Resilience

by Jessie Close

  4-13-04: I woke up quite happily, with a shit-eating grin plastered on my face, until a girl I don’t know asked me how long I’ve been here and I went blank. I felt panic and suspected she was a spy. She’s evil. Paul came over next, but I thought he was Jeff. Maybe they are related to the Creature. Now Paul is gone, and I feel relief all the way down to my bones because it takes so much effort to “chat.” Many brunettes here. Why? Are they spies?

  I’m outside smoking, and someone’s Prius just sits in the lot, a replica of Glennie’s, making me sad. Same color, too. I need to read or watch TV to escape this panic or whatever it is.

  Black ink slowly sliding down, covering the sparking glass.

  Fell asleep while reading at about 10:00 a.m. Slept until 6:00 p.m. Woke at 6:15 and went to see Dr. Vuckovic. Fell asleep again after that until 9 something. Must be the meds. Woke around 10:30 p.m., called Mattie and Calen.

  Glennie called to say she’ll come up this weekend. Can’t wait. Want to shower now. It’s midnight but the shower is scary. The exit light outside my room seems to turn on and off at random. I wonder what it is out there. Will I be able to live without my shadows? Joan, the third Musketeer and house manager at the Pavilion, made me give her my piece of glass. I had decided the glass couldn’t hurt me so I was sharpening it a bit by rubbing it against a rock, and she saw me. I don’t like not having it. I don’t like thinking I can’t escape this horror when I need to.

  Mood: a small roller coaster. Thoughts: happy, panic, sad missing Calen, Mattie, Sander, and dogs. Energy: restless, high, and low.

  4-14-04: 1:04 a.m. Went out for a smoke, exhilarating at first, wind blowing, a loud drip from the gutter, puddles of moonlight gleaming orange off the wet asphalt. Wanted to jump, run, yell, and then three lights caught my eye. I think they’re lit windows from the old trailer down the abandoned road near the hospital. My heart jumps, and fear floods through me. I can see the trailer, where a curtain is pulled back, slightly, as if someone is staring at me from the dark interior. I stub out my smoke, return to my room; fear still in my veins. I hope it passes soon.

  I picked up my cell phone and just saw 1:11 a.m.—a power number—and was very happy to see the bright lights, but then the lights went out and the number vanished. The exit sign outside my room just went out, too. Another sign? An evil one? I don’t know why it would go out so quickly on the heels of 1:11 except that maybe it wants me to exit, as the exit sign was blinking and pointing to the door before it went out.

  It’s 4:03 a.m. now. I need to go to sleep.

  Woke at 7:30 a.m. and hit snooze until 8:00 a.m. John drove me to Dr. Klepser’s office for a physical… I took 10 mgs of Valium to help me get through an MRI, and I did it! Can still feel my high, but now it’s annoying because it seems like it’s under a coating of peanut butter.

  I finally told Dr. Vuckovic about the Creature, and not long after that he informed me of his diagnosis. He said that I had bipolar I disorder with psychotic features and a tendency to a mixed state. The “psychotic features” tag was new to me. Figuring out exactly what was wrong with me had been difficult, but that’s true about everyone who has a mental illness. There are no blood tests or so-called biomarkers that can indicate the presence of mental illness. Instead, psychiatrists make a diagnosis based on “clusters of symptoms.” They compare the symptoms you describe and the symptoms they observe with the canonical symptoms of bipolar disorder or schizophrenia and figure out where your symptoms fit best. My symptom clusters included erratic mood swings and the Creature.

  I asked what “psychotic features” meant, and Dr. Vuckovic explained that, in addition to mood swings, a person with bipolar disorder can often hear or see things that aren’t real. In other words, the Creature.

  Apparently, Dr. Vuckovic didn’t believe the Creature was real. Of course, the Creature wasn’t in his brain, was it?

