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springs ago, I lost the better

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part of my mind. I

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remember it starting with my feet.

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I woke up one February morning and

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my feet were so swollen, I could

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barely fit them into my roomiest sneakers.

0:38

You're listening to Code Switch. I'm B.A. Parker.

0:41

And today we're resharing an episode

0:44

with author Naomi Jackson. So

0:47

I'm Naomi and I'm a writer

0:50

born and raised in Brooklyn. A

0:53

few years ago, she wrote an

0:55

essay for Harper's Magazine titled, Her

0:57

Kind, on losing and

0:59

finding my mind. She

1:02

wrote it as a way to come to terms

1:04

with her mental illness. I

1:06

was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2018 and

1:09

it really upended my life. I

1:12

wasn't sure what it meant

1:14

for me. I didn't know if I would

1:16

be writing anymore. I lost my job. Just

1:18

a lot of the things that I had

1:21

assumed about myself and

1:23

the way that I was moving through the world really

1:25

were transformed by that moment. Bipolar

1:28

disorder is a lifelong condition.

1:31

It causes intense shifts in mood from

1:33

periods of mania to episodes of

1:36

depression. And it often runs

1:38

in families, which was true for Naomi.

1:41

For this episode, we asked her to come

1:43

in and read from her essay. And

1:46

just a heads up, her essay contains

1:48

some intense experiences with mental health

1:50

and it does mention rape. So

1:53

listen at your own discretion. All

1:59

right. I'm just sitting here,

2:01

staying at you. I'm so sorry. No, I

2:03

like having the audience. It makes me feel

2:05

less like I'm talking into the void, yeah? All

2:08

right. Her

2:10

kind on losing and finding my

2:12

mind. I

2:16

was once someone who people would

2:18

describe as steady. The kind of

2:20

friend you turn to for advice

2:22

on buying an apartment or negotiating

2:25

your salary. The

2:27

year before I became sick, I

2:29

started timing. From February to May

2:31

of 2018, I

2:34

felt profoundly unmoored, alternately

2:37

joyful and inconsolable, fearful

2:39

and invincible. I

2:42

had never felt so free or

2:45

so impulsive. My whims and

2:47

emotions led me. My feelings

2:49

were snakes that whipped me around.

2:52

Some days, having a cigarette and a cup

2:54

of coffee from the bodega, light

2:56

with milk and one teaspoon of sugar

2:59

was the only thing that could cheer me up.

3:02

What the world saw most

3:05

was my rage. I'm typically

3:07

a mild-mannered person who's slow to anger,

3:10

patient to a fault, a pushover even.

3:12

I hate confrontation,

3:15

but that spring, I was furious.

3:18

It was as if the weight of

3:20

every unsaid thing and every unaddressed flight

3:22

had built up in my body and

3:25

was being released in one intense burst.

3:28

I was mad and I had a lot

3:30

to say. A wrong

3:32

look or word was an invitation

3:34

to spar. I cursed

3:36

people out across boroughs. I

3:44

was angry, but also afraid. I

3:48

started having panic attacks almost every

3:50

day. As winters

3:52

turned to spring, I slept less

3:54

and less, sometimes only three

3:57

or four hours a night. My

3:59

husband Brooklyn was at a loss for what to

4:01

do with me, how to keep me safe, so

4:04

he sent me to spend time with my parents

4:06

in Brooklyn. When I

4:08

wasn't talking on the phone, I soaked,

4:10

watched basketball, and skulked around the house

4:12

in a white nightie. I

4:15

took long walks to the mall,

4:17

where I got into arguments and

4:19

one-sided conversations with strangers. I

4:21

tormented my parents, demanded that my

4:23

father, a deacon, pray for me.

4:27

One night, I babbled nonsensical and

4:29

crawled on the second floor landing of

4:31

the house, wanting to stay low

4:33

lest the police see me. I

4:36

heard my family start talking about taking

4:38

me to the hospital, which unraveled me

4:40

further. I lit a cigarette in

4:42

the living room, an act of war

4:44

in their tidy West Indian home. My

4:47

father, who rarely raises his voice, yelled at

4:49

me to get in the car. I

4:52

tried to jump out as it was moving. My

4:56

parents, stepbrother, and cousin drove me to

4:58

an emergency room in downtown Brooklyn. As

5:01

we ascended the steps to the entrance,

5:04

I've jumped with joy and clipped my

5:06

heels together, telling everyone within earshot that

5:08

I was pregnant with twins. I

5:10

wasn't. The

5:14

last thing I remember is a nurse

5:16

with dreadlocks asking me questions and then

5:18

administering the medication that knocked me out.

