Lucy is deep into something dark.
Our 15-year-old daughter can barely get out of bed.
When I open the door she snaps at me.
“Leave me alone!”
She curls up in blankets in her dark room.
I end up taking plates full of untouched food back to the kitchen. I push it into the bucket behind the faucet that holds leftover veg for the chickens, guinea hens, and turkeys.
By night: Sometimes I stand outside the door to her bedroom. I have my hand on the knob. But I can’t turn it.
I make myself turn it.
I wonder if when I open it, I will see something that will never leave me.
Will she be dead? Limp?
Hanging there.
The longer I don’t go in, the more I still have her. So I stand outside her door, hand on the knob, more than is healthy. I pretend she is texting or watching a movie. But then, I always have to know for sure, so I turn the knob and push my way in.
I hold my breath.
“Get out!”
It is almost a relief to have her scream at me.
I breathe again. Thank God, she is still here.
This is what I think. Everytime.
By day: My husband, David and I are helping her to the dining room table to do school work. We are hand-over-hand helping her, lifting her hand to type the keys. It’s absurd. A fool’s errand. At the table, she slumps into her hoodie, and lays her head on her arm.
She is just fucking gone.
This is happening during the pandemic. School is on the computer now. We hear the teachers talking in their contactless Zoom calls. They have no idea how far away she is.
We have no idea how far away she is.
She is a walking, throbbing wound.
David takes her to the ER. Our doctor prescribes anti-depressants. She takes to her bed. Even harder now. She is slipping more deeply into her hoodie. Her blankets and sheets. Her darkness.
My child is a husk. Like the whispery paper of a tomatillo. She is brittle.
She is tethered to the darkest place.
This bleakness. This remote, devastated, blasted inward-looking place. Her brain.
We wait for the meds, an SSRI and a stimulant, to kick in.
When they do, Lucy is out of bed. She is standing in the kitchen holding a bowl of Nik Sharma’s dal makhani and rice. A stew made with urad beans and ginger, garam marsala, garlic, cumin, cinnamon, turmeric and red pepper, and tamed with dollops of yogurt and cream.
She pushes the chickpeas around with a spoon. She is eating.
Lucy is a vegan. Well, she was. The kind of vegan who when she was eight, posted signs proclaiming “murderer!” in our windows when David and I culled one of our roosters for the infraction of attacking Desi.
She didn’t speak to us for days. But now none of that seems important to her. Her passions and her stubbornness, the things that tethered her to the world, leaked out.
I can smell the coriander. Cumin, garam masala, the turmeric all over the kitchen. She is walking around on her own now. Spooning bites into her mouth. The hoodie is down off of her head. I am grateful to have her back.
I ask her how she is feeling.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” she says.
“But the Adderall makes me have to talk.”
The adderall, a stimulant, is making her move and speak and be among us. But it’s artificial.
She is not okay, but she is better, I think.
Or really, this is what I want to believe.
+++++
Lucy can’t find the nail polish remover.
I’m writing in her 14 year old sister, Edie’s room, because it is cold and quiet there. The door is closed. Lucy pushes it open.
“Where did Edie put the nail polish remover?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “But I just got her some at Walgreens.”
“Then where is it?” She drawers too loudly. Too fast. Upsetting all the things.
She leaves and comes back.
More mad this time.
She opens doors again. The same one. Slams them shut.
Her feet are hard on the floor. She wants me, the world, the fucking universe, the people, five galaxies over, to know she is pissed about the fucking nail polish remover.
She wants me to know. I am the audience.
I stop writing. I raise myself off the bed. I know there will not be peace until we find the fucking nail polish remover.
I look in the bathrooms.
I scramble through the medicine cabinets, drawers. Tylenol. Q-tip swabs. Pink body mist. An old bottle of antibiotics with the label picked off at the edges. Hair dye. Razors. I’m feeling anxious because I know the longer it takes, the worse the crazy will get.
But I don’t find it. She is all over the house turning things over.
“FUCK!!!” I hear her scream.
She pulls things out. I hear them falling to the floor. Bobby pins all over the bathroom tile.
She slams her bedroom door. I think maybe she gave up.
There is jostling. Then, quiet. I go back to writing. I make a note to myself to pick-up nail polish remover when I go to pick up four year old Desi from daycare.
Then, through the silent house, I hear pounding.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
I stop.
More banging.
I get up, listen.
It’s coming from Lucy’s door.
The screaming starts.
I get up. Go to her room. The door is locked. I turn it again as if it might give. It doesn’t. She rages. I don’t know what to do. So, I go Charlize Theron in Mad Max and kick the fucking door in. I don't know what I’m thinking, because I’ve never kicked a door down in my life, but because she has fashioned a make-shift fork as a lock, the door actually bursts open when I kick it, and then bounces off the wall.
