So, I wake up one morning and say to myself, “It would be glorious to be in Lentegeur!” and I even get totally livid thinking about how nice it was going to be. Lentegeur?! Lentegeur?! (our local psychiatric hospital for legally committed insane people.)
I say to myself, “Girl, you’re as mad as a hatter!” The vision I have is of me in some jail cell, lying on a filthy bed with my face to the wall. Mad people run in and out the room screaming and laughing with nursing staff trying to calm them down, and I laugh inwardly coz I think, “I am not as mad as they are.” And I am enjoying myself coz I don’t have to eat, I don’t have to drink, I can just keep lying on that one side facing the wall. The nursing staff will bring my medication precisely on time, and I just have to lie in that one position! And I don’t even have to get up to go to the toilet, I just do my stuff in the bed, and if it smells, they will clean me, or they can just leave me also, as long as I can just keep lying on that one side. And then I see myself sitting with the nutcases outside, laughing my head off for no particular reason while they are smoking (dope, I think) and I keep laughing telling them these inappropriate jokes.
That , THAT hit me in the gut like I fist. Fuck! I was really totally off my rocker, forget about One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. If this isn’t a cry for help from my subconscious then I don’t know, but I am really fucked! 40 mg Fluoxetine is not doing the trick, psychotherapy is not doing the trick, and I need a revelation! This depression has thrown me into the pit of hell.
I go back to my GP crying, I’m sure I must have looked like a hollow vase just pouring out water. And I can’t stop the rain! It’s pouring and pouring and it’s pouring. If ever I once smiled before, I was not remembering it now! There I am, crying my hollow being out, and he says, “don’t lose faith girlie, we will get through this.” And then he says the one thing that widens my eyes, “I wonder if you’re not Bipolar? They sometimes have this deep depression that does not respond to conventional antidepressants.” And deep down I think, “darn, this guy is good! I know I have bipolar tendencies, go cyclothymic with the seasons, but never told him that. He actually concluded this all by himself!” suddenly he has earned my respect more than any other doctor. He made the diagnosis. He actually thought of the diagnosis not having ever seen me in a manic state. He has never seen the Day 3 Fluoxetine phenomena!
So on day three Fluoxetine 20mg I wake up feeling invincible. Man, I am on a high. I don’t feel anxious, nothing can faze me, and it feels like I am walking on clouds! I go to work, calmly strut my stuff, and do the one resus after the other. I was on a go! I say to myself, “Is this what depressed people feel like on Fluoxetine? Darn life is good; I am efficient, fast, and unstoppable.”
Day three Fluoxetine 40 mg- the previous day I was lying in the foetal position, planning my death over and over, refusing to eat, refusing to drink water, refusing to talk or wash myself, just existing. But day three, oh day three, I wake up and ask my sister, “do you want breakfast?” so I am up and about making a real English breakfast, bacon, eggs, sausages, mushrooms, fried tomatoes, laughing while I tell one joke after the other. And we have no bread, but that’s no problem, coz I just bake us a nice batch of rolls, go get us a movie, and me and my sis spend the day watching movies, eating and laughing. Me, the same person who could not get out of bed the previous week!
Day three Fluoxetine 60mg- I have been spending the past three days in a psychiatric clinic. Just lying in bed while the sisters try and coax me to eat something and join the other patients. I just give this half, not really there smile, totally gutted out from inside. But day three, oh day three, glorious day three, I wake up and start making plans to exercise. Telling everyone that I was going to wake up at six the next morning and exercise, I am looking at the curtains thinking that I can make them better. I grab a puzzle with 1000 pieces totally convinced that I was going to finish it that day, not even having enough space to build it! I tell jokes to the sisters, make other patients laugh, play thirty seconds, make plans of baking a microwave cake in the clinic. Life is good!
God really blessed me. I got the best psychiatric deal. Whenever the depression is deep, I always have the hypomania to look forward to. And when the hypomania starts wearing me down physically, not sleeping, and running around frantically like a mad hatter, I always have the depression to look forward to, to quieten me down. Yip, I know exactly how you feel when you are flung into the midst of a deep dark void, and I know exactly how you feel when you are exhilarating happy. I know exactly how you feel.
