I’ve always found the word high to be extremely misleading.

High: 1. Informal. Intoxicated with alcohol or narcotics
          2. Excited; euphoric
                 Synonyms: intoxicated, inebriated, delirious, wired, blitzed, hallucinating…

The dictionary describes this word with a positive connotation. Maybe it should take in account of what people with--what my doctor calls-- “manic depression” go through. I think I prefer the term “bipolar”. Although that sounds more like an excuse than a mental illness. Manic depression just makes me sound crazy, and crazy, I was not.

Sure, during one of my episodes, I’d get voices in my head telling me to kill my entire family or I’d even think I see a ghost mowing my lawn from time to time. But that’s only if I don’t sleep for hours or even days at a time. The rest of the time was somewhat normal, though. Except for when I went to the doctor to refill the medication that I never took and all he would talk about is imbalances in my brain and ask my mother how many “episodes” have I had this month. The number was always the same.

Two.

A very unlucky number to me because that was how many times I would go from my extreme high to my extreme low. My highs would often run for weeks at a time. I would only get three hours of sleep per night and for the rest of the time, do my homework early or get the energy to clean my room. I’d actually come to like my highs because I felt completely unstoppable. I had the motivation to do anything I wanted and be whoever I wanted.

But there was always a crash. Always.

This was partially what kept me up at night most of the time. I would become anxious toward the end of my high because I always dreaded the crash. Think of it as someone coked up or high on heroin and coming down from the four-to-eight-hour high. Or like a building’s foundation crumbling from so much pressure built up through the years. It starts at the bottom and crumbles from the top.
That would be the only time I would take my medication; to make the crash not as hard as the last one. This was the first step to gaining some--if at all--control over my life even if I didn’t have any motivation to do anything at that time. I would often not choose to go to school, although my mother would force me to go so that I would have some kind of chance at going to college.

I didn’t like going to school during one of my lows because I knew I wouldn’t want to do anything. I would just want to sit in my desk and feel my brain cells die off one by one and counting down the moments until my next high. Years passed this way, at least until my eighteenth birthday. I didn’t know that my mother was keeping track of my medication so on that particular day, she confronted me.

“Why have you not been taking your meds, Harley?” she asked with a lot of concern, not just in her tone but in her striking blue eyes that matched mine.

I so desperately wanted to please her. But the only way I would please her would be to make myself better, and there was no way of accomplishing that. So I simply shrugged my shoulders even though I knew the answer to her question. I didn’t want the pills to change who I was.

Mom continued to stare down at me with a discerning look plastered on her face. I could tell she was at her witsend with my behavior and non-conformity with the treatment she was forking a lot of money out for. Her and my dad both.

She sighed, running a hand through her hair, looking as if she were about to cry. “I just don’t know what to do anymore,” she mumbled into her hands.

I wanted to offer her some comfort and to tell her it was okay and that I would get better, but we both knew that I wasn’t. I was getting worse.

I reluctantly told her that I would start taking my medication again, even though I really didn’t want to, but she shook her head. In seconds, she was up off the sofa and coming for me. For a second, I thought I was having one of my episodes again and hallucinating what she was doing. She picked me up over her shoulder with me kicking and screaming and shoved me into the backseat of her Ford Explorer.

I could instantly feel the panic setting in. I could always tell when an episode was coming on when my skin would start to itch everywhere and no matter how I scratched, it would never relieve the itching. Like my body was one huge mosquito bite in the summer heat.

Where was my mother taking me? Had she finally had enough of me? Killing someone was never the answer, she had to know that. But why me? Why now? If she did this, I would hate her forever.

My mind wouldn’t stop racing and soon it was getting difficult to breathe. For someone who was screaming, I sure was quiet.

The car finally stopped, but I by no means did. My mother came around to the opposite side of our hideous green car and pulled me out. She had tears in her eyes as she did it, as if letting me know that she really didn’t want to do this to me. I pushed and clawed at her, but she was a lot stronger than I was. We were in a building where several people hoarded around us like a pack of wild animals during feeding time. One of them sat me down and plunged a sedative into my leg, and I felt my whole body instantly relax. For once, my mind was quiet.

“Is there anything you can do?” I heard my mom ask.

“With the right treatment, we can help her. Most of it is going to have to be her, though. The patient has to want to change.”

And I did. By God, did I ever. I wanted to stop the thoughts and voices in my head that came after not sleeping or during one of my episodes. I wanted the constant crashes and thoughts of just offing myself to stop. I didn’t want to do it anymore, but I didn’t know how.

My mother looked down at me in my catatonic state and smiled sadly. She came over to rest her hand on mine and said, “These doctors are going to help you, Harley. Your dad and I will come by to see you as often as we can, but for now, you’re going to stay here for a few days, okay?”

I wanted to laugh in her face and say that there was no way in Hell that I was staying in a psych-ward, but I didn’t have much a a choice seeing is how I was on a mild sedative.

She continued, “I love you so much, Harley, but there’s only so much your dad and I can do for you.”

In the silence of my brain, I began thinking. I did want to change. I wanted to stop putting my family through this constant pain. I wanted them to look at me and see the charming and magnetic girl they saw during my highs.

So I found the strength to smile and say, “Okay.”

In that moment, I realized that this would be my life. There was no escaping my manic depression or my episodes, but I could cope with them for the rest of my life. I didn’t know how, but I knew I had to. This was my life, however screwed up, difficult, and sometimes interesting it may be. But in the words of John Shanley, leading an interesting life was always a challenge.