She is on the floor. On her back. Feet on the wall. She screams. She pulls at her hair and tears at her scalp. Her screams are the screams of madness. Sharp. Penetrating. Dark. A wail. Like some lowly creature gutted alive. She punches the bed. Kicks the walls.
This can’t be about nail polish remover. But my mouth responds to that anyway.
“We can go get nail polish remover,” I say. “Let’s go.”
I’m trying to divert her. But she has other ideas. She is up and running. She grabs the Jeep keys off the key rack. And runs out the door. I run after her.
She has only driven twice, in deserted mall parking lots. She failed her written driver’s test because she didn’t study. She cannot drive a vehicle.
She tears out of the house. Me behind her. She fumbles with the keys. She gets them in the door of the Jeep. I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on. My brain is always a little slow on the uptake. When emergencies happen, my brain doesn’t want to digest it. It comes up with lots of alternatives Maybe she is joking around and won’t really drive?
Maybe this is some kind of prank?
My brain is looking for plausible explanations of why my fifteen-year-old is trying to steal our Jeep.
She hurls herself into the driver’s side. She slams the door.
I stand in front of the Jeep. Hands on the hood. But I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do when she fires up the engine and puts her foot on the gas. I have this feeling my girl isn’t there-there. And she might actually kill me.
She turns the ignition over.
Nothing.
The battery is dead.
I remember now. David and I talked about it this morning. Which is why he is out at a meeting in the Flex. The Jeep died.
She slams the steering wheel over and over. And howls. Like a dying raging animal.
“Fuck you! Fuck you!”
She is walking now. One side of her shirt is down over her shoulder. Like she’s starring in the 80’s movie, Flashdance. She is wearing sweats and an oversized sweatshirt. Her hair is down. Long, a tangly, beautiful mess, falling over her face, enough that she has to sweep it off her cheeks every 30 seconds or so.
The next-door neighbor, Matt, has a pole set up between two crates. His Jack Russell likes to follow a laser and jump over the pole. Our dogs, Baby and Smudge, often join in.
Lucy takes the pole. She is swinging an 8-foot metal pole from side to side.
She walks.
I follow.
I run back in. I grab my phone. I text David, who is shooting a show.
I follow her. Street to street. I stay far enough behind that she doesn’t scream at me.
“Get the fuck away from me,” she occasionally turns around and reminds me.
“Fuck you, Mom.
Fuck.
“Fuck. Fuck you”
I am not entirely worried about foul language. You’ve probably figured out I have a trucker’s vocabulary.
But this is different. She isn’t throwing out an ‘oh fuck, I’m late for school.’ This is like she is throwing blades at me. Little ice picks stabbing my face. Then she gives me the finger. And swings her hair around. She walks in curvy lines down the street. The pole is still in her hands. She laces the air in swoops.
I follow. I lose her around a corner.
I search streets. Places I know. Places I don’t. Places I imagine she might go. The more I look the more harried and desperate I get.
She is nowhere.
I call all the moms. Her friends. To ask if they have seen her.
Nothing.
She just disappears.
+++++
David comes home. He gets on his bike, I take the car.
We are moving through the streets.
He texts me 15 minutes later. He has her. He is shadowing her as she careens around the neighborhood, disappearing into buildings, walking on busy roads.
I call her doctor. The office prescribes emergency Lorazepam. I stalk the pharmacist at Walgreens saying words that have never come out of my mouth in this formation before.
“My 15-year-old daughter is psychotic and walking the streets,” I say. Leaning across the counter. “Please fill these meds as soon as you can”
I stay at the counter until they hand me the meds.
The Lorazepam will cut the mania. I buy a can of Coke Zero, because she likes it.
“She will sleep,” the doctor’s office tells me over the phone.
I have this all figured out in my head. I will give her the meds. She will take them. I will put her in the car and she will sleep. Then, we will have a second to figure out what’s going on and we’ll take steps from there.
Perfect. Figured it out.
I get there. I leave the car idling in the street. I show her the pills and the Coke Zero. She just screams in my face. She is wild now. I no longer recognize her.
Usually quiet and demure, Lucy is fire-breathing. No different from a wild animal. All impulse and ferocity.
She snarls at me to stay away.
“Call 911” David says, following on his bike as she turns up Sahara Avenue.
I don’t want to call 911. I don’t want her to go to a hospital. I want to give her the meds, and take her home. I want her to sleep in the room next to me, so I can watch her breathe. So I know she will be okay.
I remember being pregnant with her. I remember being happy to have her actually inside me. So that I could keep her safe. Carry her around with me.
When she is inside, I can take care of her. When she is in the world, she belongs to herself. Not to me. And I have no control.
