More BiographysThe Last Time
Madness. I always believed it was this thing-this monster which crept up slowly, silently, attacking from behind, leaving one no recourse but to run naked and screaming through the streets. Panting. legs moving slower, slower as fatique sets it, eyes wide, mouth wet with spit. Truly insane appearance. And all the people would glance your way while passing, quickening their step and shaking their heads in pity. "Such a shame,"they mutter beneath their breath like a mantra, a prayer to ward off that which offends and frightens them.
Functional madness. I could hide it, keep it under wraps. I consoled myself with the belief that I possessed a special sensitivity to the world around me. Sounds, smells, tastes, expressions, hits, words, pain, joy. I am like a sieve as it all pours through my being, each grain passing through-slowly. My mind, working overtime, tries to understand, figure it all out, processing this jumble of stimuli. I am still while this happens because I am so tired. My mind silently pleads for respect.
Silently-until the wine ceases numbing, the smoke stops easing my thoughts, the drugs the doctors give me leave me shivering like a child on the floor, vomiting and gasping for air. Then I began to scream. Begging without shame, without pride to anyone who will listen,
"Let me off this terrible ride!"
Without shame. Without pride. With out hope. No one is there.
The next moring, I feel fine. "perhaps we should go out for breakfast," I say to him, the boyfriend." "Let's go get a really good cup of culmbian coffee. shall we?" Mmmmm. My spirits are up. So off we go. And I chatter, chatter, chatter about this abd that and the other. Chatter. Chatter. ANd he listens, quietly, as if anything I say really means anything. As if it makes any sense at all. As if last night did not happen, me on the floor in a fetal position, choking, rubbing my head and chanting over and over an over, "It'll be O.K., Shannon.You'll be O.K. It'll pass. It always passes.
Maybe he wasn't listening at all. This thought stops me. My mind freezes with the thought, focusing in tight. like the lens of a camera. I look at him suspiciously. No, I don't think he is listening. I should test him. Ah, but what does it matter? What is love anyway? It too will fade away and pass, then return in another form. Around and around, up and down. It all passes through me. Why not him as well?
Ow. My head hurts. Hadn't noticed before, but pain in one form or the other is a constant presence. Slight pressure all around my cranium, thick fingers squeezing uncomfortably. And whith my drug level tolerance, Hah! Excederin? Motrin? Nothing. Tylenol...oh? But be careful of Tylenol. I heard that mixed with alcohol it can cause liver failute and I must have my drink. "No Tylenol," I remind myself.
Am I...do you think...well could I have a problem with alcohol? NO! I drink because I appreciate wine, the tstes, the tannins, the body and aroma...Fuck this. I don't need to justify myself to anyone. Who is this sitting beside me? You're not even listening. Damn this headache!
Sudden;y I'm not feeling well. Not feeling well. Years have past like moments. And in many of them, I have not felt...well.
"Blah, blah<" I say to my deaf, mute passing love interest as he drives me towards home. His face is tense. He's wound up tight. Nervous. Perhaps I should lay down when I get there. My bed. My wonderful, warm bed. But, God! It's only 10:30 in the morning and I haven't done anything all day! I haven't even written a thing, completed nothing...Jesus! I have so much to do! God, I forgot to call my sister and the letter wasn't sent to the loan company and my agent...I'm so lazy. What a waste, why even try.
Home again. Damn this headache!Damn! The house feels small, cramped, like a cell. I can't fill my lungs with air. The fingers tighten.
It takes a while, you know. I've never tried to time it or anything. A stopwatch is the last thing I can focus on when it begins. But there are triggers, pulled from the shadows of the dark, leaving behind a deafening echo of disaster.
And sh's off! The feeling of doom impending. I begin to spiral, caught in a whirlpool- a draininig sink. Going down, down, down into the slimy, dark and cold piping down, down. I can not grasp for anyone or anything because my hands are tied, you see. I can't move them. My tongue is mute. The shaking begins. "Where is he? The boyfriend? I must look such a mess, such a spectacle. Just like my mother..."
Pat, pat. I gently begin to rock myself and rub my head, murmuring. "It's O.K., Shannon. It will pass." I can't breath. "Breath! B-R-E-A-T-H!" I am twelve again, a desperate child in need. Where is he? Somebody help me! I want this to stop. Die.
