Hi friends!!! This is the first time I’m trying out a discussion thread. Def join in and comment below. Sooo I don’t wanna brag, but, due to my Bipolar 1 Disorder, I’ve been in psych wards in 5 states and 2 countries over the years. NO BIG DEAL. New York, New Jersey, DC, Colorado, California… Ireland! Yeah, if I get 4 more stamps on my frequent insanity rewards card, I get a free cup of coffee… served to me by the ghost of Whitney Houston! Haha. Anyway, do you have a psych ward experience either directly or indirectly? Let’s compare notes in this edition of the psychobabble thread. —xoxoJFOD
I'm copying a Christmas Eve FB post from a few years ago when I opened up about this topic for the first time...
"This is one of the darkest and toughest times of year for me. Some years are worse than others... On this day in 1991, I was transferred from the Children's Hospital @ Strong (Rochester NY) to the psychiatric unit after a successful escape from the hospital in the middle of my 6 week stay. After eluding security, and walking several blocks through the cold dark streets past Mt. Hope Cemetery, I found my way to my brother's house. All I wanted was to be with my family on Christmas, but my treatment for endocarditis required that I receive daily doses of IV Antibiotics. Just three weeks earlier I was admitted near death with what doctors had originally though was just the flu. After several frantic phone calls between my brother, my folks, and the hospital, I was talked into returning to my unit for the rest of my stay. I walked off the elevator and was shown into a waiting room where my parents, a nurse and security were waiting. They told me I was being moved to the psyche ward and when I tried to bolt, I was tackled by two grown men and shot in the arm with a tranquilizer by the nurse. Tied to a wheel chair I began my long ride through the hospital to my new bed...
Christmas morning and I'm waking up in a padded room, bound to a cold metal table and no one can hear me scream!
I can't talk about this anymore right now, and I shouldn't have even said this much. But here's the thing...
I may still be a mess from time to time, but I'm still here and I still don't take shit from anyone! I want this story to inspire hope. No matter how bad things may seem, we have to keep fighting!
Peace
Bob"
I spent 3 weeks in that maximum security, adolescent psych unit. When I acted out or tried to escape (which I did several times) they would wrestle me into a soundproof padded room and strap me down to a table. Each time I would spend hours in there before they would let me out. Once, I managed to escape the restraints and sat on the floor out of view of the small window in the door. When they did a routine check and noticed that I wasn't on the table, they stormed in and wrestled me back into the restraints.
I little bit about me: I was born to an alcoholic drug addict in a small town trailer park in 1977. I experienced extreme abuse, neglect, and malnourishment for the first six months of my life. Six months old, near death and completely abandoned, I was discovered by a passer by and remanded to foster care after recovering in a hospital for several days. This trauma started me on a path to a lifetime of mental health and behavioral issues.
A few years ago, I got access to some old documents, and found out that I had been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder at a young age. These days I feel pretty good for the most part. I try to live by the golden rule, and always go out of my way to help those in need. Giving selflessly to lift others up is the best medicine!
when i was 18 i baker-acted myself after my mother threw my antidepressants at me, saying that she “wouldn’t have mental illness in her home,” and telling me to “down them all, see if i care,” (which i did) despite her own diagnosis of bipolar 2 & borderline personality disorder (which she denies and won’t talk about except to say that multiple doctors are full of shit) and an ambulance came and took me to a hospital in tampa about thirty minutes from our home, where i waited for hours to be transferred to a psychiatric hospital after i had my stomach pumped.
the psych hospital was really clean inside and had nice furniture in the check-in room, and they gave me some frosted flakes (which was my favorite cereal at the time). they put on tv whatever i wanted to watch and for a moment, i allowed myself to feel comfortable.
when i got into the ward, however, they put me in the same area of the hospital with people who had more aggressive behaviors and illnesses, some people who had committed severe crimes and were there awaiting sentencing in jail.
obviously i had some interactions with criminally insane people (by that i mean the people who use slurs for jewish people and who know the version of pete seegers union song that is not about unions.. the version of the song that’s in American History X with all the lyrics changed.)