I want her home. Inside.
“How will we get her home?” David asks, straddling his bike and watching Lucy manically walk a curb, like it’s a tightrope. She uses the pole for balance.
“I can’t tackle her into the car on the street,” David says.
I imagine he is right. I’ve been foolish.
Lucy turns onto the portion of Sahara between Paradise and Maryland Parkway, a corridor of drug addicts and transient men. Lucy is not worried.
She is the definition of oblivious.
She skips and jumps along the curb.
She loses the pole now. Hucks it somewhere.
I imagine our neighbor looking for it tonight when he walks outside with his jack russell.
+++++
I have to call 911.
David follows Lucy down Sahara on the bike. I follow in the car. I talk to the 911 operator and give her all the details.
In this state of panic, it occurs to me that my aggressive, swearing, punching the air, stick-twirling, gorgeous, petite daughter will probably not lose her life during this incident. She is protected by her whiteness and her smallness and her femaleness and her blondness. She is not a threat.
But what if she pulls a knife on the cops or something else stupid?
Then, what will they do?
I tell the 911 operator, “She isn’t normally like this.”
But what I really mean is, my baby is losing her mind, please don’t hurt her.
“She isn’t a threat to anyone.”
“Does she have access to guns?” she asks.
“No.”
“Does she have weapons?” she asks.
“No.”
I’m answering and looking out the window. We don’t have guns in the house. So I know she doesn’t have a firearm. But knives? Blades? I don’t know anything anymore. I mean anything is possible. My brain feels like it’s in a landslide. Things keep moving, shifting, rolling. And there is nothing to stop the momentum. I’m trying to hold on, grab at something.
David is confronting a man who has spoken to Lucy through his truck window. Apparently, he ogled her. He made gross observational comments about her body in the middle of her meltdown.
Asshole.
David deliberately and obviously photographs his license plate, and the side of the truck with a world logo on it. The guy stops and tries to explain.
“I was just looking out for her,” he says. His voice trails off.
We are on a side street off Sahara Avenue, next to a gas station. Two police cruisers roll up. Officers are getting out.
I pull up behind them.
If shit goes wrong, we are here.
Please don’t hurt her.
Please don’t hurt her.
Please don’t hurt her.
An ambulance pulls into the convenience store parking lot.
Cars slow down to look.
Please don’t hurt her.
David and I hang back. Lucy is standing in front of the hood of the police car, screaming “fuck you” at us if we move even the slightest step toward her. Again, our whiteness softens everything. We speak the language. We are here. We speak the language. We are following her around the streets like helicopter parents. There is no misunderstanding. All the privileges align like moons behind the sun. Our child will get the help she needs in this eclipse.
Do not think for a second I am not grateful.
What I remember is my kid. My baby. My girl. The first born. Who made us a family. The child who slept in our bed. And licked the batter off the spoon. The one who wrote songs. And performed them in our living room. The girl who was too abrasive for smooth friendships. Who has this weird, cool brain. She becomes a stranger. A wisp of her former self. She pulls the curtains. The covers. Tightens the hoodie over her face. Covers her arms. Hides her pain. Mumbles words. Is completely disconnected from us. From the world.
She slams her fists down on the cop car.
“Fuck you. Get out of here. Leave me alone.
GET. THE. FUCK. OUT. OF HERE.”
For a moment, David and I both chuckle. It’s such a strange reaction. But she is so someone else now. A caricature of a girl we once knew. The chuckle reflects the absurdity of it all.
“We are losing her,” David had said to me the night before. “One day, she is just going to move out into the world. And she’ll just disappear into it. And we’ll never see her again.”
His words are both our fears.
Now, hands on the hood of the police car. She screams. I watch the police talk her through it.
“Don’t touch me!” she screams at the officer who is clearly not touching her.
“Fuck you! Fuck you! Get away from me.”
The officer is calm. His voice is reassuring. He talks to her. And I have no idea what he is saying. But she is calming down just a little.
What I notice is how she reminds me of Angelina Jolie in Girl Interrupted. A gorgeous thing, possessed, snapping, fightin’, and laughing. A beautiful, beautiful wreck. If Lucy saw this movie, she would like that comparison, I think.
David and I hang back. Social workers, EMTs, and officers take turns talking to us.
“I don’t think she’s had any water to drink,” I say.
My daughter is cracking up. I’m worried about hydration.
They hook her up to IVs. Her heart rate is 170, and that's after the police calm her down. She is buzzing.
“She has hundreds of cuts on her arm,” the social worker tells us.
Hundreds.
“But she told me she had never cut…”
It sounds so stupid saying it. Of course, she didn’t tell me. But my mind reels. Like she would just blurt it out over dinner or something.
But I never checked.
I never looked.
Even secretly.
Honestly, I didn’t think it could happen to us. Maybe I secretly thought this because we were a good family. Attentive parents. We loved them and cared for them. Isn’t that enough to insulate us?
No. No, it’s not. It’s not about us.
This is mental illness. It isn’t personal.
And now a wave of reality. We cannot trust whatever she says. She will lie to get herself through this pain. We have to be more vigilant. And then a wave of concern for her.
And self-hatred for me.
The pandemic was raging around us and I ran a food pantry in our front yard. I think about the strangers who got my attention, all the people I fed and made sure they were okay, while my child slowly slipped away. And I noticed. Sure, I saw it. The slow, falling off and melting away. But I didn’t stop it. I didn’t stop the world from spinning and focus everything on her. Instead, I picked up ageing food from supermarkets and stocked the fridge + pantry multiple times a day. I fed strangers. I made dinners in to-go boxes for strangers. My daughter was perforating the skin on her arms, over and over trying to make herself feel something, as I cared for strangers.
I’m disgusted with myself. And like even more disgusted that I am making this about me.
The social worker tells us she has been smoking marijuana, wax.
“Wax, wax, what is wax?” I’m thinking.
We stand around with the cops and discuss wax. This thing that my daughter smokes, but that I don’t know about, or know existed. I swore I would never be the parent who didn’t know what a particular drug was. Or I’d be so out of touch that I’m side-swiped by some Gen Z shit I never knew existed.
But here I am. Side-swiped as fuck.
Then the doors of the ambulance close. David’s bike is in the back of the Flex. David is in the ambulance with Lucy.
I am driving home.
Nothing is really ever going to be the same again.
+++++
They take Lucy to Sunrise Children's Hospital. And from there to the teen psychiatric unit at Southern Hills Hospital.
David rides with her in the hospital van. She says almost nothing to him.
They take belts and shoelaces.
Because someone could hang themselves.
Hair ribbons. Underwire bras. Hoodies. No hoods at all. No drawstrings.
Because someone could hang themselves.
No pencils or pens. They will have crayons for you.
Because you can stab yourself.
No plastic bags. In case you want to suffocate yourself.
Or stuffed animals.
Maybe you can hide things in there.
No metal. Or food of any kind.
What happens next is that my daughter is admitted to a psychiatric ward for teens.
It’s so weird that I’m walking around in the world. I am loading milk and cheese into a fridge in my front yard, and coordinating a pantry giveaway of spices and pantry staples for the neighborhood, and the rest of me is holding this knowledge that my daughter is in the looney bin. The crazy house.
That night, with her safely tucked in a place where I know she will come out alive, where I hope she will come out alive, I breathe just a little more.
I order Girl Interrupted on Amazon. So that I can feel close to her. Which is stupid, but comforting.
I wonder what her future will be like now.
+++++
We drop the clothes that night.
We do not get to see her, which is fine because she does not want to see us. We bring her socks. And shoes that don’t have metal. Or shoe laces, or buckles. I bring a bunch of notebooks, pens and books of poetry that the attendants eye suspiciously and shake their heads no while handing everything back to us
They tell us she is bipolar. The anti-depressants her doctor prescribed triggered a psychotic episode, a surprisingly common outcome with undetected bi-polar.
She is too young for a definitive diagnosis. So they say she has “bipolar undetermined.”
They tell me about the three main manifestations of the disease. Bipolar 1 is the full throttle form. Think full manic episodes of high-highs where the person is ultra-confident and feels God-like. The mania can be so good with unstoppable energy, so many ideas to make and do, a stream of productive thoughts, plans and ideas that become so heightened, they become excruciating. Too intense. Too painful. The mania goes from highly productive to impulsive and unmoored, so that what was once good becomes dangerous. This is the place where people spend their rent on amazon purchases, cheat on their partners, blow up marriages, take drugs they normally never would, screw people they ordinarily wouldn’t be interested in, try to fly off ledges in full belief they will glide on their own wings.
Then comes the slide into a paralyzing depression. Not a typical person's transient depression but one so deep and black as to be void of any feeling, except for the yearning of it. They are dissociated from their own thoughts and spirit and body. This depression is arctic and stunningly barren. They feel nothing. It is where the patient is at most risk for killing themselves, for not seeing a way out. Nearly 20% of bipolar people will die of suicide. More than 50% will try and fail at least once.
Bipolar 2 is less high-high mania, more hypo-manic but with an even more potent and elongated depression. One person describes the difference between hypomania and mania, like this, “I'm hypomanic: I buy 50 decks of tarot cards and read them all the time. I'm manic: I buy 50 decks of tarot cards, read them all the time, and I'm psychic and can converse with the dead.”
