Emily Reinholt Interview Bipolar Disorder REH 110 Introduction to

Emily Reinholt Interview: Bipolar Disorder REH 110 Introduction to Disability Studies December 2002 1 I never thought of bipolar disorder as something too serious. It seems that these days it just takes a loss of control over ones emotions to be diagnosed as bipolar. This may be just because I have been involved in the college community for a few years where it is trendy or cool to be bipolar or depressed. I know tons of people who say they are bipolar but I see very little evidence of its reality. Therefore, it has never struck me as a disorder that could lead to serious problems in ones ability to cope and function in everyday life. It was not until I watched a very close friend of mine, we’ll call him Larry, go from being a calm, mellow guy to someone I along with several others, feared. Larry is a college student. He is twenty-one years old and he suffers from an extreme case of bipolar disorder. He was just put on medication for his disorder this past summer. Before going into any further depth, I must bring some things to attention. This is a very personal subject for me. This project is a lot more than just a grade for me. It is a source of justification for something that Larry, at one of his most out of control points, did to me as a result of his illness. It was that incident which will be described in further detail later in this essay, that caused Larry to seek professional help. The incident took place this summer and it was not until now that I could face it and with the help of this project, draw some closure to it. I have wanted for some time now to be able to forgive my friend for his actions and this assignment seemed a perfect way to do it. The knowledge that I obtained through my interview and research gave me the 2 explanations that I have needed for a long time now to help me understand and forgive what Larry’s disorder put me through. Larry remembers first feeling depressed when he was in sixth grade, though he never sought professional help until this past summer. He explained his mood swings as being very seasonal. He would fall into deep depression during the winter and it would lift and turn to mania once spring came along. He recalls this change in moods as something he has noticed since junior high. He always new that his extreme mood swings from winter to spring were not normal but they never got in the way of his functioning until this past winter. Last winter Larry’s depression and paranoia grew into something that he knew he could not control. He had always been a very social person and even though he went through stages of depression, he was usually able to snap out of them by finding things that he enjoyed doing. He is a snow boarder and a very good one at that. Since his depression always came about in the winter snowboarding helped to pull him out of his sadness, at least while he was on the mountain. Last winter, snow boarding stopped working. He did not have the confidence on the mountain that he had had in past years and felt more nervous than happy while riding. Larry lived in a house with three other boys and I was a sort of, part-time resident. We were all close friends and had spent the majority of our college career together. Throughout the winter, we were all noticing changes in Larry’s mood. He had always 3 been a very confident and strong person but over that winter, he became increasingly introverted and quiet. He would sit on the couch for hours and not say much of anything. Larry described sitting on the couch to me. He said that he felt like he could not move and when he would speak he would end up worrying about what he had said and wondering if it had come out right. Therefore, he did not like saying anything. He stated that he felt like he was ‘the sketchy kid’ and that everyone thought so. Some of his depression stemmed from relationship problems but he knew that these could not be the total source of his issues. Not only was Larry very depressed but he was suffering from extreme paranoia as well. When alone in the house he would duck down when walking past windows because he thought people might be watching him. He knew that this was ridiculous but could not help thinking about it. He began hanging a towel up over the window in his bedroom because he thought that the people next door might have a video camera set up that could view into his bedroom. Again, he new that this was irrational, but could not stop himself from thinking about it. Larry became obsessive about his schoolwork. He was constantly worrying that he was going to do poorly. When he would sit down to write a paper, which was something that usually came easily to him, he would find himself staring at the computer screen for hours and getting almost nothing accomplished. Every sentence he wrote had to be perfect. It would take him 4 forever just to get a few words down because he thought it had to be written just write so he was constantly changing what he wrote. At this time, we were all impressed by Larry’s devotion to school. We thought it was a result of his doing poorly the semester before. Even though he had a computer right in his bedroom, he would often go to the computer center at all hours of the night and be gone for hours. I would discuss school with him and he never thought that he was doing well. Larry began suffering for insomnia. He barely slept more than one hour a night for over a month. When trying to go to sleep his mind was always racing. He wanted to kill himself but knew that he never would. Once whether began getting better Larry’s depression lifted. He felt great. “I felt like I was on top of the world,” he said. He stopped worrying about anything and could sleep again. The paranoia that he had been feeling completely went away. He never even thought about his schoolwork and believed that he would do fine even though he was not doing any work. His exact words at this time were “I’ve got this school by the balls.” Larry had always been a heavy drinker but during this time, he was drinking constantly. He barely went to classes and drank all day instead. We all noticed an extreme change in Larry’s mood once the whether started to improve. It was around Easter time when he went he from mellow, nice Larry to ‘belligerent Larry.’ All the boys living with him were having a hard time dealing with his highly confident and extremely obnoxious behavior. I was amazed to learn during the 5 interview that he had not noticed any of these things. He thought he was ‘the man’ and could do anything and it was obvious. There were several times we got into arguments and the boys living there and I would attempt to bring Larry’s attitude to his attention but none of what we said would sink in. During the interview, Larry made several comments about how, at that time, he was very happy not to be depressed anymore and that he felt fantastic. He was happy while in this manic state, even though most of his closest friends were getting mad and sometimes fearful of him. He recalls being easily agitated and very aggressive. When summer came, Larry moved back home and began working. His mania was getting worse. He worked for only one month before he lost his job. His drinking was getting worse and he was showing up late for work a lot. Larry’s memories of the next month or two are not very vivid. He remembers his emotions being very uncontrollable. He was very aggressive and fighting constantly with his family that wanted him to get help. He moved out of his house because he did not want to fight with his parents anymore and lived in his vehicle for over a month. He also remembers that even though he did not feel depressed he would start crying very easily and was having many sudden bursts of anger resulting in violence. He recalled an incident where he heard someone yelling at his dad on their answering machine about something having to do with his father’s business. Larry called the person and pretended to be involved in his father company. His 6 mom got mad and they got into a huge fight. Larry immediately decided to leave and packed up all his stuff. He punched over a couple chairs and put a hole in the front door. The second that he left he started crying uncontrollably. He headed to Farmington with the idea of moving to Colorado in his mind. It is at this point that his memories are very jumbled. What followed are the incidents that led up to a week spent in the psychiatric ward of Mass General Hospital. This is difficult for me to write about and was far more difficult for us to talk about. Some of it I am going to just skim over. Larry did not know why he was going to Farmington. He just did not want to be where he was and knew that there were people he new there. Larry had been calling me excessively for the past couple of weeks and I knew things were not right. I was shocked to come home and see his vehicle parked in my driveway. He knuckles were split open and he looked terrible. Larry wanted to go to Colorado because there were some old friends of his living there. He remembers feeling that he really wanted me to go with him and that was his main reason for going to Farmington first. Larry expressed many things he had been feeling to me and I was in complete disbelief. He was scaring me in many ways because the things he was saying and ideas he was expressing were completely irrational. Larry had emptied his bank account before going to Farmington. At a party there, he spent six hundred dollars, completely sporadically, on a fourwheeler that he did not even know how to drive. He remembers feeling that he 7 needed to be with me. He had no idea that the things he was doing were wrong and irrational. He did not realize until later on in the summer that he had crossed a very strong line with me. I will not go into full detail of what happened but it was definitely the scariest and most traumatizing experience of my life. He was in Farmington for two nights. After the second morning I immediately left Farmington and went home to my families. It was at this point that Larry left, seeing that I would not go with him, to go to Colorado on his own. I called Larry’s parents to let them know what was going on. They were very concerned for his safety and filed a missing persons report. They stressed to me that they had been trying to get him to get help for a long time but he refused. Because of the incident that took place in Farmington, they wanted me to press charges so that he would be forced to get help. I did not. His parents kept in close contact with me throughout the rest of the summer. Larry was pulled over on his way to Colorado because of the missing persons report that his father had filed on him. He was held at gunpoint and the officer made him call his parents. He had completely run out of money and his fathers put a cash advance on his credit card hoping that he would make it to Colorado, lose all money, and be forced to come home. Larry made it to Colorado where he stayed for two weeks in his vehicle. He talked to his older brother who he had a lot of respect and admiration for every day. He remembers crying a lot but not necessarily being depressed. 8 Eventually his brother convinced him to come home. Larry’s father and brother flew to Colorado and they all drove back together. Larry recalls this time as a bonding experience. He did not see it in any way as them rescuing him or anything like that. In a conversation with Larry's father this summer he told me about a talk that he had had with someone Larry was seeing a lot in Colorado. The man had stressed to Larry’s father Larry was completely out of control, volatile and scaring a lot of people in Colorado. His father got him to talk a lot on the way home. It was near the end of the trip that his father brought up what happened in Farmington. It was at that point that Larry recalls remembering what he did for the first time and breaking down. He decided then that he needed to seek professional help, fast. It is important to note that this was the first time he and I talked about any of this. It helped me to deal with the things that had happened to learn that what he did to me was the number one reason he decided to get help. When he got home, he spent one week in Mass General hospital, psychiatric ward. He was put on Depocote, which he is still on now and is planning to be on for the rest of his life. Whenever he goes home, he sees a psychiatrist. Things are going very well. He still gets depressed but he thinks that it is normal. Although he loved the way he felt during his period of mania, he hates looking back on his actions and the harm that he caused his family and loved ones. 9 Larry’s father has been on medication for depression for as long as Larry can remember. He said that his dad is always telling him that he is too much like he was when he was Larry’s age. There is a history of mental illness on Larry’s father’s side of the family. This interview was very important for both of us. As I mentioned, Larry’s parents, especially his father stayed in close contact with me during most of the summer. Once my anger and hurt subsided a bit, I was able to look at his actions as part of his disability and not part of him. He was a best friend of mine, somebody that I always took extreme comfort in knowing. His presence was one that was very calming and soothing. It was horrifying to see what he became before getting help. My biggest reason for doing this interview was because I new that it was his disorder and not he that did the things that he did and I wanted to forgive him for it. I knew that he deserved forgiveness. I also knew that through research I would better be able to understand his disorder and that my understanding would give me the explanations that I needed in order to look at Larry as my old friend and his disorder as what hurt me. This is a very serious disease and I had no idea before doing this interview how deep it could go in someone. It is not something to be taken lightly. One of the biggest things that I learned is that there is a huge difference in how mental disabilities; such as this and schizophrenia differ from physical disabilities. Mental disabilities definitely intrude on ones ability to function but they also 10 intrude on ones ability to differentiate between right and wrong. Mental disabilities can make one do things that they would never think to do in their normal state of mind. While a disability like this cannot be used as an excuse, it can be used as an explanation for actions that may warrant forgiveness. 11