No, Bestie, No Can Do
Separating fact from fiction. Also: Valium.
There is autobiography everywhere, in all that we do.
As a poet, I really struggled initially with writing fiction. My urge to write has always come from an autobiographical impulse, at least in my adult life. As I was learning how to write prose last year, I always had to start from a place of truth, and try to embellish it. And, as I've studied more, I've come to realize that the lines between fiction and non-fiction are a lot blurrier than we all might wish, anyway.
I'm currently writing a rather ambitious novel that is cross-generational, historical, and loosely based on one side of my family's history. Again, I find it easier to start from an origin of truth. From there, I began to ask "What if?" For me, that question is the fertile ground of fiction from which I can write.
The particular "What if" that eventually stuck was, "What if another child entered the picture, a troubled but extremely loved child? How would that alter the course of the family history?"
And, of course, that is fiction. So I am approaching it as a fiction project. But as artists, I feel it is impossible for us to separate our own lore from our work.
I noticed this most poignantly when the troubled but loved child, as an adult, looks to my protagonist and says,
"Some people can rationalize or justify the harm they have done to others, and the older I get, the less I can be one of those people. I live with the self that is unforgivable. With the me who has done harm for which there is no good enough excuse or context. Much like those who I have harmed who cannot come to forgive me, who needn't ever, whose forgiveness or un-forgiveness is a gift only meant for themselves and the service of their healing, are forced to find a way to live with the memory of me that I left with them."
I have run as fast as I could into the fiction of my life. I have invented characters, I have played out tragedies and sagas. But the truth has been peeking out all along. There's nowhere, it seems, left to hide from myself.
I was maybe 17 or 18 when I was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder and ADHD. Back then, I was a troubled, loved child, but also a closeted one. When I finally came out as queer, I chalked up the diagnoses to my queerness being pathologized by a society that didn't understand me. And while some of that holds true, I can look back 20 years later and see the trail of harm marked by my untreated illness*.
*I am using the term illness more to describe bipolar disorder than ADHD, though I know both could be viewed as simply having a different operating system in a world not designed for them. Don’t cancel me, or whatever.
What has happened now, in the latter half of my 30s, is that suddenly there are no half-baked, ill-advised ways to push through them. My body and mind have reached some predetermined limit. It's not like I didn't hit some version of rock bottom before— I certainly have hit some extraordinary lows in my life— I was just able to bounce back, somehow (somehow probably being youth, a beautiful support system, privilege, and some luck).
The last two years have been a Coming-to-Jesus (not literal, no thanks). I entered a long and never-ending mixed episode— meaning I was both the most depressed I've ever been in my life, with a mind that was full of impulsivity, never-ending vitriolic chatter, circular thinking, bursts of no sleep and business plans and energy, followed by being unable to get out of bed. It became an emergency. I was used to low lows and high highs and cycling through them, often blowing up and changing my whole life depending on the flavor each time, going on and off antidepressants, having people tell me I wasn’t acting myself or was doing too much. But my mind had to, at some point, wave the flag. It was bad, and I'm fortunate it wasn't much worse.
The most recent white flag moment came about a month ago, when I actually was feeling stabilized on meds, and I got an incredible job offer at a remote company with excellent culture and benefits. It felt like it came just at the right time— I was running out of money, and I was showing signs of being on the right medication combo, so I’d be able to confidently work. I was well enough to create art and able to take care of myself and my family on a daily basis. I was even getting out and being social, reaching back out to those I loved who I hadn’t felt well enough to contact. I really felt like I had this in the bag, and that nothing would be able to stop me.
In the four weeks since, I have been slowly unraveling. 5 days a week, 40-50 hours a week, 7am starts, and onboarding somewhere new— all completely normal things— sent me in a rapid state of decline. By the last week, I hadn't eaten in 4 days, I had diarrhea that lasted over 10 days, and I was breaking down in tears mid-day, every day. I was unable to unwind after clocking out and was completely frozen. I could hardly leave my house. I couldn’t look at, talk to, or touch my wife and dogs. My psychiatrist told me to go to urgent care and prescribed me Valium like I'm fuckin' Virginia Woolf. Said she wasn't going to tell me to quit my job (my therapist said that, too), but that I needed to at least take a sick day and, like, eat and drink water.
I'm writing to you from my sick day. I’m writing to you from a moment where I am being faced with a reality that I cannot ignore. My brain is different, has always been different, and refuses to play along anymore without consequence. I can no longer treat myself and my life as if I don’t have bipolar disorder. I can't tell you that I have any wisdom from this place, except the honest admission that I am noticing I have limits, and I am having a really hard time accepting them.
I am being forced to look at a few things:
A life I lived after having repressed my initial diagnosis, that could've been treated but wasn't, and grieving whomever I could've been had things been different. Grieving a fiction, and grieving the reality of a me that was so obviously hurting, who did not understand what was happening to them.
Facing the self that is unforgivable. The things I did that, illness or no, have no justification. The relationships that meant so much to me that I lost. The ways in which those people were hurt and couldn't understand, shouldn't have to ever understand.
The unfortunate limitations I now find myself with, now that I am older. As much as I hate it, my body and mind say "No, bestie, no can do" more than I ever thought possible, more than feels tolerable, and more than some people have to worry about.
And because I’m a writer, let’s return to metaphor, for the sake of it: the one about the fence around the children's playground. My body, my brain, my system is erecting and strengthening fences that I did not consciously make for myself. They’re feeling a little snug for my comfort.
I won't offend you with the obvious hope— that this means I will soon be able to play again— but I will start with step one, which is acknowledging them with you. They’re real. I have them. I’m really sad about it. And I’ll leave you with the less obvious hope, I suppose — that fiction won’t hide the truth, but carry it somewhere it can be seen.