NO PURPLE HEARTS IN THIS WAR

      As I lay on the couch lifeless and miserable, I had no idea what was happening to me.  Surely, to feel this badly I must be dying.  My mother insisted that I make an appointment to see the doctor, because she thought I must need vitamins.  I had gone from a fairly normal, bouncy fourteen year old to a fifteen year old who could not move off of the couch.   When I saw the doctor, I ended up crying in his office and he told me that my problems were emotional.  After that I embarked on a quest to find out why I was feeling the way I did.  I read every psychology book that I could get my hands on and I changed religions every week.  Through all my reading I found a name for what I had – bipolar mood disorder.  This is an illness in which a person alternates between periods of mania such as rapid speech, verbosity, grandiosity, and frenetic activity followed by periods of depression that involve feelings of bleakness, sadness, inactivity, and feeling suicidal.

     It was in grade nine when the full brunt of mental illness really hit me.  The previous year in grade eight I had been on the student council and had friends that I did things with.  However, by the next year I had become obsessed with suicide, withdrawn, and deeply depressed.  I was in so much mental anguish that I tried a series of overdoses.  First I bought two bottles of over the counter sleeping pills at the drug store.  I took all the pills and went to bed, thinking that I would never wake up again.  It was a tremendous shock when I woke up the next morning.  Having failed, I planned another attempt some months later.  I felt I could not stand another five minutes of deep depression, so I went to the medicine cabinet and raided it.   There were three hundred pills, which I counted out, mainly aspirins, but also prescription medications that my father and mother had lying around.  That night I went into the bathroom and painfully swallowed all the pills.  The medication burned my oesophagus badly, but I was determined to make an end of myself.  I went to bed at nine o’clock and prepared to die.  However, the image of my horse with nobody to ride her haunted me.  I got up around one o’clock and awakened my parents.  They did not believe that I had taken all three hundred pills, though they got up and poured salt water down my throat to make me vomit.

     The next day I was sweating profusely and my hands turned black and puffy.   I was very weak and ill.  My father came and hugged me and told me that he loved me, but I knew that love was not enough to spring me from the prison of my mind.  My parents made an appointment with a psychiatrist for me; he was a choleric man who swore at me a lot.  He prescribed lots of Valium and told me that I was just going through a bad adolescence.  In those days one did not tell anyone that you were seeing a psychiatrist, because it would have been a disgrace.  As it was I felt that my family was ashamed of me.   Everyone who went to my high school either accused me of being on street drugs or said that I was crazy.

     I was experiencing bipolar mood swings and began to feel an invisible force was pursing me, around corners and up the stairs.  I saw a family doctor that my friend had recommended. The man told me that I was a hopeless case and would never get my B.A. or amount to anything.  He advised me to join a convent.  In retrospect I think that doctor did me a favour, because he made me so angry that I wanted to succeed academically to prove him wrong.  In the 1970’s I enrolled in Mount Allison University and studied to get a B.A. with an area of concentration in psychology, sociology, and history.  It was a gigantic struggle to get the essays and exams done while suffering from hallucinations, panic attacks, anxiety, and extreme insomnia, but I graduated on the deans list.

       Hallucinations, voices, and extreme mood swings were thought to be symptomatic of an overlap between schizophrenia and bipolar illness.  It is very hard to describe to a non-mentally ill person what auditory or visual hallucinations are like.  Some people have tried and ended up with bizarre descriptions that don’t make sense to most people.  Over the years there has been quite a bit of confusion over my diagnosis – whether I am schizoaffective or have bipolar illness with borderline personality disorder. However, the various mental illnesses have overlapping symptoms.  It is not uncommon for a mental health consumer in New Brunswick to have up to eight different diagnoses given by different doctors. 

     After I got my B.A., I enrolled in Tyndale Seminary in Willowdale, Ontario to study for a Master of Theological Studies degree.  Within the first twenty-four hours of being there I contacted the school psychologist and met him in a classroom.  He said, “You want to jump out of that window don’t you?”  I was surprised that my suicidal intentions were so obvious.  The psychologist insisted that I be evaluated at the North York hospital, so I complied.  They wanted to admit me, but I was so driven to get my degree that I convinced the doctor to let me go back to the seminary. 

The first year of my masters degree was very turbulent.  I was in a manic state and suffered from hallucinations that were a mixture of the most gruesome things a human being could conjure up -- skulls, dead soldiers, corpse- like creatures, and a mishmash of nightmarish scenes.  During the second year of the program I slipped into a severe, numbing depression.  I could not feel the hot water in the bathtub, I felt spaced out, dead, and emotionless. I should have taken some antidepressants, but I had refused them because I didn’t believe in taking pills at the time. In the end I went back home and the dean gave me a mini thesis that I could work on to complete my degree.  I graduated in 1981 and was on the honour roll.  The things that helped me survive university were seeing the psychologist once a week and my determination to succeed academically.  Also, I was fortunate to have some professors and friends help me.

      After I finished my education I embarked on a career as a freelance writer.  For the last twenty-five years I have been a writer and poet.  I have been published in over one hundred periodicals and have just finished a book on my life experience with mental illness titled, “Mind Full of Scorpions” which is listed on Amazon.  I’ve always had the belief that handicapped persons should live as normal a life as possible, so I drive a car and participate in our activity group events such as having coffee together, doing crafts, or going to movies.

     Seven years ago I met my husband, Dave, on an internet site titled, “Adam Meet Eve”.

Dave suffers from a neurological illness called Dystonia, which causes neck spasms.  Having experienced illness he is sympathetic to my health issues.  Dave pledges his loves for me despite my recurring episodes of mental illness.  Together we watch videos when we are both down, take nature walks, discuss theology, and visit family.

     As I have gotten older I don’t have many manic episodes anymore, I mainly struggle with depression and some psychotic symptoms. Since I also suffer from fibromyalgia I feel depression from my physical pain and disability as well as from mental illness.  In order to control my illness I have to take antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and antipsychotic medications, which unfortunately have side effects of weight gain and thirst.  However, I find pleasure in relating to other mentally ill persons, attending our activity group, cooking, gardening, and writing for a wide range of periodicals. At times I still get into suicidal crises and need help from the crisis center or the mental health clinic.  However, I’m trying to get on with my life and have carved a niche out for myself as a mental health critic, having written for a local mental health magazine for the last twenty years.

     What I find frustrating about having a mental illness is the invisible nature of it.  People who are in a hospital bed, wrapped in bandages, confined to a wheelchair, or are on crutches are generally considered ill and get sympathy.  However, when it comes to having a mental illness people judge you and think you suffer from a weak will or lack of self-control instead of realizing that the illness is not your fault.   After years of struggling, I know that I’ll never get a purple heart for my war against the dragon of depression.  However, at the age of fifty-two, my goal is to try and get more humane treatment for those suffering from mental illness and to raise awareness of this agonizing affliction.

     I think that after decades of suffering God has given me the gift of showing mercy.   Because of my mental illness I am moved to help individuals that normal people would ignore.  Suffering compels me to help those who are in extreme need.  God has directed me to write to a needy child in Africa and to send shoe boxes filled with toys and school items to the Third World.  My psychologist works in Sierra Leone for short periods and they really need chalk for school, so I sent some to Africa with him. I   know that I can’t be a Billy Graham or a Mother Theresa, I can only give the cup of cold water in Jesus’ name. Matthew 10:42 says: “And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water … he shall in no wise lose his reward.”