Legally Crazy, Transgender in a Psych Ward part 2

Hello My Dear One,

After the first night at the inpatient psychiatric facility, I woke up to the startling reality that I was still there, and that I couldn't leave. Owing to the fact that I was rapid cycling in a full blown Bipolar 1 episode, and I had gone off of FDA approved amphetamines (Ritalin and Vyvanse) with no plan and no medical assistance, I did the only reasonable thing I could do. I started writing.

Being a writer was beneficial at that moment, particularly because all technology was removed from patients, and I needed something to do. The electronic detox was at times as horrible as the medical one was. It was hard to not have my laptop, especially since I'm dyslexic, and writing by hand can be physically painful. Still, I kept going because I was driven by the therapeutic need to as well as the mania.

In order to justify, or make some sort of sense of my stay [to myself] in the psych ward, I had to create a different reason for being there. I decided that morning I was a writer, not a stretch, who was doing an undercover piece on what it was like in an inpatient mental health facility in rural Maine. On one level this was true, insofar as I was writing about said subject. The reality though was I was there because I needed to address my own mental snap, not an undercover journalist. I was not Nellie Bly reporting on the wretched conditions of an asylum 1887. I was the wretched conditions of myself and my family being treated for asylum worthy behaviors.

Anyway, by 4:00 pm I grabbed the composition book I'd brought, although I have no recollection of packing it, or for that matter packing at all, and sat at the dormitory style desk in my room. I have to think that my wife packed it and brought it for me, but I've never asked, perhaps because I haven't wanted to imagine what that must have been like for her. There are a lot of things I don't want to know about those early admission days, but I know I will ask when I can.

I got out the pen and started working. The writing is relatively clear, although it resembles a verbal cascade like a dictionary spilling itself down Niagara Falls. The words were pressured the same way that my speech was, a spigot of sensical and nonsensical language turned onto full blast. Given that I am an extrovert by nature, I can scarcely imagine how this must have appeared to others. I know my ability for talking, and I'm thankful for the amnesia that surrounds that section of time. I must have been far more obnoxious than usual.

As for the writing, I'll let the first sentence speak for itself:

"Today has been my first day inpatient at a psychiatric hospital, I have met w/nurses, recreational therapists, behavioral techs, student nurses, an NP, visitors, a therapy dog, my wife, and a cavalcade of characters who are on this journey with me - the other patients."

So, that was something. And it goes on like that for another 4 pages. Yep, four more long, accelerated, and at times unreadable pages. The script itself is obviously a barrier to understanding, but, like the person writing it at the time, it is addled and self-aggrandizing. It reminds me of the mania itself, and that has ramifications now all these years later.

Old school technology.

What now? I guess it's a matter of one sentence at a time. I'll keep you posted on the progress. And yes, the transgender identity does matter here, it will be addressed soon. Just a little more time is needed.

Thank you for unpacking this part of the journey with me.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

- Ari

Legally Crazy, Five Years Ago in the Psych Ward, Colors

Hello My Dear One,

Autumn, here in the North Woods of Maine, has arrived and the leaves are finally changing color. I remember how vivid the hues were, and how vibrant the scenes were five years ago. I was in the throws of a hypomanic rapid cycling event of Bipolar 1 Disorder. Everything was more delicious and over the top. The individual blades of grass were whispering their sadness over the upcoming deaths they would soon face. The cool breezes spoke of light and loss. And the darkness was the blackest that I had known.

Of course, the reality was that I was about to slip into a full break with reality itself.

After multiple violent and terrifying blackouts where I couldn't remember how the chaos around me had occurred, I made what could've been the final drive of my life. I don't remember much of that either, only the telephone pole that I swerved away from and the looks of compassion on the faces of the people at the crisis center. And I remember how my then therapist took my hands and said, "I am so sorry that you are feeling like this." It was a strange and comforting moment that I would look back on throughout the hours and days that were to come.

I know that I spent hours at the crisis center, hours in the emergency department, and took a ride in a fancy new ambulance down to the inpatient psychiatric facility at a hospital about an hour away. I remember screaming, crying, throwing things, and hurling insults at the woman I love. I remember wanting to die.

I have plenty of memories from within the pysch ward, too many really. Even five years later I remember the plastic mirrors, the lack of shoes, the open door with the night checks. I remember the therapy dog, the arts and crafts room, the terrible food, and the other patients. Even the one who needed the electro shock therapy to deaden her depression, and how she would need to return when the effects would wear off in 4 to 6 months. I remember the lockdown when an out of control patient had to be confined to one wing, thereby reducing by a third the length of hallways that could be paced. He refused to control his diabetes and so the rest of us lost the lounge with the second television.

The colors there were all beige and grey, food included. We were allowed to wear our own clothes, but even those looked pale and dead. Many people wore black, grungy shirts and ripped blue jeans. Some donned light blue hospital clothes because they had been transported without their own things, and there was no one on the outside to bring them items. The staff had scrubs, or shirts and ties, but any colors didn't pop out at me just as if we were all blending into the grey surroundings ourselves.