5:25

I woke up the next morning in a

5:27

different hospital. My husband and stepmother

5:29

were in my room. I

5:31

joked, this wasn't how I planned to

5:33

spend Valentine's Day. It

5:37

was either during this hospitalization or during

5:39

one of the three that followed that

5:41

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I

5:45

wasn't sure what the diagnosis meant or what it

5:47

had to do with me and my life. That

5:50

morning, I was furious that no one rode

5:52

with me from the emergency room to

5:54

the hospital a few neighborhoods over, that

5:57

they'd left me alone with strangers. When

6:02

my sister visited, I asked her how she

6:04

could be certain that the medical staff hadn't

6:06

raped me. She said it

6:08

was unlikely, but admitted she couldn't be sure.

6:25

I read in another piece that

6:28

one of racism's subtlest

6:30

legacies is to make

6:32

it harder for black people

6:35

to know when our fears

6:37

are rational. I

6:39

can imagine when you woke up in this strange

6:42

hospital and had just

6:45

been diagnosed with bipolar disorder that you

6:47

were probably really disoriented. As

6:50

a black woman, those fears you were

6:52

feeling are backed by history.

6:56

What was it like for you trying to decipher what

6:59

were fears based in the reality

7:01

of racism and

7:03

what were paranoid thoughts that were

7:05

symptoms of your illness? That's

7:08

a fantastic question, right? A

7:11

friend of mine says the function of racism

7:13

is to make people feel crazy. I

7:18

think what I

7:20

talk about in the essay is waking

7:22

up in this hospital room on Valentine's

7:24

Day and just being completely unmoored,

7:27

just not having any sense of what

7:29

happened to me, how I got there.

7:31

I'd been knocked out for over 12

7:33

hours by that point. I

7:38

write then in the essay about

7:41

wondering, well, what if someone assaulted

7:43

me? My sister's like, well, we don't

7:45

think that happened. I'm like, how do you know? I

7:51

think that it was difficult to decipher

7:53

that. I think at

7:55

several points in my illness, I

7:58

was trying to present my

8:00

professional self, even as

8:02

I was unraveling, because I was convinced that

8:04

that was the way that I

8:06

could protect myself. That kind of shameful

8:09

survival instinct of respectability?

8:12

Yeah, I mean, and I have a critique of respectability,

8:14

right, in my life. You know, I talked

8:16

to someone recently, she's like, I always dress

8:19

well when I go to the doctor because

8:21

I want to be treated fairly. And

8:24

I'm like, well, if a doctor is racist,

8:26

they're going to treat you poorly, even

8:28

if you show up and it took C, though. But we

8:31

have to try to be treated well.

