This was taken from my blog at www.notcrazyjustdifferent.com and edited a bit for language and to make sense.

This is not an autobiography or a complete history of my mental health struggles. I have struggled with depression and panic attacks since I was about 11 years old. This is about my mental breakdown; when I cracked, crumbled, and split at the seams. When all that I am completely vanished and I was merely a broken, numb, shell of a human.

I was freshly 18 when I was finally diagnosed correctly with bipolar disorder. I started meds at 18, went off of them, started them again at around 19 or 20, and stopped them again. So at the point of my life that this story begins, I was not on medication.

My husband and I married in December of 2010, had our daughter Laney on October 31, 2011, and found out that we were pregnant with our son Rory in June of 2012. You’re probably thinking, “That is a very short period of time to go through so many drastic life changes, not to mention how young you are.” And you would be very right. Welcome to bipolar disorder. Now you might be thinking, “Can you really pin almost every major decision in your life on being bipolar?” To which I say yes, yes I can. That’s the difference between mental illness and other illnesses; it controls you. Blame it on the BP, baby. But not BPD, because if you say that, meaning “bipolar disorder”, people will think you mean “borderline personality disorder”. Welcome to mental illness, we have our own acronym-heavy language that you need to know and can’t learn from Rosetta Stone. Because mental health issues aren’t confusing enough.

So, when I found out I was pregnant with my son, I had already tried the medication game again and decided to forfeit. I was getting sicker and sicker and had no idea. Depression is obvious; when I’m depressed, my mind isn’t clouded. I know I feel like total and complete crap (disclaimer: very poor representation of depression; deep, dark misery and suffering is a little closer). Every other aspect of bipolar disorder, however, is not as easy to pinpoint in yourself. Because of this, my pregnancy was less than ideal.

The following may make me sound like a terrible person, so I find it necessary to say that I LOVE my son to the moon and back. I can’t imagine my life without him, and I don’t want to. The guilt of ever having these feelings still eats at me, and I have to remind myself constantly that I was just sick.

I didn’t want to be pregnant. I wasn’t excited. I tried to hide it and fake the excitement, but at the end of the day that left me even more exhausted and miserable. Near the end of my pregnancy, I wanted to go in to labor solely because I was miserable and tired of being pregnant, not because I was excited about seeing my son. I was always annoyed and unhappy in general. My husband and I fought during my second pregnancy like we never had before. My mental illness was nearing its detonation and I had no idea. I genuinely believed that everything was his fault; people say that in jest but I really felt that way. I told him that I hated him, that he had no empathy, that he had narcissistic personality disorder (no offense meant here, only relaying what I said, and my husband does not act in a way that would ever seem like BPD, or any mental illness). I saved a divorce attorney’s number in my phone and printed out divorce papers. The only thing that kept us together was my decision that it was only fair to have my son and get on medication before I left, so that I could know I did everything I could, and made the decision with a sound mind. And I am so grateful for that. I don’t even want to think about the pain, hurt, and mess I would be in if I had left my husband then.

On February 14, 2013, my son was born (on a holiday, just like his sister!). When they placed him on my chest, I cried. I spent all day holding him, smelling his head, feeding him, and just being his mommy. I can say that I know I loved him. I loved him very much. But from the second he was placed on my chest, there was a disconnect. I felt it, I knew it, but I stuffed the feeling down. Unfortunately for me, I’d already stuffed too much down and this was the last straw. I exploded.

Honestly, from this point on, I think my family could tell the story a lot better than I can. I don’t remember much. A lot of it is a blur. I was no longer Kari, I was Bipolar; as in, it completely consumed who I was. So please be aware that the following is probably missing a lot; I try to piece it all together in my mind and I just can’t. So much time and memory is just gone. Perhaps I’ll convince my mom to write something I can post here someday.

I first realized that this wasn’t going to be as simple as gritting my teeth until I could manage again when we were leaving the hospital. Josh, my husband, had parked far away, so he left Rory and I alone in the lobby to bring the car up to the door. As soon as he left, I felt an intense wave of anxiety, and feared a panic attack would wash over me at any second. Before it got to that point, Josh came back and I felt some relief.

