At My Grandmother’s Ninetieth Birthday, My Uncle Tells Me How He Came to Accept His Bipolar Diagnosis
smiles and says he realized
that it’s actually really simple:
when he takes the pills, he’s fine
and when he doesn’t, he’s not.
If I had high blood pressure,
I’d take medication for it, he says,
and this isn’t any different.
A week later, I am back
from the frigid Midwest
and returned to my small,
identical struggle, but I cannot stop
seeing Matthew’s smile
as he says how often he thinks
of me and my sister
and hopes we’re doing well.
I haven’t been doing well.
Like my cousin, like my father
forever white knuckling
disease no matter who it hurts.
Anaïs Nin said, we don’t see things
as they are, we see them as we are.
When I am sick, I can’t remember
what it feels like to be well.
When I am sick, I think I know
something about myself,
that I am seeing the world
as it is, but I am seeing
the world as I am.
I grew up hearing stories
of my mother’s schizophrenic
cousin, who was always off
his meds again, getting
arrested, in the hospital,
staying with his elderly
parents in between
and I couldn’t understand
why he wouldn’t just
keep taking the pills.
For generations, we did not talk
about any of this as though
there were a solution.
For centuries, there was
no solution. At thirty-five,
I feel ashamed for still struggling
to see it all clearly, but then
I think of my father, now
in his sixties. It seems to me
a particular kind of tragedy
when the one person you need
to hear something from
is unable to say it,
but sometimes it takes
generations to make
any kind of progress.
Sometimes it takes
a trip to Minnesota in February
to hear the words you’ve needed
from a stranger with your eyes.
When I get home, I re-watch
a monologue from Ozark
by a character who’s off
his meds, he says
there must be moments
of clarity within the fog
of illness, when even
someone nearly lost
remembers what
their mind was before
the thing happened
that broke their mind.
I cry for the character,
and my father,
and my mother’s cousin
and myself, and the joy
I should have been able
to feel but couldn’t,
the light we should
be able to see but can’t.
In the end, I realize
that it’s actually really simple.
When I take the pills I’m fine.
When I don’t, I’m not.
And I want more for myself
than rare moments of clarity.
I want my entire life.
Mini-interview with Amy Saul-Zerby
HFR: Can you share a moment that has shaped you as a writer (or continues to)?
ASZ: In 2012, I applied to a remote internship at Write Bloody Publishing, and a year later I got a call from the press’s founder, Derrick Brown, asking if I’d like to come out to Austin for an in-person internship that summer.
When I accepted that offer, I realized how important poetry was to me, and that summer in Texas confirmed my determination to pursue it.
HFR: What are you reading?
ASZ: I just finished Monica McClure’s latest poetry collection, The Gone Thing, and really loved it.
I’ve also been on a Louise Glück kick, and I’m eagerly anticipating Ryan Eckes’ forthcoming collection from Birds LLC. I’ve been a fan of his poetry for a long time, so I’m very excited for that.
HFR: Can you tell us what prompted “At My Grandmother’s Ninetieth Birthday, My Uncle Tells Me How He Came to Accept His Bipolar Diagnosis”?
ASZ: I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2008, when there was a ton of stigma around mental illness. Britney Spears had just had her “meltdown,” as the media called it. I thought that if a beloved celebrity was instantly reviled for her bipolar diagnosis, what hope was there for me? I had a really hard time accepting my diagnosis and the fact that I needed medication.
It’s something I was struggling with when I recently attended my grandmother’s birthday celebration and was fortunate to have a conversation that led to a moment of clarity.
Even as I write openly about mental health, I still have a hard time putting aside shame and fear of judgment. As much progress as we’ve made in dispelling the stigma around mental illness (shouts out to Neal Brennan and Taylor Tomlinson), there’s still a ways to go. I feel that writing about it is worth the risk of judgment. If someone with a similar experience reads one of my poems and feels a little less alone, to me that is well worth it.
HFR: What’s next? What are you working on?
ASZ: I have a poetry manuscript-in-progress that is starting to take shape, so I’m happy to be working on that.
This year also marks a decade since I started working on Voicemail Poems, a magazine I’m so thankful to get to edit. I’m based in the Philadelphia area, and we’ve been getting a lot of great submissions from local poets, so I’ve started hosting issue release readings in Philly, which has been awesome.
My top priorities (in terms of writing) are continuing to grow as a writer & providing a platform for other poets to get their work out into the world. If I can continue to do both of those, I count myself really lucky.
HFR: Take the floor. Be political. Be fanatical. Be anything. What do you want to share?
ASZ: Like so many, I continue to be horrified by the United States’ support of the genocide of the Palestinian people. I’m furious with our government for being complicit in the Israeli government’s campaign to eradicate the Palestinian people. It’s unconscionable, and our government will forever be on the wrong side of history for it.
Opposing Zionism is not antisemitic.
There is no justification for genocide.
Free Palestine.
Amy Saul-Zerby is the author of Paper Flowers, Imaginary Birds, Deep Camouflage, and Choose Your Own Beginning. Her poems have appeared in The Rumpus, The Chicago Review of Books, American Poetry Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, and elsewhere. She edits Voicemail Poems.
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Heavy Feather Review 