  Dr. Vuckovic said the most dangerous time for me was when I was in what’s called a mixed state. Generally, whenever I became depressed, I felt so exhausted and hopeless that I didn’t want to do anything. Nothing. During a mixed state, a person can feel sad but also extremely energized, and that’s why it’s so dangerous. The bottom line is that when I was in a mixed state I actually had enough energy to kill myself.

  Dr. Vuckovic began giving me two new medications: Geodon, an antipsychotic, and Neurontin, an antianxiety drug. He also gave me another antidepressant to replace the Lexapro and good old lithium, which was the only mood-stabilizer drug that I knew of that actually helped prevent suicide.

  4-19-04: I am at war with the Creature. It was still this morning until I walked past a column of people: the woman out front looked into my eyes and said, “AB2.” I nodded to her, although I don’t know what that meant.

  The Creature stirred as I asked myself what AB2 must mean. I turned back toward the Pavilion and spotted a plastic name tag caught in a bush. As I was picking up the name tag, I told the Creature to shut up in a loud whisper. I noticed Gretchen sitting close by and was overcome with embarrassment because the Creature told me that she’d heard me and she thought I was telling her to shut up and therefore the Creature didn’t have to.

  Did she hear me?

  I went inside and asked Donna—I can’t really remember her name because I don’t like her—to come speak to me because of what happened. She told me to go ask Gretchen if she had heard me tell the Creature to shut up.

  The Creature began taunting me and suggested that the AB2 woman had put a curse on me. I went outside, but Gretchen was gone. I do think Marianne is evil—I can’t remember what happened next except I was making toast in the kitchen (I had told someone I would) and I started shaking harder and hyperventilating. I began hitting the back of my head, on the left side, with my hand to silence the Creature, who was screaming at me, but it didn’t work so I kept hitting myself and I told Marianne and asked her for help.

  I told her about AB2, too, and the curse and Gretchen. She calmed me down and gave me a Neurontin and my Geodon fifteen minutes early and said the weekend visit by Glennie might have overstimulated me. I don’t agree and am worried the Creature will never be quiet… I realized the Creature lives in my brain near my right sphenoid sinus that almost killed me way back in 1985. Maybe he was trying to kill me then. Maybe he took over after I overdosed on amphetamines that caused intense pain when I tried to kill myself. Maybe the Creature is Brad, who could be dead. If he’s not dead, maybe he wants me to die.

  One afternoon, I went outside to smoke. I liked smoking. Someone said smoking—the nicotine—breaks down the medication and makes it act faster. I don’t know. I began thinking about James, and I felt his presence. I felt he wanted me to kill myself so we could be together again.

  After two weeks, Dr. Vuckovic sent me from the Pavilion to a women’s house, where I was assigned a cramped upstairs room. I could hear the other women in the room beneath mine laughing and talking. I panicked, packed my suitcase, went downstairs, and reached over the half door into the medication room, where I grabbed a bag of meds that were in a white bag and newly brought over from the Pavilion. The woman in the meds room tried to stop me, but I was quick. I ran from the building. I was planning to hop on a bus whose route came by McLean, but I didn’t have a destination in mind. I would look for somewhere peaceful where I could take all my meds—commit suicide—and be done with this particular life.

  Before I could get outside, the house’s director stepped in front me and ordered me to stop. She was no-nonsense: she demanded to know why I was fleeing and within an hour had arranged for me to go back to the Pavilion.

  I stayed there a week before being sent to Waverley House, an older three-story Victorian house on the edge of the hospital campus. I liked it much better there.

  I also had something to look forward to. My children were coming to see me.

  Mattie had been angry when Calen was at McLean’s Appleton House because I’d refused to let her visit him. I thought that seeing how sick some of the p
atients at the hospital were would be too frightening for her. But she was older now—and besides, I was eager to see her and my boys.

  May 3, sometime early in the morning, at Waverley House. I’m anticipating my three kids’ visit, but I had a horrible nightmare about my mother’s dogs attacking me—her Bouviers!!

