As Much As I Care to Remember: My Manic Tale: Recollections Both Real and Imaginary, Retold for the Understanding of Bipolar Disorder

By E.B. Howell

As Much as I Care to Remember is the story of mental illness over multiple decades.

Through the years, Liddy surfs atop her chronic disease, her misfiring sensory neurons fuel adventures that show readers that they are not alone and encourage families to seek early diagnosis and support.

Liddy is a high-flying, whimsical creature, living inside the pages, letting the reader know that no one is normal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Mar 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781684715787

Book preview

collection.

CHAPTER

1

Always

"I ’m a good liar," Liddy confessed to her new therapist as she stared out into the marsh from a bramble-covered bungalow turned medical center. It was low tide. It looked like the Swiss Family Robinson had opened a help center for anxiety, depression, and the rest of today’s mental ailments. A tidal river ebbed more than it flowed below. The brick-and-wood house was nestled between hundreds of ferns and a handful of Spanish moss–covered oaks. It seemed like a safe place for the mentally ill to come and talk for an hour, with two cats roaming around the downstairs waiting room while the receptionist played pop-country music from her desktop computer. Liddy found it relaxing. She was ready to tell another stranger everything as she touched the green-beaded bracelet from a Chinese roadside market that she wore on her right wrist. Liddy had bought the souvenir seven years ago when she was trying to get home. She bought it from a dusty man who told her, in broken English and lots of gestures, to wear it at all times. The bracelet was a reminder to keep talking or keep walking or keep running until she was able to tell her whole story.

The doctor needed to catch up on Liddy’s last twenty-four years in less than sixty minutes. Liddy could talk fast. She told the same long, rehearsed story that she had shared a thousand times before. It was hard for Liddy to know where the truth stopped and where her story began. For the last six years Liddy had called her New York City therapist Polar Bear, so she named this one Low Country Polar Bear because of their location, and because both doctors embodied the spirit of a wild animal that would help Liddy discover her home. The Low Country Polar Bear asked a series of questions to confirm her diagnosis; this was routine. Lots of Yes or No answers were required. Liddy tried to stick to the facts as she stared at the doctor across the pale wicker furniture covered in stacks of patient files and faded palm-tree-printed pillows. Relax, this is easy, she coached herself.

Liddy answered the doctor as simply as she could, while testing the southern doctor on her own listening skills. Liddy didn’t have time for people who couldn’t keep up. Before Low Country Polar Bear could ask the next question and after she commented on Liddy’s last answer, Liddy spoke to the small room as if she was on a stage, in one long sentence, as she watched the river rise around the yellow-tipped green grass. She was winding up for a good story. It was a muddy meadow turning into a body of water. In her head, she heard the voice of her college roommate—the sister she never had, Jordan A. Periwinkle. Just say what happened. When you add to an old story, it is a lie. It becomes a new story.

Liddy preferred adjectives over nouns, exclamation points over periods, and metaphors over stats. Jordan lived a black and white life; she saw the danger in not telling the whole truth. Liddy simplified and complicated things at the same time more than any other person in the world. Liddy admitted that she spoke in hyperboles—sticking to the facts was boring—and yet she never thought she lied. Liddy aimed to be the best storyteller at a party or the doctor’s office, even if it confused the listener. She could weave in and out of every verb tense, with side stories and analogies and adding her own facts, mostly unverified. It was her game, and she was an expert. She tested the listener more the deeper she went. It was a good night when she left the party and felt like she had nailed it. She was trained in a small town filled with deep porches where telling stories was expected. A colorful one-sided conversation was the best way to pass the time. To learn the trade, she listened as a child. Liddy studied the great storytellers and their live audience, she saw how people told stories or white lies for all kinds of reasons including to be polite or because they were selling something.

For Liddy, stories came easily to her tongue. For example, when she told Jordan what happened the first, the second, and the third time, Jordan sternly said, That’s how you think you remember it; it’s not necessarily how it happened. Jordan was a truth speaker who always kept to the facts like Liddy’s little brother, Benjamin. Both of them could tell a long story with a definite beginning and one ending and avoid any flourishes or sidebars. They were the kind of honest humans that Liddy wished she could be. Jordan and Benjamin could also supply a list of citations, references, and dates for any facts they had mentioned in their linear story. Liddy struggled to stay on one path.

