Peacefully Bipolar

DROWNING IN SHALLOW WATER—CONTINUED

The following chapter contains descriptions that may not be suitable for all readers, including discussions of suicide and self harm. Reader discretion is advised.

Jada Pinkett Smith glanced at me, gazed at a photo of me holding my Teacher of the Year trophy, then turned to me. She asked, “What was the secret you were hiding?” My response: “My secret was that while I was holding that trophy, I was fiending to end the ceremony and go get liquor and go home and blackout.” That was a statement that had me almost out of breath and not just because it was a run-on sentence.

This conversation occurred in her home, at the Red Table. Around the world, 2.5 million people signed in to Facebook to watch this episode of Red Table Talk. What was once a secret that constrained me became the platform from which I command my narrative; a message of hope.

I told Jada, Gammy, Willow, and the other 2.5 million people following along about my secret alcoholism. How my addiction controlled me for years and finally broke me after I found my then-partner dead from a drug overdose. My previous drinking, which consisted of a fifth a day, paled in comparison to how I drank after his death. When grief met my alcoholism, they dragged me into the deepest and darkest of headspaces. For eight months, I lost myself. Almost permanently.

I spoke of multiple hospitalizations, stays at rehabs, even a car wreck. I reflected on how as the last of my light started to dim,  I finally surrendered and asked for help. I still don’t know exactly why or how I was moved to save my life, but I had my last drink on November 27th, 2020. Since then, I’ve thrived in my truth and have broadcasted my immense vulnerability for any to see. At that moment, I just happened to be telling all to millions, including the Pinkett Smith family.

How did I make it to the Smith residence? How did I get to this quiet moment of reflection and writing for Love & Literature? Hell, the real question is, how did I make it anywhere alive?

The answer to that is how my recovery started. My wellness journey goes back to my last time in detox when I discovered what was within me all these years.

This hospitalization was in November 2020, a few weeks before my last drink. I had once again gotten drunk and borderline suicidal. I found myself in a psychiatric facility in Tampa after emergency room medical staff had me committed. They determined that I was a risk to myself and used the Baker Act to ensure I didn’t leave the emergency room and kill myself.

I don’t remember how I got there, which is a common theme in all of my hospitalizations. What I do remember is my first morning there. I woke up in the substance abuse/psychiatric unit in a bed facing the wall. I was wrapped up in stiff white sheets from tossing and turning because the facility did not have fitted sheets. Fitted sheets were not allowed there because of the elastics sewn into them. This was one of many safety measures to prevent patients from hanging themselves with bed linens.

As I pushed the sheets off of me, I heard a woman shriek followed by a loud thud against a wall somewhere not far from the room I was in. I rolled over and groaned. First, because I felt awful. Second, because the weight of realizing exactly where I was pressed on me quickly. I was furious that I had to be locked away again. The attending psychiatrist approached the door. He stated that he read my file and asked to speak to me. I was so tired that I consented with ease to complete an evaluation by the end of the chat.

When he read my medical history, mainly what had occurred in the last eight months, he said something had to have been overlooked. He affirmed that if I was doing all the “right things” like going to meetings, praying, meditating, talking to mentors, journaling, and the list goes on, and STILL finding myself needing to drink, there was more that was unseen. As a physician, he felt it was his duty to dig deeper. And he did.

We talked about times over the years when I struggled to get out of bed and show up, even to my classroom, which was a space that I loved. I shared stories of episodes of manageable chaos that I found myself in on occasion. We touched on the feelings that my drinking eased, looked at my spending, and examined my codependent tendencies. We revisited my previous failed attempts at sobriety. Even significant events from my childhood and family history came up in this investigative conversation.

These were all such painful points of discussion. I always avoided talking about everything that I kept in the shadows, yet here I was, bringing each of them out into the open. I couldn't look at the doctor in the eyes, and my heart was filled with shame. I knew he was a psychiatrist, and my story was nothing new to him, but I believed I was hopeless.

I don’t remember his name, but I do remember how he leaned back, tilted his head, and asked me, “All these times you’ve been in psychiatric care, and no one ever stopped to ask you if you were ever diagnosed with bipolar disorder, specifically bipolar II?”

Wow. I did not anticipate that question.

Immediately, I felt that old sinking feeling in my stomach that I liked to mute with alcohol. I panicked, thinking, "OH MY GOD, WHAT ELSE IS WRONG WITH ME NOW?!"

Now, what I actually said was, “Um. No. Am I bipolar?” I felt my voice cracking as I raised my eyebrows and shrugged with unease. It turned out that I was.

Correction, I am.

He proceeded to explain his diagnosis and everything suddenly made sense.

All these years I knew I drank to cope. Sometimes I could pinpoint what I needed to cope with, but many times I couldn’t. I just felt the need to be balanced and fixed by alcohol. What was dangerous in my case was that drinking to cope with bad feelings made me feel worse after I drank, so I drank to avoid the worsening feelings. The cycle repeated itself until I found myself physically dependent. My tolerance increased, and I had a full-blown addiction before I knew it. Even research points to this. According to the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 70 percent of people with bipolar disorder also have some sort of substance abuse issue.

I processed everything while I sat across from him. Suddenly, I recalled everything all over again and connected the dots. I was in the middle of an “ah-ha” moment when the doctor abruptly interrupted me.