The third, cyclothymia - which we call “bipolar lite” here, includes shorter periods of highs and lows, that aren’t as extreme, but can cycle quickly and keep people in mixed states of feeling anxious (up) and depressed (down) simultaneously.
Bipolar kids can be super active. Also mean. Angry. Agitated. They say terrible things.
Kids often have mixed episodes. They are up. Sleepless. Irritated. Have restless, intrusive thoughts. Rapid-fire thoughts. Racing brain. Along with sadness. Dark. Abysmal. Aching. Stabbing pain depression. The world is grey.
Girls tend to be less physical. Boys more so. Which is why boys are often diagnosed earlier. Their symptoms can be more threatening to teachers and parents.
Bipolar kids are the ones throwing punches. Making holes in walls. They are giving their teacher the finger. They are not sleeping properly. Too much. Or too little. They are a speeding train of ideas. They are buying too much. Spending every dime they have. As teens they might send nudes. Drink and vape in secret. Drink in the open. Self-medicate. Vapes. Hook-ups. Running out the disease. The mania is too fast. They think they are impervious. Nothing can hurt them.
“I have the best life.” Lucy will tell me when she is in a state of mania.
“I can do whatever I want.”
“I am like a God.”
A lot of bipolar kids have comorbidities. Usually, ADHD and chronic anxiety. They have trouble concentrating, getting distracted is a huge issue. Their mind is on fire, moving all the time. They can’t focus. They look checked out.
Sometimes it’s the simple things they can’t do. Like showering. Or brushing teeth. They struggle to do really simple things, and then obsess about doing it or not doing it. School can be a minefield. They have to handle stress. Be on. Control their moods. Maintain friendships in a complicated, always moving environment. Relationships with teachers. Hold onto and hide their aggression. They must navigate noisy classrooms, chaos, teen politics, popularity, knowledge retention. Perform.
Perform.
Perform.
Then, the crash. The sadness seeps in. The good is always followed by a depression that is brain-searing. And they need days, weeks in bed. For adults, that depression can last months, even years. It is hard to hold down jobs when there are days you can’t get out of bed, and it’s just part of who you are.
Self-harm is a coping strategy for teens. Self-harm is not a suicide attempt. It’s a way to combat the numbness of depression, by feeling something, anything.
These behaviors can include: cutting, scratching, hair pulling, hitting themselves over and over.
The pain they feel from the cutting, the damaged skin, the blood breaking through the split in the flesh…
It’s all proof they exist. It makes them real.
+++++
“I need a drink,” I say.
David doesn’t argue.
“Just Huntridge Tavern. Some place easy,” I say.
Huntridge Tavern is pure dive bar. Dark, seedy. Old bikers with gray frizzled beards nursing beers in the shadows. Bar signs on the walls. Darkly lit booths. No one talks to you except the busty bartender. A place for drinking when you find out your child is severely mentally ill, and you need to hash that out with your partner.
I find a socially distanced table. The next table slides us one of their seats.
David looks at me for my order.
Tequila double. Lime.
“You aren’t going to start drinking, are you?” he asks.
He directs this to me but I know he is talking about himself too. We’ve been dry for over a year. I know he is worried this will start us drinking again. Not drinking has improved how we feel substantially, so returning to regular drinking is not something either of us want.
No. I say.
But today I need something to immediately push back the furious beating of my heart. I take a long full sip. Let it hit the back of my throat in old familiar ways.
I enjoy every moment of this little gift.
A few more sips and I’ll be calmer.
“So, here’s how I think about Lucy,” I tell David.
I explain my theory that nothing sticks to her. She is an ice mountain, and the people and things in the world do not have crampons, so they cannot get traction with her. There is nothing to grab onto. They interact with her. And she is slippery. People and things fall off of her.
David agrees. We research bipolar on our phones. We share different studies.
My agent, Stacey, posts a photo of her oldest daughter turning sixteen. They are in Turks and Caicos. They are on the beach. Having dinner under stars and on patios.
Her daughter is beautiful.
And well.
My daughter is also beautiful.
And unwell.
My daughter spends her sixteenth birthday in a psychiatric hospital.
I am now feeling myself drop out of the world.
I am a part of something secretive. And hard.
No one knows.
+++++
They are sending her home.
And it reminds me of when they let us bring her home from the hospital as a newborn. She was little. And pink. Her face was elegant. And elfin.
I was thinking, why would you trust me to bring this baby home? Are you insane?
I mean, I don’t know what I’m doing with babies
But they did. And we didn’t kill her. I mean there was that time David was holding her on his chest and he fell asleep, and our nine-month-old rolled off the bed. But the bed was one of those Japanese, low-to-the ground beds, so while I was screaming about calling 911, we both noticed she just bounced.
And went back to sleep.