And the color of darkness was present too. I can't describe that very well, because it's different for everyone. At the time I would have called it an endless blackness where no light could be seen. But now I see the darkness through the glare of the florescent lights. A flickering grey that could only be altered by fresh sunshine during the days, yet still a place to stumble into a mire of beige and grey. I hope to illuminate that space in time.

There's more of course, but for now those are all the descriptors I have left. After five years, it's time to free the demons of the psych ward from my memories and back to the hell where they belong. It's an arduous task, but a necessary evil if you will.

More muted than before, but just as beautiful.

So, in the meantime, I plan on looking at the world outside of myself and seeing what the comparison is to the alternate universes that swirl around on the inside. So far it seems that out there it's not quite so busy, so frenetic, or so anguished. It's not quite as scary either. The world between my ears can be a dismal place to reside, and seeing the colors of fall, even if they are more muted than five years ago, gives me hope.

Thank you for being on this colorful journey with me.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

Ari

Legally Crazy, Lies and Adopting the Truth

Hello My Dear One,

It's been a few weeks since I last wrote to you, and I have struggled greatly with an essay on lying that I've been working on. It is never easy to look at one's own flaws, particularly under a very brightly lit microscope. It's not fun.

As it turns out, I excel at lies of omission. For example, as a youth, I was in the Scouts, which is true. Anyone who meets me would assume that I meant the Boy Scouts. And to keep my life simple, I wouldn't clarify that thought, because in actuality I was in the Girl Scouts well into high school.   

Despite sharing so much about myself to large groups of people, I still withhold some of the inner demons that plague my head and heart. It's convenient not to display my constant battle with the Beast of Mental Illness, the anomalies of my anatomy, my complete and total reliance on insulin, or the thirty years I spent presenting myself as the incorrect [for me] gender.

I don't like telling all of the truths. I don't want to share the parts of myself that could condemn me. I don't want to be judged for being different, especially in so many ways. I want to believe that the outside image I present to the world is real. I don't want the truths to cause me harm. And that one word, me, is the problem.

Sometimes, when we least expect it, truths cause pain in highly unexpected ways. For example, the other day I took one of my children to a medical appointment as his father, which is true. But, just like the scouts, clarification or quantification of that statement can be made. You see, on paper, I am my children's stepfather.

The receptionist at the hospital where the provider's office was housed (hospital dietician) was completing the intake registration which included correcting addresses, phone numbers, and employment for me and my wife. As we finished the process, I was expecting to sign the consent form, but that train came to a screeching halt. The woman spoke those dreadful words "I mean this with no disrespect..." and went on about how she needed to contact my wife since I was technically my child's "stepfather." She then called my wife, got permission, and handed over the paperwork.

Did I mention that said child was standing behind me? And did I mention that we don't really discuss this fact in our family?

But I am his stepfather, and that moniker, that name, is a direct result of my multiple lies, some by omission, others not so much. Because I omitted my male identity during my wife's and my courtship and early marriage, I remained female to the world.  When our first child was born, the birth certificate allowed for a mother and a father. Since I was not the biological parent and not male, I was not included. And, when my sex was reassigned/affirmed my wife of almost 8 years and I legally married, consequently making me my children's stepfather. After that, when people ask if I'm their father, the obvious answer is "Yes," and the omissions begin again.

Now, 11 years later, I never consider myself to be their stepfather. I am their dad, no more, no less. But according to the law I am not. And therein lives the greatest lie of all. It's the lie I've told everyone, including myself, that it doesn't matter that I'm not on their birth certificates.

But it does matter. It matters a lot more than I realized. And it mattered most last week when I had a momentary panic attack as I wondered what my teenager was thinking as he heard his father referred to as his stepfather. It was strangely earth shattering for me, though I'm not sure what it meant to him. We've both chosen to omit what we thought about it to each other. It's a bad family trait.

So, what now? Just a few months ago, the answer would've been nothing at all. But, by admitting that I was sick, that the Beast was clawing at me from the inside again, that I needed a new med, I took the initiative to tell the truth. I didn't wait for someone to ask me how I was doing this time. Instead, I came out of my own shadow, out of my Beast's shadow and shared my need for help.

And that is the plan for the next step of our life as a family. I will ask for legal help, put my pride on hold, and adopt my children. It feels funny when the kids are a tween and a teenager, but maybe this timing is important after all. I want them to know that I have chosen to be their father through and through. And that it wasn't just a formality of updating a document, but a conscious and loving choice.

What I really look like.

And maybe we all need that right now, as they change and grow into young adults, and their mother and I change and grow into being the parents of teenagers. None of us seems to be enjoying it that much, but letting them know that they are so supremely wanted can't hurt any of us.

Thank you for continuing to choose to listen to my truths on this part of the journey.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari