In attempting to make light of life recently, I shared what I thought were couple of humorous incidents with a closer friend. It seems as though whatever small skill I had with humour had deserted me since she found both the incidents and my telling of them to be sad. I asked for suggestions as to how I could improve things, but it seems I couldn’t. I am therefore sharing them with a wider audience to tell me where I have gone wrong.

It was after a spectacular failure at suicide that I was put in the care of a psychiatric team some years ago. From all the questions and viewing ink blots someone decided I was Bi-polar. This is a diagnosis I have never agreed with. But, as part of the treatment I was put on a regular diet of Lithium tablets. I complained about this on a number of occasions saying I preferred to be in control of myself and my moods, to no avail. I was on Lithium and a pharmacy full of other drugs to enhance or control my thoughts and mood for years.

On one memorable occasion I woke to find myself in hospital on a locked mental ward. I could not remember being taken in, my last coherent(?) memory being a suggestion to my Bro on a Saturday night that to relieve the boredom and have a change of scenery, we go out for a drink. In my mind he was persuaded, despite the fact that neither of us touches alcohol under normal circumstances. It was a strange bar he took me to , and handing over some cash I asked him to order me a soft drink, but very cold. It appeared that they had to be got from a machine. He managed to find himself a coffee from somewhere, perhaps from behind the strange looking bar where he spent an inordinate amount of time talking to the barkeep. I was very thirsty , and maybe a little warm or dehydrated as I remember asking for more drinks.

After waking up on this ward I was a little spaced out. I had little idea of what had happened at that point and couldn’t find my bro to ask him. There were people around all the time and none looked happy. No access to the outside and people offering me drugs they insisted I took. When eventually I had a visitor I was told that I’d been behaving very strangely at home and a doctor had been called who insisted I needed to be hospitalised. I’d told him on no uncertain terms, NO. Yet here I was. Tests showed I had lithium poisoning and that was the cause of my being so spaced. After a few days things started to become more clear, and because I was adamant that I wanted to go home I was released. I was still being prescribed lithium at this point. I do remember some strange and vivid dreams I had while still in the hospital which I will tell you about later. Life resumed it’s normality at home though I was sent for blood tests on a regular basis by my G.P. to keep an eye on lithium levels in my blood. I tended to skip taking lithium unless there was a blood test due, no-one seemed to notice.

A couple of years after that incident, I again woke up on a closed ward in Hospital and had a great feeling of discomfort when I walked. Once again it seemed no-one was anxious to give me any information as to why I was there or how I had arrived. Over the course of a few days I again suffered from the  strange dreams. I was in a room full of Indian gentlemen who were all eating. I was sure I was a spy of some kind, but, I was there to warn them of a traitor in their midst. Warning given, I tried to withdraw but there were guards blocking my path. I ran through a door and found myself in a long corridor. I was on my crutches but seemingly could move with speed. Knowing I was being chased I ducked inside a room and hid under a table. I was there for some time and felt the need to relieve myself , which I did in a corner. My mind was jumbled and I moved out carefully  finding myself in a small crowd of Europeans who seemed to know me. I moved along with them until I reached the safety of a place I knew, where there was a bed. I climbed in and slept.

Over the next few days it transpired that I had been taken to hospital because my behaviour was once again strange. The diagnosis on this occasion was acute constipation. Had my own noxious fumes risen and taken hold of my brain? I’m not sure how they’d relieved my condition but no doubt the discomfort walking had something to do with it. During the time that my brain readjusted itself I gathered that maybe I had invaded the staff dining room during breakfast which might account for the number of Indian gentlemen present. Had I peed under a table in their lounge? I doubt I’ll ever know that. I was discharged with a prescription for a substance called Dulcolax which I had to administer by spoon and was foul. I was also advised never to let myself reach that degree of constipation again. Actually I’m not by nature mean but my body had stopped telling me when I needed to Go, and was perhaps going just as I needed to, once a week at most. According to them, I must have gone a minimum of two weeks without being emptied. This was dangerous and could lead to delirium as had happened.

I have managed to avoid any repetition of either incident, probably a relief to the hospital staff. I don’t think either event had anything to do with me being bi-polar as I don’t recall any major changes of mood, huge swings in misery or elation that illness seems to produce. I was just an unhappy man in a very unhappy and disjointed World.

I have been admitted to hospital at least twice since that time, once with pneumonia and once as the result of a mini-stroke. I was not on a locked ward and was able to wander at will, so I don’t have any issues about being a patient, knowing myself not to have been responsible for my misfortunes. I no longer have to take lithium though I still have a cornucopia of medicines I have to take daily, I rattle, but not to any beat you know. I do feel more in control of myself and not in fear of becoming a spaceman again. My mood swings are in accord with the general news of the day, warfare, drought, earthquakes and other natural disasters as well as the malice some people seem to form against others for skin pigmentation or sexual inclination. One day I hope to be happy but now in my seventies, it seems a long time coming.