“We treat bipolar II disorder with medication,” he said.

“Do I have to?” I whimpered.

My head raced in a panic again. I thought about how there are many negative takes on the use of medications, even in recovery groups where so many people could use them. Instead of considering how this was promising information, that this approach might bring me the relief I had been seeking all these years, I was already worried about what other people would think of me.  

The psychiatrist once again broke my train of thought by responding to my question, “Yes, Miss Jessica. To put it plainly, it is difficult to stay sober if you have bipolar disorder because you are never truly balanced. Alcohol provides what you think is a temporary balance, but it’s not. You can stay sober for a while, maybe even a long time, but you would be a ticking time bomb waiting to be triggered given your history. They will take several weeks to work, but I think you will be pleased by medication.” I nodded. I didn’t know what else to do, so I took this newfound diagnosis and myself back to the room.

I sat on the edge of the bed staring at the wall in disbelief. Not only was I an alcoholic, but a bipolar one as well? I cried. I cried hard. It wasn’t until my therapy session the next day when the therapist pointed out that medication is a tool that might change my life, that I started to feel better. I came to realize that all previous attempts to stop drinking never worked because I kept trying to do the same five or six things everyone said would work, and I kept having the same outcome. I was ready to resign myself to having a tragic death shortly, so if the medication could change things, my interest was piqued.

I decided to consent to medical assistance. If there was an opportunity for me to get ahead of this beast, I wanted every weapon I could have. I was open to it if I could fight my alcoholism by targeting its root: bipolar disorder. Then maybe I could start all the other five or six things everyone else said worked for them. I left the hospital with a few new prescriptions in hand, hoping that maybe this would be it.

Well, the medications didn’t work immediately because I drank again. The good news is, I stopped.

On November 27th, I very anticlimactically had my last drink. I didn’t wake up confused in a hospital bed after being pumped full of fluids, swearing this was the last time like I did so many times before. I didn’t come to consciousness in a car wreck, angry that I wasn’t dead. I was suddenly empowered to stop, and I did. There was something different about this last attempt at drinking. The feeling didn’t “click” like it used to. I was not compelled to keep going. There was no rush of relief as it poured down my throat. It was just there, the alcohol swishing back and forth inside the glass. It was suddenly meaningless, without power. The medications were finally starting to kick in, and it felt like divine intervention. I was so used to wishing I could practically inhale the whole fifth that when I suddenly didn’t want it, I was unsure of myself.

I looked back at the bottle almost in disappointment. Was this the end? Was I “breaking up” with my master? I placed the bottle back in its hiding spot, inside a suitcase, and walked away. I remember once walking away from an abusive partner. The feeling of fear and liberation that coursed through me then was the same I felt when I left the liquor behind. I never finished that cheap bourbon. It stayed sitting in the luggage for weeks until I rediscovered it while packing for a trip. I still remember the gurgling sound of it going down the drainpipe and that smell that stung my nose.

November 28th was my first day of sobriety, and by November 30th, I decided that if I could get through two days without a drink, I could do anything. Those two days of not drinking were enough to propel me into this life of storytelling that I live today. This courage lit up inside of me to let go of everything that held me back and yell out to the world, “THIS IS THE MISERABLE SHIT I’VE BEEN GOING THROUGH AND I’M DONE WITH IT!”

So on December 3rd, the Courier-Journal, a local newspaper in Louisville, Kentucky, published an op-ed I authored where I did just that. One of the opening lines said, “My name is Jessica, and I'm a recovering alcoholic.” Ever since I wrote that piece, I have not touched a drop of alcohol.

Casting all my fears to the side and stepping out on faith brought me a world of unexpected opportunities. I have spoken on many platforms, including NPR and Red Table Talk. Any Google search will find you many iterations of my story. It will be interesting when I start dating and experience people’s reactions to that first Google search when they type Jessica followed by my unique last name, Dueñas, which will immediately narrow all results to me, and they press enter.

Yet for all the excitement and attention, I am grateful to say that I live a peaceful life on 98% of my days.  I almost wrote, “I live a boring life,” and then I had to remind myself that I will not confuse peace with boredom. I have a daily routine and there is no drama and no episodes of chaos. I don’t have to escape anything because I can handle walking through or sitting in my feelings. I have functional coping strategies. I’m your average broke millennial. If any of you have the same issues as I do and you’re wondering if you’ll ever get the fuck out of the hole you are in, let me tell you two things: You can be bipolar and live a successful, stable life. You can be an alcoholic, an addict, and live an uneventful life. Who would have thought?

This new life I live is full of renewed hope. I thought I could never love again. Today I know I have a heart big enough to do so. Today I am healthy physically and mentally to where I could parent a thriving tiny human. I am dedicated to continued spiritual development and tapping into the power that was always inside me. I can and will do anything I desire to. The key is caring for myself. The rest is easy.

If you think you might have a problem with alcohol, you probably do. You don’t have to be trapped forever. Breaking free is possible. Recovery is possible. If others recover, so can I, and if it’s possible for me, it’s possible for you. I invite you to tap into your courage, scare yourself shitless, and join me and countless others on this path into the sunlight and away from the shadows.