Author Robert Jameson was leading a very successful life as a husband, recent PhD graduate, and professional chemist when he first noticed feeling somewhat abnormal. As stresses mounted over time, Robert slowly approached one of the most significant moments in his life. After a stunning and unexpected admission from his sister, Robert's actions began to spiral out of control, culminating in his being diagnosed as bipolar. The struggle with mental illness can be a long and arduous one. Robert describes his journey to wellness, from his collapse to his eventual successful transcendence to health. He describes how his desire to be well and his drive to seek out nontraditional recovery methods eventually led to his success. Following the inspiring tale of his own journey, Robert has detailed a comprehensive self-help guide to recovery. This guide seeks to help those suffering from mental illness or their friends or family interested in helping someone recover.

Transcending Bipolar Disorder

My Own True Story of Recovery from Mental IllnessBy B. Robert Jameson

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 B. Robert Jameson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4697-8480-9

Contents

Preface.........................................................................................xiAcknowledgments.................................................................................xiiiIntroduction....................................................................................xvChapter 1: Lead-up and First Hospitalization—Breakdown....................................3Chapter 2: Second Hospitalization and Aftermath—Picking up the Pieces.....................13Chapter 3: Third Hospitalization—Power Overload...........................................23Chapter 4: Fourth Hospitalization—Confrontation and Standoff..............................35Chapter 5: Fifth Hospitalization—Victory..................................................49Epilogue........................................................................................59Foreword........................................................................................63Chapter 6: Newly Diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder................................................65Chapter 7: Some Thoughts on Hypomania, Mania and Psychosis......................................67Chapter 8: Dealing with and Overcoming Depression...............................................71Chapter 9: Transcending Bipolar Disorder: Strategies and Exercises..............................77Chapter 10: Advice for Those Trying to Help.....................................................87Conclusion......................................................................................91

Chapter One

Lead-up and First Hospitalization—Breakdown

There's no limit to how high you can go. —Ken (my boss).

It's hard to know where to start the story about the effects of bipolar disorder in my life. The roots were very deep. Problematic trends accelerated and started to blossom in 2001, and the illness bore its evil fruit in 2002. I would say 2001 was when I started to go off the rails in a serious way.

To give a bit of background: I married my wonderful, beautiful wife, Linda, in 1998. I finished my Ph.D. in 1999, and after another short stint working at a university for a year and a half, I began my career as a professional medicinal chemist at a pharmaceutical company in Montreal in January 2001.

I was excited about the job; it was my dream job, and I worked hard at it. Sometimes there was quite a bit of pressure, but it was a relief to meet the deadlines. Despite my hard work and the praise of my superiors, I felt that I was not very good at the job. This was a stress that began to mount as the successful year went by. I began to feel like I needed an edge. Along with this was the sense that I had professionally climbed to a plateau: I had earned the PhD I had been seeking for five years, and then I landed the job I had wanted for many years. So what now? I decided to try to become a director at the company, but it was a goal I wasn't as passionate about. I began to seek something else, something less tangible.

I had been wearing glasses since grade four. I became interested in recovering clear eyesight without the need of glasses, a claim being made by some doctors and alternative/New Age medical practitioners. During the course of reading about this, I learned of the claim that psychic powers could be augmented as well, and I hoped that this could help me perform better in my career. Seeking out psychic abilities for such a selfish purpose would lead me into trouble and destabilize my grip on reality.

I performed a series of eye exercises on a regular basis. One of them was to wear a patch over each eye in turn, for at least a half hour. When I used my left eye and covered my right, however, I found that I would get very tired and had difficulty in keeping my weaker left eye open. I learned that if I drew pictures while wearing the patch over my right eye this tiredness would not occur. The content of the pictures I would draw in this way, however, was gruesome and disturbing. I think it best not to describe the grotesque contents of these pictures, but they were a sign that something was wrong with my psyche. I was shocked to find that my mind had produced such pictures.

