"Bipolar. Extremely manic to be precise," That was the diagnosis that required about thirty seconds of Dr. Henderson’s sustained
observation. His professional demeanor seemed a bit shaken, if not altogether troubled
and wholly disturbed by the mass exodus of verbiage, equal parts desultory rant and enraged black thought that was the culmination and height of my first
episode as he called it. But this was not a TV show, it was my life, and it
would be for the better part of the next decade.
He had
but one question for my concerned parents: “Is he always like this?” My parents, who put aside decades of marital distance for their son in crisis, were nonplussed by his query, and equally shaken by my recent behavior.
Certainly, I was not always like this, in fact, all reports pointed to mania's diametric opposite. Considerations of my countenance and comportment from my earliest kindergarten reports to those who knew me well had always began with that terribly vague word, "quiet." In retrospect it must have been the 23 years of calm before the storm, the eye/I of which would be topic of many a discussion involving from those close to me to detached clinicians.
Maybe it was genetic predisposition as my mother's brother, Darrell, is bipolar, and was also diagnosed in his early twenties. Whatever the case may be, no one, least of all myself saw it coming, or if anyone did little was made of the perfect storm of unsutured angst and unexpected circumstance that bore my first steps into troubled waters.
In retrospect mentions and recollections of a dyadic personality were noted by my mother as she recalled these aforementioned teacher reports that always had me pegged as acutely quiet, very studious, and always respectful. She told me of how she nearly asked the teachers at their subsequent conferences if they had the right child identified on paper. To hear her tell it, as soon I as came home from the academic bootcamp the same child they had pegged as "a pleasure to have in class" threw toys and caution to the wind, roughhousing with my sister Jessica, and raising the decibel level at our quaint Jamaica Plain duplex somewhere between jackhammer and jet engine. Certainly this was not the keeper of the inside voice she had been informed.
Certainly, I was not always like this, in fact, all reports pointed to mania's diametric opposite. Considerations of my countenance and comportment from my earliest kindergarten reports to those who knew me well had always began with that terribly vague word, "quiet." In retrospect it must have been the 23 years of calm before the storm, the eye/I of which would be topic of many a discussion involving from those close to me to detached clinicians.
Maybe it was genetic predisposition as my mother's brother, Darrell, is bipolar, and was also diagnosed in his early twenties. Whatever the case may be, no one, least of all myself saw it coming, or if anyone did little was made of the perfect storm of unsutured angst and unexpected circumstance that bore my first steps into troubled waters.
In retrospect mentions and recollections of a dyadic personality were noted by my mother as she recalled these aforementioned teacher reports that always had me pegged as acutely quiet, very studious, and always respectful. She told me of how she nearly asked the teachers at their subsequent conferences if they had the right child identified on paper. To hear her tell it, as soon I as came home from the academic bootcamp the same child they had pegged as "a pleasure to have in class" threw toys and caution to the wind, roughhousing with my sister Jessica, and raising the decibel level at our quaint Jamaica Plain duplex somewhere between jackhammer and jet engine. Certainly this was not the keeper of the inside voice she had been informed.
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