check in on things there. As I was about to head out the door, I noticed the voicemail light blinking on the home phone. There was a woman’s voice on the tape that I didn’t recognize. It seemed that the call was from the university, and they said that it was urgent. I immediately called the university to find out what was so pressing, and my call was forwarded to the financial aid department. While on hold, my thoughts raced to figure out what the financial aid office wanted. When a lady finally picked up, she said that due to recent budget cuts, my scholarship had been cancelled. She said that she was sorry, but I needed to pay all the tuition costs for the coming semester by next Tuesday. I dropped the phone and stood in shock for a moment. Then, I went into panic mode. I called my sister in Brevard to ask for her advice, but she said that I’m speaking so fast that she couldn’t understand him. I struggled to tell her that I would see her in Brevard in a few hours. I checked the clock and figures out that it was impossible to call Australia at this hour. So, I left for Brevard with a million thoughts running through my head. How will I get the money so quickly? What if Mom and Dad couldn’t afford to help me out? Was there a way to stall for time with the bursar’s office? These were all reasonable questions. Instead of thinking through them rationally, my mind swirled like a tornado tossing each new thought into the melee in my head.
I started off to Brevard in my powder blue Volkswagen station wagon. My mind continues to race from one thought to another, but this battle somehow did not affect my driving. Even so, I surprisingly failed to turn on the air conditioning and didn’t once turn on the radio. By the time I reached his sister’s house, I was covered in sweat, and I felt like I could have thrown up at any moment. A long car ride usually helped calm me down. However, my nerves were frayed by the thought of not being able to finish my studies. My whole life plan hinged on getting my degree, and I could feel the chance slipping away.
I waited outside my sister’s house for fifteen minutes and left two voice mails on her phone. I felt too agitated to wait any longer, so I took my bike off the car rack and went for a ride. The immediate neighborhood was familiar to me, but I got lost after I unwittingly crossed a major intersection and went into another neighborhood entirely. I tried to backtrack, but he only got more lost. I finally went into to a store where they kindly let him use the phone. Thank God my brother-in-law was home, and after a puzzling conversation, he agreed to meet him at a local supermarket. I sat down on the curb outside the supermarket, and my brother-in-law, Todd, arrived in his trusty old Suburban. We threw the bicycle in the back and headed back to their house. I felt so embarrassed that I didn’t say a word until we pulled in the driveway.
As I stepped out the car, I was bombarded by my sister screaming, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I stared blankly ahead and rushed past her and up the stairs into the safety of the upstairs bathroom. Ever since having her first child, my sister’s fuse had become very short. I was already afraid of what she might say next. I dried his eyes and proceeded slowly down the stairs. Instead of being mad, she was perfectly calm. She just pleaded with me to tell her what was wrong. I responded that it was nothing to worry about. She pressed me again for information, and I responded by collapsing in the nearest chair and crying.
I explained my situation through intermittent sobbing, and she assured me that everything could be worked out. I replied that if only I hadn’t taken that trip, then everything would have been worked out by the time the new semester rolled around. I was insistent that all the blame lie on me for this mixed-up situation. I pushed myself up from the lounge chair and started mumbling incoherently about all the stuff that I had done to ruin in his life. I was convinced that all I did now would just work out for the worst. My sister tried to console him, but she couldn’t stop him from pacing long enough to make me listen. I collapsed in the chair and started sobbing again. My sister goes to the next room to call her friend who was a nurse, and luckily she was at home. She told my sister to take me to the hospital where they would probably just give me some medicine to calm my nerves. There was an eerie quiet in the car, and I realized that my whole body was shaking after a few minutes in the car. His sister started to think that it might be something more serious than nerves.
