I just couldn’t stop moving. I tossed, I turned, I paced, I jittered. I got up
in the night to pace. I wrung my hands and jogged my legs and drove everyone
around me up the wall.
“Stop! Tell me what’s bothering you.” Steven would say. “I
don’t know!” I would reply.
“Stop! Take some deep breaths and try to keep still” My doctor would say. “I
can’t!” I would say, before pacing around the room again.
It had begun about a week
before I was admitted to hospital, and it was unlike anything I had ever experienced
before. In my experience, depression is accompanied by lethargy. A complete inertia
and apathy towards life itself. You don’t want to *do* anything when you are
depressed. Merely getting up in the morning is a mammoth task.
But this wasn’t like that.
I was acutely depressed. Suicidal. Hopeless. Yet, for the life of me, and
despite the plethora of psychoactive medications I was offered, I just couldn’t
stop moving.
I was moved to the most secure room on the
ward. The bathroom door had a peep hole. This disturbed me. Though
looking back the peep hole should have been the least of my concerns. Under ‘special’
supervision a nurse was required to be present every time I used the bathroom
anyway. Although I was admitted to hospital as a voluntary patient, I was
informed in no uncertain terms that if I were to attempt to leave the premises I
would be sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
One morning I woke up to find three
nurses conducting what appeared to be a sweep of my room. “We’re just giving
your room a bit of a clean” they told me. “Umm, okay then” I said. I didn’t
really think much about it until I had my shower and wanted to dry my hair. My
hairdryer was gone, and when I questioned the nurse about it she told me it was
for my own protection. On closer inspection I noticed that all my power cords
were missing as well as my shaver, scissors and nail clippers (ok fair enough),
dressing gown cord (lethal weapon there...) and my shoes (seriously?!). Steven
later told me that women’s bra’s are often removed in institutions. How he
knows this I’m not entirely sure. Thankfully my underwear was left safely in my
drawer. Small mercies!
Although I understood that
the hospital was taking my safety into their own hands, I wasn’t entirely sure
why. I mean, I knew I was suicidal. I knew I was severely depressed. But most
of the other women in the ward were depressed. Yet they didn’t need a special
room, or 24 hour supervision. They were allowed to go for walks alone, and wear
dressing gowns with a cord. On a few occasions I felt angry about this perceived
inequality, sometimes I felt upset. But mostly I was so depressed that I just
didn’t care. I didn’t care that my rights, dignity and privacy had been taken
from me. It just gave me one less thing to think about.
All of this happened well over a
month before the manic episode that confirmed my diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
But at this point in time the doctors were already suspicious that I had
bipolar. You see, somewhere in between mania and depression there is a strange
phenomenon clinically termed a ‘mixed state’. You have symptoms of depression
and of mania at the same time. The agitation of mania without the euphoria. The
chronic low mood of depression without the apathy. A mixed state is one of
the most dangerous psychological states to be in, and many suicides associated
with bipolar disorder occur during a mixed state. Somewhat ironically, the lethargy
that accompanies depression acts as a kind of safety net. A depressed individual may
simply not have the energy to execute a suicide attempt. During a mixed state
individuals are seriously depressed, but fuelled with energy – a deadly
combination.
What I know now is that I was
experiencing a mixed state, and this went on for many painful weeks. No amount
of anti-psychotic or anti-anxiety medication dampened my agitation. No amount
of anti-depressants lessened my depression. I barely slept, despite the copious
sleeping pills I was offered. My son was
almost exclusively cared for by the nurses and my husband. To this day I have
very few memories of this point in time and rely on my doctor’s and husbands recollections
of how I was.
A mixed state is such an
appropriate term. Because I really was mixed up, and I really was in a state. I
was experiencing symptoms of depression, mania and psychosis all at the same
time. I couldn’t explain my past and I couldn’t think about the future. I
wanted to live, but I wanted to die. I wasn’t sane but I wasn’t crazy.
While I was in hospital I marvelled
at my baby boy’s development. I watched him pull himself along on the floor,
start to crawl, and finally pull himself up to stand. And as is the way of
things, the mixed state passed, and transformed into something else completely.
I was taken off ‘special’ supervision and onto 15 minute checks, and then half
hour checks, then hourly. Soon I even got to go for walks, and was moved to a
different room (without a peephole!). Then finally, like my son, and with the
encouragement of Steven and the medical staff, I reached up and stood on my own
two feet.