"I don't want to die, I just want out of this body!"
Is he here? Is he talking to me? I am deaf. Silence. It is passing. Passing. My breathing slows. Oh, but it will come again. And again and again and again...
The void begins seeping through me, black as ink. No hope. No will. I think of death. I think of God. Where have you gone? Will you take me into your arms, if you exist? Will you hold me and carry me away from all of this? surely a just God would understand, if there is a God. Death. Even if there were nothing, that would be divine. Simply to cease to exist. Ah, such thoughts cradle me with warmth-
I already knowhow I will do it. Not like before. Not enough pills. I would do it in the garage, if I had a garage. Never with a gun and jumping from a high place? Yick! No, this time with the right pills and and a good open vein. This scares me. I am afraid of the pain. I inventory the pills in my house. One bottle of Darvocet, half a bottle hydrocodone, expired. It will do. Motrin, Klonopin and a bottle of wine. I take the blade from the exacto knife-careful-in the red tool box and carry it gingerly to the bathroom. It sounds a light chime as I lie it down on the porcelain sink. It glistens, catches my eye fancy. This should do it.
I am not afraid of deaht but their is something in me that still wills to live. It is a small, flickering light. I can hardly see it now, even though I'm squinting hard. It no longer provides me any comfort. Escape. I am prideful in my lack of fear of death. I know that there are those in the world sho suffer greater indignities than my own and yet they perservere. But I am weak. Humanities sieve, you see. I feel all their pain. I am mad.
I look into my bathroom mirror and my image is clouded, as if I am almost invisible, ghost like. I begin to cry, though I don't know why. I place a pill in my mouth and swallow. Then another and another. I cry harder."Please let there be a just God! Forgive me! Understand." No answer. I swallow the wine. Then another pill and another...holding back the urge to vomit. I pick up the blade, shaking so violently. Look at my hands! The light grows dim, then dark.
I am in a car going very fast. The boyfriend is beside me. He is saying something, but I can't make out the words. All goes black.
I am in a beatiful golden field, floating. So pretty. So warm, then CRASH! I feel my body convulse and shake. Cold steel! My back is cold. I'm so cold.
"Where am I?" I scream. I'm choking. Something in my throat. I feel the rustle of cloth and air around me, rushing past. Words, bright lights, so cold.
Hospital
"You Fuckers!NOOOOOO!This is my life! MY Body! You have no right! No right!"
A sharp pain in my arm and all is black again. Then someone gently touches me. Where on my body I cannot discern. Just the faint impression of being nudged. I open my eyes. Above me stands a fair skinned man with the most beautiful green eyes. I love his eyes. I allow myself to fall into them, like diving into a cool, smooth pool.
"Shannon? You truly intended to kill yourself, didn't you? Yo die?"
"Yes," I answer meekly. "Because I'm mad." He scribbles something on a pad of paper he carries with him, then looks up and smiles.
"We're going to take you somewhere where you can get help, O.K.?"
I wonder who "we" is and nod weakly. Everything is sore, like I've been squeezed through a rusty metal tube. The man with the beautiful green eyes disappears, leaving me cold and shaking. I'm so tired. Weary, really, and i close my eyes adn fall into a deep dreamless, black sleep. The kind of sleep I love so dearly that I would give my life for it.I fell into that blissful slumber a mad woman and awoke...diagnosed.
"Bipolar disorder,"the psychiatrist says, handing me sheets of asbestos yellow paper. "Manic-depressive, you've heard of it?" I nod. WZell, what should I think og that? What can I saay? I take the papers and lay them limply in my lap. I listen.
Madness. I now understand with perfect clarity that it is not a monster nor that frightening,indefinable bump in the night. It has a name, my recent diagnosis. It never crept up from behind mebut from inside me, for it is a part of me. Of who I am. I am Shannon Downs and I am bipolar. Bipolar. "This will be the last time," I think resolutely. I have named the madness. And I will tame it. I want to live.
I feel the rush of the forced breeze from a bellow stoking a fire inside my mind. It is warm. It comforts me.