Before they got out of the car, I realized where he was, and I begged to go back to the house. I said that everything would be just fine if he just got some sleep. In Gastonia, I had been getting about four hours of sleep per night. We got there at six, but we had to wait for fifteen minutes for their turn. I could feel the clock ticking in my head, and the wait seemed interminable. I started shaking again as I thought about the possibility that they might ship me somewhere where I can’t escape. The nurses interviewed my sister first, and then they called me back to the consultation room. I tried to play it cool, but my rapid speech and shaking hands gave him away. Apparently, my sister had put a 72-hour hold on me, which meant that I couldn’t leave for that amount of time because I might be a danger to himself or others. The orderly took my belt and all my personal effects for safe keeping. My sister filled out some more paperwork, and I sat down in the wheelchair as directed. My sister kissed my cheek and waved goodbye promising to be back tomorrow to visit. The orderly turned the key to open the big metal door, and Jim glanced behind him as the door slammed shut, maybe forever.
My vision got fuzzy as I looked up to the ceiling where the off-white incandescent bulbs seemed to burn my retinas. I was wheeled to my room where I am told to change into hospital clothes. So, that was it- I was officially in prison, and when the jailer shut my door, I felt like it was a cell door slamming shut. I could see by some shirts on the bureau that I had a roommate, and this revelation makes me more nervous. I then walked down the hall to find the tv on the Golf Channel which served as background noise for all the thinking he had to do. My rumination was soon interrupted by the announcement of dinner, and I went through the buffet line. I sat at an empty table and looked down at the unappetizing mix of salisbury steak, mashed potatoes and some unidentifiable mix of greens. The meal wasn’t bad, but I barely touched my plate. I was still angry at his sister for flinging him into this place. I went down the hall to my room to lay down for a bit. I got up when someone knocked on my door and told me that we have a chance to go outside into the courtyard. Most of the other patients were smoking, so I kept my distance. I couldn’t wait to meet some of my fellow inmates tomorrow. After outside time, a line formed to parcel out our meds, and I had no choice but to take them. I crawled into bed and fell asleep long before my roommate slid into his own bed.
I felt groggy the next morning at breakfast. My roommate slid into a seat across from me. He said with a smile that I must have considered himself lucky that I wasn’t scalped the night before, as his roommate is half- Native American. The man laughed, but I just kept my eyes fixed on my plate. In the morning, there was an hour-long information session where I got to meet some of my fellow patients. First, there was Carla, who claimed that her family put her there to keep her quiet about some drug running scheme they were hatching. There was a big woman named Yolanda who wound up in here every time she missed taking her medication for more than a day. When it was my turn, I said emphatically that I should be in Athens, GA by now instead of sitting in this hellhole. “Activities” continued throughout the day, and it seemed that the only thing we couldn’t do was leave or lie in their beds all day.
My sister and her husband came to visit at four, and she watched Todd and I play a few games of ping pong. My sister surely sensed how bitter and upset I was with her, so she stayed silent for most of the visit. They asked if there is anything that they can bring for me. I just wanted her to bring the Book of Common Prayer. It is said that inmates often find God in their new environment, and I wanted to give it a try. I didn’t want to cause a scene between myself and my older sister because I wanted to get out as soon as possible. Before dinner, I met with the doctor, and he said that the preliminary diagnosis is schizophrenia or maybe bipolar disorder. I didn’t really care what they call it because he is going to leave this place as soon as humanly possible.
The next day trickled by. The only good news I got was that my roommate was leaving, so I will have the room all to myself. The family visit was even more bitter and silent than the past one. They did bring the prayer book, but the nurses wouldn’t allow me to keep it because it had a string for a place marker that could have been used to hang a rat he supposed. After their visit, I started planning his getaway. I succeeded in duping the nurse by not taking my pills that night or the next morning.
