Living Bipolar (20 page)

The memories I pull of Landon are eight years before the car accident and then there was another six years after the accident before the next big changes I saw in him. I remember at the end of our senor year in high school Landon checked himself into a rehabilitation center for the weekend. This was the first time that I realized that there were something more going on beneath the surface. For me, it was very hard because I was so close to him, and it was hard to admit Landon was really going through big changes. I suppose I was in denial. After the car accident Landon had to learn how to redo everything in his life, and when he checked himself into the institution I just thought he was mentally exhausted from it all. That was just my assumption, and it's a result of the ignorance I had with the whole illness of Bipolar disorder. I've never known anybody to suffer from Bipolar disorder, and it was very hard for me to think of my very best friend suffering from it.

Obviously I knew there were changes after the car accident, and for instance, I remember Landon would scream and cry when his parents told him he had to go to sleep because he just didn't grasp the concept of why you had to go to sleep. So when these other changes occurred it was hard for me to admit to myself that more was going on.

I remember Landon’s mom calling me when Landon checked himself into the institution, and I had no idea that anything serious was wrong with him. There was no warning to him checking himself into the Institution. From what I remember I was told that Landon believed there was too much pressure on him at the time and he could not handle his life. All I member really is him checking himself in on his own terms. I know I was shocked when he did this and I really couldn't believe that it was true. At the time, I knew he had gone through a lot of challenges in his life. During high school there was the car accident and issues with his mom’s second divorce which was traumatic. After the divorce he had to move from his home and change his lifestyle once again. The car accident and the divorce all happened in a three year time span and I thought Landon had a nervous breakdown; Landon definitely went through more in this period than most people go through a lifetime.

As to the changes that lead to Landon going manic, I started noticing these changes in 1999 after I returned from college. We went back to the same routine where we were hanging out frequently. I started noticing small changes at first, and these were simply small behavior patterns which were different from the person I grew up with. In retrospect,
the behavior changes I noticed did not really register with me as to being a part of a larger problem. I remember noticeable changes, though, with the stability of his emotional state
. Looking back you could tell Landon was not quite the same as in high school, but at the time my barometer was set to whom we were when we were children, therefore, it was tough to recognize.

Obviously Landon had mental scars which were deeply ingrained in him. There were some apparent things which were left in his personality from these events. So I thought all these things caused him to have other changes in his personality every now and then but I never considered anything as severe as Bipolar illness. When he checked himself into the institution I realized that the things he had gone through were a little bit harsher. But when I came back from college everything seemed to be a lot better with him. I just believed that what happened in high school when he checked himself into the institution was a direct result of all the other personal things he had gone through. Because eventually everybody cracks, so I was hoping that he had been through a lot in high school and that would be the end of it.

When I came back from college, I guess I didn't have a grasp on the things that happened to Landon when he was at the University of Alabama and went manic for the first time in his life. At the time no one had accurately diagnose him as manic. Because we were in different states, and colleges, I had no idea of Landon's behavior when he was at the University of Alabama, at least not until he told me what had happened.

I remember going to the restaurant/bar where Landon worked at, and sometimes, I would come up there to hang out, and Landon would be sitting at the bar by himself writing poetry. This was definitely a turning point with Landon’s behavior.
What was different about the behavior, though, was the involvement and concentration, and the obsession with writing poetry
. I remember talking to Landon once about these experiences and he said that he felt invincible during this time, and I know that what he was doing was very different from his normal behavior. It was an absolute and complete change.

Landon would call me sometimes to meet him and when I arrived there was already a stranger agitated by him. There were a couple of times when a stranger had said to Landon, “What are you doing?” because other people thought it was absolutely crazy that he would sit at the bar and write by himself. This was totally opposite of the Landon I knew growing up, because growing up no one ever did not want to be around him. This was a big change when other people didn't want to be around Landon it was a warning sign. Total strangers would declare,
“What’s wrong with him? Why does he act the way he does? Why is he so distant then so in-your-face at other times?
”

So when Landon started going through these other changes I always referenced the car accident, and attributed that for the reason he was acting the way that he was. I never considered anything severe was occurring. I simply had no concept that Landon might be dealing with another illness, which today we know is the Bipolar illness. It never dawned on me.

I guess I knew the word Bipolar at the time; however, I had no conception of what that actually entailed. I had no idea the severity of the Bipolar illness, and I certainly had no idea that the illness could hit that close to home; therefore it was a big shock to me when I found out Landon was Bipolar. I have been shocked before in my life, but Landon being Bipolar was perhaps the biggest shock I've ever experienced.

Turning to November of 1999, that's when I really started noticing a major change in his whole personality. In November of 99, he was very erratic in his behavior, and he was very, very heavy with emotion at times. As a child Landon was always happy. But in November of 1999 sometimes he was inconsolable.

On New Year's Eve 2000 I saw Landon in a manner which I had never experienced. He was totally incoherent, and had no idea where he was, who he was, and what was going on. This was the first time I'd ever seen anything like that with him.

I do remember two different times in January of 2000 when his life spiraled out of control. There was a time when Landon was at Hooters writing by himself and the police came and john acted him. All I know is I had to go there, and get his backpack after this happened. I also paid the tab he accrued there. After I got back from Hooters I remember going to visit him at the institution where he was john acted.