  When I awoke, I felt the Creature stirring for the first time in a long while since I’ve been taking my new meds. I felt him roll, saw his eyes, and looked away. I will never describe his eyes—too terrifying and would give him more power. I never, ever, ever will. What did the Creature say? I can’t remember now. I have no memory, not long-term, short-term, or even 30 seconds ago. It must be the meds.

  I’m hanging in here… I have survived 50 years… but at this moment, staying here another week seems like torture. I want to go home, or at least to Glennie’s. I feel like a freak to the outside world, more than before I arrived, because now I have been to a mental hospital and that will forever be part of my history. It will follow me everywhere.

  Jessie Close, mental patient.

  I read a passage in a book about mental illness. I am underlining it for my family. How do you explain… what’s going on inside us? This passage referred to how important it is to treat the mentally ill as people first… What the authors of this book don’t get is that—in my experience, anyway—when you’ve lived on the edge your entire life, it’s actually comforting and fun to be in the company of others like yourself. The torture being here is not in living with others who are mentally ill, it’s the physical inconveniences. I think a hotel would be less expensive and a hell of a lot cleaner and more comfortable.

  My mood changed on the morning when my children were scheduled to arrive. I was frightened about what they might think. How they might be disappointed in me. I gave each of them hugs and broke into a huge smile when they appeared. The four of us went outside and sat at a picnic table to talk. After a while, Calen announced he was going to Appleton House to see some of the residents there whom he still knew. Sander didn’t talk much. Mattie chatted nonstop. I asked her how she was doing living with Noah, her dad. When I’d first gone into the hospital, Mattie had stayed with Suzy Nixon, but Noah had insisted that he was going to take care of his daughter. I’d agreed to let him and his girlfriend move into my house so Mattie could stay in her own room. Mattie and Noah seemed to be developing a better relationship. A silver lining, perhaps?

  After a half hour, I began to feel uncomfortable, because talking to my own children required more work from me than talking to the other residents of Waverley House. At that moment, I realized it was dangerous for someone to stay in a hospital for a long time. You feel safe, and before long you are lulled into thinking that you can’t survive if you ever have to leave such a regulated environment.

  May 6: Implements of suicide should be made available to the general public. We should make it easy. I think this planet heaves a sigh of relief every time a human leaves it.

  May 16: Not writing every day now. Feeling aggressive, too much energy, want it to stop. Can’t enjoy anything, picture taking handfuls of pills or drinking booze to stop the pushing and rushing inside of me. Yesterday I woke up with a headache, the left side of my head, where the Creature lives—had a sharp pain behind my right eye and I was scared a migraine was coming on. My agitation was HUGE—I wanted to kill something, smash something, to release the tension. Then I switched, became teary, depressed, but still couldn’t relax. I got angry when a staff member asked me what I was upset about. I yelled at her… I switched, like it always happens, a few minutes later. I took a Neurontin to help me calm down. It did take the edge off. I picture my dead body, my family around it, as a deterrent. This is what’s called rapid-cycling—no shit!

  May 17: I awoke feeling great, but soon felt dark again, aware that my life has been a joke, all except my babies. I see no way out. Inside my head, where no one can see, my moods and thoughts are spinning, changing every minute.

  May 18: I spoke with a young man who lives here. He happened to be sitting outside at the picnic table when I came out feeling despair. I told him how I’m losing my life with this medical “cure.” I don’t know how to balance creativity and art with stability and medication. He told me that maybe my children will become my art, that they are my gift to the world. I sobbed and sobbed at such a beautiful thought coming from a suffering young man. I must learn how to have creativity without lapses or relapses. The meds even me out but drain me of creativity of thought.

  May 21: The evening of the 19th found me laughing almost hysterically, yelling, in a mood where I would have punched someone out if they’d spoken to me negatively. The next morning, I was so heavy I couldn’t get out of bed. My mood was low, discouraged, the kind of mood that would keep me in bed all day if I was home. My vision had spots in it, still does. The day was an enormous effort to get through. It was difficult to walk and talk. The evening didn’t see any change. I was so agitated I could hardly stand it. My body was humming, lights were too bright, noises too loud. There was something in the basement that scared me. I called Calen, who calmed me down a bit. The Creature was in hiding. Thank God! I was scared the Creature would team up with the bad presence in the basement. They were alike. Then there would have been two of them. I sat outside for smokes with other inmates and ended up laughing genuinely, not hysterically. Glennie invited me to see her, and I will take a train down.

