15. Chapter 11: The Perfect Storm

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Transcript

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Chapter 11: The Perfect Storm. One Saturday, at the start of the fall semester of the third year of university, my parents called me on Skype. I was exhausted after a weekend of partying at homecoming, and I knew it was strange that they wanted to Skype with me. I don't think I'd Skyped with either of them, together or apart before. Immediately when they got on the call, they shared the news they were getting a divorce. I burst into tears. My mom said, Oh, she's crying because she's so sad. I couldn't tell them the truth, which is that I wasn't crying because I was sad. I was crying because I was happy. I was so relieved. For as long as I could remember, I thought that they would be much happier, separated rather than together. That day, seeing me crying and thinking it was because of their divorce, my mom suggested I use her employee benefits to see a counselor. I didn't even know that she had employee benefits that entitled me to free counseling before that moment. I was so surprised that it was even an option. Your work gives you and your children free counseling? What? I asked her. Yes, I do want to use it. From her point of view, there was a perfect storm of things happening in my life to need counseling. I was 21 years old, my grandfather was in the hospital, slowly dying of cancer, my cat Atticus, who I had gotten as a present for my 13th birthday, was sick and was about to be put down. And my parents were divorcing. But for me, counseling wasn't about this current chaos in my life. It was about the ongoing chaos, the ever-present chaos that was always there. I hadn't felt happy, grounded, or well for as long as I could remember. My questions were: do I have bipolar? Is that the reason I don't feel well? I called the employee benefits line and they set me up with a counselor in Kingston. I walked through the drizzling rain to the downtown limestone city councilor's office. It was unmarked without a sign on the front, so it took me a few looks around to find it. The counselor had gray hair, a beard, and glasses. The one thing I remember telling him was, many relatives of mine have bipolar disorder, and I think I have it too. He said to me, bipolar disorder is a code word for I can't handle my emotions. At the time, I was stunned by this. I didn't want to go back. I asked my mom for another referral and I called the employee benefit line again. This time I saw a woman who had a small counseling practice in the basement of her home in the west end of Kingston, the suburban area. She was lovely to chat with and helped me feel seen and heard. Our eight sessions together were grounding and therapeutic for me. But at the end, the same problem was there. She was someone to provide talk therapy, not someone to diagnose me or provide tangible tools. And it wasn't going to be affordable long-term support. So at the end of my eight sessions, I walked away, defeated, not finding the answer I needed. After my off-campus session through my mom's employee benefits were finished, I went back to the university counseling department. I told the counselor, I think I have bipolar disorder. The more frequently I said this, the less scary it became. The counselor told me, I have to refer you out as this is beyond my scope of qualifications. She referred me to a doctor in the north area of Kingston near the train station. I rode my bike to this office and got lost along the way. I ended up biking way beyond the doctor's office. This was a rough part of town that I had never been in before, and I was alone. This was before the days of smartphones and Google Maps, and I was completely lost. I got off my bike, sat down at the side of the road, and started sobbing. Why was this so goddamn hard? I'd been to so many counselors and specialists at this point that I'd lost count. Why couldn't anyone help me? Why did I feel so alone? When I finally found the office that day, it wasn't even what I was looking for. Somehow I'd gotten referred to a neuroimaging clinic that was going to hook my brain up to wires to do a scan of my brain waves. Why was I here? How did I end up with this referral? I just wanted to talk to a doctor who could diagnose me. But because I didn't know how to advocate for myself and because I was desperate for help, I went along with it. Maybe this was how they diagnose people with mood disorders. I told the doctor I suspected I had bipolar disorder. The doctor hooked me up to the computer and I had several wires extending from my head attached to the screen. I watched the brain waves on the TV lighting up and squiggling in different colors and shapes. I actually kind of enjoyed this. It felt like meditation. At the end of the session, the doctor said to me, Your brain is in much better shape than most clients I see. Really? I asked him. He said, Normally, my clients have a lot of abnormal brain waves. Yours look relatively normal. I said to him, Well, I do a lot of yoga, so maybe that's why. Again, I was sent on my way, defeated, and still not finding the answer I was looking for.