i was nonviolent and not criminally racist, so it didn’t make sense why they’d put a vulnerable 18 year old girl in that ward with men who literally prayed on me the second i came through the doors. sometimes out of the corner of my eye, id see janitors mopping up the saliva of the famished men, but when id turn to really look, they’d be gone, but the wet hunger would still be everywhere.
eventually i got moved into a different ward for people who weren’t violent. it was a place where the doctors ignored you and the nurses believed that we were bad people, that we were unfit members of the community that shouldn’t exist. they were annoyed that they had to take care of people who didn’t matter.
oh by the way, the frosted flakes at the beginning of my stay? yeah, that was a one time thing to trick you into thinking you wouldn’t be deprived of food in the hospital. the only thing i ever ate was dry cheerios - my entire stay, and they didn’t care at all. they legitimately wouldn’t give me anything else.
my first time in the cafeteria, a woman in maybe her 30s beckoned me over to sit with her. she seemed kind enough so i sat down, and she told me that i was an angel and that so was she and that’s why she invited me to sit with her, and then she told me my true angel name, which i forgot because she made it up, and then she told me about how she’s in secret telepathic communication with donald trump and that the only reason she’s in there is because he knows that she knows his darkest secrets and that she would be too dangerous to let out in to society because she could ruin him because she’s really a secret agent.
she was the only person in the entire place who treated me like a person and so i sat with her and ate cheerios every day until i was able to be free again.
we were prisoners, starved of food and attention, deprived of our humanity. anyway dope hospital stay, lost my job but take that mom!! i graduated from mental jail and learned my true angel name and spoke to donald trumps arch psychic nemesis 🤪 a feat she has never even attempted 🤙🏼
I worked for some time as a therapist for an inpatient psych unit. I learned a lot and hope I was able to create a safe meaningful place for people to rest, find stability, gain insight and learn skills to support recovery.
What would be your reaction and what would you say to a psychiatrist who suggested that you might have multiple personalities?
In March of 2013 I checked into Timberlawn Psychiatric Hospital in Dallas. I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder in 1987, I knew was experiencing a manic episode, and I was feeling suicidal.
After being there a day and getting my history they moved me to the "Trauma Unit" part of the hospital. It was run by the Colin A. Ross Institute for Psychological Trauma.
Most of the patients in there had been diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder - formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder.
I was very skeptical. In fact, my first reaction was, "There is no way in hell that I have other personalities!" I had been regularly seeing psychologists and psychiatrists since I was 20 yo. I would know. I was 48 now. I would know.
Well, before I left the hospital an incident occurred that made me think that, yes, I might have DID. I had badly stubbed my toe on a couch at Timberlawn, so they took me to downtown Dallas in an ambulance to a regular hospital ER. Another patient was there from Timberlawn getting a checkup because she was pregnant.
After sitting in the ER for over six hours, and after repeatedly asking for some water since the first hour, I left the bed and went searching for some. No luck. I was angry at this point.
I came back to my bed next to the pregnant woman and noticed she had a glass of water. She knew I had left to look for some. I asked her where she got it. She replied rudely and arrogantly, "You just have to be resourceful."
I don't remember everything after that point. I am one of those people who doesn't have quick comebacks or putdowns, but on that day, apparently. I wasn't somebody to mess with. By the time I was finished with what I had to say, this woman was sobbing uncontrollably and our police escort had been called. What I do remember was looking at everything as if I was in a tunnel looking at myself. But I was not a middle aged man, I was a young sassy. Intelligent and articulate young woman who had responded:
"Resourceful!? Like you?! Yes, I want to be resourceful like you! So resourceful that I smoke half a pack of cigarettes a day in the smoking room of a psychiatric hospital while I'm 7 months pregnant! Yes, you're really resourceful! And loving to that unborn child of yours!"
As soon as the police heard what I said they looked at the pregnant woman, shook their heads, and left. And then I woke up to consciousness as if coming out of a dream. I felt like Bruce Banner thinking, "What did Hulk do?" So remember, people: You don't want to see me when I'm angry.
The nurses apologized to me and were cold to the pregnant woman as we left.
