Living with bipolar 1 disorder

I'm about a week late for May mental health awareness month, but decided I want to share my piece anyway. 

I live with bipolar 1 disorder (wikipedia). It has been more than 10 years since I experienced my first manic episode. I was treated in a psychiatric ward (Fairfax hospital in Kirkland WA back in late December 2010).

To help me process the experience, I decided to journal about it, shared what I wrote with a couple friends, and was encouraged me to get my writing published in a journal-- so I did! 

Google books indexed the journal (Recovering the Self A Journal of Hope and Healing Vol. IV, No. 2 -- New Beginnings) that I submitted my experience to (https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/9ZwuCoRrEZgC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA49), and I was originally excited for you to be able to read it there, but Google books recently updated their system to miss it, so instead I am including the text here:

* * * * * 

Reclaiming Myself:

A College Student’s Three-Week Stay in a Psychiatric Ward

Foreword

About two percent of Americans are diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and patients who suffer from

bipolar disorder may have their first psychotic break in their early twenties. I am a part of that statistic.

Recovering from the Mania

“Am I in Hell?” I had asked earlier that day. “No. This is Fairfax,” the assistant had replied. 

“Am I dead?” I had insisted. “No. You’re in Fairfax,” the assistant had replied more firmly. Fairfax?

Another patient leads me down the hallway to the classroom and stops next to the white board with its

array of dry-erase markers. Giggling, she begins writing familiar lyrics onto the board, telling me to sing. “Love of mine, someday you will die, but I’ll be close behind, I’ll follow you into the dark....” As I sing, I briefly wonder why I am singing the words she has hurriedly scribbled onto the board. “Good, good. You know it!” she says excitedly. Looking down, I realize I am wearing a hospital gown. I see that the bra I’m wearing isn’t mine and when I check out my underwear I realize it, too, isn’t mine. “Where am I?” I ask. “You’re in Fairfax.”

Slowly over the next couple of days as I mimic the actions of a normal human being—eating, showering, sitting, walking around, and putting on lip balm—I begin to remember. One afternoon in a group therapy session, we all sit around in a half-circle sharing our feelings. When it gets to my turn, I make something up. I don’t want to talk about it is my gut-response to when I’m asked to share how I got to this place. But rather than answer truthfully when I know I’ll be coaxed into sharing more than I want, I lie. “I don’t remember,” I say. How could I explain coming back from the dead to complete strangers? Would it ever make sense that I knocked down a locked door?

* * *

It’s Christmas time. Having returned from school and finished finals, I am ready to get into the Christmas season. I’m not quite sure what I am getting for each of my siblings. Normally we all just buy each other something cheap like gum or a hot chocolate mug, but this year, I am determined to think of something creative. I’ve always wanted to learn to play the guitar or the ukulele, so I call up an old friend, Alex, and ask him if he will teach me a song to play for my little sister.

He is the first person to see me start acting weird. I go over to his house to learn the song “Hey, Soul

Sister” by Train on the ukulele so I can play it for my little sister on Christmas. While I am over there, I

feel tired and a little “zoned-out.” I feel comfortable with him and his family, but I have a hard time listening to and engaging in the conversation as we break from a ukulele lesson. I remember his older

sister trying to tell me about her interests from Japan and the story of everything she’s been doing with

her life, but I feel like I can’t quite keep up with her. Rather than being an active participant in the

conversation, I feel more as if I were watching an act in a play. I remember struggling to focus and pay

attention, and, really, just not feeling very well.

That night, Alex comes over to play guitar and to chill. My family and I talk with him about music and

my little sister, in typical little-sister fashion, flirts with him the entire time. We go upstairs to wrap

presents, and by this point, I am still feeling a bit off. Maybe I needed a nap? Afterwards we go

downstairs to play and listen to old records, which is when things start getting funky. I feel as if my body has shut down, making me completely relaxed, and as this happens all my senses become slightly

heightened, making my surroundings blossom into an exponentially more interesting world.

The next day, my family and I decide to go see a Christmas play. Joining my family in the car, I believe

tonight is the last night I will spend with them. Looking out the window, staring out at the streets of

Seattle, I think, Oh Seattle, I’m going to miss you. Look at you, your buildings, your walls. You’re so

beautiful; I don’t want to leave you. I look over at my siblings. My little brother is talking about cars.

Cars? On my last night with them? Shouldn’t we be talking about something more meaningful? I love my siblings so much, so, so very much. I’m going to miss them. When we arrive, I feel an urge to do

something kind for someone else, so I ask my mom to buy me cider from the concessions table so we can support their cause. I raise the straw to my lips. Mmm. Warm. Sweet. When the play begins, I believe I am watching a story of my life, and that when the play ends, my family will disappear and there will be nothing but darkness. I am, I think. I am, I think, not wanting to disappear. I want to always be a light, a star in space. My little sister wants me to take her to the bathroom. I start crying as I wash my hands.