  I always felt calmness when I was with my sister. There was centeredness about her—that Yankee rock-solidness. My sense of family was now rooted in my own children, but my past sense of family was rooted in her, my mother, and my siblings. Not my father. I loved being with my sister because I felt safe with her.

  May 24: On the train heading back to the hospital from Glennie’s. Noise from the people around me is REALLY getting on my nerves: points out how quiet I am on the outside of myself, how loud I am inside. It’s all too much. This train was delayed for an hour.

  I didn’t think I’d make it. I thought I would have to take a cab because I was so agitated. I took a Neurontin, walked outside in the sunshine, and when I came back into the station I sat as far away from people as I could.

  Then a black woman wearing red and pulling a red bag sat next to me. It was a sign that I would be all right. Standing on the platform, not with the woman wearing red, was torture. The platform across from us was filled with people. I felt relieved when their train came along and blocked me from seeing them.

  The platform on my side was very full. I was incredibly relieved when the train showed up, grateful that the car I stepped into was upholstered in red. God keeps showing me red, even out the train window.

  I fell asleep, woke with a stiff neck, but calmer. I still smile and feel comforted when I see red or see 11:11 or 1:11 or any of the power numbers. I like knowing God is with me.

  I’m very tempted to walk off the train somewhere other than Boston. I think the feeling would be one of freedom and adventure. No one watching. I want to be rid of the feeling that I’m being watched. I took another Neurontin because my thoughts were racing, uncomfortable. I saw red, and it really helped.

  My behavior was appropriate to waiting for a train. No one could see my agitation. No one knew I was one of them—the mentally ill who walk among them. Every day.

  I am back in Boston now. Heading back to the hospital, where people will watch me again and will know that I’m different.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Part of me wanted to go home. Another part wanted to live forever in the hospital, where I felt safe and could have the people who love me come visit. The part that wanted to return home won. I missed my children. Although I was still having suicidal thoughts, I decided to keep them to myself. I wanted Dr. Vuckovic to discharge me. I’d spent five weeks at McLean by the time he decided it was okay for me to leave. However, he felt I was fragile and didn’t want to risk having me relapse in faraway Montana. The two of us met with Glennie, and she agreed to let me move i
n with her for two weeks before heading home.

  I was excited to see my sister and Woofie, the white terrier mix that I had brought with me back east. Having a dog with me helped calm my nerves, and Woofie had been a perfect angel on the flight from Montana. Glennie owned two white terrier mixes, too, so I knew that she wouldn’t mind boarding Woofie, although my dog did get us both in trouble for chewing the cord of Glennie’s kitchen phone in half. My mom also had a white terrier, and so did my dad. All of them were from the same breeder, a woman in McAllister. That’s why we called them McAllister dogs.

  Glennie was busy when I moved into her house, so I kept occupied playing with Woofie and taking photographs. My sister had just finished shooting a film called The Chumscrubber, in which she portrayed a mother whose son had committed suicide, an irony that wasn’t lost on either of us.

  On May 30, 2004, I wrote in my diary that I felt fine when I first woke up. The Geodon, my antipsychotic, had silenced the Creature. I still knew it was there, but it had gone into hibernation. My Wyoming friend Betsey Greenwood was back east on business, so she took the train from New York to visit me for the day. Glennie invited both of us to a neighborhood barbecue that she was hosting down the road. At one point, Betsey agreed to walk me back to Glenn’s house because I was so out of it from my medications. Rather than going to bed, I spent twenty minutes searching the room for “a little gift,” courtesy of Woofie. I could smell it but couldn’t find it, which I noted in my diary.