We went straight to my mom’s house rather than ours, for reasons I can’t remember. It wasn’t much longer after we got there that I had a full-blown, can’t-breath, sobbing, I-really-think-I’m-dying panic attack. From here on out, a lot of things are a blur. I know the next day I called a new psychiatrist and couldn’t get in until May, but because of the situation, they put me on the top of the cancellation list. I also ended up in the emergency room because I was having panic attacks so frequently. I was prescribed Xanax and a mood stabilizer that I had been on in the past that actually helped. The day after, I received a call from the psychiatrist’s office. They had a cancellation and could get me in the next day! I didn’t follow Christ at that point,I wasn’t sure I even believed in God, but now I know who to thank for that.

My depression hit almost immediately, and it was BAD. My mom was pretty much living with me at this point to care for Rory. I would stay in bed for days, literally days. I wasn’t eating, or doing anything at all, other than going to the bathroom, going outside to smoke, sleeping, and laying in bed staring at the wall. At some points I felt I couldn’t even move. I felt broken, hollow, worthless, and hated myself more than anyone else could.

Then the mania kicked in, at the same time as the depression. I didn’t know this was possible. Worst. Hell. Imaginable. It’s referred to as a “mixed state”. You take the absolute despair of depression, and you mix it with the impassivity of mania, what do you think you get? Any guesses?

When Josh was off work, my mom would go home because he was here for the kids. On one of these nights, my suicidal thoughts were on overload. I had been battling them away almost constantly, but this time they had really taken control of my mind. “Look at yourself, you’re pathetic. You can’t even take care of yourself, how can you ever hope to take care of your kids? You’re psychotic. You’re crazy. You’ll never be the wife Josh deserves. You’ll never be the mom your kids deserve. You’re going to screw them up for life. They’re going to grow up hating you because you’re so crazy and you failed them. Josh is young, he’ll definitely fall in love again. He’ll know this time to stay away from anyone with a mental illness. She’ll be a good mom to your kids; she’ll be a better mom to them. They won’t remember you. Face it, you’re insane and you’re going to kill yourself eventually. Isn’t it better to do it now, while you’re kids are so young? You’re doing what’s best for them. You’ll ruin your family’s life.”

Due to my being in a mixed state, I didn’t think, I acted.

So I picked up the pill bottles in front of me, Xanax and Vicodin, and took them all. Then I got up, grabbed a bottle of vodka out of the freezer, and got out the ibuprofen, Tylenol, and just random pill bottles from the medicine cabinet. I was determined to take every single pill in the house, over time so as to not puke them up, and then drink a fifth of vodka. In a split second of clarity, as if the actual me woke up just for a moment, I woke Josh up crying before I took anything more. We went to the ER (we must have called my mom to stay with the kids, though I don’t remember). I was prepared to be put in the super-scary psychiatric unit, but instead this idiotic excuse for a doctor gave me an Ambien and sent me on my way. Sleep through the suicidal thoughts? I don’t know what kind of thinking went in to that decision.

The next day, Josh called my psychiatrist who fought to get me a bed in the psych ward. I believe we had to wait until the next day, because I remember my husband getting a lock box for all the meds and alcohol until they got me in (and for a looong time afterwards). Regardless, soon after that I was off for a 72 hold in the psych ward. 

Here’s where things are extremely blurry. As in, I have no idea what happened next. I was on extremely high doses of Seroquel and Klonopin; 800mg of Seroquel and 4mg of Klonopin daily, for those who know what I’m talking about. Not to mention I was on a whole host of other meds that, honestly, I can’t even remember. I was lobotomized with drugs.

What I do remember, I couldn’t possible tell you when it occurred. At some point, my mom came to take my daughter. I had been asking her for help for days, but she kept telling me to push through. She didn’t understand mental illness back then in the way that she does now. When my mom and husband both couldn’t get a hold of me after about 20 calls from each of them, my mom came over. They thought I might be dead. It was 7:00pm, and my daughter was still in her crib because I was sleeping. I crawled in bed after I put her down for a nap at about 1:00pm. She normally gets up at about 3:30pm. So neither of my kids lived with me. I knew I couldn’t take care of them, but my feelings of worthlessness and guilt grew exponentially. I hated myself.