By the end of 2001 I had completed the first year of my pharmaceutical career. I felt unsuccessful and was afraid of the performance rating I would receive. I was becoming obsessed with improving my eyesight, which hadn't made much progress. I was having trouble sleeping some nights, worrying over minor problems or events at work.

I received a shock in February 2002. I received my rating for my performance of 2001—and it was outstanding. One might imagine that this would be a pleasant surprise, but it was not whatsoever to me. I was told by my boss, Ken, "There is no limit to how high you can go in this organization." This unsettled me greatly. I had an inferior view of myself relative to others in the company and felt I didn't fit in very well. Although I wrote earlier that I had set a goal for myself to be a director, part of me did not want it. I wasn't even sure I wanted to keep working in the industry. It also created added pressure for me to live up to a rating that I didn't feel I had earned and didn't have the ability to match. I was starting to crack.

So these were the first cracks in my sanity. Next came the hammer blow.

* * *

It was a cool Thursday evening in March. Linda and I were relaxing in the front room of our modest apartment, watching television. At about nine o'clock I received a phone call from my sister. She had some news that she wanted to tell me in private. I still remember how she told me.

"I have something to tell you. Uncle Calvin ... was not a nice man."

In my head, as soon as she told me that and before she went into detail, I frantically thought: No, anything but this! She told me he had sexually abused her while she was a child, thirty years ago, and she had only remembered it now, under hypnosis during therapy.

Then another thought came to me: perhaps he had sexually abused me as well. I asked, "Do a lot of pedophiles molest both boys and girls?" I thought she would know this since she was a psychologist.

"Most pedophiles"—she spat the word out with disgust—"choose only one sex."

We talked for a half hour. After I got off the phone, I told my wife my sister's news, and I wept. I wanted to be loyal to my sister and support her during this awful time. I also wasn't sure what my parents' reaction would be, and I wanted them to stand by her as well. I wanted them to believe her, but I was not sure they would.

I didn't sleep that night, and the next day at work was really difficult. I wondered whether people around me were sexual abusers or had been sexually abused as children. I was angry at the world around me.

Friday night we drove to visit Linda's family in Toronto. It was a welcome oasis of peace away from the insanity I was facing. Perhaps if I had received that call on a Sunday night and had to face a full work-week without respite, I might have been hospitalized right then. The news rocked me to the core, and I was barely able to function.

When we got back from Toronto, I talked to my parents. They were really worried about how my sister, my brother and I were all coping with this story. They said that at first they hadn't really believed the story, but my brother's reaction as well as mine convinced them that there was something to it. I was very angry at them. I didn't sense that they understood the gravity of what had been revealed; they didn't see it or didn't care about it. They decided to pay me a visit, as my brother had suggested they should. Linda, my parents and I decided to take a drive over to Toronto, and then after a visit with Linda's family, my parents would drive us back. It was Easter time.

I felt an intense hatred of Uncle Calvin that was poisoning my mind. I was terrified and furious that he had perhaps done something to me as well as angry that he had hurt my sister. I felt debased, ashamed and disgusted. While Linda and I were visiting with her family, I had a hallucination. At one point, she turned and looked at me, and instead of seeing her face, I saw his old face grinning at me, looking the way he had a few years before his death. I was shocked and discomfited. I realized I couldn't go on like this.

That night, I dreamt something I can't remember now, but the message was that anything he had done to me was in the past. I woke up and it was Easter Sunday, a good time to put the past behind and forgive him, or at least let it go.

As soon as I did, the anger I had been feeling just shifted onto my parents. How had they let this happen? Why were they carrying on in such a nonchalant way—how could they, after this had happened?

While still in Toronto, I spent some time walking with my father. He said to me, "I feel like I should go and visit your sister. I feel like it will be hard for me, but I should go." I considered that very selfish of him to be thinking about how hard it would be for him to go instead of thinking how he could best help his daughter. Then he started talking about me, and he said, "I am not worried about you at all."