Ok, this is a new one. Thanks though for being so open with your illness. I too am bipolar, finally properly diagnosed in my mid-thirties after a suicide attempt. That landed me in a psych ward for the first time. Luckily had a great doctor, Dr. Sang Yoo, who took me into his private practice after I was discharged and saved my life.
I haven't been in hospitalized in a psych ward but my dad has. In 1970 he was in and out for about a year with serious depression, not talking, sleeping, bathing, constant pacing. I was 14 and went to see him every other day it was traumatic for me at that age. The story that sticks in my mind is when another man was randomly wearing Dad's coat and found a cigar in the pocket and was surprised to find it. My dad smoked cigars. Neither my dad or him recognized that the dude had my dad's coat and not his own. ECT finally got him back to his baseline normal. He never remembered that whole year.
Oh, also check out my podcast, "Take Your Pills, Psychopath!" We go in-depth into all sorts of mental health issues in an honest and funny way. Listen here: takeyourpillspod.simplecast.com/
(I finally get to write my “Dear John” letter, and unlike the well-known break-up letters of World War II, this is a letter of initiation of interest… well not romantically, of course, just comically)…
“Long time follower, first time letter writer”…. I have enjoyed your work since early days of Redacted Tonight…
So, with regards to your Open Thread to us “Psychos” who have had Psych Ward experience, your request has prompted me to finally jot down a few memorable thoughts, although it has now been 25 years since most of these events occurred.
While I have not experienced psychosis personally except in the “approved” format of magic mushrooms and LSD, and never had a formal diagnosis (although have experienced anxiety and dysphoria), I view irrationality as the well-spring of innovation in creativity and creative ideas (not to mention of course, religion and other non-rational modes of thinking). For innovation in comedy, ideas, writing, art, politics, anything To spring forth from nothingness requires a process that is not incrementalist, but revolutionist… as you are not glomming onto something existing, but birthing if you will a new way. It is irrational because it does not follow logically from A to B, and thus I look to folks like John Coltrane in music as an example. Perhaps this is a separate topic and I am not an expert in this area of philosophy…
So back in the 1990’s I was a research scientist working at Bellevue Hospital as well as a couple of other NYC hospitals, and was privileged early in my career to work with some amazing researchers and amazing patients. Mostly in the realm of…. Mood Stabilizers and Anti-Psychotics!!! Woo hoo!! (oh, sorry, let me calm down, I am sounding a bit like you John). While most of the work was sponsored by large pharma companies we also did true academic work as well and while the industry wasn’t quite up to the black cherry melt under your tongue versions yet, we did employ some cool methods to recruit folks for research studies… for example, in the Psych E.R. at Bellevue, handing out individually wrapped Chocolate Chip cookies with my name and phone number to sign up patients for a study- to staff and patients whenever we could.
Also, before the practice was stopped in the nineties some time, handing out cigarettes to potential research participants on the psych ward as incentives to be “guinea pigs”. That was the end of an era when there was a LOT of smoking on the ward, and as well patients often stayed for many weeks and sometimes many months.
One memorable patient (names changed) was a gentleman with Bipolar one who referred to himself as King Solomon Smith, and while his psychoses included quite a bit of paranoid delusions, thus making him quite ornery at times, King Solomon was gifted with speaking in poetry. Someday when I have time to review all my old notes, I will find where I have written down many of his daily poetic pronouncements and salty tossed word salads, but some I have committed to memory, such as the words to live by: “I do not reminisce about the past: I Dreaminisce the Pre-Historic Future!”. While profound, I believe this was the response to my research wonk question: “Can you tell me your past medical history?”
Other questions prompted similar surprising responses, such as in response to one regarding family members: “My children live on the F train, the A Train… and in the NY Aquarium” which he explained to my confusion involved his living on NY city subways, and a romantic interlude he had had with a whale in a poster for the NY Aquarium. We signed him up for the study, needless to say.
