This autobiographic story is shared through our “Tell Your Story” campaign.

Names were removed to maintain anonymity.

I am woman. I am African American. I have bipolar disorder.  I come from a two-parent household. My parents were good parents, and they always thought that I deserved the best. Mental illness does not discriminate.

The Beginning

I remember in middle school I started excessively washing my hands, checking to make sure that appliances were off, and checking to make sure that the door was locked. I did not have control over this behavior. I had catastrophic thoughts about what would happen if I did not perform my washing and checking rituals. The back of my hands were rough, dry, and discolored. My mother remembers this time in my life more vividly than I do. She said that I used to miss the school bus because of my need to wash my hands and check things. She also told me that my doctor gave me pills to take and the anxious behavior stopped. What is vivid in my mind is becoming an introvert in middle school even though I had been an extrovert all my life. I became shy and withdrawn. My self-esteem plummeted. I was no longer a happy child. I was the same child in high school until twelfth grade. In twelfth grade, I started to come out of my cocoon. 

By my junior year of high school, I felt depressed every day. Knowing that that could not have been normal, I told my mother that I needed help. She did not know anything about choosing a psychiatrist and it showed. My first psychiatrist was an old, arrogant white man. He diagnosed me with depression and an anxiety disorder (I am not sure which one). By twelfth grade, I was coming out of my cocoon, but my school performance was worse than it had ever been. I made only A’s and Bs on my high school report cards before twelfth grade. Senior year of high school, I made my first D and F on my report card. I was so overwhelmed that I could not perform academically the way that I used to perform. This foreshadowed what was to come. The illness was starting to show itself more prevalently. 

I still got accepted to a good college, James Madison University. Although I was now a social butterfly, something was still off. During freshman year, I would not be able to sleep at night due to anxious thoughts, so I would be up on the computer. Then, I could not get up for classes. Each time I missed class, I would sink deeper and deeper into depression. This made it even harder to get out of bed. I felt like I deserved to be punished so sometimes I would not eat. I flunked all my classes because I could no longer get out of bed. My roommate moved out. I was extremely depressed. 

Adulthood

I went home after failing my first year of college. I could not cope despite my poetry and art abilities which had always been my coping mechanisms. They were not enough. I stayed in bed and could no longer eat. I could not get out of bed. I remember getting my period and laying there bleeding. My body would not move. This was what I now know was a major depressive episode. My parents did not know what to do. They wanted me to pray it away. I screamed prayers at God and wrote poetry. The arrogant, white psychiatrist told my mother that there was nothing really that wrong with me and that I was doing this to myself.  Finally, my father flew with me to my aunt in Georgia. She is a social worker. I arrived in Georgia, skinny and battered by depression. I had racing thoughts, crying spells, disorientation, and paranoia. I was not eating and was sleeping 18 hours a day. She got me help from the local community service board (CSB). I received medicine and group therapy. When I got stable, my aunt reported to me that the psychiatrist she took me to was shocked when I told him I was never in a hospital. Instead, he asked me “when”, not “if”, I was in the hospital. He, too, was a white male doctor, but he was a great doctor. My aunt administered my meds to me until I could administer them to myself. She got me eating again. I got stable. I was now getting out of bed, taking care of my hygiene, taking care of my appearance and reading. After 3 months with my aunt in Georgia, it was time to return home to Virginia. 

My parents did not understand my limitations and the assistance I needed. They wanted me to work but I could not hold a job for years. I went to the local CSB on the bus and had to take care of my mental illness alone. I could not get along with my parents.  I used to call the CSB’s crisis line often. I felt so out of control of myself and my life. I was so depressed. One night, I took some of my anxiety pills to commit suicide but hope popped up. I called the CSB crisis line and told the man at the other end what I had done. He and I talked often. In the past, he shared his thoughts that I should get over things. He took me seriously this time and called emergency services. When emergency services arrived the white male worker told me that he did not believe that I took any pills. They took me to the hospital anyway.

I was unstable and in a mental fog for a large portion of my twenties. In the year 2010, things fell apart completely. I was 24 years old. What I remember is that my 3-month-old niece passed away, my boyfriend left me (he only wanted one thing), my mother had a stroke and I visited her in the ICU, I had a violent cough that would not go away (I coughed until I vomited), I had no period (I thought I might have been pregnant but was not). I found out that I did not have a period because I had a pituitary adenoma, a benign tumor on my pituitary gland. The cough, that lasted for months, was later diagnosed as allergies. After all of this, I was very anxious and depressed. I checked myself into a local crisis stabilization center. There, I was finally diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The psychiatrist told me that when I first came there, I was literally sitting at the edge of my seat. He said that that “out-of-control feeling” was bipolar disorder. I checked myself out of the facility without having a plan. I did not have an appointment with a psychiatrist or anything. I just wanted to leave there. They sent me home with medicine that I eventually stopped taking because I did not like the way it made me feel. I just did not get that I needed the medicine badly. I got out of there and continued to go to a weird church where the preacher targeted me and manipulated me for an entire year. I ended up at Virginia Beach Psychiatric Hospital. I had a manic episode. I was having auditory and visual hallucinations. After this stay, I understood the importance of taking my medicine, and I took them daily for years. I did not want to be vulnerable and easily manipulated. My parents became very supportive. I had a good white female therapist/life coach that I had before I went into the hospital, and she sent me to a great Hispanic female psychiatrist. They were both God sent.

I eventually went back to my local CSB. I was still in a fog but taking meds. I misunderstood how my new doctor wanted me to wean off certain meds. I weaned off too quickly. I had a manic episode and the auditory and visual hallucinations were back. I was in and out of psychiatric hospitals. I ended up using intensive outpatient services from the CSB during and after this time. The intensive case management team included a psychiatrist, a therapist, nurses, a peer support specialist, etc. I had to start over. My psychiatrist was a Hispanic male. He had to get the meds right and that took time. He did a good job. 

Now

I am now 35 years old, and I am doing well. I take my meds daily. I still write poetry and paint my pictures, but I have learned other coping skills from my therapists, who have been white women. My psychiatric nurse practitioner is an African American woman. I learned that it is hard to find the right professionals in behavioral health to meet my needs. All white doctors are not arrogant but some are. Especially when it comes to treating an African American girl/woman. Even the white male emergency worker was arrogant and mean. Racism is prevalent in fields where people must be under someone else’s care. I found that I like women doctors and therapists.  I especially like Black female professionals in the behavioral health field.  I feel more understood by them. My parents are my biggest support! I am a part-time college student, something I kept trying and failing at through the years. Now I have a high GPA. I work part-time and receive disability benefits. I had too much pride and did not want disability benefits at first. Now I see them as a blessing. Now I am truly flying…

To be a part of our Tell Your Story campaign, please contact us at development@baconstreet.org or call us at 757-253-0111 ext 214