by Terri Cheney
He looked familiar, and I had to wonder: Had I slept with him before? There was a certain knowingness about his smile… and it was a real possibility. This town is littered with intimate manic encounters I don’t remember at all. Embarrassed, I took the napkin and spoke to my shoes. “Thank you,” I said. “Delicious.” I grabbed some pluots and wheeled my cart toward the checkout counter. It was high time I left heaven.
I showed the checker the plum pit, confessed my sin, and told her to charge me whatever she liked.
“Oh, people do that all the time,” she said. “But you’re the first one who’s ever offered to pay.”
“That’s shocking,” I said.
“Well, it’s nice to know there’s at least one honest person left,” she said. She rang up my other items, and I waited for her to assess my penalty.
“Get along with you now,” she said.
I smiled. She smiled. The boy bagging my groceries smiled. The whole world was one big greeting card.
Damn. Damn. And damn again.
I knew it must be hypomania because life just ain’t this grand. Hypomania is that exquisite state one rung below mania, where I feel like I can conquer the world—but I don’t try to because some vestige of reality still exists in my brain. I’m not wildly reckless or grandiose, as in mania. Just friendly as hell and thrilled to be wherever I am. I can barely remember what depression felt like, it seems so distant and foreign to my nature.
And what’s really great is, everyone likes me. It must be some kind of pheromone or happiness hormone that I unconsciously transmit in this state. Or maybe it’s my genuine joy that draws people toward me and encourages them to be joyful back. I don’t know, I’m not a connoisseur of charismatic phenomena. But I swear this really happens: it’s impossible for me not to seduce the universe when I’m hypomanic.
Sounds delicious, doesn’t it? It is. It’s the single most splendid feeling on earth, a divine reward for all the torment I otherwise have to endure with bipolar disorder. So why do I curse it? Because like all things perfect and ephemeral—a first kiss, that first wolfish bite of plum—hypomania doesn’t last forever. Those few brief days of bliss are a signal that I’m cycling again. That no matter how good I may feel at the moment, I’m about to morph into a totally different mood state, one with none of the glory and all of the risk. There’s no real certainty when this will happen, or in which direction I’ll go. There’s only the waiting…
Oh come on, I thought, as I waited for the Gelson’s valet to bring me my car. Life has handed me a plum. Can’t I just enjoy it while it lasts? Do I have to be so hypervigilant, always slapping a price tag on something that feels so organic, so right? In short, why can’t this be my new normal? That’s easy. Because I’m not, and never have been, “normal.” But I do get to be utterly glorious, every once in a while.
WHERE THE NEON LIGHTS ARE PRETTY
I had an argument with an old boyfriend on our way to a party. I was in a really good mood and couldn’t stop talking about it. “I mean, I feel really good, you know? Like end-of-the-school-term, beginning-of-summertime good. Do you think that’s okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” he said.
“I don’t want to be inappropriate.”
“It’s a party, for God’s sake, not a funeral,” he said. “Everyone’s supposed to be happy.”
“But do I seem all right? If you just met me, would you think I was acting okay?”
“You live in such a threat-based universe,” he scowled. “I swear, even when you’re happy you’re waiting to see how it’s going to end.”
I rolled down the window and stuck my head out to enjoy the breeze, like a besotted cocker spaniel. Maybe my friend was right, but he didn’t know why. The truth is, I’ve had to think very hard about happiness: its beginnings and its inevitable endings, too. Whenever I start to feel this good, I have to wonder: Is this what other people experience? Am I merely hypomanic? Or am I too, too happy for words and maybe trembling on the brink of mania? What’s the proper happiness quotient under any given circumstance? I don’t want to exceed it, but I want my fair share, too.
I stuck my head back in the car and turned on the oldies station. The Monkees were singing “I’m a Believer.” Joy and bliss! I sang along as loudly as I could until my friend snapped the radio off.
“Okay, maybe now you’re a bit overmuch,” he said.