8:33

And the legacy of racism teaches

8:35

us that we have

8:37

to employ these strategies in order to

8:40

be treated well. When

8:42

I was in the hospital for the longest

8:44

period, for two weeks, I

8:46

think I felt like maybe if the doctors

8:48

knew that I'd published a book, maybe if

8:50

they knew that I was smart in some

8:52

way, then they would speak to me with

8:55

some respect and treat me well. Maybe I'd

8:57

even get out quicker. In

9:02

1972, my beloved maternal grandmother

9:04

was admitted for the first

9:07

of many times to the

9:09

psychiatric hospital in Barbados, known

9:11

colloquially as Jenkins, after

9:13

the former plantation on which it sits. Everything

9:17

that is old is able in

9:19

Barbados, someone once told me. Nowhere

9:23

is the truth of that statement more

9:26

evident in Jenkins, officially

9:28

Black Rocks psychiatric hospital, where

9:31

patients in varying stages of

9:33

distress and dissociation wander

9:35

the same grounds their ancestors

9:38

may have to live. My

9:44

grandmother was a loving, generous woman

9:46

who doted on me and my

9:48

older sister. She was always

9:51

the first person to call us on

9:53

our birthdays and insisted that people traveling

9:55

from Barbados to Brooklyn bring us her

9:57

exceptional beige and sweet bread. She

10:01

was also intense. On

10:03

an intake interview for a nursing

10:06

home, she described herself as aggressive,

10:09

one of the many reasons why her stay there

10:11

was short. Granny

10:13

called my father and stepmother's house at

10:15

all hours of day and night, looking

10:18

for somewhere to park her worries. My

10:23

sister and I didn't have a name for

10:26

Granny's ailment until after she died. On

10:28

a visit to Jenkins, we met with a psychiatrist

10:30

who had cared for her and she

10:33

showed us records that stretch back nearly

10:35

40 years to the early 70s. My

10:39

mother has the same diagnosis. Her

10:42

stays in American psychiatric facilities began

10:44

in the 90s, not long after

10:46

she lost custody of my sister and me.

10:51

In her best moments, my mother was

10:53

an attentive parent with serious ambitions for

10:55

her children. She sold black

10:58

dolls, assigned summer book reports, and took

11:00

us to the library religiously. But

11:03

she struggled through a contentious divorce from my

11:05

father in the early 80s and

11:07

the stress of raising two children alone

11:09

in New York City and her emergent

11:11

mental illness eventually caught up with her.

11:15

By the time I was eight years old,

11:18

my mother was no longer herself. And

11:23

she was a carefree spirit who blasted Peter,

11:25

Paul, and Mary in the Amadeus

11:27

soundtrack while we cooked on the fire escape

11:29

of the small apartment she'd bought in Crown

11:31

Heights. At other times,

11:33

she was catatonic, a present

11:35

instance who barely responded when

11:38

we needed her and occasionally disappeared

11:40

for days on end. That

11:45

summer, my mother lost custody of us.

11:48

I will forever feel guilty for telling the

11:50

family court judge the truth when he asks

11:53

which parent we wanted to live with. My

11:56

father, I said, hoping my mother would

11:58

never know that I had betrayed her.

12:01

At Daddy's house, the fridge was full

12:03

and there was always an adult around.

12:07

My mother would cycle through homeless shelters,

12:09

group homes, the streets, and the occasional

12:11

apartment for the next 30 years, traversing

12:14

Atlanta, Seattle, Boston, and Barbados

12:16

in search of something or

12:18

someone I'm not sure exactly

12:20

what. I

12:23

do know that I inherited my mother's hot

12:25

foot and that mommy,

12:27

granny, and I all belong to

12:30

the same strange club of the

12:32

severely mentally ill. Coming

12:46

up, more of Naomi Jackson's

12:48

story. All right

12:51

girl, you are here losing it

12:53

and stripping and running into people's

12:55

apartments and messing with people's children,

12:58

but at the end of the day we're trying

13:00

to make it out of the day alive, right?

13:02

And so when the cops came, something

13:05

in me switched

13:07

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Happy Hour podcast from NPR. Parker,