Another of the many memorable patients was a gentleman named Murray who was brought to the Psych E.R. for directing traffic in a state of undress and shouting that he was the Messiah. This middle-aged Brooklyn-ite was quite psychotic at the start of the study, talking a good deal about his role as Messiah, his many abilities, languages spoken, etc. (although typically as part of a delusion, further prompting would evoke such sentences as “parlez vouz Francaise?” to demonstrate proficiency). We enrolled him in the four week research study. Unlike Solomon, he was a “happy manic”, not pre-occupied with paranoid delusions, but delirious with fantastic thoughts, and was full of laughter as we proceeded through three weeks of drug therapy with regular follow up interviews each week. After the first week his “ratings” already began to drop significantly (on the research questionnaire tools used to quantify objectively as possible what is a highly subjective experience). Thus it appeared he had begun to recover and regain his sanity. By the end of the study and three full weeks of research drug treatment, his scores were at the fully normal level, so another great example of industry drug research proving that their drug worked and we could quantify it. However…. After the interview was done, the ratings completed, and he was off the study and soon to be discharged from the hospital, he took me to the side and cupping his mouth, whispered in my ear: “Confidentially, I AM still the Messiah!.
Finally, I will add this, briefly: Having worked for years with bipolar patients in a way prepared me for the unexpected. My wife and I, acquaintances at college in the 80s, bumped into each other on the streets of Brooklyn after I spent a Saturday helping out a Bipolar patient who lived in the projects (and was a beloved and amazingly sweet older lady without much support). My wife and I hit it off instantly and were married within that year. Flash forward 10 years or so, and we have moved to suburbs, have three children, two dogs, yadda, yadda… What I began to worry about as a period of weeks of “Hypo-manic” behavior suddenly one night turns full-on psychotic, as my wife awakens in the middle of the nights, screaming and jumping up and down on the bed, predicting that people we know would die, “the lamb of god” etc.
Pretty scary, but after getting her out to the other side of the house and managing to totally shield our sleeping kids from awareness and witnessing this scary, flailing, screaming behavior I recognized it clearly for what it was: a Manic break. I knew to call 911 and to coach the EMTs and cops on how to handle her (as I restrained her with techniques I knew from hospital). We have been blessed to not have another episode since then (15 years ago now), and yes, through one stable regimen of mood stabilizer and low dose of antipsychotic, she has been fully stable for a long time. This was late onset, a single episode, and so for a bipolar patient, is the exception, not the rule.
Your emails and podcast comedy have prompted me to finally begin writing down some of these thoughts, although my brain now has aged quite a bit and my own memory and ‘hard drive’ are like an old Commodore 64, so hopefully I will remember more later. Thanks for your inspiration, John!
I'm copying a Christmas Eve FB post from a few years ago when I opened up about this topic for the first time...
"This is one of the darkest and toughest times of year for me. Some years are worse than others... On this day in 1991, I was transferred from the Children's Hospital @ Strong (Rochester NY) to the psychiatric unit after a successful escape from the hospital in the middle of my 6 week stay. After eluding security, and walking several blocks through the cold dark streets past Mt. Hope Cemetery, I found my way to my brother's house. All I wanted was to be with my family on Christmas, but my treatment for endocarditis required that I receive daily doses of IV Antibiotics. Just three weeks earlier I was admitted near death with what doctors had originally though was just the flu. After several frantic phone calls between my brother, my folks, and the hospital, I was talked into returning to my unit for the rest of my stay. I walked off the elevator and was shown into a waiting room where my parents, a nurse and security were waiting. They told me I was being moved to the psyche ward and when I tried to bolt, I was tackled by two grown men and shot in the arm with a tranquilizer by the nurse. Tied to a wheel chair I began my long ride through the hospital to my new bed...
Christmas morning and I'm waking up in a padded room, bound to a cold metal table and no one can hear me scream!
I can't talk about this anymore right now, and I shouldn't have even said this much. But here's the thing...
I may still be a mess from time to time, but I'm still here and I still don't take shit from anyone! I want this story to inspire hope. No matter how bad things may seem, we have to keep fighting!
Peace
Bob"
I spent 3 weeks in that maximum security, adolescent psych unit. When I acted out or tried to escape (which I did several times) they would wrestle me into a soundproof padded room and strap me down to a table. Each time I would spend hours in there before they would let me out. Once, I managed to escape the restraints and sat on the floor out of view of the small window in the door. When they did a routine check and noticed that I wasn't on the table, they stormed in and wrestled me back into the restraints.