That night, I remember sitting on the couch watching a movie. Only, I’m not really watching the movie.

By this point, I’m in a completely different world with my new-found sensory awareness. I’m

mesmerized by the squishy ball I’m playing with in my hands. It’s amazing. I’m enjoying the experience of pressing the squishy ball against my face, feeling the touch of it on my lips, and pawing over it with my fingers. I’ve hardly eaten. My mother offers me a slice of an Asian pear; my senses are so heightened I believe it must be a “Celestial apple.” I continue to get sicker, start sleeping less, and a couple days later, find myself a patient in a hospital. My parents had finally conceded that there was definitely something wrong with me. After two ER trips, my parents find a place where I can get help: Fairfax Psychiatric Hospital. The workers observe me in the isolation area of the hospital, and I stay there nearly a week.

Later, I learn that in order to be involuntarily committed to a hospital, a patient must be homicidal,

suicidal, or gravely disabled. I’m not homicidal, nor suicidal, so the workers put me in a room with two

beds and a small bathroom to verify I’m gravely disabled. By putting me here, they can monitor me as I

get sicker and can start prescribing medications to slowly bring me out of mania without the

accompanying swing into depression. When I don’t ask for food or to shower, they have evidence to keep me in the hospital and begin to help me. Below is part of the paperwork that allows me to get help:

Isolation is horrible to say the least. There needs to be a better way, perhaps a less traumatizing way to

give someone help. I think that’s why we put our highest-offending criminals there. Nobody can handle

that kind of solitude. That first night in Fairfax, I believe I am in some sort of funeral home and then believe I am in a cell in Hell. When I look at the counters in the bathroom, all I can see is the dirt on them. Somehow, this dirt is symbolic of my sins. I try to clean the counters, believing that cleaning them is the only way I will be granted the right to still exist. I believe that if I stop cleaning the counters, I will disseminate into non-existence, so I clean and I clean. The workers had given me a toothbrush and I remember using it to brush and to scrub the bathroom counter. In the small journal they gave me, I write in green crayon, “I’m using a toothbrush to clean. This is disgusting.” Eventually I grow tired of cleaning and go to sleep. I’m in the bathroom, drinking water from the faucet; it’s cold. I play with a roll of toilet paper, starting to put the paper in the toilet and touch it with my figures. I think of the wads of toilet paper as little worlds, being destroyed by the water. Upset, I start to cry. Forlorn, I place both hands in the toilet feeling the cold water on my skin. A worker comes in and takes my hands out of the toilet. No, this action is not acceptable.

One morning when I wake up, I see several people standing over me. “Good morning,” the lady

cheerfully says. “It’s time to take your medicine,” and she gestures the pills toward me. I look at her and the others, stunned. I don’t recognize any of these friendly people. Do I take medicine? No. This is false. I don’t take medicine. “No,” I say. “Here, take your medicine,” the women coaxes. “No,” I reply—more firmly this time. Can you really blame me?

The floor is dirty. When I see a worker, I ask her for a broom to sweep up the mess, but am told no. I look again at the floor. This room needs to be clean. I get down on all fours, then lay down on the floor to examine the mess. How to clean without a broom? I start to lick up the mess of hair and gray matter.

This feeling must be how my cat feels when she cleans her fur. I hope I won’t puke up a hairball. Before I get very far, a worker comes into my room a tells me I have to stop. I’m angry, but I comply.

Later, I remember being tired of spending all day in my room so I venture out into the hallway. “Do you

want to call your mom?” the lady from before offers. Mom? My mom? Yes. I miss her. I want to talk to

her so badly. “Yes,” I say. The lady hands me the phone having already dialed my mother’s cell number.

“Hello? Marissa?” I hear from the other side.

“Mom?”

“Hi, Marissa.” I start to throw the phone down to the floor.

“I want to talk to my mom!” I demand to the lady who had offered me the phone. “This is a recording,” I state.

“No, no, no, Marissa. I am not a recording,” I hear from the phone. I raise it back to my ear. Yes, this is

my mom.

“Mom?” I ask again.

“Yes. Marissa?”

“Mom, I miss you,” I say.

“I miss you too, sweetheart. Dad and I will visit you tomorrow.”

“Ok. I love you,” I offer.

“I love you too, honey.”

My parents come to visit me every day in isolation. According to their stories, I am pretty incoherent each time they visit. They try to give me words of encouragement and love. They also advise me to trust the doctors.

