Conquering the Beast.

Having blogged for less than 2 years, I’ve covered a lot of major life events: The rawness of having to drive past my dad’s accident daily, the struggles of a loveless marriage, the process of finding my true sexual orientation, the act of coming out and living my truth, and finally finding a partner who embraces me and encourages me to grow. However, there has been one beast I’ve yet to tackle. According to Kay Redfield Jamison (Professor of Psychiatry at John Hopkins University School of Medicine and author of An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness) “The Chinese believe that before you can conquer a beast you first must make it beautiful.” This has been my beast for 7 long years. Is it beautiful yet? By no means, but writing has always been a release for me and I’m hoping it will be the same this time.

It was January 2015. I was living in Lodi with my fiance at the time. I had just started grad school at UOP to receive my Masters in education and complete work for my credential. I was working full time at a local winery and my life as I had once known it changed forever. Sounding a bit dramatic? Good, ‘cause it was.

I started getting very overwhelmed with even the most menial tasks that I would normally accomplish on the daily. I second guessed everything I was doing. I was very paranoid that I had done “something wrong.” And then I started getting my personal calendar confused with my work calendar. Sounds silly right? Well it would have been if my mind weren’t quite literally short circuiting. My thoughts were spiraling out of control at a pace even I couldn’t keep up with. Everything was jumbled. I remember specifically worrying that the things I saw on Facebook would be about me. A girl that would normally sleep 10 hours a night, was down to 4 hours a night or less. I was frantically cleaning, organizing and looking over past taxes as if I truly had done something wrong. All of these things were definitely out of the norm and definitely noticed by those around me.

It got to the point where I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t keep acting like things were fine. What was the breaking point? Me laying in bed asking my fiance if he was Joey Magnelli and I was indeed Elyse Muscha. I couldn’t remember who I was. It was time to seek help. He took me to the emergency room, where thanks to a dear family friend and doctor, I was admitted. Because the onset of this confusion was so sudden they were worried I had something physically debilitating going on. I remember the doctors saying they wanted to rule out a brain tumor so they would need to do a CT scan. Take someone who hasn’t slept much in days, has paranoid thoughts, put them in a hospital room with IVs and beeping machines and then tell them it might be a brain tumor? I’ll let you guess how I reacted.

Fast forward through all the testing, they couldn’t find anything physically wrong with me. What they believed happened was I had “major depressive disorder” and was referred to a local psychiatrist for treatment. Before leaving the hospital I was put on an array of antidepressants. I remember showing up at my first psychiatry appointment and feeling like a zombie, a shell of my old self. Little did I know, I didn’t actually have major depressive disorder and the chemical imbalance caused by the wrong medications put me in a place that was even darker than I began.

My psychiatrist, who I’ve now been seeing for 7 years, met with me often during the following months to try to figure out what sparked this psychotic break. He was concerned that because I had paranoid thoughts I might be paranoid schizophrenic. Those two words killed me, literally. They brought me to my lowest low. I felt like those words would then define me. I would never live a normal life. I would never build a family. I may never have a steady job.

After more tedious months of drug trials to find one that made me “feel like me” I was put on a low dosage of a medication used to treat bipolar disorder. Thoughts began racing through my head. Was this going to be my new label? Was this what was going to define me now too? After some time, it was like the tableau curtain was finally raised on a broadway show. The ghost lamp was removed and the bright stage lights turned on. My smile was back. I was able to laugh again. I was able to banter and joke and make witty conversation. My thoughts were processing at a more normal speed and they were clear, lucid thoughts. And then the words I never thought I would hear “I misdiagnosed you. I’m sorry.”

Now that was a pill I could swallow! I did not have paranoid schizophrenia. I was unspecified bipolar meaning I didn’t perfectly fit into bipolar 1 or bipolar 2 as specified in the DSM V. Did I stop seeing that psychiatrist? Absolutely not. He knows my history. He knows me. He’s seen me through all stages of my mental health crisis and he worked tirelessly to get me to a point where I could feel like me. He adjusted my charts and until early 2016 I was stable and happy.

That was the spring of our wedding and I failed to mention that the medication trials had caused me to gain not 10, not 20, but 70 pounds. While my mood was good, I was not happy with how I looked. I started exercising and dieting but I simply couldn’t lose the weight. That’s when I decided I wasn’t really bipolar. I didn’t need this little white pill. Laughable right? In hindsight, this is a common choice by people diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The medication starts working and they feel good. They feel balanced. That’s exactly what I felt and I didn’t attribute it to my medication. Against his best advice, I worked with my doctor on weaning me off my meds. By the time the wedding rolled around in August, I had dropped 25lbs and felt much more at peace with my health. I was on a high.

