No one knew how it happened.

This is fanfiction based on the latest episode of Shameless, Crazy Love. I wanted to write about Mickey dealing with Ian being bipolar from his point of view.

No one knew how it happened. How he just stopped caring, but also began caring too much. How no one ever knew what to expect from him anymore. Bipolar, the doctors said. Like that really explained anything… How could a single word justify the way he was slowly but surely slipping away, the moments where he didn’t seem to be himself anymore, when he fell into this parallel world of insanity?

The word, the diagnosis…it didn’t help. Sure, it helped understand why he was acting like that, stuck in an invisible pit of sadness one day and flying high in a world of clouds and unicorns the next. But it did not help understand why. Why him? Why now?

And it did not help him either. He ignored it, walked around the word like it wasn’t there, and refused to even see it although it was the elephant in the room. I’m not proud to say I did it too. I tiptoed around all of it " the problems, the bad days, the days that were so good they were bad " for months. Until it got so bad I couldn’t ignore it anymore.

He was a car crash in an action movie, and I was the nervous movie-goer. I was unable to detach my eyes from the succession of moving frames bringing us closer to the fatal blow with each passing second, but also unable to do anything to stop it. Powerless. I tried to talk to him about it, but it only made it worse. I told him I loved him, that he was sick, and that he needed to get better. He left. I thought I’d lost him for good.

But then they found him, at a small supermarket, running wild and scared. I went and picked him up and he fell asleep on my shoulder on the way back. He looked so scared. He seemed tired too. I should have been angry; that he left, that he didn’t seem to care about leaving me behind. But I was just sad.

When he woke up he wouldn’t look at me. He didn’t talk. He didn’t eat. I think he didn’t want to exist. I hugged him. I wanted to remind him what existing was like, how love felt like a sort of warmth that spread through your body until it reached every single part of it. But I don’t think there was enough of him left to remember. I drove past my house " our house " and he barely blinked. I parked in the busy hospital parking and he tensed up. I wanted to hug him again, to tell him it was going to be okay, that this was what was best. But I didn’t. I just started walking, and he followed.

The nurse talked with him for a while. Everything was white, the light was harsh. I couldn’t imagine leaving him here. She handed him a form and a black pen. It looked too heavy for his hunched over body, his hanging head, and his shaking hands. Part of me wanted to grab the stupid pen away and take him home to tuck him into bed. To tell him everything would be alright. But the truth is it wouldn’t be.

He looked at the pen for a while, then turned around and looked at me. I had to concentrate to stop the tears. I nodded. He signed.

A couple of weeks later, he got out. I’d been to see him almost every single day, but God, I’d missed him. He took his meds now, every morning with a glass of milk. He didn’t get up at five in the morning to watch the sun rise with the look of an excited five year old on his face anymore, but I didn’t mind. No picture of the sun was worth losing him.

 No one knows how it happened, or if it might happen again. But for now, he was back, and that was all that mattered. 

Reviews

[Saving Sundaes]

I love this show, and I think this is an interesting point of view from a character whose thoughts and feelings are fairly elusive. I love the line "He was the car crash in an action movie and I was the nervous movie goer"! Maybe it would pack even more of a punch if you ended the sentence there and rework the rest of it into a new sentence? Just a thought. I also really like "No picture of the sun was worth losing him". I think if they ever hinted at Mickey's inner monologue, it would sound a lot like this.