Mania with Money and the downside of medication. Maybe?

Which pieces of yourself do you lose with treatment to address mental health issues.

On Fridays I write about neurodiversity and mental health. Sometimes I will tell pieces of my own story. Other times I will tell yours. Go ahead and fill out my insightful questionnaire to be part of this project.

One of the survey respondents (whose story I will share in a later post) sent me a follow up email. In fact every survey respondent has done that which makes me happy and also makes me think about different shadows and angles of mental health/neurodiversity. This email had many many things I want to discuss over time but the bit of it I want to bring up today is the question of whether we lose something when we address our brain differences. Here is a bit of what they said.

I can't do this justice, this idea or question of when to meddle with nature. Because that's what it seems like. Nature isn't always pretty. We seek to tame it, not really knowing what we're breaking in the process of fixing something. If I sound like I'm not grasping the seriousness of this, I am. Or at least part of me is. The pain is real. If we can address it and get people back on track, I do believe that is the prudent course of action. I mean, my friend is dead. The sound of him getting zipped into a body bag haunts me. I was very close. I could have done more. I came up short. Some people have pain so great that relieving it would be a no-brainer... trade offs would seem trivial for relief. I acknowledge that. Please don't mistake this for some sort of romanticism for flawed characters.

I always start with primary research when I want to dig in. So here are some bullet points from my life pre and post medication.

The decade between 1997 and 2007 was the peak of my mania. I was medicated only for depression, not for mania and this is what I did. I was living in Vermont. This list is roughly in order.

Me when I waxed my eyebrows. That seems to have been lost with the medication as well.

• Got married and divorced to my college boyfriend. Dated for 6 years, married for six months. (Do bullet points have periods> mine do.)

• Moved to a house on a mountain top. The driveway was so long and windy and dirt-y that the house came with a plow. Because you had to plow yourself out. It also had a wood fired heating system the size of a small Volkswagon. But the views…

  

• Had an affair which helped end the above marriage. The other guy was not Steve. Don’t drag him into this.

• Went to graduate school while working at a middle school while driving to Boston most weekends to spend time with my father who was slowly but dramatically dying.

• Dad died on Valentine’s day. Funeral on my birthday. This wasn’t because of my mania. I think.

• Bought a large commercial building with two partners, renovated it, didn’t find an upscale bar tenant so opened a bar bringing in professional food service peeps who I didn’t know.

• Changed concept to bar, fine dining restaurant and music venue while still working at a school. Left my house at 6:00am, closed the restaurant at 2:00am. Zero problems with that.

  

  That is supposed to be a yawn to show I tired I was…but Alf looks evil. I guess evil might work as well.

• Let go the knowledgeable food service people to run a the bar, restaurant, music venue, on my own. Never having worked in any of those before. Did things like give my employees healthcare, pay Gravis for custom bags, design custom playing cards and notepads. As one does.I also did drugs and hooked up with relatively strangers. I remember those four years as the contrail of a jet that is about to crash.

• Sat on the board of several non-profit organizations and managed pretty damn big events. How? Dunno.

• Bought three multi unit residential properties with a partner. Did some renovations. Dealt with some lovely tenants and others whose aunts seemed to die at least twice a year. Sorry undead and re-dead Aunt. Rent is still a thing.

• Closed the restaurant the day after a sale fell through. Was pregnant. I couldn’t make myself wait for a new buyer. Lost a shit-ton of money. Which is an actual measurement that I hope you don’t know.

• Met Steve, got married, got pregnant. Kid was born quite early, got to know the NICU.

• Built a house from scratch. Not my hands obviously, they were in too many other pots, but still time and decisions. Mania helped me make them quickly. It also led to more change orders than would be ideal.

  

  Did I change the size of that window? You bet I did.

• Bought another large commercial building with a partner, an old Armory on Main St. Began to fill it with tenants. It burned in dramatic fashion which was odd for a fully sprinkled stone building. (crap electricity + wind = disaster), found we were underinsured and spent 1.5 years dealing with Lloyds of London and local developers.

• Worked as ED of a non-profit. Ran Art Hop, a huge event in a regular years but took over an empty 100,000 sf commercial space, started a fashion show and brought in more artists. I was ten month pregnant. (Because 40 weeks is not 9 months and somehow people have just swallowed the untruth of pregnancy being 9 months long.) Second kid was born 2 days after the event.

  

• Worked as the very first ED for another non-profit. Started a pretty sexist, gender limited event (retroactive apologies) called Cinderfella. (I know, I already apologized.)

  

  Did I pay out of my own pocket and art direct this (sexist non I know) image. Why yes!

• Decided non-profits needed software and invested over 100k into a web app which allowed orgs to take credit cards, have online auctions, automatically generate bid sheets for silent auctions, sell tickets and build their own “webstack” (drag and drop micro site) which was attached to a white labeled email system. Got it to test phase with about 10 non profits. CTO left. I just shut the whole thing down. It was a beast.

  

  This thing actually worked. I hope you can read it because the copy took a while.

• So I did the only logical thing and developed an IOS app. And I hired a professional musician to make the sound track, The artist who drew “Go the Fuck to Sleep” to do cur scenes, fancy LA people to help design the UI and UX, travelled to promote it. Can you see it on the app store? Obviously not. It is long defunct.

• Founded CSE (community supported enterprise) based on the CSA (community supported agriculture) model. It was for local dry goods. Like soap. Can you find it? No.

Sketch for app promo

• Did I learn? Well no…I developed a second iOS app. Called, wait for it, patience. Seriously. I knew I needed a pause but didn’t exactly get it done.

  

  Draft of background scroll for the patience app. Isn’t it calming?

Then I got medicated. And between 2007 and 2023…

• Moved across the country.

• Started two blogs.

• Volunteered at the middle school.

• Sold candy at the High School theatre events.

  SAME SAME

  

Clearly my engagement with the world outside of my family and its immediate bubble dropped from too big to sustain to (possibly) too small to feel useful. What did I get in return?

The ability (most days) to show up for my kids. Managing what was left of my money in a relatively more responsible way. Being a stable (ish) partner to Steve. Thinking much less seriously about stepping in front of busses.

This was a behavioral description. There is so much more. Like always.

What about you? Have you chosen medication? What have you lost or gained? Have you chosen to keep the wild nature of your brain unchanged? What do you lose and gain from that choice?