Puzzle Factory Purgatory

Looking back and looking forward.

Content Warning: Self-harm

This time last year, I was in the psych emergency room at Northwestern Hospital. Waiting for a bed in the only hospital that I have ever been treated at since I moved to Chicago. The place I call, not unaffectionately, The Puzzle Factory. A place that I trusted. A place that I felt seen. A place where I felt safe.

There were no psych beds at Northwestern, but no one took two minutes to tell us that, and thus began mine and Jennifer’s descent into a situation that can truly be described as Kafkaesque. We waited in every corner of the emergency room that I could be shunted to and fro. We would be moved, and then wait for several hours. We would be told that someone would see us soon. And we would wait for more hours. We would be moved again. This happened so many times that we lost count.

At some point, Jennifer found food for me to eat and water to drink. I have no idea if she was able to feed herself because by this time I was not really functioning at all. Around nineteen hours in, I began to have a full-blown panic and rage-induced meltdown. Literally kicking and screaming like a 400-pound toddler. Not my finest moment in a long string of not-so-fine moments that brought me to the waiting room of the psych ward on a Wednesday morning. We were told that we were just waiting for the psych doctor on call to see me, and then I would be admitted. This happened several more times. After being given some post-tantrum Ativan, I was able to drift off for a short, fitful sleep. For the time I spent not being treated in their hospital, I now owe what could purchase a very nice used car.

I no longer trust Northwestern Hospital. I no longer feel seen there. I no longer feel safe there. I will likely think twice before I seek refuge there again.

Almost 23 hours after I arrived at Northwestern I was put into an ambulance and moved to the opposite side of town, to the psych ward of UI Health hospital. I got to the ward and hoped for the best. I stayed there for ten days or so. I have a lot to say about the time that I spent there, little of it good, but this is not the time.

I originally wrote that I would not seek refuge at Northwestern before I changed it to thinking twice about seeking refuge there.

Because I may need to go back someday.

I may get laid off again and lose my health insurance in the middle of the month, causing me to ration my meds until I can get my Obamacare to kick in at the beginning of the new month. Even on full dosage, I may become manic or depressed, or be thrown into the truly bewildering mixed state that is the most notable feature of my particular variant of Bipolar I disorder.

I can get used to—even enjoy for a short time, a hypomanic episode. The energy, the focus, the sense of wellbeing, the certainty of being a special person. A person with gifts of insight and creativity. It’s kind of the best. For a while. A very short while.

Before the lack of sleep makes me begin to question reality. Before I become so agitated and irritable that I am impossible to talk to or reason with, where all conversations turn into Jeremy-sided rants. Right before my impulses become well-nigh uncontrollable. Right before it streaks into full-blown, wheels-off mania.

Say what you will about the negatives of depression; at least it has a somnambulant quality about it. My mood is poor. My energy levels are depleted. My desires for pleasure, companionship, or anything remotely challenging are non-existent. But I am given some comfort by not being able to really feel anything. Life is muted. Colors, sounds, and smells are dulled.

The inevitable suicidal thoughts are not so urgent—they’re dull as well. What’s the hurry? It can wait. Sure, sure, you want to die, but isn’t this close enough for now? Let’s go lie down.

And when I’m depressed, I sleep. And I dream. I dream like it’s my job. Because it is my brain’s job when it’s sick.

My non-peer-reviewed explanation for why depressed people dream so much:

We dream because that is how our brains fix themselves. Repairing sectors and defragging the hard drives, debugging broken bits of code, and sometimes playing little movies to entertain themselves—dreaming is not all work. Brains that aren’t sick need far less maintenance and therefore need less dream time.

Please don’t disabuse me of this notion, even if it is scientifically inaccurate.

The boss at the end of this level (at least for me) is the mixed state. Take away the sleep and detachment of depression, take away the dreaming, ramp up the irritability and agitation to extreme levels—don’t forget the poor impulse control and increased energy levels of hypomania. And add to this melange pure unadulterated psychic pain. An unanesthetized root canal of psychic pain and past trauma.

