Mania Calling Cards

Originally written on September 16, 2009 at 12:26pm

The Parts Dealer comes to the gate to pick me and help me move, except my father and I had done the hard work already.

After we settle into his Lincoln Mark, he waits, and waits and waits.
 
I don't make eye contact, and pretend to be ignorant.

He leans towards me.

I stare straight.

"C'mon, give me a kiss. I haven't seen you in days," he says.

"There's something I need to tell you."

He pulls back, and turns the car towards Yuppieville. He's running the possibilities through his mind, I'm pregnant, I finally realized I'm a lesbian after all, I've been diagnosed with a STD.

I look at him. "So, I've had this friend for a while, and we decided to be committed." Whatever the fuck that means, but vague is better in these situations.

"And when did this happen?" Were you fucking this guy behind my back this whole time, and didn't bother to tell me? Because I asked if you were available. Bitch. Liar.

"Well, we went to Vegas together, and you know stuff happened..." We fuck a lot, and I think I liked it. More than I would ever like our fucking. So--

He nodds slowly, and the pace of his gum chewing slows as well.

Is he going to flip out on me, and try to murder us both like something out Vanilla Sky?

"I tried dating two people at the same time. I couldn't do it. I'm a sensitive guy, and I don't like being hurt, so I wouldn't want to hurt someone else like," he finally remarks.

I know the more I say, the worse it's going to get, so I stay silent while he repeats himself with only a slight variation of what he originally said. Silence is my best defense, how can I explain so much of my psychology in a fifteen minute car ride back onto campus?

It's earlier this year, and my therapist says me, "What does mania look like for you? How do you know when it's happening?"

When you are manic, you have a surprisingly small amount of insight into your own behavior. Depression is like an elephant in the living room, easy to point out, easy to hate, but almost impossible to move. "Alcohol, sex." The mania calling cards.

"What about alcohol?"

She has my history in front of me. She knows I was officially labeled with substance abuse problems (most bipolars do). "I'll go months, even as long as a year without drinking, and then when I'm manic--bam--I'm drinking a few times a week, maybe more."

"How much?"

"Binge drinking, the classic definition, more than three shots."

"What about sex? Do you use protection?" She is staring at me calmly as if this something she knows anything about.

"The more, the better, the more random, the better. No, sometimes I don't use condoms or birth control." Playing Russian Roulette with my body and potentially someone else's.

"So, when you start doing these things again, you're going to know to get help, right?"

To explain to the Parts Dealer the impulsivity of a bipolar addict would take a semester long course, and even then, he wouldn't understand how it's not personal. In fact, it's not about him at all. He's just there, he's just easy, and then you move on to someone else because a long attention span isn't a bipolar's strength. You get addict to people's energy, you feed off of it like a goddamn vampire, and when they're drained, when they're dried out and when they're not fun anymore, you sink the fangs into someone else.