I little bit about me: I was born to an alcoholic drug addict in a small town trailer park in 1977. I experienced extreme abuse, neglect, and malnourishment for the first six months of my life. Six months old, near death and completely abandoned, I was discovered by a passer by and remanded to foster care after recovering in a hospital for several days. This trauma started me on a path to a lifetime of mental health and behavioral issues.
A few years ago, I got access to some old documents, and found out that I had been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder at a young age. These days I feel pretty good for the most part. I try to live by the golden rule, and always go out of my way to help those in need. Giving selflessly to lift others up is the best medicine!
johnny boyyyy,
when i was 18 i baker-acted myself after my mother threw my antidepressants at me, saying that she “wouldn’t have mental illness in her home,” and telling me to “down them all, see if i care,” (which i did) despite her own diagnosis of bipolar 2 & borderline personality disorder (which she denies and won’t talk about except to say that multiple doctors are full of shit) and an ambulance came and took me to a hospital in tampa about thirty minutes from our home, where i waited for hours to be transferred to a psychiatric hospital after i had my stomach pumped.
the psych hospital was really clean inside and had nice furniture in the check-in room, and they gave me some frosted flakes (which was my favorite cereal at the time). they put on tv whatever i wanted to watch and for a moment, i allowed myself to feel comfortable.
when i got into the ward, however, they put me in the same area of the hospital with people who had more aggressive behaviors and illnesses, some people who had committed severe crimes and were there awaiting sentencing in jail.
obviously i had some interactions with criminally insane people (by that i mean the people who use slurs for jewish people and who know the version of pete seegers union song that is not about unions.. the version of the song that’s in American History X with all the lyrics changed.)
i was nonviolent and not criminally racist, so it didn’t make sense why they’d put a vulnerable 18 year old girl in that ward with men who literally prayed on me the second i came through the doors. sometimes out of the corner of my eye, id see janitors mopping up the saliva of the famished men, but when id turn to really look, they’d be gone, but the wet hunger would still be everywhere.
eventually i got moved into a different ward for people who weren’t violent. it was a place where the doctors ignored you and the nurses believed that we were bad people, that we were unfit members of the community that shouldn’t exist. they were annoyed that they had to take care of people who didn’t matter.
oh by the way, the frosted flakes at the beginning of my stay? yeah, that was a one time thing to trick you into thinking you wouldn’t be deprived of food in the hospital. the only thing i ever ate was dry cheerios - my entire stay, and they didn’t care at all. they legitimately wouldn’t give me anything else.
my first time in the cafeteria, a woman in maybe her 30s beckoned me over to sit with her. she seemed kind enough so i sat down, and she told me that i was an angel and that so was she and that’s why she invited me to sit with her, and then she told me my true angel name, which i forgot because she made it up, and then she told me about how she’s in secret telepathic communication with donald trump and that the only reason she’s in there is because he knows that she knows his darkest secrets and that she would be too dangerous to let out in to society because she could ruin him because she’s really a secret agent.
she was the only person in the entire place who treated me like a person and so i sat with her and ate cheerios every day until i was able to be free again.
we were prisoners, starved of food and attention, deprived of our humanity. anyway dope hospital stay, lost my job but take that mom!! i graduated from mental jail and learned my true angel name and spoke to donald trumps arch psychic nemesis 🤪 a feat she has never even attempted 🤙🏼
I worked for some time as a therapist for an inpatient psych unit. I learned a lot and hope I was able to create a safe meaningful place for people to rest, find stability, gain insight and learn skills to support recovery.
What would be your reaction and what would you say to a psychiatrist who suggested that you might have multiple personalities?
In March of 2013 I checked into Timberlawn Psychiatric Hospital in Dallas. I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder in 1987, I knew was experiencing a manic episode, and I was feeling suicidal.
After being there a day and getting my history they moved me to the "Trauma Unit" part of the hospital. It was run by the Colin A. Ross Institute for Psychological Trauma.
Most of the patients in there had been diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder - formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder.
I was very skeptical. In fact, my first reaction was, "There is no way in hell that I have other personalities!" I had been regularly seeing psychologists and psychiatrists since I was 20 yo. I would know. I was 48 now. I would know.