I can tell my mother’s been crying. My sickness is breaking her heart. She’s never seen someone act like me and has no context to handle the situation. She reminds me over and over again to trust the doctors and take my medications, which is the little advice she received from a friend who had also spent time in a psychiatric ward. I trust my parents. I promise to take my medications. I want to break that promise so many times in the hospital, but I don’t because I trust my parents.

Isolation is hard. In my head, I believe I must be dead and in some kind of purgatory or Hell. The

loneliness and solitude of being there a few days starts obsessing my thoughts. I quickly forget about my family and believe I will be in my cell for the rest of my existence. Although I am visibly awake, I am, essentially living in a dream.

Outside of my room is a hallway with several empty rooms attached. At the end of that hallway is the

outside. Well, it seems like the outside. Sometimes when I lean my head against that door I can hear

people on the other side. Sometimes I think I hear my family. I need to get out there somehow. The door

is locked, so when I ask about leaving, the worker simply replies, “Maybe someday you will be able to be on the other side of this door.” Maybe? With that answer, I believe it will never happen.

In one of my Hell dreams, part of me realizes that what I believe doesn’t make any sense. Similar to the

experience when a person realizes he’s dreaming, part of me knows I am in a dream-like state and that I don’t accept the reality I have created for myself in this dream. I want out. I want to leave. There is only one way to leave—through that door. Is it even possible to break out of a cell in Hell? I am going to find out. It is either me or the door. I run for the door at full speed, aiming to kick it down. Thankfully, I win. I’m not the only one aware of my victory. About the same time I knock down the door, the guards grab me and start pulling me back to my room. I scream for help. A half-dozen people or so come over and watch as the two burly guards carry me back into my room. As they pull me to the room, I remember looking back at all the faces staring at me. They look confused...maybe even shocked. Well, all except for the girl in the very back. She starts to glow and turn white...like an angel, I suppose.

I’m livid as the workers pull be back to my room. I don’t hurt at all; my body is numb. I struggle. Be

calm, Marissa, I feel as I stare at angel-girl. I realize I’ve lost. Okay. Fine. I let my body relax. Fine, I

lose. I close my eyes and breathe.

At this point, I think the workers realize isolation is doing more harm for me than good. They ask me to change into the new bra and underwear my parents had brought for me and to wear a hospital gown. Later I would wonder where I got these clothes. I have now graduated to an area called “North.”

That first night out of isolation I remember burning up, waking up so hot.

“My legs,” I cry. “They’re burning.”

“Here,” a kind woman replies, handing me a pill. “Maybe this will help.” The cure for everything is more medications. While I swallow the pill, she helps me take off a layer of blankets from my feet. “There. You feeling better?” she cheerfully says and begins to leave.

“Please stay,” I beg. I want this kind woman to stay.

“Good night.” She leaves.

My head hurts. Everything throbs. Every night is restless and full of nightmares.

In “North,” I learn the game of listening to the doctors and taking my medications. The doctors are giving me a concoction of all sorts of pills to try to fix whatever has happened in my mind. My body feels fundamentally stoned and I will have to earn my soberness in the coming months.

* * *

As I look back at the girl who has just made me sing the first verse of a Death Cab for Cutie song, I

realize I know why I am willing to sing for her. I trust her. Anyone who I could hallucinate into an angel

has to be trustworthy. She is just having a bit of fun. I am child-like—the perfect playmate. There is no

reason why people like her can’t have a little fun, while the medications fix my mind.

We wander to the main room—the one that had been on the other side of that door. I haven’t earned

cafeteria privileges yet, so this space is the main area with a table, fridge, television, couch, and entry to the main desk and a hallway. We pick lunch trays from the main desk and sit down at the table. The lunches are cafeteria-style, reminding me a lot of elementary school. I pick out the chocolate milk to drink. In elementary school, I had always chosen the chocolate milk. We sit down. She looks at me and begins to speak. “You know, the way you looked at me the other day? You...well...you looked at me with the same look as if you’d...seen God.” Moments later she explains her personal story of how she became a Christian. As she speaks, I wonder if she knows I had hallucinated her as an angel. I hadn’t told her anything, had I? When she finishes her story, she looks back at me. Clearly, it is my turn to speak. Everyone at our table turns to look at me. I am scared. I am silent. The conversation dies.

A few days later, my angel-friend and I become roommates at the psychiatric hospital. On our first night as roommates, my heart begins beating rapidly. I ask her what to do.

“My....uh...my heart...my...I feel...anxiety,” I explain, pointing to my chest.

She smiles, “Go, tell the doctors and they’ll give you something.”

“Can...can I trust the doctors?” I ask, hesitantly.

