If you’ve read my bio page, you already know that I live with Type I Bipolar Disorder with Psychosis. I had my first episode, a depressive episode, when I was sixteen, and was originally misdiagnosed with Major Depression. I started self-harming in the form of cutting to relieve my mental anguish. At sixteen, I wanted to die.
The next few years went by without incident. It wasn’t until college that I experienced full-blown mania. I was delusional, going days on a few hours of sleep, and I experimented with alcohol and drugs. My drinking and drugging, towards the end, got to the point that it was nearly daily binging and withdrawals. Finally, August 19th, 2008, I couldn’t take it anymore. I overdosed. I left a note for my mother that simply read, “I’m so sorry. I need a lot of help.” I was still conscious when she found me. The panic in her voice is still crystal clear in my memory.
After chugging charcoal and spending some time in the ER, I was sent to a psychiatric facility, where I received my bipolar diagnosis, although it wasn’t until several years later that psychosis was added onto my diagnosis. After a week in the facility, I was sent home and signed up for an outpatient rehab program for drugs and alcohol.
I spent the next six years on lithium and a combo of other drugs, which kept me mostly stable. Once the lithium started shutting down my kidneys and I developed hypothyroidism, it was time to go off of it. That’s when trouble started up again and the hallucinations began. I started seeing shadow people in my house, and later began to hear voices telling me to kill myself. I was in and out of the hospital multiple times a year. We tried Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) before Electroconvulsive Therapy was offered. Desperate for relief, I agreed to ECT.
While ECT hasn’t kept me completely stable, it has helped in my recovery. I’ve been going regularly for ECT since 2015 and still go to this day. I had a second suicide attempt in July 2019 while going through a particularly rough depressive episode. Early 2020, I was put back on lithium. A low dose, to see if that would deter some of the side effects I experienced before. I’m still on it, and I’m doing well.