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Look Inside the Book
Look Inside the Book Chapter 3 Through the Eyes of a Child I was born September 18, 1953, in Harper Hospital in Detroit. My mother reports that I must have been anxious for my arrival because her easy forceps delivery went well, which was a blessing for her, given that she was thirty-five when I arrived. In those days, any pregnant woman over thirty was considered “up in age” and became an eyebrow raiser. My father always told me I was a “beautiful baby” and our family photographs prove him right. “But in fact,” he would add in later years, “all of our children were beautiful.” Fortunately, my birth brought change to the family without a repeat of the previous turmoil and the transition was as smooth as if planned. The hospital was a short distance from home, straight up Gratiot Avenue just miles to downtown Detroit. Obviously, I have no recollection of arriving home, but I imagine a triumphant first meeting between my brother, my sister, my grandma, and me. I suspect there was some sibling uncertainty about my arrival, and based on what I know of them as adults, I would imagine they exchanged words about me. My brother might have said “What a treasure” with my sister replying, “When do we bury it?” An old joke, yes, but this might have been the most candid reflection of the feelings that were evident even then. Pink and lively, I was a cheerful seven-plus-pound brand-new sister with a noted good disposition. Still, they saw me for all I was worth: baby bottles, diaper changes, and a smiling, attention-taking, spit-drooling nighttime interrupter. In time, there would be no escaping the knowledge they couldn’t share with me then. The storyline would follow: three children brought together by design, in the course of a twist and turn of life. Three very impressionable children circumstantially lacking hopefulness while sharing an environment filled with unhealthy parental behaviors. Childhood, huh? They say the mind never forgets, and yet I remember little of my childhood, so I have cautiously used the information of others to fill in the blanks. As the years have unfolded, the truth has been revealed to expose the vivid dramatic situations that played out. Lack of memory may be a good thing. While I sum up the early days with details that are loose, lost, or unpleasant, I am not all that anxious to open up this psychiatric Pandora’s Box. But the upside for me is the thought of my father and his camera, film, bulbs, and our poses. He was able to capture the split seconds of life on black-and-white glossies now stored in a box, and they have become my picture window of insight into our world. What my father exposed through nostalgia quietly enlightens me and gives me comfort. It is relatively easy to distinguish me from the others in our family. I am the youngest girl and I have a deep set of dimples, one in each cheek, and I’m having a good time. I know this because I’m smiling from ear to ear. Even so, I get frustrated with the vagueness of the photos because I want to know more about the who, what, when, where, why, and how of them. I wonder about the turmoil. If I’m really at point B but it feels like Z, how in the hell did I get past A? (If you would like to read more of Life Is Like a Line, please click on the Purchase tab to place an order). Look Inside the Book: Chapter 13 Chasing Sanity ... We were at home on the lake again. The birds continue to wake me and the stars stir me. My mood is like the climate. It is a red-hot summer and within me there is a scorching of resentment and more disappointment. I hadn’t slept more than five hours in the past three days and my doctor warns me. There is a care factor and I suppose I don’t. I do not find sleep easily. This is a new me, emotion filled. My mother had hurt me, I love her dearly and though I should expect her rejection I never see it coming. Again verse comes to me, I am nocturnal, I am alone fighting depression and melancholy. I miss my dad. Three in the morning and this is what I have become. A Message to My Mother Intelligent Design put my tiny hands in yours but vacant eyes would never see that miracle of life just steps away from you lived me. You should have loved … me My childhood longed for more than your despair. My waking eyes learned lessons of someone else's game You should have loved ... me. Music-laden melancholy separates the sorrowful but keeps them at their breast While others befall some symphony of despondency not like the rest You should have loved ... me. And figures exposed to battles never won but still designed would horrify not glorify While the drums beat on the message loudly passing And when you are callous with my spirit I defend And everything that hurts shouts out and my unwanted nature then prevails But I know that I will never cease my call and I will care for you and love you even though You should have loved ... me. Look Inside the Book: Chapter 14 Essential Elements ... This was the turning point in my psychiatrist’s strategy. Perhaps this new kind of medication would be the answer to my prayers, but I didn’t like the tag that went with its success—the embarrassment of needing a psychiatrist, the monthly medications purchased at the local pharmacy where everybody knew your name, the stigma of the diagnosis that others would eventually come to know. I wanted to be a winner, but I didn’t want to be considered a loser as a result. For a chance at hopefulness, I listened and I learned and I decided to try it anyway. Once begun, I had to promise to take my medication as prescribed and be diligent to prevail. This was not an antidepressant drug per se but a mood-stabilizing medication designed to be effective enough to provide an antidepressant and anti-manic result as well. My doctor was hopeful this new medication would adjust the severity of my mood swings so they would decrease in frequency and harshness and all that looked like episodes resembling an illness would be reduced. Manic. Manic. I did not understand manic, or hypomanic, or anti-manic. I did not understand any of it for a very long time. I have now spent several hundred hours learning about recurrences and brain function and stress management, and while I have hung on to every word, I have waited, if not a cure, then for symptomatic elimination. Dr. Emil Kraepelin, a German psychiatrist who lived from 1856-1926,stated this: “Manic patients may transitorily appear not only sad and despairing, but also quiet and inhibited. A patient goes to be moody and inhibited, suddenly wakes up with a feeling as if a veil had been drawn away from his brain, passes the day in manic (excited) delight in work, and the next morning, exhausted and with a heavy head, he again finds in himself the whole misery of his state. Or the hypomanic exultant (jubilant) patient quite unexpectedly [makes] a serious attempt at suicide.” Though it all made sense, I drew a line in the sand. I decided a manic-depressive illness was too much and that my ill was more of a nervous breakdown. In spite of being poles apart from my doctor, I promised to follow her lead. Privately, I was convinced the patient was saner than the doctor, though I could not deny that every word from her lips made perfect sense. An illness? Illness? Excuse me? You think what? You've got to be kidding. Hypo... Hypomania... Manic-depressive illness? M A N I C manic? Me? Are you sure...? I drove home in the Corvette with the top down and the radio blasting, moving in and out of traffic and once I neared on hundred miles per hour, manic-depression didn't matter anymore. My spirits lifted when I was flying. Desire and my automobile, an illusive combination. Later that day, in the comfort of my own garage, I watched as the door closed behind me. My silent obsessions began to take me. Tormented by my own self-determination, it was time, and while I waited for the fumes, I analyzed and I became confused and I changed my mind. (If you would like to read more of LIFE IS LIKE A LINE, please click the Purchase tab to place your order).
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