Same now. How can anyone let this child come home?
We don’t know how to parent a bipolar kid.
+++++
David picks her up from the psych ward.
Lucy is released with a folder of paperwork. New meds ready at the pharmacy, and family with no idea what to expect. David calls me from the car.
“Lucy is starving,” he says.
‘The food sucks in the psych ward,” she yells into the phone.
I smile. OMG, we’re going to make jokes about the psych ward. I’m relieved. This is how our family manages, I think.
As it happens, I am prepared with food.
I’ve made her childhood favorites, which aren't her favorites anymore, but maybe there is a part of her that will remember.
“I made Hong Kong noodles,” I say. The noodles Kian Lam Kho taught me to make in our New York City. They are these crunchy pan-fried noodles that stay crunchy, slowly loosen, and get soft from the sauce. Kian serves it with lots of vegetables and a protein, like chicken. But Lucy and Edie love it, ust noodles and sauce.
That is how I make them today.
“And wontons with a vegetable filling. And fried rice,” I tell her. I lay everything out on the butcher block, so it’s ready for her when she comes in.
She walks in, and goes right for the kitchen.
She is full of words, after months in deep, paralyzing depression, sad lethargy, and disconnection. It is hard to even remember who she was before.
She calls my name, and has me follow her into her room.
When was the last time she asked me to come to her?
My skin chills. Goosebumps. It is a beautiful rush of magic to have her back.
“There was another kid from my school there,” she tells me.
She beelines for the kitchen. She makes herself a plate. David leans on the counter, too.
I give her the bag of poetry, and notebooks that I tried to bring earlier. A pack of watercolor pencils, inside the kitschy Cup of Noodles bag. She explains the psych ward rules like a psych ward lifer.
“Hardcover,” she says. Picking up the sketchbook. “Not allowed, in case I feel like hitting someone over the head with poetry.”
She pulls out the water color pencil. And the little tool to blend the colors.
“Nope, we could kill someone with this.”
She sees the little pencil sharpener. She looks at me skeptically.
“Mom, did you really think they’d let us have this on the psych ward?” She asks holding up the sharpener.
She smiles.
“Mom, it was so boring.”
“I was hoping it would be peaceful and restful for you.”
“They woke me up every morning at 5am to check my vitals. It was the opposite of restful.”
She eats a wonton. “Psych ward food is awful.”
“What did you eat?”
“A lot of meat,” she says. “It’s not like they have vegan selections.”
“Oh! Can you buy me cheese sticks? I ate a lot of those on the ward.”
I have never seen this child eat a cheese stick.
She makes a big bowl of the fried rice. She adds a couple more wontons to the bowl. She grabs chopsticks.
“They got mad at us for writing down each other’s Instagram info, so we can be in touch after they let us out,” she tells us. “We lost our crayon privileges because of that.”
I’m not sure why this strikes us all as ridiculous. And hilarious. But it does.
We all fall out laughing.
Especially Lucy.
It feels like we might be okay.
+++++
That night we find her curled up on the bathroom floor.
David lifts her up. He walks her back to bed.
“I don’t know if I’m real,” she tells him.
“You are real, baby. I see you,” he says, folding her into bed.
“I don’t feel real,” she tells him.
He sleeps on the floor that night, next to her bed.
Later, she will tell him she hid in the bathroom so the aliens couldn’t take her.
This is the first time we really understand, up close and personal.
This is our daughter in psychosis.
+++++
From Lucy’s journal:
Should I take my meds?
I don’t want them to temper this art piece of a mind
I wouldn’t want to be anybody else
Nobody talks about this
Why doesn’t anybody talk about this?
Maybe nobody wants to tell it
Maybe I’m the only one
My mind is trying to kill me.
I can’t tell if this is normal
If I told somebody would they think I’m crazy?
I’m infinite.
+++++
The 504 meeting takes place on Zoom.
A 504 is simply a meeting with teachers, counselors and admin. The idea is to make sure a kid with a disability has what they need to be supported. The disability can be a broken leg that requires extra time getting to classes, or it can be something chronic, like a mental illness, or a neurodivergence. A kid might need more time with tests, or be able to take breaks when things get too chaotic, or stressful.
I do my research before the meeting.
What does a bipolar kid need to get through school?
The team at Lucy’s school, a much-respected arts school, will know the next steps. The 504 meeting is with the guidance counselor, a school counselor, and all of Lucy’s teachers. Lucy is there, but she is barely there.
She says hi. She smiles.
This meeting is like being pitched into an alternate universe, where you the parents are talking about one thing, and the faculty on Zoom are talking about another. There is no ravine large enough to demonstrate how far apart we are. The teachers talk assignments and testing. They talk about time allowances for work she needs to get done. SBAC exams and college, and grades. I keep looking at my daughter who is simply trying to keep herself standing there listening to it all.