My girlfriend and I went to visit him at the psyche hospital. I remember us being in a large room, and there was something scarily wrong with him. During the visit I could tell he knew who I was, and he was happy that I came to visit him, and he didn't want us to leave.
But I looked into his eyes I could tell Landon wasn't there
. Honestly, I couldn't tell for sure that he knew exactly who I was. I guarantee you I could've asked him when my birthday was and he would have no idea. Landon was not in reality whatsoever. Landon was looking around, and he was very paranoid.

The experience is almost indescribable. I’m not sure Landon even knew he was institutionalized, and that he was somewhere with other people who were mentally sick. Landon did not know what was going on. He had very little eye contact with me. He was a mass hysteria of paranoia. He was paranoid about everything. He thought it was a conspiracy to get him there at the institution. The conspiracy, according to Landon, was that he did nothing wrong to be placed in the institution, but he believed that people wanted him there, but, he couldn't state who wanted him to be there, only that someone wanted him to be there. He never said a family member, or a friend wanted him to be there, only “someone” wanted him there.

Landon was convinced that someone was trying to make him be there with all those people. Landon thought that the other people there had problems, but he didn't think there was anything wrong with him. But I would've wholeheartedly disagreed with him that he didn't belong there, because clearly there were something wrong with him. I always cross reference Landon as how I knew him as a child, and the person he was in the psyche hospital was totally opposite of who used to be. Landon was nothing like he had been for the first 16 years that I knew him of my life, and was nothing like the person that I know today.

When my girlfriend and I left we were devastated, shocked, and amazed that this was Landon we spent 45 minutes with, because he didn't seem like the person we knew at all. My parents were scared to death of the situation. My parents were totally convinced that drugs were the problem, and they didn't want me even talking to him. My parents definitely noticed changes with Landon, and they were flat-out scared of him.

My girlfriend knew, however, that what Landon was experiencing was not just a result of doing drugs. My girlfriend, now my wife, had a great deal of background with therapy, and she knew that there was a much bigger picture going on. She could tell that I had no idea as to the severity of the situation, and she would try to make me be aware that there was something larger occurring with him. She believed that we needed to figure out the root of what was causing these drastic changes with him, and figure out a way to get Landon help.

In contrast to my girlfriend, I didn't know what to do, or what to say, to make things better for him. I know that I'm a good talker, but talking was not going to remedy this situation. I started getting very scared. Not scared for my safety, I was scared for Landon’s well being. At this point I was worried that Landon was never going to be himself again. I wasn't sure and I didn't know what needed to be done, and I really didn't know what was wrong either. I knew all the things Landon had been through in his life which were not his fault. Landon experienced his biological parents getting divorced at the age of six, getting hit by a car at the age of 14, dealing with the traumatic issues with his step-father at the age of 16, his mom getting a divorce for the second time -- there were many circumstances which I placed as the cause for his eccentric behavior.

I didn't realize that all these events combined could cause someone to become Bipolar, and I certainly have never heard of head trauma causing someone to become Bipolar. At this time I was definitely fearful that Landon’s situation could not be corrected. When Landon got out of the institution everything appeared to be fine with him, but not long after that Landon took a major turn in the wrong direction. Shortly thereafter it seemed like Landon didn't want to live anymore.

For the second meeting I had with him in January of 2000 we were just hanging out. We were at his apartment but very quickly things took a turn for the worse. Landon read me some of his poems, and we just talked and caught up on what was going on, having normal everyday friend talk. Probably about an hour into the conversation Landon started breaking down, and he started making me aware that nobody wanted him around, including family members and other friends. He said that no one liked him, that he had nothing to give in life anymore and that he was finished. I reassured him that these were false beliefs he was having, and that he couldn't be finished because he was my best friend.

And the notion that Landon didn’t believe I was his best friend anymore was something I couldn’t accept. I just know Landon really felt like he wasn’t needed by anyone. At the time Landon was telling me that nobody wanted him to be here alive on this planet. That nobody liked him anymore; Landon felt he had nothing to give, and there was no reason for him to be here.

I spent the next six hours explaining to him how much he needed to be alive. I told him I still loved him, and I explained I needed him to be alive. At that point he was not attacking me verbally, but he kept reiterating to me that he didn't want to be around anymore. I begged and pleaded with him, and I even broke down, and started crying.

A few days after this, Landon showed up at my house wearing a T-shirt and pajama pants in the middle of the day and I believe this was on a Sunday. I was told that Landon was very inconsistent with his behavior and that he was all over the place, wandering around the house.
But I remember on this occasion looking into his eyes and I knew it wasn't Landon -- it was another person
. Someone else was there, and this person frightened me.

Landon read a poem to my brother’s fiancé at the time, and the poem was about how he was going to take my girlfriend, who is now my wife, away from me. At this point my mom walked in and she said she noticed something was wrong. She observed his speaking patterns were different than normal and he was very loud in his tone. This was clearly very inconsistent with his normative behavior. Typically Landon is a very grounded and mellow person. Not the temperamental person that he was displaying. And this got my mom's attention. Landon started walking around the house, and he was literally doing laps around the entire house, from the living room to the kitchen. I remember my mom telling me that she kept wondering, “Where was he? What is he doing? This doesn't seem normal for him at all!”

Landon was roaming around the house, and was acting completely different from the person he usually is. Then Landon told me he didn't trust me, and that he didn't understand what was going on with me. I said to Landon, “We talked about this last night, there's no nothing going on between the two of us and I'm merely concerned about you.” After this, Landon stormed out of the house, and he walked down the driveway, walked halfway up the street, then circled back down to my parent’s driveway and called me and left a message.
Landon left me a message where he stated he wanted me to die and he could not wait to watch my beating heart in his hand.