Well, before I left the hospital an incident occurred that made me think that, yes, I might have DID. I had badly stubbed my toe on a couch at Timberlawn, so they took me to downtown Dallas in an ambulance to a regular hospital ER. Another patient was there from Timberlawn getting a checkup because she was pregnant.
After sitting in the ER for over six hours, and after repeatedly asking for some water since the first hour, I left the bed and went searching for some. No luck. I was angry at this point.
I came back to my bed next to the pregnant woman and noticed she had a glass of water. She knew I had left to look for some. I asked her where she got it. She replied rudely and arrogantly, "You just have to be resourceful."
I don't remember everything after that point. I am one of those people who doesn't have quick comebacks or putdowns, but on that day, apparently. I wasn't somebody to mess with. By the time I was finished with what I had to say, this woman was sobbing uncontrollably and our police escort had been called. What I do remember was looking at everything as if I was in a tunnel looking at myself. But I was not a middle aged man, I was a young sassy. Intelligent and articulate young woman who had responded:
"Resourceful!? Like you?! Yes, I want to be resourceful like you! So resourceful that I smoke half a pack of cigarettes a day in the smoking room of a psychiatric hospital while I'm 7 months pregnant! Yes, you're really resourceful! And loving to that unborn child of yours!"
As soon as the police heard what I said they looked at the pregnant woman, shook their heads, and left. And then I woke up to consciousness as if coming out of a dream. I felt like Bruce Banner thinking, "What did Hulk do?" So remember, people: You don't want to see me when I'm angry.
The nurses apologized to me and were cold to the pregnant woman as we left.
So, yes, I might have other personalities.
Ok, this is a new one. Thanks though for being so open with your illness. I too am bipolar, finally properly diagnosed in my mid-thirties after a suicide attempt. That landed me in a psych ward for the first time. Luckily had a great doctor, Dr. Sang Yoo, who took me into his private practice after I was discharged and saved my life.
I haven't been in hospitalized in a psych ward but my dad has. In 1970 he was in and out for about a year with serious depression, not talking, sleeping, bathing, constant pacing. I was 14 and went to see him every other day it was traumatic for me at that age. The story that sticks in my mind is when another man was randomly wearing Dad's coat and found a cigar in the pocket and was surprised to find it. My dad smoked cigars. Neither my dad or him recognized that the dude had my dad's coat and not his own. ECT finally got him back to his baseline normal. He never remembered that whole year.
Oh, also check out my podcast, "Take Your Pills, Psychopath!" We go in-depth into all sorts of mental health issues in an honest and funny way. Listen here: takeyourpillspod.simplecast.com/
Dear John F. O’Donnell,
(I finally get to write my “Dear John” letter, and unlike the well-known break-up letters of World War II, this is a letter of initiation of interest… well not romantically, of course, just comically)…
“Long time follower, first time letter writer”…. I have enjoyed your work since early days of Redacted Tonight…
So, with regards to your Open Thread to us “Psychos” who have had Psych Ward experience, your request has prompted me to finally jot down a few memorable thoughts, although it has now been 25 years since most of these events occurred.
While I have not experienced psychosis personally except in the “approved” format of magic mushrooms and LSD, and never had a formal diagnosis (although have experienced anxiety and dysphoria), I view irrationality as the well-spring of innovation in creativity and creative ideas (not to mention of course, religion and other non-rational modes of thinking). For innovation in comedy, ideas, writing, art, politics, anything To spring forth from nothingness requires a process that is not incrementalist, but revolutionist… as you are not glomming onto something existing, but birthing if you will a new way. It is irrational because it does not follow logically from A to B, and thus I look to folks like John Coltrane in music as an example. Perhaps this is a separate topic and I am not an expert in this area of philosophy…
So back in the 1990’s I was a research scientist working at Bellevue Hospital as well as a couple of other NYC hospitals, and was privileged early in my career to work with some amazing researchers and amazing patients. Mostly in the realm of…. Mood Stabilizers and Anti-Psychotics!!! Woo hoo!! (oh, sorry, let me calm down, I am sounding a bit like you John). While most of the work was sponsored by large pharma companies we also did true academic work as well and while the industry wasn’t quite up to the black cherry melt under your tongue versions yet, we did employ some cool methods to recruit folks for research studies… for example, in the Psych E.R. at Bellevue, handing out individually wrapped Chocolate Chip cookies with my name and phone number to sign up patients for a study- to staff and patients whenever we could.
