It was a cold night in February 2007 when I ran across my university campus barefoot in the snow. I ran to the campus police station because I thought my psychology professors were conducting an experiment on me. I raced inside and told them to make it stop. They were very gracious with me and kept me in an office until officers could transport me to the hospital. I was in the throes of a full-blown manic episode complete with delusions. I hadn’t slept for 5 days straight. It took a stint in the hospital and a lot of medication to bring me out down out of the mania. When I could finally think coherently again, I fell into a deep depression as the mania had depleted my brain chemistry and I was horrifically embarrassed when I realized all I had done when I was manic. How did I get to that point? It all started with the anxious thoughts and behaviors I exhibited as a child that progressed into serious depression when I was a teenager. To others, I was the typical straight-A student, involved in numerous activities and always winning academic and other awards. But inside I was falling apart, and by my senior year of high school, I was so depressed that I literally couldn’t get out of bed anymore. I constantly thought of suicide, though never attempted it. I missed half a year of school, and I was hospitalized numerous times for depression as doctors tried to find medication that would work for me. I was diagnosed with major depression and told that I would most likely struggle with depression for the rest of my life. One medication really started to work for me. My high school graduation was approaching and I was finally starting to feel better. But then I started speeding up. I had racing thoughts and sentences flew out of my mouth at the speed of a race car driver competing in the Indy 500. I stopped sleeping. I started having delusions that my parents were trying to kill me. I ended up in the hospital again, and this time, the doctors realized that I didn’t have major depression. I was then diagnosed with bipolar disorder (type I). I had to receive a pass from the hospital in order to attend my high school graduation. It was humiliating to me. Doctors tried scores of medication on me. I had terrible side effects from most of them, and a severe allergic reaction to one of them. I had an academic scholarship to attend university the next year, but had to stay home because the doctors hadn’t found a treatment that would work for me yet. Two years later, I enrolled in Bowling Green State University in Ohio. I graduated in 2008 with my Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology.
Below - me visiting Bowling Green State State University in 2009 - sitting on the "Thinker"
Below - me visiting Bowling Green State State University in 2009 - sitting on the "Thinker"
I can’t say that school was always easy – the manic episode in February 2007 that I described at the beginning of this post happened during my junior year of school. I missed a month of school that year due to my illness, and cried every day for the rest of the semester as I made up paper after paper and test after test. But I made it through, and graduated magna cum laude. While I was in school, I became a Christian, and my relationship with Jesus has changed my life greatly. As I have learned more and more to follow Him in every thing that I do, my periods of stability have greatly increased. After I graduated from Bowling Green, I moved 25 hours away to Saskatchewan, Canada where I ended up meeting the man I would marry. I have now been happily married for 2 years. I am so blessed to have married a man who doesn’t look down on me for having a mental illness like other friends, family members, and guys I dated did. Life definitely has its struggles for someone who has bipolar disorder, but for every time my mental illness knocks me down, I will get up one more time than that. A wise nurse once told me, “You are not bipolar. You HAVE bipolar disorder.” If you are struggling with a mental illness, know that you are not alone, and you are not your illness. Your illness only a part of you, and you can live a successful life in spite of it. Do not ever give up hope. Be kind to yourself when you are struggling, and know that stability is possible in the future. God created you, and He loves you so much, just the way He made you.
Do you have a mental health story to tell? I encourage you to share it with others who are struggling so they don't feel so alone.
Do you have a mental health story to tell? I encourage you to share it with others who are struggling so they don't feel so alone.
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