What did I expect?
After a mental illness diagnosis, I expect there to be safety nets for kids who can slip through the cracks. She can’t be the first bipolar kid in the fifth largest school system in the country.
I expect them to say: Your mental health is the most important thing. “What do you need right now and how can this school support you so you can succeed?”
Better yet. How about: “We’ve done this plan with other bipolar students and it’s worked for them. Here’s how I suggest we move forward...”
I expect things like shortened assignments that focus on quality, not quantity. Less reading, which is hard for her. Permission to use audio books instead of reading text. Mental health days to support mood swings. Maybe an extended break to get herself together, maybe even a semester off.
A teacher starts talking about how smart Lucy is.
She is smart.
But she is not going to go to office hours. She is not going to do extra Zoom classes to catch up, or understand a math concept. She cannot give you more.
She is broken. I want to scream at them.
She just got out of a mental hospital.
Her brain is caving in on itself.
We are losing her.
I don’t care if she reads one more book this year.
Does one more math problem.
Takes one more test.
I could care less if she goes to college.
None of it matters. I don’t want to lose her.
I don’t want to fucking lose her.
But the school system only wants my kid when she is well.
A few weeks later, we withdraw her from school.
No one notices. Except David, Lucy and I.
+++++
For the next few months, we watch Lucy while pretending we aren’t watching her.
She stays up all night. I check at 1am. She is up, playing Grand Theft Auto on the PlayStation. She pretends I’m not up walking around. She is fully dressed. Face full of make-up. Bare feet with painted toes. Glasses on. Curled into a chair. Hair in a messy bun. It strikes me how gorgeous she is.
I check again. 3:30am. She is in her bedroom. But the lights are on. Music is on full blare. Screens all on. She is cutting fabric with Edie’s sewing scissors. An explosion of materials, and creativity.
I have no idea what she is making. She looks up from the side of the bed where she is sitting. Scraps of textiles in her lap. She smiles. But it’s fake. She is doing it to hunt me off her trail.
You going to sleep? I ask.
“I’m not tired. I’ll go soon.”
That smile again. The one that wants me to leave her alone. To be alone in her brain.
I close the door.
Outside the door, I realize it so fully, I have no idea how she thinks. Or feels.
But this looks like mania.
Does she feel real yet?
5:30am. She is climbing into bed. Wide awake. I think she might be pretending to go to bed when she hears my feet on the floor.
She wants to live in the casita. On her own. She wants to be gone as soon as she can. But there is no plan. All the talk of being an exchange student, graduating early, living in Paris. Or Italy. Remember Lucy, we made egg rolls and debated whether you should live in Paris or Italy? You wanted Paris. But I wanted you to go to Italy.
Lucy doesn’t go on auditions anymore, or do self-tapes. She doesn’t write songs or make art. She gives up her staunch veganism. Her politics. She gives up Paris.
The bipolar dilutes her.
+++++
Lucy’s psychologist is Rhonda. She is young and cool, a different hair color every week. And she knows her shit.
Lucy completely opens up to her. It’s easy to talk to Rhonda.
After their session, Rhonda and I talk. She doesn’t betray Lucy’s confidence, but she gives me an idea of how Lucy is doing.
“You should not trust her right now. She is being impulsive,” she tells me.
I think this is code for self-medicating with booze and vapes. Possibly sex with boys. I have suspicions and clues. I cannot confirm.
“She could kill herself.”
I hold my breath.
“She gets in that place where she can’t feel anything and she will do whatever she can to get out,” she tells me. “She doesn’t consider the long term.”
We talk about how Lucy cannot see herself in the future. She doesn’t see what her life can be in twenty years. Ten. Five. One. Two weeks.
This is that ice mountain thing, where nothing sticks to her.
“Kim, she is always depressed.” Rhonda says. Her voice is tender. But clear.
“No matter what is happening with her. She is always depressed.”
+++++
I feel the wet soup down my back. It’s all over the back of the couch.
Our nine-year-old son, Raffi runs to get the broom.
Then, I see it’s on the floor. A puddle of Thai-style red curry noodle soup that I made for Lucy. My back and my hair smells of lemongrass, chilies and galangal.
Desi is playing Roblox on my phone. I missed Lucy’s furious text messages asking me to come get her bowl. Now she is standing over me. She is pissed.
“There is meat in the soup!”
“There isn’t meat in the soup,” I say calmly. I made the vegetable broth from scratch. I added tofu, instead of chicken.
“There’s fucking meat in the soup.”
“Lucy, I would never put meat in your soup.”
“It was steak.” I have no idea what she has seen in her soup.
I turn to her. “Why did you throw it at me?”