Also, before the practice was stopped in the nineties some time, handing out cigarettes to potential research participants on the psych ward as incentives to be “guinea pigs”. That was the end of an era when there was a LOT of smoking on the ward, and as well patients often stayed for many weeks and sometimes many months.
One memorable patient (names changed) was a gentleman with Bipolar one who referred to himself as King Solomon Smith, and while his psychoses included quite a bit of paranoid delusions, thus making him quite ornery at times, King Solomon was gifted with speaking in poetry. Someday when I have time to review all my old notes, I will find where I have written down many of his daily poetic pronouncements and salty tossed word salads, but some I have committed to memory, such as the words to live by: “I do not reminisce about the past: I Dreaminisce the Pre-Historic Future!”. While profound, I believe this was the response to my research wonk question: “Can you tell me your past medical history?”
Other questions prompted similar surprising responses, such as in response to one regarding family members: “My children live on the F train, the A Train… and in the NY Aquarium” which he explained to my confusion involved his living on NY city subways, and a romantic interlude he had had with a whale in a poster for the NY Aquarium. We signed him up for the study, needless to say.
Another of the many memorable patients was a gentleman named Murray who was brought to the Psych E.R. for directing traffic in a state of undress and shouting that he was the Messiah. This middle-aged Brooklyn-ite was quite psychotic at the start of the study, talking a good deal about his role as Messiah, his many abilities, languages spoken, etc. (although typically as part of a delusion, further prompting would evoke such sentences as “parlez vouz Francaise?” to demonstrate proficiency). We enrolled him in the four week research study. Unlike Solomon, he was a “happy manic”, not pre-occupied with paranoid delusions, but delirious with fantastic thoughts, and was full of laughter as we proceeded through three weeks of drug therapy with regular follow up interviews each week. After the first week his “ratings” already began to drop significantly (on the research questionnaire tools used to quantify objectively as possible what is a highly subjective experience). Thus it appeared he had begun to recover and regain his sanity. By the end of the study and three full weeks of research drug treatment, his scores were at the fully normal level, so another great example of industry drug research proving that their drug worked and we could quantify it. However…. After the interview was done, the ratings completed, and he was off the study and soon to be discharged from the hospital, he took me to the side and cupping his mouth, whispered in my ear: “Confidentially, I AM still the Messiah!.
Finally, I will add this, briefly: Having worked for years with bipolar patients in a way prepared me for the unexpected. My wife and I, acquaintances at college in the 80s, bumped into each other on the streets of Brooklyn after I spent a Saturday helping out a Bipolar patient who lived in the projects (and was a beloved and amazingly sweet older lady without much support). My wife and I hit it off instantly and were married within that year. Flash forward 10 years or so, and we have moved to suburbs, have three children, two dogs, yadda, yadda… What I began to worry about as a period of weeks of “Hypo-manic” behavior suddenly one night turns full-on psychotic, as my wife awakens in the middle of the nights, screaming and jumping up and down on the bed, predicting that people we know would die, “the lamb of god” etc.
Pretty scary, but after getting her out to the other side of the house and managing to totally shield our sleeping kids from awareness and witnessing this scary, flailing, screaming behavior I recognized it clearly for what it was: a Manic break. I knew to call 911 and to coach the EMTs and cops on how to handle her (as I restrained her with techniques I knew from hospital). We have been blessed to not have another episode since then (15 years ago now), and yes, through one stable regimen of mood stabilizer and low dose of antipsychotic, she has been fully stable for a long time. This was late onset, a single episode, and so for a bipolar patient, is the exception, not the rule.
Your emails and podcast comedy have prompted me to finally begin writing down some of these thoughts, although my brain now has aged quite a bit and my own memory and ‘hard drive’ are like an old Commodore 64, so hopefully I will remember more later. Thanks for your inspiration, John!
hi not yet