My Journey to Bipolar: Part 4
For a long time, I debated with myself on whether to follow through with telling my story. I didn’t know where to begin or where to take it. Would anyone read it? How would people view me? Would anyone care? Most of all, would telling my story not only help me, but would it help others? Will my story give a voice to those who are hiding behind the stigma and shame of mental illness? It is my hope that it will.
Having finally found my voice and telling things from my vantage point, it is important for you to understand I am not taking this as an opportunity to place blame on others. Conversely, I want you to see how the signs of mental illness look different in everyone. The signs can be overlooked or even misdiagnosed. If left untreated, one’s life can be full of darkness, despair, sadness, anger, and hopelessness.
It’s cliché to say, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It may be hard to see at times and can look as though it is fading. The tunnel might seem like it is closing in on you to the point of having to get down and crawl on your hands and knees. But the journey is worth it.
Read Part 1 and part 2 and part 3
PART 4
There has been some debate between Julie and I on when our first date took place. I consider the first few nights of meeting for drinks (back to back to back) as the start of our dating life. She likes to think of our first official date as taking place a couple weeks later when I took her out for dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. To be fair, that was when I dressed up a bit more, wearing my nice pair of jeans and a button up shirt. Whereas before, I was just meeting up in jeans, a t-shirt and my standard beat up baseball cap. We continue to this day to agree to disagree, but what’s important is that we both saw something in each other that we wanted to pursue.
Months prior to when Julie and I started dating, I was informed that I had been accepted into grad school for theatre with an emphasis in acting. Auditions are required for entry into grad school and the first year I auditioned after completing undergrad, I did not get accepted into any schools. One year later and countless hours of rehearsing different monologues, I was accepted into Wayne State University.
Wayne State is located in Detroit and my life as a nomad would continue with me moving to live in my sixth state. This move felt different though, because I had met someone who was becoming an important part of my life. I don’t know that one can ever really prepare themselves for a long-distance relationship but that is what Julie and I did for the first ten months of our relationship. Yes, I moved to an entirely new state, six hours away, after only a month of dating.
Long distance might not be the most ideal situation to start a relationship but Julie and I both put in all we had to make things work. Detroit offered us the opportunity to explore a new city together, eating at restaurants, attending a Tigers game and become pros at navigating Megabus and Amtrak schedules. Grad school was also where Julie would first see me perform on stage. Although many of my roles were small with minimal stage time or lines, she made sure to attend all performances that first year of grad school.
It would be only one year though that Julie and I would have to travel to see each other. All was going well with classes and performances and I was becoming successful in establishing friendships. I was relishing in my small roles and able to take in so much watching others around me perform. My hard work was paying off and in the second semester, I was cast to be an understudy for the lead role of a Restoration comedy. These shows, also known as “comedy of manners,” are English plays written and performed between 1660 and 1710 – the “Restoration” period. These works are known for their risqué, explicit depictions of sex and extramarital affairs.
Some things to know about what this role required of me: learning the accent and mannerisms of 1700 English society and know all lines and blocking (referring to where actors are positioned and move throughout scenes on stage) of the lead character in case I had to step in for the original cast member. This also included putting on a full performance with other understudies for faculty and fellow grad students. The purpose of this performance was to make sure understudies could step in at any time without the show missing a beat. I had no prior experience with Restoration period shows and during the entire rehearsal process, I was drowning. I had trouble learning the accent and mannerisms and I was unwilling to ask for help. I believed that by me asking for help, this would prove I didn’t deserve to be cast in this role or deserve to be in grad school at all.
On the day of the understudy performance, I knew I was in trouble. Because I struggled for the entire month to learn the accent and mannerisms, I failed in my line memorization; I never told anyone. About 30 minutes into the run, I blanked and couldn’t remember any of my lines – literally none of them. For the next hour and a half, the stage manager fed me my lines until the very end of the show. This had never happened to me before. My body become paralyzed and it felt as though my legs were walking through quicksand and that my jaw was wired shut and I had to force it open with every word I spoke. When I wasn’t speaking, I was grinding my teeth and biting the sides of my cheek, anything to distract me from fleeing offstage or crying.
What happened that day sent me into a downward spiral for the rest of the semester that I could not recover from. I was drinking most nights after shows and rehearsals, starting arguments and taking my anger out on those around me – teachers, fellow grad students, directors – and isolating myself from everyone and everything. My depression reached a new low and became so obvious that one of my professors sat me down one day and offered the name of a therapist I could see on campus. Here I was again, needing to see a therapist at college. It was too late though. I had already made up my mind to leave grad school. In all honesty, I made that decision the second I walked off the stage of the understudy performance.
Till this day, blanking out on stage has been one of the most humiliating things that has ever happened to me. Nothing in my life prior to that – the totaled car, the arrest – had caused me to feel like a complete failure. It has been years since that happened and I’ve a come a long way since that day, but every now and then I’m still struck with those feelings. Some days if feels as if I’m always just a split second away from something that happened five years ago.
Back to Chicago I would go.