Five in the afternoon was the soonest I could make my escape. During the doctor’s daily rounds, he recommends that I stay four more days at least. So, I would leave against doctor’s orders, but I didn’t care. My plan would have been foiled if my sister arrived on time for visiting hours, but she was delayed by a bad wreck on the highway. At exactly 5 pm, I signed a few forms, collected his belongings and sat down to check what was in the bag. I retrieved my wallet and heard my keys jingling at the bottom of the bag. It was a miracle that my sister hadn’t taken my keys. Now, freedom was only a taxi ride away. Off he went with a fifty in his pocket for the cab ride. I nearly tumbled out of the car when we reached my sister’s house, and in another thirty seconds I speed out of the neighborhood. Luckily, no one ran outside to stop him. I hit every green light out of Brevard. At one point, I top ninety as the speed rush courses through my veins. That terrible place hadn’t sucked all the life out of him after all. I made Gastonia in record time, and the first thing I do when he got home was kick his feet up and watched Sports Center on the wide screen television The next thing I did was raid my parents’ liquor cabinet. After about five cocktails, he started to feel woozy. I also felt a little bit guilty about what I had done. So, I texted my sister, “Sorry. Thanks for trying to help me, but I just had to get out.” One drink later, I passed out on the couch.
I woke up at eleven that morning, and I realized that I couldn’t stay at my parent’s house because my sister would know where to find me. I also figured that drinking every night by himself would get old fast. So, I called one my wildest college buddies to see if I could crash for a few nights at his place. Unlike most of my college friends, Tim didn’t want a real job. He tended bar in downtown Charlotte and partied after hours at least three nights a week. By a stroke of luck, I caught him just before he went to work, and he said that he was happy to have me stay. I screen my calls all day until it’s time to leave for Charlotte. In a rare moment of clarity, I parked my car outside Tim’s apartment and walked to the light rail station. I arrived at the bar around 9:30, and Tim greeted me with a bear hug. He bought me a beer and a few shots, and since it was a slow night, his boss lets him go just before midnight. Tim insisted that we hit a club or two before heading home. The strobe lights and pulsating music made me feel like he was hallucinating, so he excused himself to go outside and get some air. After chilling out for fifteen minutes, Tim came outside to check on his pal. Tim could see that I wasn’t doing well, so he drove us back to his apartment. We stayed up until three in the morning drinking beers and reminiscing about college life.
Since Tim didn’t have to work the next night, he planned on having a little party. His two roommates were still in college at UNC Charlotte, so the party promised to be a lot of fun. While Tim got ready for the party, I took the light rail downtown. I checked out two museums, and I had a nice late lunch at a café in the heart of the financial district. I was grateful for this escape from my troubles, but I couldn’t help but feel a little depressed wandering the streets of the Queen City all alone. I got back to the apartment just as the pizzas were being delivered, and I inhaled two or three slices right then, knowing that I would need something in his stomach for later. Probably forty or fifty people showed up, and I downed a beer and realized that I was not sleeping tonight. When told people that I was in grad school, they seemed impressed. However, I knew that it was a lie. Now, I was a bum living in my parents’ empty house. I stayed by Tim for most of the night, and I genuinely enjoyed meeting so many bright-eyed college students. At three-thirty in the morning, I brushed several beer cans off the couch and crashed on the make-shift bed. I was still sleeping at eleven when Tim woke me. I leapt out of bed and wondered where I was. All I wanted right then was a nice warm bed. After changing into some clean clothes, I thanked Tim for the hospitality but said I must get back home to Gastonia. Tim tried to persuade me to stay one more night but to no avail.
As I headed toward Gastonia, my mind started racing again. I wondered what Helen might have done in my absence. What if there were people out looking for me? What if Helen called Mom to come back from Australia to take care of me? These questions were simply too much for me to handle right then, so I cranked up the radio and enjoyed the ride. Once I got home, he slept for twenty-four hours straight, only getting up to fix some cereal and to go back to bed. Like a dark cloak over him, depression set in.