“Thanks, sweetie,” I said. “I appreciate your concern.” I smiled at him as if he’d just given me an Hermès scarf. Then I turned the radio back on, full blast. “Sugar, Sugar,” sang the Archies.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” he said, and turned the volume way down. I pouted and put my head out the window again. But I didn’t stay miffed for long; I couldn’t. I was in that rare place of unreachability, where nothing miserly or nasty or icky can touch me. Aaaah, the light. Mmm, the breeze. And ohhh, what it was doing to my hair. A thousand tingly caresses from root to tip, sending quivers of pleasure down my spine. Such an amazingly beautiful day! I stretched my arms out the window, trying to grasp handfuls of sunshine.
My friend looked over. “Terri, what are you doing?” He reeled me in by the back of my dress.
“Thanks, sweetie,” I said, unruffled except for my hair. “I appreciate your concern.” I smiled at him as if he’d just given me ruby slippers.
That’s the problem with happiness, I thought: It always makes us want more, and more is always out there, just out of reach. Hence addiction. Hence obsession. Would we suffer these maladies of desire if we hadn’t known that initial thrill of pleasure? I doubted it.
“Happiness is a gateway drug,” I announced to my friend.
He glanced over at me and cocked an eyebrow. “Where’d you get that—from a bumper sticker?”
“No, it’s an epiphany all my own. Do you like it?”
“I’m driving,” he said. So I turned the radio back up.
Petula Clark came on, singing one of my all-time favorites, “Downtown.” It was absolute perfection, every word matching my mood as she raved on about the traffic and the music and the neon signs, so pretty… Downtown sounded like the apotheosis of everything I was longing for: liberation, blazing excitement, endless possibilities for pleasure. I started dancing as best I could in the confines of the car—snapping my fingers and bouncing to the irresistible beat. The pressure inside me was building and bubbling and I couldn’t resist it any longer.
I sank back in my seat and allowed happiness to flood me, a pure unadulterated whoosh of joy. Uh-oh. That worry again: Was I getting manic? I didn’t think so. I looked over at my ex and realized I didn’t have the slightest desire to seduce him because he was being such a jerk. So okay, my judgment was still intact. I relaxed my vigilance and let my neurons explode.
Connections, connections, everywhere—like an arcade game playing inside my head. Ping, pong, whoosh, zap. Connections were falling into place, huge rents in the fabric of existence suddenly visible. Colors collided, shadows burst into light. It was thrilling but also a little scary, and I wondered, is it safe? Maybe I ought to shut my eyes; maybe such sights weren’t mine to see. But I wanted it all, I wanted more, more, more.
“Come on, baby,” I said. “Let’s go downtown.”
MIXED STATE
“The discontented man finds no easy chair.”
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
Although around 40 percent of people with bipolar disorder will experience a “mixed state” during their lifetimes, according to a University of Siena School of Medicine study, it’s a mystery even to health care professionals. It’s so difficult to describe even they can’t agree on a good name for it, let alone a consensual definition. I’ve heard it called “agitated depression.” “Dysphoric mania.” “Episode with mixed features.”
The problem starts with the terms “bipolar” and its predecessor, “manic depression,” which make it sound like there are only two emotional poles to the illness: mania and depression. Actually, it�
�s possible to experience elements of both these states at one time, simultaneously or in rapid sequence. For example, you can feel extremely agitated and restless, as in mania, but also deeply disgusted with yourself and life, as in depression.
It’s a very dangerous combination because you have the energy to act on your destructive instincts—unlike in pure depression, where you’re usually too paralyzed to act or plan. In fact, as the Scientific World Journal confirmed, the majority of suicides are committed during mixed states. So call it what you like, one thing is certain: it’s the mood state that I dread the most.