Wait, was all of that just a story? the therapist screamed as she slapped her notebook against the edge of her leg, dropping one of her snakeskin-heeled shoes on the floor. She was wearing dusty-rose jeans, a matching blouse, and some kind of corduroy vest from the junior’s department because she could. She looked good. Low Country Polar Bear took care of herself from head to toe. So, there’s a chance she could take care of me, Liddy thought.

Oh, that ALL happened. It is the truth.

But Liddy Baker, the name she had written on the intake form thirty minutes ago, wasn’t even her real name. She had transformed herself from Lydia Lowell to Liddy Baker sometime after college and before her first love. It was less of a tongue-twister, a solid name and one that people would remember. Lydia aged her. She was named after the grandest of her great-aunts, and it sounded like the name of an old lady who wore furs with her nightgowns. Plus, people couldn’t really hear her last name when she introduced herself at parties. Lowell was easy to spell, but most people heard owl and they spelled it with one l. No one could get it right. She wasn’t a criminal on the run, she didn’t want to be forgotten, and she was in search of one of those double names where people always said their first and last without stopping for a breath. She wanted to lead a simpler life with fewer syllables, so she moved her middle name forward and gave people something tangible that they could hold onto. Yes, Baker, like baking a cake. Liddy Baker, a name always said together.

Reinventing herself wasn’t unusual behavior for young Lydia—she didn’t like to follow the pack. She stuck out from her friends who wore a new outfits from the mall. Until Lydia turned fifteen, she wore a memorable uniform of a red or purple gingham shirt and dark jeans like she was selling strawberry jam year-round. She was an unusual little girl with a long list of ticks before the doctors labeled her manic. She was an eccentric creature before she had time to get old or be rich. Teachers were charmed by Lydia; she complimented their new Talbot’s outfit and brought them markers or supplies and a bunch of daffodils in the spring. Lydia could teach the class in a pinch, kids called her Mama Lowell for remembering what to do when the teacher was down the hall or out sick. Real mothers would stop little Lydia in the carpool line and ask her to watch their child. She was the mother hen, a safety fanatic extraordinaire who thought of all the worst case scenarios and followed Joseph Lister’s antiseptic procedures at a young age.

Her own mother, Hazel, called her free-willed, while her father, Jimmy, believed Lydia was perfect. Her parents couldn’t be more opposite influences and forces of nature that created such a breath-of-fresh-air kind of child. Lydia was a salty-sweet breeze when there was no ocean around.

When Lydia was five or six years old, she saw things, outlines of people, before the visions were full-blown. She used her powers to protect people like her father, who was not home until after dark. She wasn’t an angel and she wasn’t a witch. She was more like an informed fairy touched by Disney pixie-dust and preoccupied with people she had never met before, family her parents talked about. She was an artist with an understanding of medicine. At Hazel’s pharmacy, Stanwell’s, she listened to the problems and ailments of the little town’s citizens who slugged through the glass door. She watched as they made their way to the back. They passed the lunch counter serving red hotdogs, two flavors of ice cream, and fresh popcorn. They were on their way to see the druggist. Lydia watched her mother, who stood behind the counter solemnly wearing a starched white lab coat on top of one of her seven work dresses. The whole town from, clay-soiled construction workers to men in linen suits and housewives wearing their tennis whites, updated Hazel on their injuries or ailments. Many of them reported on their sick relatives who were left sitting in their car in Stanwell’s crowded parking lot. The customers told Hazel everything in detail as they draped themselves over the drugstore’s Formica counter. They wanted Hazel to explain why they or someone in their family felt so badly. They shared things with Hazel that they couldn’t tell their friends. The customers didn’t care how they got better; they wanted Hazel to fix them, or fix their kid or their mama. Lydia spied on the drugstore customers like a tiny detective from a far-off aisle. Her favorite place to stand was the hair section with its raised floor. She could see everything in the whole store between the V05 and Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific shampoo bottles.

Her mother, Hazel C. Lowell, listened to one customer at a time as she typed away. She stood in front of them like she was at an upright piano, with a pencil behind one ear, steely eyes, and steady perfection. Instead of marking a musical sheet like she was trained to do when she was younger, her hands hovered over the massive typewriter with its silver ball that stamped out one letter at a time. Hazel stepped behind to the shelves to pull out a big bottle and then she poured pills to a plastic tray. The pills were counted with Hazel’s special spatula with one swift move. She was counting the necessary amount to move into an amber jar for the week or the month to help the person feel a little better. She never talked about curing anyone. Hazel placed the white label perfectly onto a bottle and finally dropped it into a crisp paper bag. She was a wiz at her job.