We took a delayed honeymoon in January of 2017 and upon return, that’s when the ball dropped. I had my second episode. My doctor was right. I was bipolar and needed medication to keep me stable. Knowing then that the medication did work for me, it was an easy fix to get back on track. It was just coming to terms with the fact that this was indeed “my label.”

But that was 2015 and 2017, why am I writing this now? What’s changed? Well- to be honest? I had my first major downward spiral recently. I am usually one to have the upward spirals of bipolar disorder and find myself in a state of mania. These are true highs where it feels I can accomplish any task that is thrown at me. Now, however, I found myself crying at the drop of a hat for seemingly no reason. I found myself overeating and turning to my old habits of self-sabotage. Having been on the same medication for nearly 7 years, I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t balanced. I felt so lost and confused, like I had failed myself. For someone who had managed their diagnosis so well for so long this felt like a nightmare all over again. I met with my psychiatrist and he decided to up my medication, to increase my dosage. Failure. Idiot. Broken. Loser. Crazy. Unstable. These were just a few of the adjectives that started spinning through my dopamine lacking, seratonin seeking mind.

So here it is, here I am. It was much easier to come out to my small group of readers as gay. I felt that even though it may have come as a surprise to some, that I would always be supported. But mental health is different. I remember getting the bipolar diagnosis and thinking people will think I’m moody. I won’t be able to be respected in my job. I won’t be able to carry kids of my own. But truthfully? None of that is true.

Give me a moment to reflect on Kay Redfield Jamison’s book “An Unquiet Mind” again. I read her memoir in early 2020. It was after months of having panic attacks that I added panic disorder to my list of health concerns. As I read her memoir, I remember initially being so amazed that someone with bipolar disorder could be a professor of psychiatry at John Hopkins University. Why is that so amazing? People with bipolar disorder can function in society. They can bring just as much to the table as anyone else. They can be educated. They can have high paying jobs. They can make a positive influence on others lives. So then why am I so ashamed of being bipolar? How is Kay any different from me?

It boils down to a lot of things. Mental health still has a stigma attached to it. As much as I wish it didn’t, it does. People understand when you’re sick with a cold, or you need medication to manage your insulin levels. There is no argument there. But they struggle to understand the need for medications for your mind. Kay put it best when she said, “I have become fundamentally and deeply skeptical that anyone who does not have this illness can truly understand it. And, ultimately, it is probably unreasonable to expect the kind of acceptance of it that one so desperately desires. It is not an illness that lends itself to easy empathy.” She hit the nail on the head. I felt most understood by her. By someone so removed from my life, yet connected since we have a similar diagnosis. I felt like I wasn’t crazy. It’s not just my mind. It’s not just me. While I sit here writing this hoping that people will understand where I am coming from, or it will help them be more open with their mental health, I know— deep down— that people will not fully understand my illness. Which is why, at the end of the day, not everyone understands me. That’s ok. That’s not what I’m here to do.

Honestly, I’m here to conquer the beast. I’m here to find the beauty in my illness. I’m here to make the topic more acceptable to talk about. And truthfully? I’m here for my students. While they may be young, I can already see some of them struggling with their mental health. I want to show them that it’s “Ok, to not be ok.” It’s ok to have bad days. And ultimately, since I will always have neurodivergent students in my class whether it be ADHD, Autism or Sensory Processing Disorder, I want them to feel included. I want them to feel seen. I want them to know I am conquering my beast and they can too.

So today, on World Bipolar Day, I’m coming out again. I’m speaking my truth. This day honors not only people living with bipolar disorder but those who died before us. It celebrates Vincent Van Gogh's birthday, who was posthumously diagnosed with bipolar disorder. As I think of him, and the beautiful imprint he left on the art community I can’t help but realize there is beauty in pain. He left such a lasting impression for centuries to come yet struggled so heavily with his mental health. Hell, he painted his most acclaimed piece, “The Starry Night,” while a patient in an insane asylum. And while my diagnosis also hasn’t been beautiful, it has taught me to see the beauty in everything. To enjoy every moment because we aren’t guaranteed tomorrow. We need to take in the stars tonight…