Writing Prompt: Lessons Learned

 Prompt: Go back in time and meet your younger self.

Lessons Learned

If I could go back in time and meet a younger me, I know exactly where I’d go. I’d go straight to where I was at age 35, newly diagnosed with bipolar with psychotic features, sitting on my back patio in the depths of serious kickback from psychotic mania and trapped in deep, dark tarry depression, the likes of which I’d never experienced. I’d sit with that crumpled me and just hold her, for as long as she wanted before the call of the bed became too much for her.

A place to hide. A place to try and quell the suicidal ideations, which were relentless, with sleep.

The psychiatrist in the nut hut, where that me had received the bipolar diagnosis a few weeks previously, was a real asshole, delivering the news of my diagnosis without a trace of compassion or understanding, to someone in the throes of her first psychotic episode, in her first hospitalization (of many to follow). It’s no wonder I found myself post-hospitalization confused, deeply ashamed, concocting scenarios for offing myself but lacking the guts for the follow-through.

I choose to sit with this 35-year old me not only because she was suicidal and scared. It’s because I know this mood would eventually shift, the depression would lift, and I want to be with her when that important transition happens. Because then, right there, is when the bad decision-making started. Decisions that damn near cost me 15 years of my life, spent in and out of hospitals, failing at employment attempts, almost losing my marriage. 

“The medication brought you to this stability,” I’d say, after the suicidal thoughts drifted away. “Stay on it and you will most likely never have suicidal ideation again. Now let’s head to CVS for something indispensable for you: A pill tray. Trust me, without one, things are going to get royally fucked up.”

Yes, I’d interject myself right back into this 35-year old’s life, and give her what she needed most: knowledge and wisdom about medication management. We’d have much to cover, particularly circumventing Bad Decision Number One: thinking it’s ok to “tinker” with the meds when you’re feeling better. Skip a dose for a few days. Cut a pill in half. Stop one med on your own all together. Um, I’d tell her, that’s a hard NO! Together, we would fill up the pill tray, carefully making sure to thoroughly read the prescription bottle labels to ensure morning meds were in the AM chamber and evening meds were in the PM one. You’d think simple organization like this would be intuitive, but unfortunately for 35-year old me, flirting with denial of my condition, it wasn’t.

Next, it would be time for discussion about Bad Decision Number Two: thinking it’s OK to completely ignore the warning on the pill bottle, “Do not mix this medication with alcohol.” For me, mixing meds with alcohol means the pills can’t work, which leads to episodes and ultimately, you guessed it, the nut hut. I’d explain slowly but seriously that the dance with booze was over. For good. I’m not sure how active alcoholic me would receive that, or if she’d immediately start grasping at Bad Decision Number Three: if you can’t have liquor, reach for the weed. If so, I’d have to emphatically state that any mood-altering substance was now off the table, and there would be no going back.

I don’t think anyone but my 50-something self could deliver this information to the 35-year old me and have her accept it. I was just too ill-equipped back then to understand the seriousness of my illness, how it was wrapped up in my dual diagnosis of alcoholism and weed addiction, and how the two situations needed to be addressed with religious med compliance and a 12-Step program. The situation demanded an older, wiser me leading the confused, overwhelmed youngster through the land mines of a debilitating scenario I was not equipped to handle. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and chaos reigned supreme for the next 15 years.

I sigh deeply now, closing my eyes and reflecting upon all the mess I endured. I hurt for that 35-year old without a pill tray, wrapped up in dirty bedsheets, crying over her uncertain future. Maybe that’s why I want to write a memoir so badly, maybe save someone from the sheer hell I’ve been through. Ah, to go back in time and correct mistakes. Mis-steps. If only. If only.