At some point, I became extremely manic. I maxed our $500 limit credit card online. Then I opened a new credit card on Amazon with a $400 limit, and maxed that out. Then I signed into Josh’s Amazon account and signed up for yet another credit card, this one with a $700 limit, and – you guessed it – maxed it out. Not to mention a trip to Target and a trip to Walmart that nearly drained our bank account. This is within a period of two days. Yep. In two days I spent over $2000 on things I don’t remember buying. I’m still coming across things I bought then. Just the other day I found a picture frame that I don’t remember buying, but most definitely did during that time. I bought two of the same shirt, gifts for people, things like that. We are still in debt because of it (not to mention all of the lovely medical bills I’ve racked up at this point).

After this, I slipped back into a deep, dark depression. Every day felt like an eternity, and this lasted for months.

I also came to know the Lord at this point in my life. I do not want to diminish this AT ALL; this is not my intention. But I do think it’s important to say that this did not cure me. God was steady ground among raging seas, and a new source of hope in my life. But mental illness is not a spiritual issue, it is a health issue. If you had brain tumor, I would absolutely pray for you, but I would also hope that you would see a neurologist. Brain tumor = health issue, mental illness = health issue. That will be an ever-present theme in many future blog posts.

Alright, so it’s June. I was hospitalized in March, I became a Christian in May. That’s the best timeline I’ve got. Mid-June, I decided to go to an incredible residential treatment center called Timberline Knolls in Chicago. While I didn’t stay for very long due to a handful of reasons, it was an amazing experience and aided a lot to my recovery (mhm, we call it “recovery” with mental illness, too).

After I got home, I felt so stuck. I had spent months on medication, seeing a psychiatrist, seeing a therapist, doing groups, I even went to rehab! I didn’t know what more I could do. I still felt so weak and lost, and so far away from ever feeling “normal” again. Then God told me something I really didn’t want to hear.

“Wait.”

I had been waiting! I’d been waiting a really long time! Waiting was all I had been doing, since there really wasn’t anything more I could do. I was done waiting, I wanted to be me again.

“Wait.”

So I did. I accepted things. I might not have felt like the time was ever going to come where I would feel like a mom again, like myself at all again, but thanks to my new found relationship with Christ, I believed Him that it was on the horizon.

If you’re hoping for an awesome ending, like “And then Jesus descended from Heaven and touched my shoulder, and I am forever healed”, then you are going to be disappointed.

I added a new antidepressant into my cocktail. I broke through some large walls in therapy. I went to see my kids at my mom’s house more often. I got stronger. It wasn’t drastic, I didn’t wake up one day feeling like Mary Poppins, throw open my umbrella, and fly on down to my mom’s house to take my kids back. But after a week, I could look back and think, “Wow, I feel better than I did a week ago.”

I stuck to this. My psychiatrist upped the dose of the antidepressant. I became myself more and more each day. I would go visit the kids, and my daughter would be happy to see me, and sad when I left, rather than the other way around. Because she finally saw her mama again.

And today, my kids are home with me.

This is not some long ago tale. My kids have been home now for about 3 or 4 weeks. I still have some hard days, I still get overwhelmed too easily, I still put on Yo Gabba Gabba! all day some times so I can restore my sanity a bit. I will always battle with my mental health. I will always be on medication and see a therapist. But my kids are home, they are happy, they are loved, and I’m doing it. I’m not just existing anymore. I am living.

The past eight months have felt like a lifetime. Every day was filled with pain and suffering. I never felt like I could feel human again. I honestly didn’t think I would be alive right now. Yet here I am, on a normal dose of meds and back to the mom I always was on the inside, a full time student studying Human Services (specializing in Chemical Dependency), and completely devoted to God.

I promise you, hope is real.