I didn’t want to count how many bridges I had burned in the past week. I just wanted to wind back the clock to before I got sick. After sleeping so long, at about two in the afternoon, I roses from the bed, pulled back the curtains and felt the sun coming in through the window. After a little rifling through his closet, I found a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that fit me. I felt a little dizzy after a full night and day of hibernation. I went to the bathroom and splashed some water on my face. Then, I took a nice long, hot shower, and I felt refreshed. However, the shower didn’t stop my mind from racing. So, I concentrated on fixing myself a nice, hot meal. There were still frozen chicken breasts and vegetables in the freezer. I just concentrated on one thing at a time like they told me to do at the hospital.
As I washed the dishes, the phone rang from across the room. I ran over and saw that it was my sister calling. I had a clear choice to make: to either pick up the phone and go along with whatever my sister had decided for him or to let the machine pick it up and keep going on my own. I picked up the phone. Helen says that she had talked to Mom, and they had decided what to do. All I got to say was “uh-huh” to everything she said. A few hours later, I heard a car honk outside, grabbed my bag and got in my sister’s car. We were headed on the seven-thirty flight to Baltimore.
I didn’t even notice that I was I was on an airplane until we were about to land. My sister unbuckled my seatbelt for me and led me to the exit. I only had one small suitcase, not nearly enough for my stay, but she said that she would mail me some more. We caught a cab outside the airport, and we sped into downtown Baltimore. We could have been anywhere as far as I was concerned. Getting out at our destination, I looked up a towering building, and we went inside. I sat for two hours idly as my sister met with the intake officers of the hospital. The place was not on our insurance, so my parents were having to agree to pay a portion of their retirement savings so that I could be treated at such a world-class facility. Later, they would say that I was worth it, but I sometimes wonder if a potential villa in Hawaii would have convinced them to have spent their money differently. Once the papers were signed, I had to go upstairs. That’s when the anxiety kicked back in. I said goodbye to my sister once again, but she promised to fly in for a visit in three weeks. When every hours produced a different reality for me, three weeks seemed like a lifetime.
And it was. Life in the hospital was a world unto itself. Gone were the scary dayroom and suicide checks. The rooms were spacious, the food was good, and the doctors were top notch. I had my own personal nurse that met with me for an hour every day! She had gone to Yale! I knew I was in good hands. I was no longer afraid, but I was still confused. Panic about the future dominated my waking hours, and I began to think back to my undergrad days in History class and hatch conspiracy theories out of thin air. It wasn’t bad enough that my scholarship was gone, but the world was collapsing in on itself as well. I would later that this is what is referred to as dissociation. The doctors adjusted my meds almost daily, but I didn’t really know the difference. I do remember that a team of three would come into the room every morning to talk to me, take note on their clipboards and look pensively at me and at each other. More on the doctors later, the people there were the real diversion from my madness.
Mealtime was the real chance to talk on a personal level with fellow patients. Notice I say patients instead of prisoners because human dignity was really values in such an expensive facility. I sat with the same group every day, but different types of patients had different assigned eating areas. For example, the eating disorder patients were only allowed to sit with each other, I guess because they had dietary restrictions. It was at lunch one day that I befriended Greg who had freaked out after watching the coverage of Hurricane Katrina for four straight days and wound up in the hospital. Yup, that would do it. More structured conversations were had in group twice a day, and we would lay out a future world for ourselves that we all knew was never going to happen. However, the counselor made everyone feel good for a while. We went downstairs to the gym to play basketball for an hour every day. This was fun, but I didn’t exactly have enough energy to play a full court game or anything. Still, I missed seeing my family. My sister was in North Carolina, and my parents were oversees. The countdown to my sister’s visit began. Two days before the visit, I spent three hours in the rec room making the perfect card for my nephew who was coming with my sister to see me.