Lydia could have lived in her mother’s pharmacy. It was her favorite place to be in the entire Peach State; she hated staying at home with the babysitter-maid. Lydia knew how to stay out of the way at the pharmacy, and the sounds and rhythms of medicine were soothing. Plus, she enjoyed sneaking around the aisles. Lydia spent most of her time in the Beauty & Health aisle, where the smells transported her to a more exotic place. She’d unscrew all of the caps and sniff the green and yellowy-orange shampoos. She organized the bottles from the best-smelling to the blandest and then moved her favorite shampoos to the ends of the aisles, where busy shoppers could easily find them. She included a shampoo for babies, a shampoo and conditioner for ladies, and one shampoo for men. After arranging most of the shampoo, she skipped over to the deodorant aisle. It needed work. She removed all of their tight caps and smelled each one and prayed that she’d live long enough to wear Tickle, the best-named antiperspirant in the world. Then she slinked over to the lotions. Rose Milk’s bottle was shaped like a milk jug. She dipped her hands into the glass moisturizer jars and returned to smell the sweet Rose Milk. She chirped out loud, So clever and delicious.

Afternoons at Stanwell’s went by quickly. Hazel’s hours were predictable, which was typical of the pharmacy profession. She pulled a long, white accordion door in front of the medications just after 5 p.m., while the rest of the store stayed open for another couple of hours for people to buy cigarettes, diapers, and milk. Lydia could hear Hazel readying for the next day. Lydia froze—it was time to go home, it was impossible to hide from Hazel. She grabbed a strawberry-flavored lip gloss with a roller ball to see if Hazel loved it as much as she did. Hazel never gushed over products. Even when Vitabath released a new scent, Hazel remained calm. The bottle wrapped tight in her little hand, Lydia knew how to get this. She coyly showed it to Hazel. The young girl sold the attributes of the latest gloss. Lydia declared it was a never-before-seen color or it was long-lasting or enhanced with new features like sparkles. Hazel took one look at the beauty product and said, This is your allowance this week. No cash. Lydia didn’t care about getting paid on Friday. She wanted to see if her mother would give her a treat now.

Her dad was rarely home when they opened the back door of their tidy brick ranch. After a bland meal and a bath, Lydia was sent to her pink-and-green room, where she’d struggle to stay awake to see her dad. Her head would nod and bob. Turn off your light, Hazel would scream from the opposite side of the house. How can she see that? Lydia thought. She’d fight sleep like a boxer trying to stay around for the next round. She couldn’t let her head fall into sleep and rest.

She’d listen for music being played by her father, Jimmy J. Lowell, Jr. The player and speakers would hum for a solid moment as he clicked the giant knob, followed by another pause. His music was worth the wait. The needle dropped to play Motown and classic rock. The voices of well-known strangers, nightly visitors, would float down the hallway into Lydia’s bedroom decorated like the secret garden, and she knew her father was home. Jimmy was safe. The records lulled her to sleep as she heard ice cubes dropping into a tall glass. He’d hum contentedly as he picked up the needle on the turntable to play something a little sad and happy at the same time from the Temptations, Mary Wells, Paul Simon, or Lou Rawls. He’d wear out the grooves of his favorite records one at a time.

"The problem is all inside your head, she said to me

The answer is easy if you take it logically

I’d like to help you in your struggle to be free

There must be fifty ways to leave your lover."

- Paul Simon, 50 Ways to Leave your Lover

Jimmy played the perfect set to an empty room.

Lydia listened to him sing his own lyrics in the sunken living room decorated in pale shades of pinkish browns with a white furry rug and a stone fireplace that was seldom lit, since the town’s temperature hovered between 70 and 110 degrees. There was no need to run the heat or start a fire. A bank of huge floor-to-ceiling glass windows was cut out of this solid house for the perfect view of the sun to set behind a long oval-shaped lake. It was a great great room. She imagined her father was dancing with her mom, but he swayed alone, a party of one.

