I wrote this many years ago for a creative writing class in college. Almost 20 years ago, in fact. Now I feel old. Anyway, this is about a time my Mom had a severe manic episode with psychosis. She was hospitalized for 14 days and she was never the same. She ended up getting a rare, but potentially fatal reaction to an anti-psychotic, called neuroleptic malignant syndrome. I often wonder if that contributed to early onset dementia in her 50’s. That’s pretty young. Between often being over medicated, or incorrectly? she had to sleep a lot when I was a kid. She also dealt with mania and depression even thought she was consistent about taking medication.
When I was really young, maybe 3 or 4, my Mom had a severe manic episode and she took me in her bathrobe and walked down the street trying to get to my Grammy’s house. I am not sure if I remember or have formulated a memory from hearing about it.
I do remember visiting my mom in a half-way house. This was a transition home before retuning to your own home, after being hospitalized.
Here is the poem or short story…
Pills to help her sleep. That’s all she needed. That’s what they told us. Pills to make her drowsy so she will sleep through the night.
“Once she gets a good night sleep, she will be fine,” the doctor said.
He didn’t know anything. He didn’t have to watch her shake herself into a seizure. He didn’t have to tell her everything was going to be okay when it clearly wasn’t. Just a good night sleep. How does one sleep when they shake like 37 shivers running through their bones all at once? He doesn’t have to look into the face covered with anxiety. Covered with fear. I am the one who has to see that face. And I can barely stand to look. I want to hold her arms and keep them from shaking. I want to make it stop. Do everything to be back to normal. A concept I don’t quite understand anymore. I sat there and watched. Completely helpless. It doesn’t seem real but exaggerated.
I look at the papers. The ones that come in the bag for each pill bottle. There are so many. In 5-minutes, I know more than the doctor.
It is very serious.
Not something chased away by a nights rest. These side effects are rare. But they are serious. And she has them.
There’s a spot for every day of the week. Sunday through Saturday. Four different times each day of the week. So many pills to keep track of. I was no pharmacist. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I focused my energy on it. Day after day. Four different times. Overnight I became a full-time nurse.
It was one of these pills that caused it all. The uncontrollable shaking. The pills made her so drowsy I had to stop her from falling asleep in her dinner. She lived like a zombie. I woke her up to take more pills. Ironic. To be woken up to take sleeping pills.
This was the alternative. The other end of the ultimate high. Mania, they call it. This was the other end of the spectrum. There was no middle ground. I lived with the high and I lived with the low. I have been there and back. Been the hero and the enemy.
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