Photo credit: Soko Negash
Leanne Toshiko Simpson is a Yonsei writer living with bipolar disorder. She was named Scarborough’s Emerging Writer of 2016 and recently finished her MFA at the University of Guelph. You can find her work in The 2019 Journey Prize Stories, Room Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, and Unpublished City II.
I had coffee with a friend I made many years ago, in a Scarborough psychiatric ward, and we got to talking about how difficult the holiday season is for people with mood disorders (and other chronic illnesses, for that matter). We jokingly came up with the idea for this carol – The Twelve Manic Days of Christmas – and I’ve written it in his honour. I think a common theme of our survival has been laughing through the impossible, and I hope that this piece resonates with some folks who are in the same boat this holiday season.
The Twelve Manic Days of Christmas
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:
A manic shopping spree
[Always start with things you need: socks, holiday pajamas for your sister, greeting cards for everyone who touched your life this year. Get overwhelmed by the amount of people you’d like to thank and slide to the floor, contemplate your good fortune. Get up and overcompensate with novelty mugs and fuzzy throws. Buy a dress you can’t afford for your family dinner, because it’s not just about presents but presenting, and you wouldn’t want anyone to think you were less than perfect. Look at your watch and wonder where five hours have flown. Feel guilty for your absence, buy chocolate-dipped strawberries as a “surprise” for your partner and let them melt on your dashboard on your way home]
On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:
Two sleepless nights and
A manic shopping spree
On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:
Three racing thoughts
Two sleepless nights – please, no more pills – and
A manic shopping spree
On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:
Four grand ideas (a brief summary: a YA novel, Christmas cookies for the entire street – or perhaps, a winter carnival for the neighbourhood, with trussed up ponies and sleigh bells – breaking a three-month silence with my father, becoming a cyclist)
Three racing thoughts
Two sleepless nights and
A manic shopping spree (this time, a bike!)
On the fifth day of Christmas, my partner gave to me:
The Goldberg Mania Inventory!
After four grand ideas
Three racing thoughts
Two sleepless nights
And a manic shopping spree
On the sixth day of Christmas, we tried to go to a holiday party but Mariah Carey’s voice was like a dog whistle, alerting me to a danger I couldn’t see but felt reverberating inside the cage of my lungs. I couldn’t hold conversations, couldn’t look people in the eye. I was afraid to eat. Everything was cardboard – the food, the people, the thoughts in my head. We left early, and I counted the seconds between sentences on the drive home. One, two, three, four, five–
Six awkward silences
The Goldberg Mania Inventory!
Four grand ideas
Three racing thoughts
Two sleepless nights
And a manic shopping spree
On the seventh day of Christmas, my therapist gave to me:
Seven CBT charts
Six awkward silences
And the Goldberg Mania Inventory!
For my four grand ideas
Three racing thoughts
Two sleepless nights
And a manic shopping spree
[After he goes to bed, count out your medication into your palm, over and over and over again, until chalky dust settles in your lifelines]
On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:
Eight missed pills
Seven (untouched) CBT charts
Six awkward silences
The Goldberg Mania Inventory!
Four grand ideas
Three racing thoughts
Two sleepless nights
And a manic shopping spree
On the ninth day of Christmas, my mom told me to try yoga, so I had:
Nine downward dogs (plus seething resentment)
Eight missed pills
Seven CBT charts
Six awkward silences
The Goldberg Mania Inventory!
Four grand ideas
Three racing thoughts
Two sleepless nights
And a manic shopping spree
On the tenth day of Christmas, my eyes were changing colours in their sockets and I told everyone it was great, but if I’m being honest here, I was getting a little worried about my:
Ten unverified sick days
Nine downward dogs
Eight missed pills
Seven CBT charts
Six awkward silences
Fuck the Goldberg Mania Inventory!
Four grand ideas
Three racing thoughts
Two sleepless nights
And a manic shopping spree
On the eleventh day of Christmas, my partner called my psychiatrist, but she was on
ELEVEN DAYS OF VACATION
Which left me with:
Ten unverified sick days
Nine downward dogs
Eight missed pills
Seven CBT charts
Six awkward silences
The Goldberg Mania Inventory!
Four grand ideas
Three racing thoughts
Two sleepless nights
And a manic shopping spree
On the twelfth day of Christmas, they asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital. I gave it some thought, reader – really, I did. I thought about all the other folks who might be there on Christmas, who could maybe use a little caroling, maybe a touch of comradery. I thought about titrating my meds for the hundredth time. I had so many little orange canisters in my bathroom cabinet that I could have invented psychiatric Jenga. Again, they asked me what I wanted, and I stared into the galaxies of my ceiling before telling them I wanted to talk to someone, anyone, who lived in this kaleidoscope with me. They all looked at each other and one of them nodded and then the glass shifted, again, to that incandescent heat before the end of the world.
Leanne Toshiko Simpson visits Brockton Writers Series on Wednesday, January 8, 2020 at Glad Day Bookshop, 499 Church Street, Toronto, starting at 6:30pm (PWYC) alongside Manahil Bandukwala, Terese Mason Pierre, Nikki Sheppy, and guest speaker Ranjini George, who will guide us through “Meditation and Writing.”
Brockton Writers Series 