Another Day, Another Triumph

It’s just part of college, right? I took shot, after shot, after shot. It was 4 AM and I wasn’t tired in the slightest. My mind was racing and I felt unstoppable. The world around me couldn’t even keep up. Eventually, I took a deep breath and felt the thoughts begin to decelerate. I should probably go to bed. I lay down and told myself to close my eyes. I placed my hands by my side and breathed in, starting from my toes until I felt the air reach the top of my head and then exhaled. I repeated this three more times. It was time to sleep. Go to bed. Go to bed. Go to bed. My body felt weary but my mind was wired. Go to bed. Go to bed. Go to bed. I lay there for another hour with my eyes wide open until eventually the exhaustion of my body took over and I drifted to sleep.

The next morning, I woke up in a haze. I slowly got up, dressed myself, and cleaned the empty bottles that were lying in the kitchen. Over the next few days, the world around me began to slow down and return to normal speed. I was relieved at first, but I then felt things begin to slow down more than usual. I kept going to classes, but as I sit in my classes I noticed that my mind began to wander. I took notes as the professor’s words floated in and out of my head, but my hand seemed to be moving on its own. I walked between classes and the people walking around me seemed to drift away as a feeling of emptiness began to sink me lower and lower. When I got back to my apartment, I sat in my bed and my eyes wandered to the scissors resting on my desk. Not again. I am done with that. I froze on my bed as the emptiness consumed me. I need help. I can’t do this on my own.

I shakily picked up the phone and called CAPS. A tired-sounding woman picked up the phone and asked me to hold. I waited 5 minutes, and then 10, and then 30 minutes as I lay on my bed just feet away from the tools that I knew I could use to stop this pain. Finally, a therapist picked up the phone. I explained my situation with her punctuated “Hm-mm’s.” After my story, she calmly told me that I should come to CAPS immediately and speak with her. Still numb, I agreed and began walking there. Once at the front desk, I told the receptionist my name and the therapist who I talked to came out of her office. She smiled at me in a forced way and asked me to take a seat. Outside, I heard police sirens ringing. I sat in confusion as the sirens got closer and closer. The police entered the building and the therapist said to me, “Trust me. It’s going to be okay. You just have to go with them. They’ll take care of you and take you to the hospital.” At this point, I was in too much shock to refuse. The police took me with them and escorted throughout campus. Mortified, I felt that this must be the end. It couldn’t get worse than this.

The hospital helped. While there, I knew that I was safe, safe from myself. But, I eventually was discharged and ordered to follow up with a therapist. Things started to go downhill again as my panic attacks became more and more frequent. Soon, I couldn’t go through a single day, without feeling my stomach clench up as panic washed over my whole body and I began vomiting. My friends and roommates realized that they no longer knew what to do to help me. By the end of the quarter, I couldn’t be on campus anymore, so I went back home.

Around the same time, news broke that a UCLA student had committed suicide in the apartments. When I saw the headline, I was confused at first. I read the name a couple times and then remembered that this was someone I knew. My breath stopped in my chest. My toes and fingers tingled and I knew that this was it. I couldn’t do this anymore. I went to the medicine cabinet and poured out 90 prescription pills. Everything in front of me seemed to be distorted and out of focus. Delusions took over my vision. I took my dad’s thick, leather belt and, as I called my dad, I wrapped it slowly around my neck.

“Dad. Dad. I can’t do this.” My dad began yelling at me to stop and said that he was coming home from work immediately. “Good bye. I really have to go now.”

I grabbed a bottle of vodka and started taking swigs from it. I began to spin. The bottle began to spin. The room began to spin. My body was not with me anymore. It all faded away.

It took one more hospitalization after that to discover that I was living with bipolar disorder. It then took another for me to accept that this is my reality. Finally, after one last hospitalization, I accepted my treatment and complied with my medications.

When I returned to school, I joined the All of Us Mental Health campaign and I told my story for the first time. I told it again and again, until I felt myself make a few inches of progress towards healing. I was met with open arms in All of Us as I met more people who were struggling with the same things that I faced. I embraced the community of people who understood what it meant to fight to live with a mental illness.

To say that I am “better” or “healed” now is to oversimplify what a mental illness is. I know that continually working to stay healthy is part of what it means to live with a mental illness, such as Type II Bipolar Disorder. Everyday that I get up, get dressed, go to school, talk with friends, make dinner, take a shower and go to bed is one day more that I have been successful. And for that, I am proud.

#facingmentalhealth