THE TORPEDO RED BLUES
Extreme irritability is apparently becoming part of my identity, the new hallmark of my bipolar disorder. It usually happens in mixed state episodes, that frenetic combination of mania and depression that I seem to be experiencing more and more frequently these days. It’s taken me years to realize that I’m not just incredibly cranky, I’m cycling. The reason my discovery was delayed so long is that, like everything else with bipolar disorder, a clear pattern had to emerge. That’s why it so often takes people ten years to get a correct diagnosis of this illness: one needs time to discern a landscape of shifting moods.
So one particularly annoying day, I ventured out seeking distraction—anything to get me out of my twitchy mind and itchy skin. I decided to return a lipstick I’d mistakenly bought. When I’d opened the box, I realized it wasn’t my favorite Torpedo Red bullet. It was something called “Pink Lotus,” and pink anything sounded vile to me. The store’s parking lot was packed to the gills, but I spotted an elderly woman coming out of the elevator and practically hit her with my bumper as I stalked her to her car. I wanted to roll down my window and shout, “Can’t you walk any faster?” but I sat in my car, inched forward, and fumed.
The saleswoman at the makeup counter was wearing way too much perfume, even if it was the brand’s signature scent. And too much makeup—was she a walking advertisement for the entire line? But no one else was available, so I let her live. I handed her the lipstick.
“This is the wrong shade,” I said. “I want to return it.”
“Do you have the receipt?” she said. Right, like I save every teeny-tiny piece of paper that happens to come my way.
“I threw it out,” I said.
“Without a receipt, I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do,” she said.
“Then I’ll take a store credit.”
“But this box has been opened,” she said. “We can’t take back used cosmetics. It’s simply a matter of hygiene, you see.”
A snarl was climbing up my spine. I forced it down. “But I didn’t use the lipstick itself,” I said. I grabbed it back from her and snapped off the cover. “Look, it’s completely intact.”
“I’m afraid that’s our store policy,” she said. “Once an item is opened, it can’t be returned.”
“But I did not open the lipstick. What about that do you not understand?” Uh-oh, I thought, I’m dropping my contractions. When my language starts sounding all formal and stilted, it means I’m pushing the limits of my self-control.
Her plumped lips pouted sweetly, as she shook her head. “I’m sorry, it’s really out of my hands.”
“Then whose hands is it in, may I ask?”
“I’ll have to get my manager,” she said, and a few minutes later an even more doll-like face appeared, half my age and probably half my IQ. I explained the situation slowly to her, enunciating each syllable so she could understand. Then I waived the pristine tube in front of her face. “You see? Never used.”
“Yes, but you opened the box,” she said.
“But I did not open the lipstick.”
“Yes, but you opened the box.”
As a rule, I try to govern my emotions in public, which isn’t easy because my emotions don’t like to be governed. But it’s the price of mental illness: One must preserve the appearance of propriety at all times. It’s very important for those of us who roil on the inside to present as smooth and unruffled on the outside. Otherwise, what might happen? Censure, certainly. A scene? Inevitably. I knew all this. I knew I should just walk away. And I knew that was never going to happen.
I opened the tube and dialed out the lipstick. I smiled. Then in one fluid motion, I scrawled “F**K” across the countertop. “Now you’re right,” I said. “It’s been used.” I dropped the tube and walked—no, strode—out of the store.
Did it make me feel better? Hell yes, for a minute or two. But when I tried to get my car keys out of my purse, I realized I was shaking. Not just trembling from adrenaline—shaking with fear. I’d violated my own social compact: I’d lost control in public. Maybe other people can get away with being miffed and acting out. Hey, we all have our Pink Lotus moments. But I can’t afford them. My moods don’t just ignite and die down, they detonate—usually in front of people who can do me harm: security guards, police officers, and other authority figures who tease my temper beyond all bounds.
I tried to cool down. “It’s just a mixed state,” I told myself. But I knew better: There’s no “just” when it comes to a mixed state. There’s only trouble ahead.
