Acceptance: An Insider's View of Bipolar Disorder

© 2012 Jonathan C. Barker. All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/19/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4567-5134-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-5133-3 (ebook)

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

About the Author

Dedicated

to my parents, children and loved ones.

Introduction

This book is a personal account of how bipolar illness, which includes mania and severe depression, occurs from an insider’s viewpoint and how it can be treated from a systems point of view. My account covers the effects of the illness over a 32-year period in my life. It includes a positive discussion of how, with the help of a clinical community and family resources, the effects of this illness can be minimized and treated for long-term maximal recovery to occur.

While there is no cure for bipolar illness, there are many ways families and diagnosed family members can cope in order to minimize its effects and lead productive, meaningful lives. Since the illness presents itself in children, adolescents and adults, it’s important for mental health professionals, religious leaders, business leaders and public policy makers to have an understanding of the illness’s impact on families and communities.

Breaking through the stigma and fear that is still associated with this illness is an ongoing process that begins by identifying the basic features of the illness so that treatment can begin as early as possible and needed resources can be applied for ongoing recovery, community support and research.

Nothing is more important to the overall treatment of bipolar illness or any severe mental illness than acceptance, knowledge, understanding and love. Nothing will keep us in the dark about this illness and its devastating results like misinformation and denial.

Note: The names of all characters herein mentioned have been changed, except for my own.

Chapter 1

An Unplanned Trip

I’m so glad he’s here! Shelley, my mother, approached the door and held it open for the officer.

I’m Officer Draper, may I come in?

Yes, of course. Please come in.

Officer Draper stepped through the opened storm door into the family room. It was a very well lived in room, almost messy and a contrast to the well-kept exterior of the house.

My husband’s in the kitchen and our son, Jonathan, is upstairs. She led the way into the adjoining kitchen. As she led him through the kitchen, he smelled bacon and coffee and wished he had a cup.

Hello, I’m Simon Phillips. Sorry you had to come out here this morning.

Hello, I’m Officer Draper. It’s no trouble at all. I was just around the corner. I understand that you’re having a domestic problem that involves your son. Is that correct?

Yes, Shelley was quick to answer. He’s been behaving oddly for the past couple of months and we know there’s something wrong. He needs to see a psychiatrist we’ve contacted and he has a 10:00 a.m. appointment, but won’t go. We need some help getting him there.

Well Mrs. Phillips, first let me ask you how old your son is. Is he a minor?

He’s 19.

In that case there’s not much I can do right now. He’s an adult and whether he wants to go to a doctor is up to him. I can’t force him to go unless I have a court order.

But, he just wrestled my husband to the floor right here in our living room and he won’t listen to a thing we say.

If you want to file assault charges, I can arrest him, but that’s about all I can do now.

No. No, we don’t want you to arrest him. Simon was adamant.

Then there’s really nothing I can do.

In that case I’m sorry I called you out here. Shelley looked defeated.

I’m sorry you’re having this problem, folks. If there was anything I could do, I’d be glad to do it, but this really is out of my area at this point. If he does get violent and hits you, you can sign a warrant for his arrest and I’ll be glad to help you, but until then there’s nothing I can do. Or, let’s say his doctor requests that he be hospitalized for his own safety, or that of others… you know, if the doctor thinks he’s dangerous, I can take him to the hospital. Officer Draper’s deep, resonant voice was reassuring. I hope this all works out for you. He closed his note pad and looked back and forth between the two of them for any other comments.

Thank you for coming. I’m sorry we wasted your time. She turned toward the door.

No trouble at all. That’s what I’m here for, Mrs. Phillips. Call me again if I can help you. He reached inside the top pocket of his jacket, pulled out a card and handed it to Simon who stood up to take the card and shook his hand.

Thank you. We’ll call you if we need you.

The three of them walked to the door and Officer Draper let himself out into the cold, dreary morning light.

I was in my room feverishly writing notes about this strange morning. Hearing a strange voice from the kitchen, I walked to the window in my brother’s front bedroom and saw a police cruiser in the driveway. What the hell were my parents doing now, I thought? I reviewed what had begun as a relatively peaceful morning that had led to my parents apparently calling the police over a little fight I’d had with my father.

The morning had begun with my turning over in my bed to look at the clock on the table. The hands read 3:15 a.m. I rolled back over and closed my eyes. Papers crumpled and I felt my pen along the side of my stomach, but I was too tired to remove it. Besides, I might need it at any minute and I wanted it close at hand. I drifted into another light sleep and my mind began racing again.

The setting was a damp, thick jungle. I was in the army in Vietnam. Around me on the ground were my fellow soldiers in the company I was commanding.

We had just been ambushed and were surrounded by short Viet Cong soldiers. Lying on the cold, wet ground, my men and I faced the rifles of the enemy pointed menacingly at our bodies. The leader of the enemy troops thrust his rifle toward my face and suddenly there appeared a long, sharp bayonet at the end of the rifle. The soldier pulled back his rifle and prepared to thrust it into me. You are going to die. We’re going to kill you now. Prepare to die.

