Climbing - An account of a time I needed a doctor's appointment so climbed a tree.

Mania has a strange way of making the impossible seem completely logical. Here is the story of the day I took getting medical attention to a whole new level.

I wrote this piece under the title 'The Day I Climbed A Tree', for part of an unofficial challenge by Paul Stewart asking to 'write something about youself....stuff that I don't know about you.' This is a longer, less edited version as Paul's had a word limit of 245.

https://vocal.media/writers/pauls-super-fun-multi-part-unofficial-challenge

I have been meaning to record some of the real, but lighter, sides of my lived experience with bipolar so this gave me the push to do so and I will look to add more to the 'Psyche' Community.

The Day I Climbed a Tree

I have bipolar disorder. A few summers ago, I started to escalate into mania. Thankfully, I still retained enough insight to recognize that I required urgent psychiatric intervention. I sensibly attempted to secure an emergency appointment with my GP. However, even though they knew my diagnosis and I explained my intense "hyperness" at great length, the receptionist informed me that no appointments were available that day. Knowing that my condition would worsen significantly within 24 hours, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I entered the surgery's small front courtyard, climbed an adjacent sturdy tree, and accessed the clinic’s low roof. My only objective was to compel the usually supportive staff to acknowledge the urgency of my psychiatric crisis. It was a very warm day, and because I was wearing good shoes, I didn't feel unsafe—though, in hindsight, that could have been the mania talking. I sat with my feet hanging over the gutter as a member of staff, alerted by well-meaning passersby and patients lucky enough to have an appointment, came out to have a chat.

After explaining that my request to see a GP had been turned down, I politely mentioned that since I knew how busy they were, I thought I would just sit in the sun and wait for a cancellation. Extraordinarily, a slot must have opened up, because only a couple of minutes later I received an awful lot of attention. It was almost as if I had triggered an immediate emergency response.

The local police, my GP, a psychiatrist, and a Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN) from the crisis team all arrived at the scene. Following a calm negotiation, they successfully coaxed me down from the roof without injury or arrest. Once inside the clinic, the crisis team conducted an immediate psychiatric assessment. The psychiatrist validated my distress and the severity of my manic episode.

Ultimately, I was taken home just a couple of streets away. I was accompanied by the CPN and my bemused partner, who had been contacted by the surgery and honestly had no idea I could climb. Once home, the CPN administered a sedative in the form of a single blue pill, which helped decelerate my manic symptoms and began the stabilization of my condition.

To complete the required 600 word limit required to publish in ‘Psyche’ I have added two poems written about four years ago for my MA in Creative Writing: 

Hiraeth

noun (especially in Wales or Welsh culture)

Spiritual longing for a home which maybe never was.

She reflected on the lost memories

of a home that never was. Her Hiraeth. 

She could never return.

It was limbo. Not quite there

but also there, in every place

she created to justify and nullify existence

and the paths that must have led her

to this absurd and exhausting place.

The pills that normally numbed

were becoming as complacent

as they had made her. Wanderings 

that had been stifled were free,

free to dip into corridors and 

make the fear crawl over her

and the hairs on her body 

stand.The only things with clear attention. 

 Tired

(After Tulips by Sylvia Plath)

I am trying to still the quickening

so they bring

me a bolus and I stop

dancing and cleaning

cobwebs from the lightbulbs.

I am sleeping, but wake

intermittently numb

to my surroundings. 

I remembered no voice 

but I did not feel alone. 

Just tired. Absurd. And tired.