Those are necessary components of a mixed state. But the feature most obvious to me while in a mixed state is the relentless and compelling suicidal thoughts. The will toward my own destruction. Those drowsy, only half-serious suicidal suggestions of depression take on the stentorian fury of an enraged Dalek:

EXTERMINATE!

EXTERMINATE!

OBEY!

I assure you that I am not being flippant when I liken my suicidal urges to a Dalek, a violent, merciless, and pitiless creature of rage and untouchable superiority that demands that the weak obey, and ultimately that the weak must be exterminated.

The weak like me.

The broken brained.

The unfixable sad.

Worthless.

I agree to obey.

I agree to exterminate.

I try to hide my feelings from those that are close to me. I don’t want them to feel like they should have seen something. I may be a piece of shit, but I’m not a monster. I begin to feel a bit of not-quite relief; resignation that it will all be over soon, that the pain will be over. I lie to myself and say that everyone will be better off without me.

I believe it.

I make a plan.

I give myself a literal deadline, and then I move forward with my plan.

Jennifer is going out of town with her girlfriends. I’ll do it while she’s gone.

Not at home.

Somewhere else.

Somewhere far.

I am downstairs at my desk, putting final touches on my plan.

And then I have a feeling of intense guilt and shame, and I tell Jennifer.

And I ruin her weekend plans with her girlfriends—because she’s not going to away on a fun weekend and leave me all alone at the puzzle factory. And I ball uncontrollably, because I hadn’t thought that she would be missing her friends, friends who have come from all across the country, and I feel even more guilty. Guilty and inconsolable. She manages to calm me down and tells me that she loves me and that she is sooooooooo glad that I told her, and that she will see her friends again soon.

She helps me pack a bag. We call a Lyft. We head to Northwestern Hospital. We head to the Puzzle Factory.

A little postscript:

Jennifer is gone for the weekend on her annual trip to a lake house with her girlfriends. I hope that they are having the best time. I am alone with our kitties, and no one is worried about that. Except for our little girl kitty, Henrietta, who looks around for Jennifer and occasionally cries for her. Daniel, like always, is just happy with whoever is with him at the moment.

One year later, and I am happy as well. Actually happy. Not in an artificially elevated state. Just happy. And stable.

I am writing. I am taking on new challenges. The last year was incredibly rough, and I know that I could not have made it without my beautiful Jennifer. She is truly the best. Wise, hilarious, brilliant, and with just enough crazy not to shriek and run away from mine. You know, perfect.

I could not have made it without my wonderful family and friends. My beautiful support network. Also, I am lucky to have an incredible psychiatrist, therapist, and primary care doctor that are all on the same page when it comes to my care, mental and physical. Truly integrated care. This is very rare and wonderful, and I know it.

While Jennifer and I were waiting in purgatory for that longest of nights, she tells me about nine hours in—when I am bargaining, trying to go home, “there’s been a mistake, I feel much better, etc.”—she makes me a deal that for every hour I have to wait before I’m admitted, she’ll take me to my favorite comfort food restaurant, Uncle Julio’s. The next day, she half-jokingly asks the readers of Captain Awkward if anybody knows someone that works at Uncle Julio’s corporate office because she owes me a lot of dinners.

The next thing you know, gift cards and money start pouring in. Enough gift cards that we were able to take everyone who visited me in the hospital to dinner at Uncle Julio’s when I got out. People gave enough money that Jennifer was able to get back and forth to the hospital without worrying about whether she could afford a Lyft or not. There was also enough money to replace my ancient computer with a shiny new one. The shiny new one that I am writing this on right now.

Hug your loved ones close.

Love to you all.

Thank you for joining me on my journey.

Drop me a line sometime: jeremydnichols@gmail.com

Or follow me on Twitter: @jeremydnichols

I have an Instagram account that is mostly pictures of my daily bedhead: germynickels

This post has become far more grim than I originally intended. Please enjoy this late 80s bit of geek culture dance by the Time Lords aka The KLF