I woke up in the hospital tripping my ass off. I was already psychotic, and the ketamine just made it worse. I was in a bad k-hole. I had the death type. I thought I was dead, and I was wheeled strapped to a bed from one hospital room to another forever. I still feel like a little piece of me is going from one room to another. I felt so stuck. Eventually, I was in a hospital room with a glass door surrounded by police and strapped to a bed. They were chintzy straps, and I could have gotten out of them. I remember audibly hearing Johnny Cash sing to me. I asked them to turn down the radio, but they looked at me weirdly and said there was no radio. I did find the music comforting and familiar, even though it was a hallucination. They had me pee in a cup. I remember the nurse was a beautiful redhead, and I was so embarrassed. The drug test came back with trace amounts of cannabis and alcohol. The authorities are always surprised when I’m not on drugs. Cannabis and alcohol contribute to my episodes, but I don’t use much, if any, when I’m in a bad episode. The mania high becomes my high, and it is so very addicting. 

I feel like I should have been taken to the mental hospital to get stabilized, but they put me in the Summit County Jail rubber room for about a week. No clothes, just the turtle suit that I couldn’t figure out how to wear, and a rough, thick polyester blanket. My first meal in County was southwest egg rolls. And they were so good! All things considered, the food in Breckenridge’s jail was very good. Like, good for anywhere, not just jail. Like all psychiatric cells I’ve been in, the lights were intensely bright and were never turned off or dimmed. Bright lights make me so irritable, especially when I’m in a manic episode. I refused the meds at first, but I eventually started taking them. It took a few months to start to stabilize. It seems that my episodes are longer-lasting when I’m on medications than they used to be. At least that is the way it appears to me. Bipolar can be progressive; maybe my symptoms have gotten worse with time. 

The jail eventually moved me to the three-cell medical pod. The cells also had cameras. I shared the pod with a schizoaffective young man who got shot by police at a grocery store. He had a lot of paranoid theories, but medications didn’t seem to help him. He ended up in the state mental hospital. When he was gone, I shared the pod with an older man who was also bipolar, but he was homeless. He had me rethinking my situation a bit. He was happy to be in jail. He had a warm place to sleep and three hot meals. The food in the jail was exceptionally good. But at the end of the day, it was still jail. 

Like a lot of bipolar folks, I get hypersexual. I don’t have dangerous sex with a lot of partners, but my libido goes through the roof. So I was constantly masturbating in the cell. One day, it got to be too much for the guard watching my camera, and she yelled at me to stop. I went into a rage. I ripped the TV off the wall, threw it on the ground, ripped the cable off of it, and started swinging it around like a weapon. When the guards rushed in, the intention to whip them was definitely on my mind. But luckily, it was a fleeting thought. Jailers are better at diffusing trouble rather than escalating like street cops.  

I’m not sure if this was the time I broke my cell door; I think it was multiple times. I for sure did it when they wanted me to lock down on numerous occasions. The cell had an automatic sliding door, and when they tried to close it, I forced it to stay open, breaking the gears inside. 

These episodes are such terrible times in my life. It is so painful to write about. I’m writing mainly for myself; I have to remember why I must be so diligent with my medications, therapy, and routine. It is also helping me to identify what leads up to the episodes and how I behave. So I can know the warning signs of my mania, and this time I can create different habits to prevent an episode. The other reason is to help others not feel alone who also experience extreme mania, and to give them and me hope. I hope as well that the memoir will help people better understand someone with bipolar disorder, and maybe create compassion and lessen stigma. I think the more people who know what really bad bipolar is like, the more compassionate they will be to the mentally ill. My experiences are unique, but there are a lot of common themes in psychotic mania. A lot of folks who experience psychotic mania also have a messianic delusion, see angels and demons, think they know their past lives and that those lives were important people, and think they are an archangel or god. The psychotic mania can be terrifying, and I feel completely out of control. Well enough of the how and why of it, back to the story. 

I was charged with felony menacing. The DA wouldn’t give me any kind of a plea bargain, and they don’t have a mental health court in this small county. The main reason they wouldn’t lessen the charge is that I had the lowest of the felonies, and if the charge went down at all, it would have been a misdemeanor. They were pushing for a felony to help ensure I had a hard time possessing firearms. It’s a little redundant since I wasn’t technically allowed to own firearms because of my time in the mental hospital. The problem with that is how much more a felony conviction hurts you. It makes it much more difficult to gain meaningful employment. I personally know I have lost my right to bear arms, even without the charges. 

So I tried to fight for a not guilty plea. My inexperienced public pretender encouraged me to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. I thought this was a good option, so that’s what I did. My family hired another lawyer to advise me. She advised me to rethink that plea because I would have most likely spent 7 years in the state mental hospital. It was also up to the judge to decide when to let me out of the hospital. The judge had it out for me. He once compared me to the DC shooter, even though I didn’t shoot or even have ammunition for the rifle. Eventually, after about 9 months of jail, the DA gave me a plea deal to keep the felony, drop the misdemeanor charges, and take 5 years of probation. I wanted out of jail so badly, so I took the deal.