Sometimes, I just have to disappear.  Living, and all that entails, becomes too much for me to handle so I have to cut myself off from the world at large.  It’s a debilitating habit, but it’s the only way I can survive what someone here on OS called “life and stuff”.

The deal is that I have a switch in my brain.  It works like a three-way light bulb – dim, normal, and bright.

I wasn’t even aware of this switch until 1994 when it made itself known in a big way by flipping to BRIGHT.  It lit up that part of my brain that screamed “Crazy!  You’re going to Crazy Town for a while!” 

And off to Crazy Town I went.  I spent a total of 18 days lit-up like Times Square. On New Years Eve.  On Crazy Gal Steroids. 

I spent time in two different institutions before someone figured out what it took to cut the juice, leaving me in the dark for several months.  After a lot of mucking about with professional Crazy Gal Handlers, I managed to get to dim.  I lived in that murky place for a long time, speaking thickly, my vision smeared with emotional Vaseline, and moving about slowly with my finger tips brushing walls to keep from losing my way altogether.  I was very, very unhappy and couldn’t say why.  I wanted to die, but didn’t have the courage to do anything about it.  And I slept a lot.  I was a very sad, but well rested, Crazy Gal.

During that time, I’d frequently go off the grid to super bright.  Flashes of surreal, amusement park-like luminescence would saturate my life, and I’d fling myself about in frantic ecstasy, every nerve screaming, “Ramming Speed!”   I found myself at the center of a wild universe made up of pure energy.  I lived without sleep. I could drink, and abuse other substances, and stay totally sober.  I misbehaved.  I knew no boundaries or moderation, and disdained the mundane trappings of real life such as paying bills, or maintaining relationships.  Finally, exhausted, I’d hit the Wall of Reality and collapse, often broke, and alone.  Somehow, I managed to keep my job, and the health insurance that paid for my antics. While I caused a lot of psychic pain, lost friends, money and huge chunks of my memory, I was fortunate that I never actually hurt anyone physically. What’s that old adage?  God protects fools and drunks – and Crazy Gals? 

Most of the details of those years are lost to me forever. My friends tell me they were very frightened for, and I suspect of, me.  Apparently, I was hard to be around.  It was never certain who I would be the next time they were with me; the dim bulb or the disco ball.  I gather neither was very pleasant. 

Following much experimentation, Crazy Gal Control Managers finally mixed the proper medication cocktail.  I grew fat, fatigued, slow-witted, and enjoyed a host of other unpleasant side effects but I was calm.  Not too happy, not too sad.   I was normal in that I’d found steady, middle ground on which to stand. I became a bit bovine emotionally, but I was content to stop riding the psychological equivalent of a Tilt-A-Whirl.  Altogether, I calculate it took six years to attain, and sustain, a semblance of normalcy in my life.

Ultimately, I've come to believe I became a much better person following my extended visit to Crazy Town, and its suburbs, Depression and Mania.  It was certainly the defining moment of my life.  Losing my mind, and the subsequent results, forced me to grow-up, something I’d been assiduously avoiding.  I was in my early 40’s before I began to appreciate the correlation between action and reaction.  That’s pretty grown up for me.

Here are some of the things my experience with misfiring synapses taught me:

I learn lessons the hard way; I am lucky to be alive; I am lucky I never seriously hurt or killed anyone; my Meds are my friends. I stopped taking them once, and came very close to getting back on the Crazy Town Merry-Go-Round. That is my absolute greatest fear, and I’ve never missed a day since; some relationships can be damaged beyond repair, and I will forever mourn their loss; I keep my affliction to myself because it can scare some people away (see “learning lessons the hard way”); I have accepted that I’ve lost much of my memory; I’m very good at lying, and acting as though I still remember shared experiences. I’ll ask the people closest to me to reconstruct important events (i.e., my wedding) for me but I’ll never recapture the emotional resonance of those moments; I carry a little notebook and write everything down because my short-term memory got  shorted out as well; I have down-graded the type of work I do, accepting that the requirements won’t be too demanding, and recognizing I’ll never be a boss again, and that’s just fine with me; I cry in the shower every single day because it’s a great release. It’s a good place to bawl, too, since one my meds thins my blood and I get dramatic nosebleeds; and I learned I’m human, and can break.

Most importantly, I continue to learn to my limitations. I can recognize the triggers that signal trouble.  I try to keep things as simple as possible though despite my best intentions sometimes I’ll let things get out of hand.  Good or bad, I just can’t handle too much emotional current.   As happened this past month, the emergency breaker tripped and shut down my system.

But now, instead of heading for Crazy Town, I withdraw completely. Perhaps it’s not the healthiest solution but it keeps me alive. I stop doing everything except work, eat (a lot), and sleep (a lot).  The only people I stay in touch with are my Mother and my boyfriend.  I don’t go online, and I don’t answer my phone.  Books are my salvation, though the material is fluff, and doesn’t strain my brain.  What television I do watch are shows I have recorded, and stock-piled for such moments.  I thoroughly reverse engineer my universe to eliminate as much stimuli as I can control.

I send out a mass email to my friends and family who might get worried by my silence, alerting them that I’m going under for a while.  I’ll concede this missive might be a plea for help and attention. So what? Most of them understand, though some fade away; I know I might lose a friend or two.  There will always be people who don’t get me, have no patience with me, or don’t wish to indulge me.  The majority, however, especially those who weathered the storm with me over a decade ago, are willing to wait until my brain reboots, and I can once again cope with “life and stuff”.

I seem to have reappeared, though it took me weeks to write this post.  I’ve never written about my affliction before, and it’s been very cathartic for me.  It possibly exemplifies the worst of the narcissism that can sometimes define a “blog”.  Too bad.  I’ve needed to write about it for years, and I’d like to pretend there are a few people out there in the ether who care, and are wondering where I’ve been.  Well, I disappeared to recharge my batteries, now I’m back, and I hope to be able to provide my particular type of illumination on matters I care about, at least for a little while.

Thank you for kind indulgence.  I’m going to take a nap.