The Middle has Never Appealed to Me
By: Zoe Steeler
I’m going to get it out of that way and let you know that I’m bipolar; I didn’t get this diagnosis until 2019 when I was 27, but it made a lot of things make a lot of sense in hindsight. My father was also bipolar and he left me his legacy. Being bipolar is something that doesn’t feel like it affects all that much until suddenly it’s affecting everything. In between manic and depressive episodes, life feels pretty normal. Then suddenly you’re driving to another town at three in the morning, because maybe you’ll be able to breathe that air better; or you haven’t left your apartment for five days, because the thought of removing yourself from your bed is too overwhelming to even contemplate.
Until I knew I was bipolar my official diagnoses were depression and anxiety (these are still diagnoses in my chart, I just keep collecting them like rookie baseball cards). I was taking Zoloft and it worked until it didn’t, and then we would up the dosage and that worked, until it didn’t— repeat ad nauseam. In an effort to end this cycle my doctor (not a psychiatrist, I didn’t have one of those until I got into the Major Leagues) decided to give me Wellbutrin. This is not a good move to make for someone who’s bipolar because Wellbutrin has somewhat of a stimulating effect. As a result, instead of being the nice depression-stabilizer we hoped for, I was kicked into the Great Manic Episode of 2019—this was widely considered not a good time by the people around me.
Have you ever been manic? I sometimes call it Violent Happiness. Over the months following the prescription of Wellbutrin, I was the kind of person that knew how to have a good time, but wasn’t concerned with sticking around for long time. My friends were understandably concerned about what they called my ‘coping skills’ and kept asking me if I was ‘okay.’ Despite what I kept telling them, the answer to that question was a resounding ‘No.’ About two weeks into the manic episode, I gave in and decided to seek help.
This is where I got a psychiatrist. I spent a day treating psychologytoday.com like Tinder and set myself up with a lovely woman named Ayelet. Our first date was everything you could ask for, she spent ninety minutes asking me increasingly personal questions and at the end handed me a shiny new diagnosis with a matching prescription. She told me to start taking Lamictal (a pill you have to start slowly, introducing it in small increments, to lower the risk of your skin falling off) and to stop taking the Wellbutrin. This was not a magical fix that made my Great Manic Episode just end, but at least now I got to fill out paperwork for FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act) and not run the risk of being fired for what management described as an ‘increasingly flaky attitude.’
After I left my first date with my new mental health professional, I sat in my car and cried. My dad was bipolar. I didn’t want to be him: ergo, I didn’t want to be bipolar. I called my mom and listened to her echo my sentiments (not terribly helpful, but we all suffer the weight of the trauma my father left behind after he died), and then I went home and cried some more, this time in the comfort of my bed with my cat next to me.
During the continuing months of Zoe’s Wild Summer I was almost never at work, but always at the bar for the after work hangouts. I would get drunk, make promises that I wouldn’t call out the next day, and then immediately break them. When I did show up to work I was an absolute mess. Working as a cashier at a grocery store means working with people (some of them are very rude), and I had a short fuse for tears. This is not a winning combination. I would often spend maybe an hour in my checkout lane, have a quick breakdown in the front office, and leave.
My favorite activity during this time was to make the hour long drive over to the coast and spend some time walking the beach and sticking my feet in the ice cold water. (Oregon doesn’t have a warm ocean at any time of the year; the first time I put my feet in the ocean, on a summer day in South Carolina, I was so shocked by the warmth of the water I couldn’t stop talking about it for a solid half hour). The money I was spending on gas and salt water taffy definitely didn’t agree with the amount of money I was making by working maybe ten hours a week, but frivolous spending is a common side effect of manic episodes, so let’s call it ‘in character.’
Sometimes I would stop at the animal shelter on the way to the beach and debate adopting another cat. The only thing that ever seemed to stop me was that I never made these visits on my way home. I figured a kitten wouldn’t enjoy a roadtrip to a large body of water. (I once took my cat on a weekend coast trip with me, after I had a panic attack at the thought of leaving her behind, so I had past experience to back up this hypothesis). I stilled cared for the well-being of other creatures, even if I was complacent—at best—about my own.
My car at the time was a 2001 Volkswagen Jetta that had seen better days. It had peeling blue paint, rips in the upholstery, and its previous scent of melting crayons was replaced by the lingering smell of cigarette smoke. Have you ever chain-smoked a pack of American Spirits in a single day? I have. Before this, I had never had much of an appetite for nicotine beyond the occasional cigarette you bum off a cute girl when you’re drunk. But cigarettes are the aesthetic vibe of someone having a breakdown, and I like to adhere to tropes.
I would sit outside in the parking lot of my work and smoke while I waited for my friends to get off. I would then ferry us to the bar where I would drink too much gin, smoke a dab pen, and continue my nicotine consumption. I was always ready for shots and never the first one home. I liked to sit in the corner of the patio and talk shit with my friend Corey. He was always the last one out with me, and seemed to be on board with Manic Zoe in a way no one else really was. Probably because he called out almost as much as I did, and liked having a partner in crime. He was always ready to have fun, and never concerned about the consequences.
After we closed down the bars, Corey and I would take walks down by the river (not really the safest place to be after dark, but where else could you fail at skipping rocks?) and lament the fact that the donut shop never seemed to be open, even though they claimed to be open twenty-four hours a day. We often debated driving to Portland to get donuts, but luckily always decided against driving two hundred miles round trip while drunk. I wouldn’t say it’s because we were responsible, but more that we were lazy.
By the end of the summer my Episode was winding down. My new meds were really kicking in by then (I retained all of my skin), and I went from sleeping very little to sleeping way too much. Mania was replaced with Depression. Nights at the bar turned into nights binge-watching trashy tv. I traded in my cigarettes for a Juul (you can vape inside). Instead of calling out of work to go to the beach, I called out of work to stay in bed.
When I saw Corey we smoked weed on his patio instead of drinking at the bars. Depressed Zoe ate too much junk food and got overly involved in the lives of fictional characters (I could write a whole dissertation on the characters of Supernatural). I still stayed up too late, but I compensated by sleeping in. Late at night, when everyone else is asleep isthe best time to Be Depressed—no one else will comment on you eating Nutella straight from the jar while you stare at nothing for fifteen minutes. I only set an alarm so I could call out at least an hour before my shift. I condensed myself; instead of living large, I was living small.
That’s the thing about bipolar; we don’t often live in the middle.