“Yeah. They’re good at this sort of thing.” I’m grateful for her advice and for her friendship.

I start to walk down the hallway to the main desk. I look around. I’m already there. Strange. I explain my heart-situation and the doctors offer me more pills and then send me back to bed.

Eventually I graduate from “North” to a final section, called “Central”. I am devastated when I learn I will have to stay here for an undisclosed period of time. The workers present me with the following rationale for extending my stay:

This note is kind-of true. But I’ve been so good. This note is dated over a week ago. I’ve been so, so,

good for the last week. I’ve been showering in those awful, cold showers—the ones with so little water

pressure that I find myself shivering each time I clean myself. I try not to weep each time I undress, knowing there are probably cameras watching me. I hadn’t fussed about the other patients taking and re-organizing my things. I hadn’t missed a meal in days. I’ve been nice to the other patients.

As I continue my stay in the hospital, my parents come to visit twice a day—for lunch and dinner. They

talk to me and help me return to “normal” life. Their words of encouragement and love are so comforting to me while I’m sick. It’s pretty tough living in a psychiatric ward for a long time—in the hospital only the smokers are allowed to go outside, so I feel increasingly trapped as the days linger on. Time with my parents and the close friends they invited during these meal times provided a great escape for me. Another week would pass before I am allowed to go home.

Afterward

It’s been about a year since my manic episode. My recovery shows me that I am one of the lucky ones.

Because I lived in the psychiatric hospital for over three weeks, by the time I was “better” the semester

had already started back at school, so I stayed home a couple extra months before starting an internship. Being sick extended my schooling by a year, and my experience also forced me to adopt several healthy

habits: regular exercise, three meals a day, sleeping nearly eight hours per night.

I’m glad I didn’t go back to school right away. Nightmares remained vivid my entire stay at the hospital, and while I began speaking more coherently as time progressed, I definitely wasn’t on top of my game even when I got out of the hospital. Months would pass before the nightmares related to the events at the hospital would subside and I could get off my sleeping medications and sleep like a normal person again.

I suppose our bodies really do need time to heal. Occasionally I’m angry for what happened, but what’s  really saved me is recognizing how many people were there for me and helped me get back from where I was. In addition to visits by my parents and close friends, supportive grandparents, siblings, and roommates called me often in the hospital, and I enjoyed hearing their voices. I didn’t have much to say, but just  hearing about their lives and knowing that they loved me meant so much to me. Other close friends came and visited me when I got out of the psychiatric ward. Really, I can’t even begin to explain how thankful I am for the loving people in my life. In my final area of the hospital, all of the other patients and I formed a sort of support group for each other and really sought to treat each other with kindness and love. 

The number one thing you can do for someone who’s sick is to be there for them. Even if you don’t know  what to do for someone, making the effort goes a long way. Even at my sickest moments, I could tell  when people loved me. I could tell when people were being genuine. I appreciated how upbeat the doctors were and the willingness others had to care about me. I knew when the doctors cared; I knew when other  patients cared. Love is a universal cure. Love and high dosages of drugs were my cure.

Now I see a psychiatrist regularly and probably will for the rest of my life. There have been some  improvements, though. Rather than taking a concoction of seven pills a night, now I just take a quarter pill. I take this pill religiously every night, because I know I don’t want to go back to the hospital. I feel  like myself again—but a self that tries a little harder to have compassion for other people because of what  I’ve been through.

About the Author 

Marissa is a student pursuing a Master’s degree in Information Systems. She hopes to use her computer skills to improve systems and enable others to work more efficiently. Last October she ran her first half-marathon and is currently training towards a triathlon. Her experience being sick helped her realize just how incredible (and fragile) the mind can be.

* * * * *

I'm not sure what to say to follow up the writing I did about my experience. I feel proud of myself that I took the time to write about my experience and that my writing was published in a journal. I know many of us either struggle with mental illness or know someone who does, so I hope that when you read about my experience it is helpful in some way.

Some people might ask me, why do you think you got sick? I don't think there is a definitive answer there, but my understanding is that we generally believe people who get sick like me and are more likely to have a manic episode during periods of high stress and lack of sleep. This means issues like "poor stress management" and "sleep deprivation" are correlated with a bipolar 1 manic episode. For me, my junior year of college felt pretty stressful and it was very busy and difficult for me to prioritize sleep. I'm very grateful to now be in a stage of life where my two little ones sleep through the night. I'm also very grateful for all the hard work my husband puts into raising our kids with me so that I can be healthy. I think I am open to answering questions and talking about my experience. My hope is that by sharing my experience I am helping others understand bipolar 1 disorder better. 

Thanks for reading.