15:04

Just Parker, Code Switch. We've

15:07

been hearing from Naomi Jackson about

15:09

being black and having bipolar disorder

15:11

in America. Here she is

15:13

again, reading from her essay called Her

15:16

Kind on Losing and Finding My

15:18

Mind. One

15:21

day in February 2018, I almost

15:24

lost myself. It

15:26

was unseasonably warm. I left

15:29

the house in the early afternoon, the front

15:31

door wide open behind me. I wore

15:34

a black dress coat that I bought in France

15:36

on top of a matching soccer jersey and pants

15:38

that my husband had given me. As

15:41

I walked up the Bronx's third avenue, I

15:43

became taken by the idea of trying to

15:45

prove how difficult it was for a woman

15:48

to use the bathroom. I

15:50

asked to use the toilet at a dry cleaner, a

15:52

day spot, and a state farm agency, making

15:55

scenes each time I was Refused,

15:57

sometimes claiming I was pregnant, to see

15:59

the bathroom. The How Far A Bush

16:01

experiment. When I grew tired of the

16:03

game, I. Stopped for a slice that a

16:06

pizzeria where I met a nice black woman

16:08

and her little girl. The woman had just

16:10

picked up trophies for a supergroup him she

16:12

ran with her husband. He told me all

16:14

about it as we walked. Twenty blocks

16:16

north into a neighborhood I'd never

16:19

visited before. Them Along

16:21

the way I yelled the French at a

16:23

totally the man. I could tell that the

16:25

woman. Was worried about me and perhaps

16:27

a bit afraid a she was. A

16:31

bid the woman and her daughter could buy. A

16:33

had what felt like an endless out

16:35

of energy. I wanted to play. I

16:39

saw a pit bull I liked and fall

16:41

the dog in this owner into a building

16:43

that I later found out was a homeless

16:45

shelter. I walked to the top floor and

16:47

bring a few door bells no one opened

16:49

up. I ran outside where

16:51

I saw a few kids and introduced

16:53

myself to one of them who looked

16:55

to be about eight years old. Within

16:57

a few minutes we were shadow boxing.

17:00

I. Asked him whether he knew about

17:02

Muhammad Ali and Mobile Max Christian between

17:05

saints and jobs until we both

17:07

grew bored. I told the boy that

17:09

President Obama was coin officiate my wedding

17:11

that evening. On Harlem River and that

17:13

Rian A. will be performing. I

17:16

told him he should come along and

17:18

bring his crew a doesn't is a

17:20

mass to follow me. Then they realized

17:22

that I was lying. The

17:27

mood change. One of them,

17:29

the oldest, Chris. Me out and

17:31

chase me. I ran weaving between

17:33

parked cars, yelling back at him.

17:35

I avoided a fistfight. Only because

17:38

someone mercifully call the kids back

17:40

inside. I

17:43

headed to the cross Bronx expressway.

17:45

I thought that the United Nations

17:47

wasn't such as and I was

17:49

convinced I saw Robert Mugabe. Suddenly

17:51

I was unbearably hot. I stripped,

17:54

peeling off my layers on fire

17:56

or only a white tank top

17:58

and grants Pass. In

18:00

doing so I have become my grandmother

18:02

who been known to stand on the

18:04

road in Barbados and her slip and

18:06

saw ambulance came to take her away.

18:10

That night in the Bronx I

18:12

wave my blue hoodie at and

18:14

helicopters circling overhead. I was tired

18:16

and though I didn't wanna go

18:18

home, I knew I needed help.

18:20

I sought refuge at a community

18:22

center with a lactation station just

18:25

above the highway. The woman with

18:27

her be a beacon. A

18:30

man. They're called the Police. Had

18:38

enough presence of mind to know

18:40

to be afraid when the cops arrived.

18:42

I knew that when mentally ill black

18:45

people. Spiralled, sometimes. They

18:47

didn't make it out of encounters

18:49

with the police. Alive and Twenty

18:51

Twelve! Sharif Francis took her last

18:53

breath and her Jamaica and parents

18:56

queens basement after she was tackled

18:58

by four police officers and twenty

19:00

thirteen. Miriam. Carey, a black

19:02

woman with postpartum psychosis. Was

19:05

killed by police officers. After driving

19:07

her car and so restricted area near

19:09

the White House, her thirteen month old

19:11

was in the back seat. In

19:14

March twenty twenty, Daniel Prude was.

19:17

Pinned to the ground and died

19:19

of asphyxiation after. The police stopped

19:21

him as he ran naked to the

19:23

streets of Rochester. And that

19:25

october, Walter Wallace Jr. was gunned

19:28

down in Philadelphia while his wife.

19:30

Tried to stop the cops but. By

19:41

the time the police arrived I

19:44

was cold. February still was. Wrapping

19:46

his arms around me. I

19:50

spoke rapidly and what I learned

19:53

later was clinically known as pressured

19:55

speech. Though I'm unsure now

19:57

of what I said. I remember putting my

19:59

hands. To show I. Was unarmed. I

20:01

told a female officer that I have

20:04

once wanted to attend medical school but

20:06

I quit a pre med program for

20:08

follow my dream of. Becoming a writer,

20:11

Even as I unraveled, I tried

20:13

to present my most well mannered

20:16

professional south hoping that my credentials

20:18

my protect me. I got into

20:20

an ambulance and talked with the

20:22

medic the hallway. They're grateful for

20:24

the. Way. In

20:42

that moment when the police were

20:44

called. You. Are aware

20:46

enough to understand that your

20:48

life was a dangerous. Do.

