by Anne Clifford

Created on: July 26, 2007

The 4 stages of the bipolar relationship

1) I am in love for the first time and John has fallen in love with me. It is just like I have been told everything is easy and light. After a few dates he tells me he is bipolar. I don't run like most people would. I am absolutely fine with that. I suffer from depression and feel like I understand what he has to deal with everyday. We talk about everything, the future, how we both want to move to London and travel. He gives me a key to his apartment saying that he wants me to consider it my home as well. At Christmas he surprises me with a trip to Banff for a weekend. The card reads "I know it's not England but we will get there someday. I just know it." We stay at the Banff Springs Hotel and pretend that we are rich everyone calls me Mrs. Walsh and I love it. We talk and laugh and make love. It is perfect but it is also the first time I see John rapid cycling. It is terrifying. He can't keep still and he tells me it feels like volts are shooting through his body.

2) He had been under the weather for over a month now. "Under the weather" "In hospital" on "sick leave", whatever expression I used it didn't erase the fact that my boyfriend was certifiably crazy. Now you will probably say, "Sarah, everyone goes a little mad sometimes". Whether it's from the stress of the job or the illness of a loved one everyone loses it at one time or another.

3) John had turned in on himself. He was a ghost, a specter, a shadow of the man I had fallen in love with. The solution it seemed was to stick electrodes to his head and electrocute him back into the flock. ETC seemed so barbaric and cruel a torture device that would have been common during the crusades. I had the image of an antiquated doctor's office with a large black iron door separating the crazies from the medical staff. I pictured the nurses in pristine white uniforms and wedge nurse caps. I saw them tightening the restraints on John's wrists and ankles stony faced the way I imagine onlookers are witnessing an execution. The doctor would come in a Cyclopes with a blinding artificial eye his monstrous hands greedily fingering the syringe. Did John struggle when they fastened the restraints to his arms? Did he scream at the doctor in the pristine white coat that he was making a mistake? Did he lie back docile and accept his twisted fate? I pace in the observation room planning our escape but the clock strikes twelve and the governor hasn't rung to say they have appealed his case.

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