She screams in my face.
“I didn’t…. Don’t fucking cook for me anymore. I don’t want your food. Do you hear me?... I don’t fucking want your food.“
“I don’t want it.”
David is there now. The kids. Raffi is swirling soup around the floor with the mop.
It’s a spectacle.
She heads to her room. On the way, she shoves Raffi. Hard. He is eight and has poor impulse control at the best of times. He pummels her with his fists. MMA in our living room. He hits her hard in the body. But she is bigger, stronger, and more uninhibited. Less worried about consequences.
She slams him with an elbow to the face. She sends him to the ground crying. The bowl is upside down. He is sitting on the floor. In more soup.
I wrap him up in my arms.
She slams the door.
+++++
Next day:
“My computer isn’t working,” Lucy tells me. “I don’t have a computer.”
Her computer is new. David bought her a MacBook Pro for editing her film projects at school.
“Why? What happened?” I try to keep my voice level. I put dishes away on shelves to keep a disinterested distance between us. If I focus on her, she withers.
“Because you put too much broth in the bowl, and it spilled on my computer.”
“That’s why you were angry at me?”
I turn now and look at her.
“I can take care of myself, mom. I can make my own food.”
And then, like a burst of sadness leaving the kitchen, she takes her plates and drinks and leaves for her room.
With one last word to make sure I hear her.
“I. Don’t. Want. Your. Food.”
Of course, what she is saying is that she doesn’t want me. The two are probably inextricable.
“Do you hear me?” she asks again. At the door of her room.
“I want to make my own food.”
+++++
This February, Lucy will be eighteen.
It will be two years since her psychosis. Since the aliens trapped her in the bathroom.
She is stable. The meds are literal lifesavers.
Sometimes we talk about the bipolar from a more philosophical angle: Is she bipolar or does she have bipolar?
I defer to her for the answers. But mostly we don't talk about it much at all.
She is too busy living her life.
She works at Starbucks. She has no desire to be locked into college. She wants to be a mixologist, work in nightlife. She wants to travel and to stockpile money in the bank. She knows herself. She knows her moods, the signs that things are right and not right. She sees her therapist still, every week. She lives in the casita in the backyard. She is no longer a vegan, but has settled comfortably into pescetarianism, with eggs from our chickens only.
She is independent, but gratefully, tethered to us still.
Right now, Lucy is in New York City with David. Business for him. Her flexible online school gives her room to travel with her father.
For the last six months she has had a steady boyfriend, Angel. We spent Christmas in Mexico with his family. We spent the holiday watching a ton of kids murder pinatas, and played soccer at night with a long neck in one hand. We ate a ton of abuela’s home-made posole.
His mom owns a food truck. Both Angel and Lucy are the children of cooks. It shows. They cook for each other: Angel brings mahi-mahi and they make fish tacos. Lucy makes him mac and cheese and rare steaks. They go through a salad phase, whipping up dinner salads with avocado crema dressing.
I awake in the morning to a kitchen that has been worked through the night. Dishes in the sink and crumbs on the counter. All of it feels beautiful to me.
This is part of the reason we cook for our kids, isn’t it?
So they will love people through food? And so they will allow themselves to be loved that way?
Their relationship is young. I don’t have a prognosis for them in the future. But then one of them will show up at the other's work with a home-made lunch of caesar salad and little mounds of crab cakes that they made themselves, and I quietly root for them.
The cooking makes me feel like Lucy will be okay.
When people are cooking, they are usually okay.
________________________________________________________________
Note from Kim: I have permission from Lucy, now nearly 18 (wtf?) to write and post this essay. In fact, she helped me a lot during the writing, sharing bits of her journal, photos, filling in gaps, and expanding upon her experiences. Her insight about herself and her bipolar is extraordinary. She has taught me a lot.
The photo is of Lucy with Desi (right) and Desi’s BFF eating all-you-can-eat-sushi yesterday. Proof that life goes on. Lucy would also like you to know that my kicking her bedroom door in was “badass.”
Last: I cannot express how proud David and I are of this kid. She has handled adversity and a tough diagnosis with grace and grit. She is beyond special to us. We love her just the way she is.
Thank you, as always, for reading. xo Kim
I was beside myself while reading this and thinking of you. Your writing is riveting. I was right there with you and at the same time reliving our own experience from years ago in my head. Very dark times. It's hard, but the flickers of light, those moments of awareness, times of seeing the person you know instead of a puzzle in front of you...we live for that, and we always hope and strive for the best for them.
This is stunningly good writing - hard to tear yourself away from the art of it, until you recall that you are reading about the real, raw lives of people. Sending huge love, from a complete stranger out here in cold, wintery England, to you and your family, Kim. You are incredible, as a writer and as a mother.