20:51

You see that awareness was

20:53

so into your mania? Or.

20:56

Was it a piece of

20:59

reality piercing through it? I

21:02

think that was reality. Sewing out to

21:04

be like or a girl you are

21:06

a few is losing. It is strip

21:08

aig running into people's apartments, that mess

21:10

will people soldier and but at the

21:12

end of they were trying to make

21:14

it out of the day alive ray

21:16

and so when the cops came. Something

21:19

in me switched on. am?

21:21

I don't think that? that's.

21:23

People's experience actually for the most

21:25

part who are experiencing episodes I

21:27

think actually. The

21:29

arrival of police can really activate

21:31

them in ways that make them.

21:34

As stated in the maybe you

21:36

lash out because the police. Scary

21:38

right? But this was in

21:41

the era of increased public

21:43

activism about police brutality. right

21:45

and Saw was hyper aware.

21:47

Of what. This

21:49

could be com and so even as

21:51

I'm falling apart and not well, I'm

21:54

also aware like I gotta be well

21:56

enough to try and make it out

21:58

of the situation live. And

22:00

I think how terrible is

22:02

that? The even in our

22:04

most vulnerable ah I'm. Terrified

22:07

moments. We have to be

22:09

wearing this armor of professionalism.

22:12

It's in order to ensure

22:14

that we make it out.

22:16

These encounters. allies. In

22:21

March Twenty eighteen. A month

22:24

after the first hospitalization, my therapists,

22:26

my sister and a friend convince

22:28

me to admit myself to the

22:30

psychiatric ward of hospital. On a

22:33

breeze I i arrive with a

22:35

soft overnight bag, shaky and afraid

22:37

of nearly everything in the spare

22:39

in room. A black girl a

22:42

high schooler was on and for

22:44

fighting I was afraid of her.

22:46

I saw in her wilde eyes

22:48

and hear the girls who bullied

22:51

me. chubby kid and I worried.

22:53

That she would be. That

22:56

night so other patients. Chair

22:59

and wash down my math. And

23:01

trial and graham crackers, which I

23:04

gotten from another patient. Was

23:08

piece. Has.

23:15

Been. I

23:18

didn't know until that moment. I looked reigns

23:20

to. Family

23:22

finally sat. Around.

23:32

At last I understood the

23:34

line ends and and reached

23:36

story shame. Is heavier than

23:38

a hundred bags of salt

23:40

that long winter. And the

23:42

springs same sat atop my

23:44

chest. Heavy and I'm

23:47

moving. shortly

23:53

after i was released from the my

23:55

mother came to visit she had moved

23:58

back to new york city the year

24:00

before, leaving a stable but imperfect

24:02

living situation in Boston to start

24:05

over again in the city's Byzantine

24:07

shelter system. It had

24:09

been months since I'd seen her, a year

24:11

since she'd told me over lunch I

24:14

could barely afford how little she thought

24:16

of my yuppie novel. We

24:18

walked in circles around my block. We

24:21

shared a cigarette. She was the

24:23

first person to accurately describe the way that

24:25

a coffee and a smoke takes

24:27

the edge of the emotion swirling inside

24:30

me. When we spoke

24:32

that day, we didn't say the word

24:34

bipolar or mention the diagnosis that belonged

24:36

to her. I'd never

24:38

acknowledged my mother's illness to her directly.

24:41

She is fiercely proud and private, like

24:43

my grandmother and my sister. There

24:46

is dignity in allowing ourselves to be

24:48

more than the clinical language that describes

24:50

how our minds work. I

24:53

believe she asked me how long I was in

24:55

for. We knew without saying

24:58

it aloud how much being on a psych

25:00

ward felt like being in prison. Since

25:03

then, I have been on a steady, slow

25:06

journey back to myself, or

25:08

more precisely, toward someone new who

25:11

resembles the person I was before.