Finally the day arrived, and I lit up. MY sister came though those doors with my nephew by her side, and I hugged her tight. She met with the doctors for a few minutes and then signed me out at the front desk. I was allowed to go out under her supervision into Baltimore for five hours. We caught a cab to the harbor area. The Baltimore area had really been cleaned up in the past few years, and it sported nice views and a restaurant and shopping area that was really quite appealing. Mainly, I wanted seafood. We got a table, and once we got my nephew settled, I decided on the shrimp and crab special. You can’t go to Baltimore without trying the crabs, and they weren’t serving any in the hospital. I was nervous about the time, but my sister told me to relax and enjoy my food. After the meal, we wander down to the harbor where there was a dock overlooking the harbor. My sister convinced me to go with my nephew on a paddle boat ride. Only the paddle boat was in the shape of a purple and green dinosaur. As medicated as I was I at the time, I will never forget it. Even so, the visit was bittersweet.
My sister and nephew left that afternoon, and I still had three weeks left. Things did get better, and I gradually I was allowed more freedom. I remember that they would take us for walks around the part of downtown Baltimore near the hospital. I recall wondering what those old brownstone buildings must have witnessed over the years. As nice as Baltimore was, I wanted to go home. The doctor visits got less frequent toward the end, but I had to fill out a lot of paperwork and some surveys for a study that the university was conducting. On the second to last day, it came: my diagnosis. Bipolar (not schizophrenia as the county hospital had suggested). I would hold onto this word like an identity badge for some time to come, but ultimately, it’s just code in a file along my journey through life. Those life lessons would come much later. Now, I had to fly home with my sister and face the immediate future.
Six weeks later, my sister came to pick me up, and this time, I was crying tears of joy. The road back isn’t easy, but it was better than the alternative. There were ups and downs but not like before. On the plane ride back, I asked to sit in the window seat so that I could see down from the heavens to the green grass and the occasional Target with its red bull’s-eye painted on the roof. My parents got back from Australia in time for the holidays, and Jim gets set up in a studio apartment across town with intentions of finding employment soon. Following doctor’s orders from here on, my life slowly got better. I land a nine-to-five job. It was entry level, but I can’t be too picky at this stage. A month later, I struggled through a crippling eight-day period of depression that nearly got me fired. Trying to cheer me up, my sister invited him along for a weekend at the country house. My depression followed me there, but being around family helped a little. I inched ahead by constantly finding things that I enjoyed and by concentrating on them to help me through the weeks and months ahead. The big finale of my next summer was my nephew and godson’s third birthday party. I circled the day in my calendar, and I busied myself with finding the perfect gift. The day finally arrived, and he pulled up to his sister’s house in that same powder blue station wagon. I set my present down on the table, and my nephew ran up to give his uncle a big hug. The look on my nephew’s face as they cut the cake is and will stay crystal clear in his memory like a talisman to ward off all the evil in the world.
Two months later, I felt really good, and the weather was beautiful. I had more energy than I ever had before. I decided to go the country house by myself this time just to get away. I was running though the woods. That’s when the past met the present in my mind, and my house of cards that was my future came tumbling down. Nothing made sense anymore, and I felt like I was doomed. I was sick again. I didn’t wind up in the hospital this time. My parents had come home by then, and I was able to stay with them until I could decide what to do. The decision was made that I had to get out of North Carolina. There simply weren’t enough resources there to adequately deal with my situation. All my options were dead ends, and I needed something innovative and new to help me escape my demons and to face life with a renewed vigor that simply wasn’t possible in my current surroundings. Heading west, I felt lost, hopeful and afraid.
It’s three months later now, and I am in Oregon. I am working on a farm run by a non-profit. I am getting the help I need to sort out all my childhood issues. The stress that so plagued me before is replaced by the clean rhythm of farm life, and I am surrounded by friends in similar situations. This is my new family. I will always remember my family back home in North Carolina, my college friends and all the experiences that defined my former life. However, the call of the wide open fields the river nearby and the 6 am wake-up bell compel me to move on the best I can to fulfill what God put me on this earth to do: seek peace and harmony in the company of others while working to build a better tomorrow for all. My old demons will always haunt me, but the rush of the river will help wash them away.