Wait! Kill me, but take the others as prisoners. Let them live, I pleaded for my men. The young officer looked at me in surprise. My face was covered with dirt and the black rifle was poised above my chest. I thought a moment wondering what death would be like.

If that is what you want. The blade of the enemy soldier’s rifle plunged into my chest. As if I was in two places at the same time, I watched myself being killed as though I had risen 10 feet above the officer. On the wet ground, I felt the blade of his bayonet go into my body and felt a strange confidence rather than defeat. It was a liberating feeling of success for saving the lives of my men.

All went black for a moment and I awoke with a start. No I hadn’t died. It was a dream, but I felt exhilarated as I awoke. My mind raced. I pushed off the covers and rolled over. I fished out my pen from beneath my right side, sat up and began to write down the experience of what death was like from my dream. After several lines of prose, I put down the pen and looked at the clock again. It was 4:30 a.m. and I returned to my writing.

"What could this dream mean? It reflected both our national reality as well as my personal struggle to move from adolescence into adulthood. Just as I was seeking my position in the world, the most powerful nation on earth was coming face to face with the reality of its limitations and impotence. We had ventured onto the world stage with the noble goal to stop the spread of Communism in Vietnam and were faced with the reality that our massive power was not unlimited. The North Vietnamese were undeterred from our continuous bombing. All our efforts, all our technology, all the courageous valor of our soldiers who went into battle there to fight and perhaps to die for our nation’s grand design were fruitless.

As a young nation, we were coming of age, gradually learning the great lesson that every great nation learns. It’s the same lesson that every child learns when it becomes an adolescent and then learns even more fully upon entering adulthood. A child, like a nation, learns it is often denied what it wants most, denied what it is certain is just and fair; something that it desires and deserves.

Plainly, the world was not going to give us what we wanted when we wanted it. We were in the midst of understanding the wisdom that every great civilization of history has learned. To exist, we must participate with other nations that we do not always agree with. Growing to adulthood as an individual or a nation is painful because part of us must die."

As I put down my pen, the soft light of dawn softly lit the room revealing the piles of clothing lying on the floor and bed. A plate with a piece of half eaten toast sat on the nightstand. I’d gotten it from the kitchen earlier that morning and had forgotten to finish it. Disordered, loose pages of typing paper filled with my scrawled handwriting lay strewn around the room, filled in most of the bare spots on the floor and left the final touch to the chaotic room.

My stomach growled for food, but was ignored. If I’d taken the time to check my weight, I would have learned I had lost another few pounds during the past week and was down to only 120 lbs. A month’s growth of beard left me looking ragged and unkempt. The issue? I couldn’t stop the flow of ideas that flew onto the paper from my pen like water from a fire hose. I couldn’t take the time for anything that took away precious time from attending to my flood of ideas.

At the time, I was taking a full load of courses in business administration at Rochester Institute of Technology. The courses were interesting and challenging, but being a student felt passive and I needed to be active, to take on the challenges of the real world and engage myself with it. So, from 4:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. each day I worked as a shipping clerk at the Gerber Baby Food plant directing the crews who collected pallets of baby food to fill the trailers of truckers who delivered it throughout the U.S.

The job was earthy. Interviewing the truckers who came in to my office was exciting. The independent drivers, especially, had compelling stories to tell about being on the road fighting the weather and meeting people from all over the country. Their lives and stories stimulated me in a way none of my college courses offered. I romanticized their lives and imagined myself driving a big rig down a superhighway during a snowstorm. They were men who had a job to do, men who knew themselves and loved life for the most part. They told off colored stories as easily as my father read the Sunday paper.

And then there was the crew of job pickers I loved. Though their job was simple, they found ways to add levity and excitement to the mundane hours of fork lift work. They would come to me for their order-picking slips, jump on their propane-powered forklifts and race into the depths of the warehouse to collect the baby food. These were grown men who behaved like nine year olds, racing each other to pick their orders and professionally stack them 10 feet high on pallets and then drive them into waiting trailers at the dock. They were Black, Hispanic and Puerto Rican men who competed with each other to load more baby food than any one else each night.

I felt proud to know and work beside the truckers mostly. In turn, they all seemed to like the interest I took in them and their stories and how I laughed so easily at their jokes. These were men who showed no fear of anyone and lived the lives they wanted. They were comfortable in their own skins. They weren’t afraid to take on the challenges of the road and they weren’t embarrassed about the repetitive work of loading and driving their trucks. Some worked for large trucking companies and others were gypsies who owned their trucks, found their own loads and traveled wherever they wanted to go. They knew who they were, what they could do and were proud of their work.

I realized from working with these men how much I had to learn about the world. It embarrassed me that I lived in a suburban cocoon. It felt like a wasteland of big homes and privilege. These men I admired were the ones who got things done at work. They were the ones who opened the door to real life and realized how big and exciting our country was. They were my working heroes, not the flabby-assed executives who lived in the suburbs and drove to their comfortable offices every day in boring sedans depressed about what they did, like my father.