My hands were still shaking when I fished out my phone and speed-dialed my psychiatrist. “It’s starting,” I told his voicemail. “Oh God, it’s starting again.” I knew I didn’t have to tell him what “it” was, he’d seen me like this too often before. And I knew exactly what he’d do: call in a prescription for lithium, the pale pink dial-down drug. That would put any chance I might have of illicit joy and madness effectively out of my reach. I’d be slow and cautious and seemingly calm, and I wouldn’t make a fuss over anything because nothing would really matter. But it wouldn’t last. It never does. I knew she’d be back—the Torpedo Red woman—once I cared enough about life to be irritable again.
BIPOLAR DISORDER’S NASTY SECRET
It was a gorgeous day, the kind Southern California is famous for. Maybe too gorgeous: the birds trilling outside my window harped on my nerves, the abundant sunshine made me squint. The telephone rang and I barked, “What is it?” instead of hello. I got rid of the caller as quickly as possible and fixed myself a cup of coffee. But the mug was too hot and it singed my fingers. I threw it in the sink, where it shattered into dozens of tiny pieces.
It was my favorite mug, not just because of its hand-painted sunflowers but because it was the last remaining souvenir of a weekend tryst with a long-lost lover. There would never be another mug like that, or another man like him, or another love affair worth remembering. My life was as good as over. Carelessly, my eyesight blurred by tears, I tried to sweep up the shards in the sink; but they cut me and I started to bleed. I picked up one of the larger slivers and deliberately sliced my finger—my oh-so-naked ring finger, a glaring reminder of my failure at love. More blood, merging with the rest and coursing down the drain. How quickly here and forgotten, like me.
All that afternoon, I continued to swirl between emotions, not a single good one in the bunch. Misery, fear, self-loathing—all the classic notes of depression were there, but they were overlaid with the least desirable aspects of mania. No euphoria, no elation, none of that sky-high, soaring giddiness that makes a manic mood worthwhile. Just a relentless, pulsing energy that seized hold of my body and urged it to move, move, move. But move where? Move why? My mind insisted I had no viable destination.
I kept thinking about my old boyfriend and that last weekend we had spent together at San Ysidro, so in love, so eager to be together. Then, too, it had dawned a beautiful day, but I’d woken up snappish, on edge for no reason. I’d never heard of a “mixed state” back then. I didn’t know that when mania and depression collide, it creates a whole new realm of madness. Not many people know this is part of the bipolar spectrum; I certainly didn’t. All I knew then was that the world would be wise not to get in my way.
My poor boyfriend tried all the wrong approaches. First, he tried to nuzzle me, but I was too prickly to be touched. Then he tried logic: it was a
lovely day, we were together, there was nothing to be upset about. Big mistake. I was still practicing law at that time, and I out-argued him with ease. He got furious, as men frequently do when you best them. But his anger was no match for me. I could feel words climbing up my throat—you know those words that you absolutely have to keep suppressed at all times? Every relationship has them. There are certain things you can never say, certain weaknesses you’re not allowed to exploit, unless you’re willing to suffer the consequences.
I didn’t care. I spewed them at him, vile words that I won’t even repeat because I wish them to vanish forever. He was gone before my tears reached my cheeks.
Mixed states are all about smashing up things: mugs, relationships, best intentions. I realize that now, and it makes me careful. Whenever I find myself in the cyclone’s path, I don’t go out. I limit my interactions with people as much as possible, to prevent them—and myself—from getting hurt. I know that the mixed state is stronger than I am, but that doesn’t mean it has to own me, body and soul. I may cut a finger; I may break some glass. But now that I know what I’m up against, I refuse—when I can—to get swept away.
RAPID CYCLING
“Life is measured by the rapidity of change…”
—George Eliot (1819–1880)
Change is a constant with bipolar disorder—but constant change is not. Rapid cycling is a phenomenon in which the course of the illness is accelerated: at least four mood episodes in the previous twelve months that meet the criteria for mania, hypomania, or major depression. In extreme cases, one can go through multiple moods in a single day. This is called “ultraradian rapid cycling”—a rather lovely phrase for a very distressing condition.