I wondered how he could be so blind and uncaring. Linda's father later noticed there was something wrong with me, and he tried to snap me out of it by talking to me about light subjects, but there was nothing he could do.

The next day my parents, Linda and I drove back to Montreal. I was quiet in the car.

"A penny for your thoughts," my mom said.

I decided to tell her what was on my mind. "I think Uncle Calvin might have done something to me too."

We talked for a while, and my mom, sister and I all cried. My dad was unsettled and said he had to take a break from driving. Eventually we got back to Montreal. My parents would stay the night. I decided to take a day off work and spend it with them before they went back home.

Before we went out to dinner, my dad was irritated with me. He kicked me in the leg and said, "I'll jab you in the solar plexus," and made a threatening gesture. I glared at him, furious.

Dinner was a cold, unfriendly meal. As it was ending, my parents said they would like to call my sister. They could see I was very angry, and they were conciliatory. "Do you have any advice on what I should say to her?" my father earnestly asked me.

I pretended to think for a moment. "No," I replied coldly. Fortune cookies came. Mine said: you long for perfection. My mother's said: your luck is about to change. I don't remember the other ones.

Back at our apartment, it was time to call. My dad offered to visit my sister, but she said she didn't want him to come.

"Well, I have church," he said.

As soon as I heard that, I completely lost control. I began to scream and cry uncontrollably. My dear wife came over and put her arms around me, and tears ran down her face. My mother also came over. "Shhh," she said quietly, "the neighbours will hear."

I turned away from her and clung to Linda. I began to scream and cry even louder. I said to Dad, "Do I have to beg for your love?" and got down on my knees.

"For heaven's sake," he said, irritated and surprised.

My wife, my mother and I went into the office. I regained my composure after a minute or so. I had stopped crying and was calm. "I didn't know I had that in me," I said ruefully.

Despite this cathartic release of grief and hurt, something was still missing. I didn't feel as if my parents were really sorry enough about what had happened. They didn't seem very engaged in the whole situation. Something was wrong with the picture. I felt like the whole situation was a puzzle that I needed to piece together, but some of the pieces were missing. The whole night I stayed awake praying. I prayed for God's power, saying I didn't care if I died, but I needed to know the truth. I prayed and prayed.

The next morning was a sunny day, but the daylight seemed white and cold instead of a warm yellow. My wife was leaving for work. I told her I loved her. I didn't tell her I wasn't sure I would survive the day.

After she was gone, I went out to see my parents. I talked to them for about five minutes, but I don't remember everything I said. I remember saying that if Uncle Calvin had molested my sister, I would have burned him alive. I didn't really know what I was saying. Then I said to my dad to get down on his knees and beg for my forgiveness for spanking me when I was in grade two.

"But what about?" he began.

"Get on your knees," I screamed at him.

"Okay, son, for you I will." He got on his knees and said, "I beg for your forgiveness."

Then I got down on my knees in front of him and said, "I love you, Dad. I wasn't trying to be better than you."

Madness overtook me, and I went over to my mother and told her to beg for my forgiveness too. On my way over, an inner voice said to me, Don't do this! but I was too confused and power-mad to listen. I lived with the shame of that for years afterward. The only thing I can say to defend myself was that I was also trying to take the suffering away from my parents, not just get back at them.

After this transpired, my parents stayed around for a few hours and then left me and went home. When Linda came home that evening, my parents called and said I was sick and needed to see a doctor. I told my mother I never wanted to see her again, and that Uncle Calvin was my real father.

I didn't sleep that night either and made it only through the next day before I was hospitalized. I actually went to work the next morning, but everyone could see something was seriously wrong with me. My boss, Ken, told me to take the rest of the week off. I walked home and started acting even crazier, losing control of my actions, acting out with strange gestures, doing strange rituals. My wife was confused and frightened by my actions, and she called 911 on me, with good reason.