I got out of bed, pulled on a dirty pair of jeans and walked in to use the bathroom. I looked in the mirror on my way out admiring how thin I was in contrast to how chubby I’d been as a youth. I felt good that I wasn’t carrying around any extra weight, only the minimum of what I needed. Back in my room, I climbed into bed to get a few more minutes of sleep before my brain went into overdrive again and forced me to start another project. Before I could rest, I scribbled down an idea about the inequity of pay that existed between those who labored for their wages and white collared workers.

In my parent’s bedroom down the hall, my mother groggily dragged her robe from the end of her bed. A light sleeper, she’d heard me again last night playing my music while I was unable to sleep. She had always been the first to wake and wasn’t used to having her early morning routine of peace and quiet disturbed by me over the past couple of months. She knew something wasn’t right with me, but she didn’t know exactly what it was or what to expect and my nocturnal activity scared her.

I wasn’t myself. As my mind raced faster and faster, I was continuing to lose weight and stay up most of the night writing and playing music. I also became more argumentative with her about the smallest things she brought up, especially any concern she had for my health or what I was doing.

She walked around the foot of her bed stepping over a pile of books and magazines, the residue of my father’s nightly reading. Gently, she nudged his arm.

Simon. Simon, it’s time to get up. Her husband of 22 years slept with his left arm over his head, looking like he was dreading another day to come.

Uhhh, he moaned. Already? It can’t be time to get up. He slowly shifted his arm and rolled over.

She sat next to him on the edge of the bed.

Simon, I’m worried about Jonathan. He was up again last night into all hours. I don’t think he’s sleeping at all and he’s barely eating anything. I can’t even talk to him; he gets so upset if I say anything to him. We’ve got to get some help to deal with this. Her pleading voice told Simon he wasn’t going to get to sleep another few minutes. He opened his eyes. Simon, did you hear me?

Yeah, I heard you. I wish I had his energy. Look, he’s just stressed out. He’s working full time and going to school. Anybody would be short tempered. And he’s probably just studying at night. We have to stop worrying about him. He’s just growing up. Remember when he was little and we worried about how clingy I was. He’ll grow out of this too.

You just don’t want to see the problem. This isn’t a normal growth problem. Something’s wrong and we need to get some help. Have you been in his room? Have you read any of what he’s been writing? Most of it makes no sense. It’s nothing but disjointed ideas about all kinds of things. He has unfinished poems and ideas scribbled all over.

Don’t worry so much. He’ll sort it out. He’s just young and trying to do too much right now. We’ve all been there.

Shelley got up from the bed slowly. Her salt and pepper hair had been black not long ago. It gave her a look that fit her mood. She felt defeated as she walked to the bedroom door.

As usual, you just don’t want to listen. You’d rather stick your head in the sand and avoid the whole problem. I’m going down to make breakfast. She finished putting on her robe and slippers and left the room.

Look, I just don’t … oh, the hell with it! His words fell on deaf ears as the door to the bedroom closed. Simon got up slowly and swung his feet onto the floor. Maybe I’ll have a talk with him, he thought and walked into the bathroom.

He shaved and dressed while he thought about whether he would approach me and how he might do it. He knew Shelley was right about my being ill tempered and he was also concerned about my weight loss. But, he hated conflict and did his best to avoid it most of the time. Besides, they could all be hot tempered at times, he thought. Jonathan had probably just picked that up from Shelley and me. OK, I’ll talk with him this morning, he resolved. I don’t have to be at the office until the 2:00 p.m. meeting with RCA anyway. Feeling better, but still apprehensive about his decision to confront me, he walked downstairs and sat at the kitchen table.

Look, I don’t see it like you do, but I’ll stay around this morning and talk to Jonathan if it will make you feel better. Shelley stood at the stove cooking bacon as he spoke.

Good. Her only comment was packed with the sentiment, ‘Well it’s about time you did something about the problem. It’s about time you came to your senses. It’s time you saw things like I do’.

He glumly sat at the table feeling defeated. The coffee in front of him got cold, ignored due to the sadness he felt. Why does she treat me like a child, he thought, as his frustration rose within him? He felt trapped by issues that only he knew.

He wanted to tell her his thoughts and ideas as he used to do, but at the same time he was convinced it would fall on deaf ears. She had proven on more occasions than he could recall that she was willing to defend her ideas when his thoughts were different from hers. Lately, she could launch an attack at the slightest sign that he might want to go in a different direction, or that he held a different view. So he stopped risking, stopped communicating and started again to feel isolated and depressed. My problem, whatever it was, was having a negative impact on their marriage.

My father knew I was going through a rough time, but didn’t everyone go through shit sometimes and need to find a way to work out problems on his or her own? Wouldn’t I have come to him and asked for help if I wanted any? Besides, he thought, he had five children to think about and God knew he had his own set of problems that he’d neglected; problems that he’d never discussed with his father about how his own mother behaved, problems at work, problems with Shelley.

He had learned from his father that the best way to handle some conflict was not to bring up the issue that created the problem if it couldn’t be calmly discussed, reasoned out and resolved. His training as an engineer reinforced what he’d learned from his father. He’d seen his father quietly and calmly sidestep real or potential problems with