He was the fun parent who was always around long before stay-at-home dads were the norm. Lydia drank up his mania like a bubbly elixir released into the air with each of his exhales. Magic puffs. She could smell his mood in the air. She danced around in circles and jumped from the chair to the sofa with her blanket tied to her neck like Superwoman. Her father’s make-believe games might go on for days or even months, Lydia didn’t care that the ups would eventually end in a crash. Jimmy was never normal—he was either super high or below sea level. He could dip into a deep darkness in his room. She rarely saw her father on the down-slope, when he slept for days.

Her mom shielded Lydia and her brothers from her father’s highs and lows.

From birth to third grade, Lydia lived with her family in a four-stoplight town called Magellan, Georgia, named after the Portuguese-turned-Spanish explorer, but few people had discovered this tiny town. Sometime after the Civil War, the Georgia legislature sat in a wood-paneled room far from the coast and decided to incorporate the lands from the center of a small river town out to the hills of an Indian reservation. They were an educated group and must have read Magellan’s story enough to inspire a land grab from the Native Americans. These southern gentlemen read letters and books left by greater men, they were seeking increased commerce across the entire state. Boats and barges could travel up from the Gulf of Mexico to Magellan with supplies and return with cotton and produce to the new territories to the west. They named the middle-of-nowhere spot, worlds away from Magellan’s path, far from his west-to-east exploratory spice route, after reading his diary:

The sea is dangerous and its storms terrible, but these obstacles have never been sufficient reason to remain ashore … Unlike the mediocre, intrepid spirits seek victory over those things that seem impossible … It is with an iron will that they embark on the most daring of all endeavors … to meet the shadowy future without fear and conquer the unknown.

The Lowells landed in this town just shy of a century and a half after Magellan had turned into an urban planner’s disappointment. It was too sleepy to be labeled a nightmare. Highways to the east had replaced the river’s utility. Trucks now hauled goods on highways, if there were any goods to share with other states. The river was ship-less. It was a place where Southerners held onto the past and Yankees came in search of new opportunities and lower taxes. The Lowells blended in with the latter. They were a traditional family of four: mom, dad, daughter, and son with two to three pets, depending upon how many animals they had recently rescued. Lydia and her brother picked up cats in the green fields behind the houses and turtles who attempted to cross the tidy roads. They bought a house in Five Kingdoms, a subdivision with an impressive entrance with a marble sign and a water-filled mote. It was built on the outskirts of Magellan because the town was bound to grow and Five Kingdoms would soon be at the center. It was a destination development for families who had recently moved to Magellan, not the established downtown neighborhood with the white-washed brick mansions covered in ivy and magnolias. Five Kingdoms was a beautiful piece of land with a manicured golf course and a clubhouse with a bowl of mints by the front door, bordered by the red-clay banks of a river on one side that fed into a manmade lake creating privacy and an illusion of exclusivity. Five Kingdoms shined in the spring with a ribbon of blooming pink azalea bushes and hills decorated with daffodils and multicolored tulips. It dazzled at Christmastime with fake snow and a light show around the club house. With mild weather year-round and limited technology, neighbors spent their free time outside most days. The Lowells’ three-channel television was primarily used by the maid to watch her afternoon soaps, and occasionally the family would watch the evening news while dinner was prepared. A bright yellow rotary phone hung on the kitchen wall and another phone lived in her parents’ bedroom, where it was off limits to the kids. The giant square phone rested on one of the nightstands and was used for middle-of-the-night calls. The kitchen wall phone was the hub for communication with its stretched-out cord that could reach the pantry for private conversations. For the most part, it was used for brief conversations, such as confirming plans, unless it was Sunday, when Hazel and Jimmy called their relatives in other states.

Without modern electronics to keep the children indoors, Lydia and her older brother, Nathaniel, played make-believe games outside with other pairs of brothers and sisters. The sibling sets called adults by their first name at a young age. They added Miss or Mister before the name. It started with one of the fathers with a pool, a dock, and several boats. He said the gang could swim in his kidney-shaped pool with Spanish-tiled steps if they called him Bill. OK, Mister Bill, said the kids in unison. He was of course the cool neighbor who wanted to be perpetually young. He drank Pabst Blue Ribbon from different coolers left outside the house, so the brother-sister teams shrugged off their southern manners and