The police and ambulance personnel came and took me away. When I saw the ambulance I began to resist, but they easily overpowered me. My insanity progressed even further, and I looked into the eyes of the personnel and could feel their suffering. This was not an intellectual type of understanding. I experienced the fullness of their pain even more than they were consciously aware of it. It was terrible suffering, more than I could endure. I screamed out to God so that He would help me. A sudden feeling of transcendent peace came, confused as it was with the suffering of insanity.

While still in the ambulance an unbelievable thing happened. My life began to flash backward before my eyes. Everything was rewinding. I could feel pubic hair in my mouth and was trying to spit it out. The ambulance staff thought I was spitting at them and covered my mouth with a cloth. I kept spitting—the cloth became wet, and I could hardly breathe, although I was panting furiously. I thought I was going to die of suffocation. I felt a new spirit being born into me, and although it was a stillbirth, it was okay.

Then I had a vision.

A father holds his son in his arms. The baby looks up at his father with love and gurgles with joy. The father coos gently to his son, expressing a love beyond words. They both have a light in their eyes that joins them together, and they are one in it.

There's a new story now, and it begins with that. Or is that the epilogue, or chapter 3?

I eventually lost consciousness in the ambulance. For a moment I started speaking in tongues, calling out for a guru. Then I blacked out.

At the hospital

I temporarily regained consciousness once admitted to the hospital. It would not be particularly illustrative to describe the insanity that initially transpired there. After maybe an hour and a half I came back down to earth. One poignant thing I remember was a lady saying to me, "Bon courage, monsieur." Was she an angel? After I came down, I slept for a full day.

I was admitted to a room on the psychiatric ward. The assigned psychiatrist came by to see me. She asked how I was, and I said I was tired. I asked her for a glass of water, but she said I should ask the nurses. How was that for effective delegation of labour? Whatever it was, it sure came across as cold.

When I was fully awake, I became scared that I would never be released from the hospital. I asked a nurse how long I would be held for, and she told me it was usually a matter of weeks before someone is released, not months or years. That was a great comfort to me. My attitude was to be completely compliant with the doctors and nurses so they would let me go as soon as possible.

That night there was a "code white." A code white is when a patient is resistant, perhaps violently so (as was the case this time), and needs to be restrained. The patient fought bravely but futilely, and he was restrained hand and foot in the pink room. The pink room was a room with only a bed equipped with restraints, an adjoining washroom, and a cute little peek-a-boo window that opened at the nurses' station so they could peek in at the patient whenever they wanted. I didn't know much about it this first hospitalization—I found out later. After the code white, all the patients were assembled so the staff could calm their fears about the event. Someone asked if the bed was fixed to the floor so it wouldn't rise off the ground. The orderly assured that it was fixed.

Back in my room, which I shared with three other men, one of my roommates said to me that he was happy to see me and that he'd been afraid it was me who had been put in the pink room.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door.

An older man, about fifty-five, with wild eyes was staring at me. "Robert, there is a meeting outside," he lisped.

"We already had the meeting," I replied.

"There is another one," he said.

"No, I am not going."

"I want to sleep with you. In your bed."

We were all shocked, and my roommates told him to go away. I was afraid, but my roommates said they would keep watch to make sure he wouldn't come back. They told me his name was Ben, and he was stone-cold crazy. It was a creepy experience. I had trouble sleeping again that night.

After the first few days, the time passed quickly. The medication I was taking was making me ravenous. I was eating two meals at dinnertime instead of one. I was rapidly gaining weight. Also, one of the medications was given under the tongue, and it was making my tongue swell so much that I sounded foolish when I spoke. I complained to the doctor about the side effects, but she wouldn't listen. Apart from that, the medication was affecting my mind, making me less creative, an asset I needed in my career.

This medication acted as though it was a brace inside my brain. What it felt like is somewhat difficult to explain. Whenever I would want to consider something "off to the side", meaning a sort of strange thought, it would be as though the brace would stop me, snapping my focus back to the front, with a sensation of "No, we are not going to think about that." That is what it felt like to me.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Transcending Bipolar Disorderby B. Robert Jameson Copyright © 2012 by B. Robert Jameson. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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