Manic Impulse!

Mania can manifest in many different ways, from inflated self-esteem to a decreased need for sleep, from racing thoughts to irritability. For my husband, Steve, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, it sometimes showed up in disproportionate interest in goal-directed activities, ones from which he was unable to pull away, no matter how inconvenient or narrowly focused they were.

I remember coming home from work years ago and seeing a newly constructed plywood box sitting in our driveway. Picking up a can of spray paint, I wrote MANIC IMPULSE! in large block letters on the back of the box. It was Friday, July 25, 1997, and seeing the 3 x 5 x 2-foot box and array of building materials scattered around the cement pad in front of our house, I was both happy and frustrated.

Happy, because our family was leaving the next day for a two-week camping trip out West and I was free of the deadlines that drove my work at the newspaper. Frustrated because earlier that week, just as trip preparations were peaking, Steve decided to design and build a box to haul our belongings, which, admittedly, were substantial: tents and sleeping bags for Steve, me, and the three kids, who, in 1997, ranged in age from seven to seventeen; pots, pans, and dishes; coolers and a cook stove; food and clothes; games; even bicycles.

Steve’s new wheel-less “trailer” sat on a frame he’d welded from scrap angle iron and fit into the hitch of our station wagon, a Pontiac with 225,000 miles on it.

Steve got the idea for the carrier from our son, John, who saw one carrying a dirt bike on the highway. (Remember, this is 1997, before these kinds of haulers were commercially available.) Working feverishly for two days, Steve finished building the box just hours before it was time to pack up. There wasn’t time to paint it as he’d planned, so when we headed west early the next morning, the words MANIC IMPULSE trailed us all the way to the Badlands. There, and at our next stop in Colorado, Steve disassembled and painted the box with several coats of John Deere green paint he hauled from home.

Throughout the acute stage of Steve’s illness, he would periodically drift into these goal-directed activities. Once, when Steve wanted a fifth seat belt for the Rambler he drove everyday, he went to get one from the parts cars he kept in the pasture behind our barn. Instead of retrieving one belt, as he’d planned, he unbolted all the belts from the six rusting Ramblers and spent the next two days washing and re-washing them in my kitchen.

Some people have a misconception about mania. Because it involves increased energy, they think it’s a positive aspect of the illness. Nothing could be further from the truth. Through the years I’ve heard stories of other people’s mania that makes me grateful Steve’s obsessions often centered on car-related activities. Someone we knew from a bipolar support group spent $50,000 on tee shirts thinking he’d make his fortune reselling them. Naturally frugal, Steve limited his spending sprees to the Dollar Store, where he once came away with $200 of stuff!

As for the trip out West, it wasn’t easy. Steve remained unwell through most of it. As depression replaced the mania, he’d lie in the tent for hours or drift off alone to flea markets or the local diner. Harmless activities, yes, but not the trip we’d envisioned when we began planning it a year earlier. Looking back, though, I like thinking about what people must have thought when they saw MANIC IMPULSE! on the back of a loaded down station wagon heading west.

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When we returned, I wrote a column about the trip for the newspaper where I worked, never mentioning Steve’s illness, of course. Here it is: 

Waterlogged in the Wild West

Published in the Butler Eagle on Aug. 17, 1997

Camping simplifies daily routines, helping us appreciate what we often take for granted—like running water, warm beds, and dry clothes. Our family recently spent two weeks camping out West. With five people and lots of gear packed into our 12-year-old station wagon, we looked like the Clampetts headed to Beverly Hills.

Instead, our destinations were the Black Hills of South Dakota and Pike’s Peak in Colorado. Our goal—relaxing under wide-open skies against the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains.

Today, 4,500 miles and a dozen rolls of film later, I explained our vacation to a co-worker this way: I’m glad we did it, but don’t ask me to do it again.

Every trip begins with a lot of energy and heightened expectations. Weeks before leaving, each of my three kids gathered books, electronic games, and music to wile away the hours driving. We charted our course on the computer and took along maps to follow our trail and mark off the various state license plates we saw along the way.

Camping vacations are naturally more complicated because of setting up and taking down camp, and since we were traveling with my sister and her family, packing up meant moving 10 people, kids’ bicycles, three tents, two canopies, a stove, a sink and an array of supplies.

All went well at first, with our loaded cars humming along Interstate 90 through Minnesota and South Dakota at speeds that would certainly have garnered a speeding ticket in Pennsylvania.

Trouble did find us though, in the form of rain. Traveling though states usually dry in August, we had wet weather everywhere we went. After setting up camp for the first time in the Badlands, my sister and I made what would be the first of several trips to the Laundromat, drying out sleeping bags that we hadn’t even slept in.

For the next 10 days the rain followed us as we crisscrossed Wyoming and headed to Colorado. Our three-day stay near Fort Collins came shortly after floodwaters swept through Cache La Poudre canyon. Even though that meant sleeping in damp sleeping bags again, the rains made for one wild white-water rafting ride the next day. Even as we headed skyward—14,110 feet up the narrow, red dirt road to Pike’s Peak—we drove through two inches of freshly fallen snow.

By the time we bedded down on our return trip at a friend’s house in Kansas City, we had a deeper appreciation for the creature comforts of home. It felt luxurious preparing lunch in a fully stocked kitchen, sleeping in warm, dry beds, and showering without inserting quarters into a slot every two minutes.

Even my son, who celebrated his 18^th birthday on the road, seemed content when I placed a sandwich in front of him while we rested in Kansa City.

“Ahh! un-smashed bread,” he marveled, mimicking Homer Simpson’s and remembering the numerous smashed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches he ate along the way.

Images of our vacation—visiting Mount Rushmore, white-water rafting, hiking the Continental Divide, and watching a herd of buffalo cross the road—seem faint now. Instead, when I think of our trip, I recall cooking for 10 as rain spattered the flame on our cook stove, my sister pouring water from a salt shaker, and standing around the campfire, my husband shielding the fire with his rain poncho while steam rolled off the bed pillows I dried before going to bed.

Ahh! The comforts of home.