Defying the Verdict by Charita Cole Brown

Author:Charita Cole Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781945883248
Publisher: Curbside Splendor Publishing
Published: 2018-05-07T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

—WINSTON CHURCHILL

UNLIKE DEPRESSIONS I had suffered, mania terrified me. The improvisational behavior I had recently exhibited lacked the control of classic theatrical improvisation. I was used to being directed by a brain that processed my actions before I performed them. While manic, I did whatever came next without making certain it was grounded in reality, and that was crazy. This was especially frightening for me because my self image was largely based on intellectual achievement and self-control. Other than Bishop Geddis, no one around me seemed to understand my symptoms as manifestations of an illness.

After I was forcibly medicated out of the unwelcome high, a doctor at CVH recommended I take lithium, a naturally occurring salt on the periodic table, in a concentrated dose to quell the mania. While considering his advice, I met a young woman at the hospital whose behavior seemed extremely erratic, even while taking lithium. Not knowing it takes time for the medication to work effectively, I decided lithium was not for me and refused the drug. Unfortunately, as a twenty-two-year-old adult in charge of my own medical decisions, I didn’t seek outside counsel. After fifteen days, when my mood stabilized, I was discharged with instructions to take a multi-vitamin. Two female workers at the facility admonished me, separately, not to come back to the facility, as if being at a looney farm was my choice.

After my refusal to be medicated, I left Connecticut Valley Hospital thinking I was probably insane but hoping the episodic mania had been an anomaly.

Penny picked me up from the institution and drove me to my apartment. When I met with Dr. Coughlin, who I hadn’t conferred with in person since my return to Wesleyan in 1978, she told me I needed another semester off to allow my mind to rest. That would put me a full year behind my entering class at Wesleyan. Not happy about being a slow finisher, I appeased myself with the assurance of returning to graduate with the class of 1982. Because I had packed up most of my things and stored them at my pastor’s house in December, I only had to take my clothing home. I left my books in storage, but never retrieved them, not remembering where they were. Through the years I’ve lost a variety of possessions during manias.

Penny drove me to the train station. As we said goodbye, she looked apprehensive. I was definitely not the bubbly woman she traveled cross-country with on the bus trip on which I read my Random House pocket dictionary recreationally. I assured her I would be back. At least, that was my hope.

Before going home, I called my pastor’s wife to apologize for the ways my manic behavior had disrupted the peace in her home. A couple of years later, she wrote me a note asking me to forgive her if any of her actions had caused my condition to worsen. She assured me that was never her intent.

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