Total number of Northwestern students the Counseling and Psychological Services hospitalized last year for psychiatric conditions: at least 70.
Number of students CAPS hospitalized on June 8, 2002: Only one I know of — but I’m more than a number.
I spent my sophomore year confronting bipolar disorder — a mental illness that probably had sucked away my energy and self esteem since middle school and eventually could have ended my life. But my darkest hour turned into my greatest triumph thanks to lithium, therapy and the support of loved ones.
Most people are surprised just to find out I have bipolar disorder, including those who knew me throughout my struggle. Most of them don’t know I was hospitalized and forced to fill out a suicide prevention plan. Or that I asked to be taken to the hospital because I couldn’t control the urge to cut myself, only to go home a week before my doctor sent me back.
These problems all stemmed from bipolar disorder, characterized by periods of upbeat or agitated mania followed by major depression. I called CAPS in October 2001 seeking help with anxiety and poor reading retention — sure signs of Attention Deficit Disorder, I thought. The deep depressions of my freshman year, when I threw objects against my wall and alienated most of the girls on my floor, were the last thing I wanted to confront. But these first thoughts were what I most needed to attack.
My initial diagnosis in February 2002 was major depression. Antidepressants eliminated the despair of depression but caused side effects that were annoying at best and life-threatening at worst. Paxil exhausted me so much I couldn’t get through the day without a nap. And Celexa, which my doctors switched me to in May, led to an irritable mania that caused my downward spiral.
One morning in late May, the depression weighed so much I broke out the Long Island Iced Tea, despite my doctor’s orders to avoid alcohol while on antidepressants. I drank enough to lighten the load, but that night the alcohol depressed me so much that I let the mood of The New York Times’ online headlines dictate if I would live or die. I only stopped when I realized I didn’t have enough Tylenol to get the job done.
I normally met with both my therapist and doctor once a week, but I had daily contact with at least one of them during these days. I wrote down my feelings so I could show my therapist what I was thinking during my self-harm moments. My first words were, “Is life worth living?”
Although I blamed myself for not having the strength to handle my urges, I realized I had a biochemical problem that needed to be dealt with. Misdiagnosing bipolar disorder as depression happens often, which is problematic because antidepressants can worsen bipolar disorder’s symptoms. The two illnesses involve different chemical imbalances and thus require completely different treatments.
Once my doctor noticed the correlation between increased Celexa dosages and my destructive moods, she switched me to a combination of lithium and antipsychotics to treat bipolar disorder. For weeks I felt dizzy every time I nodded my head.
It’s not like I would be going anywhere. On the bus ride home that day I had such a strong desire to drown myself in Lake Michigan, the next morning my doctor sent me to the local hospital. From there I was transferred to the psychiatric ward of a hospital half an hour away that accepted my insurance.
I didn’t want to talk about my suicidal urges, but I vowed when I began therapy to tell my psychiatrist and therapist everything I was thinking. It probably saved my life.
But I told few others about my problems. Most supported me, but I mistakenly told others who weren’t as sensitive. One former friend even told me that depression had made me “emotionally immature.”
I don’t know how I would have survived four days in a psychiatric ward without maturity. Although a hospital should be a place to heal, being around people with more severe conditions heightened my anger. Mental illness might be the butt of many jokes, but there is nothing funny about a psychiatric ward. I didn’t want to laugh at the woman who stood by the window talking to the voices in her head.
These stories mostly stay behind the doors of the doctor’s office or the room where one contemplates his or her darkest moments. It took a long time for me to burst out of mine.
A big part of reaching this point was the partial-hospitalization program I entered after going home to Pennsylvania, where medications and suicide were a regular part of lunchtime conversation. Here I could openly discuss the nitty-gritty issues of bipolar disorder I thought would alienate “normal” people.
At this point I wanted to live but couldn’t fathom leading a productive life or having meaningful relationships with others. I certainly didn’t think I would ever write professionally, a dream of mine since childhood.
I dreaded starting the internship I had lined up at a newspaper about an hour and a half away from home. I explained the monthlong delay in starting by saying I had been in the hospital, omitting bipolar disorder and psychiatric wards.
But throughout the internship — and the difficult year that followed — I have tried to model my recovery on something my case manager told me: “I have a 20-year-old son, and if he ever got into trouble, I would hope he would handle it with the grace and dignity that I’ve seen from you.”
I’m more lucky than cursed. Some of the people I was in the hospital with had been there for weeks — I left after four days. My family has medical insurance; I’ve encountered people for whom it’s either medication or food.
As the disease stripped away my dignity, my friends and family helped bring it back. I struggled to tell my parents, but they supported me once they found out, which thankfully was before my hospitalization.
My friends were my direct support during the worst moments. They listened without judgment, let me spend the night on their floors when counselors didn’t think I would be safe alone and, in some cases, confessed their own struggles.
Without them I wouldn’t have been able to come back to NU last Fall Quarter, never could have moved on with my career plans and certainly couldn’t have opened myself to your criticism this quarter.
I’ve questioned a lot this quarter, but I hope I never again will dispute the worth of my own life. Fortunately my life didn’t just go on after mental illness — it got a hell of a lot better.