25:19

I stopped taking psychiatric medications

25:22

when I got pregnant in the summer of 2019, and I

25:25

have remained off them while I breastfeed

25:27

my child. I'm somewhat

25:30

in awe that the postpartum months have

25:32

not plunged me into another crippling depression

25:34

or sent me flying into another bout

25:37

of mania. Feeling

25:39

better makes me wonder what's changed and whether

25:41

and how the sickness will come for me

25:44

again. Although I hope

25:46

there won't be a next time, I'm not naive

25:48

enough to believe that I am so exceptional

25:50

as to be spared. A

25:53

study in the American Journal of Psychiatry

25:55

indicates that the likelihood of relapse within

25:58

five years for people with bipolar The

26:00

order is a more than seventy percent.

26:04

When the next time comes, as

26:06

I know it well, I pray

26:08

for the patience and presence of

26:10

my beloved community. I pray

26:12

that I will not alienate my friends

26:15

and family, that they will still want

26:17

to work with me. Sit with me,

26:19

listen to me and know that what

26:21

I needed the most when I was

26:23

sick or compassionate Alert witnesses people to

26:25

listen to help keep. Me out of

26:27

harm's way. As

26:39

you're going through all of this. You. Have

26:41

a baby. How do

26:44

you think about the. Future for

26:46

you and your child now.

26:49

I feel. Extremely

26:51

committed. Some my own wellness

26:53

in order to be a good parent

26:55

to. My child And so

26:57

I think that I'm I

27:00

feel. A

27:02

profound brought responsibility as

27:04

a parent to not

27:06

tap out. On

27:09

these has I think a

27:11

week hospitalization like the one

27:13

I had and twenty a

27:15

team was hard, but that

27:17

could be catastrophic with a

27:19

small child involved rates certainly.

27:21

When I was. Contemplating

27:24

have my own child and even now

27:26

having a young child or hurry I

27:28

think is the something that I passed

27:30

down to home is responsible to have

27:33

a child's when you know that you

27:35

have this family history of severe mental

27:37

illness and will I be up to

27:39

the task of getting him help if

27:41

it does turn out to be something

27:44

that he has to deal with or

27:46

know all these questions. Are certainly a

27:48

part of my life. She. So

27:50

young that I don't. Have

27:53

language to talk to him about.

27:56

what my illness means yeah but i

27:58

imagine one day will have to have

28:00

that conversation. And

28:03

I'll figure out age-appropriate language

28:05

to have it. But

28:07

that feels important to me, too, to

28:09

raise a child who is both

28:12

aware of their mom's

28:14

situation and aware of

28:16

what it means to have a mom

28:18

with a disability and kind to other

28:20

people who have disabilities. Right? Recently,

28:25

a friend asked me how I came to

28:28

be doing so well. The

28:30

answer is deceptively simple. Rest,

28:33

child care, therapy, meaningful

28:35

work, healthier relationships. It

28:38

matters that my therapist is a Black woman

28:40

to whom I don't have to explain certain

28:42

aspects of my selfhood. The

28:45

cultural shorthand that we share affords

28:47

trust, intimacy, efficiency. Most

28:50

importantly, I'm writing again. What

28:53

was disconcerting about being sick was that

28:55

it robbed me of my focus,

28:57

attention, and creativity. Now

29:00

I am reacquainted with myself as a

29:02

writer, which is to say that I

29:04

am reacquainted with myself. Since

29:07

the birth of my son in February 2020, I

29:11

have been writing with ease and urgency for

29:13

the first time in years. I

29:16

am almost scared to say so, lest

29:18

I jinx it. But I'm even more

29:20

scared to stop writing. I

29:22

have been working six days a week. I

29:25

know that just below these heights of

29:27

creativity, there is a winding staircase that

29:29

leads to mania. Still,

29:32

I write as if I may

29:34

never write again. I want

29:37

to get it all down in

29:39

case my mind betrays me. Let

29:42

me say one last thing. Naomi,

30:00

thank you so much for telling your story.

30:03

Thank you so much for having me. And

30:08

that's our show. You can follow

30:10

us on Instagram at NPR Code Switch.

30:14

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30:16

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30:55

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