Being involuntarily admitted to inpatient psychiatry–colloquially known by some as “grippy sock jail”–was not on my 2020 bingo card. And I for damn sure didn’t anticipate that I would be admitted literally one day after my second interview for my dream job. I felt perfectly fine. Great, even. Better than I had in my entire adult life.
That was the problem, though; I felt as good as I did because I was manic.
Of course, I didn’t know that. I was just happy to be out of a depression that was so deep that I’d become passively suicidal. It was August, so COVID was still in its earlier stages. Like millions of people across the world, the isolation of lockdown had started to take a substantial toll on my mental health. The virus was clearly not going anywhere, and I was essentially in a constant state of fear and despair. Add to that the fact that I had been laid off by my job two months prior–due to COVID–and it’s really a wonder that I held on as long as I did. The icing on that incredibly fucked up cake was that I was actually laid off less than 3 weeks into an FMLA leave that I was taking because my mental health had deteriorated so much.
Things were bad enough that my psychiatrist felt that a medication change was necessary. She added a new antidepressant to my regimen, gradually upping the dose on it until I stabilized. The problem with that particular medication is that it can induce mania, especially in people with bipolar disorder. I didn’t know that though. And even if I did, I wouldn’t have been concerned. My mental health struggles had been so clearly marked by incredibly severe depression, that mania would never have crossed my mind, let alone bipolar disorder. When we talk about bipolar disorder, we’re usually talking about bipolar 1. But there is also bipolar 2, which is largely characterized by depression which is more severe than what you might see in major depressive disorder. Additionally, it includes episodes of hypomania, a shorter-lived, much milder form of mania. In retrospect, bipolar 2 was probably the appropriate diagnosis for me before my manic episode, which shifted me to bipolar 1. My mental health providers just hadn’t caught it in all the years I’d been receiving treatment.
One thing about a full-blown manic episode, though, is that that shit is very hard to miss. Especially if your mania includes psychosis, which mine did. As a clinical social worker, I still beat myself up at times for not picking up on what was happening to me. The signs were all there: Elevated mood, decreased need for sleep, grandiosity, racing thoughts. But my shift into mania was also occurring at the same time as a major spiritual shift that I was experiencing, a shift that was catalyzed by a divination and energy healing session that I did with a spiritual practitioner. She also offered me some guidance around ancestor veneration, hoodoo practice and generally becoming more connected with the spiritual realm. And what did my overly excited ass do instead of reading and learning more? Jumped right into practice, without the intentionality or wisdom to do so in a way that wouldn’t open me up to foolishness. 0/10, do not recommend.
To this day, I really feel that my manic episode was prompted by a combination of severe stress, medication changes, and doing clownery on the spiritual level. And we know what Auntie Mo’Nique says about what happens when you do clownery.
In all seriousness, I missed so many of the signs of my mania because I thought that I was just having a spiritual awakening. It started innocently enough, with the feeling of being more connected to God and my ancestors. Then I began to hear from them directly. Not in the stereotypical “voices in my head” way, though. It’s hard to describe, but it was almost as if a message was being placed in my head that I was hearing in the same way you hear your internal thoughts. And that is when shit got very weird.
To be continued…