My Story

Growing up in the country, in Duvall, Washington, life was pretty fun. My mom and dad were big kids themselves and were adventurous, spontaneous and there was a lot of laughter and love in our home.

It wasn’t until 5th grade that things started to change for me…for the worse. My environment and entire world changed. My dad started withdrawing more from us as a family and people in general. He started locking himself in his bedroom and we would leave his meals on a tray outside the door for him. He went from an easy going, always joking around father, to a paranoid, depressed dad. Later we found out that he was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which was caused from being in the Vietnam War and fighting on the front lines. So that year, my dad moved us from our safe and secure home to a rust colored barn up in the woods. My parents fixed it up and called it the "Apartment". To me, it was still a barn. I felt isolated and terrified of the unknown. My brothers slept above in the loft and my parents and I slept below in one big open room. My dad became suicidal,my mom slipped into a deep depression because of the situation and I tried to remain “normal” and take care of my younger brothers, David and Stevie.

To say the least, things were very unstable in our household. There was a lot of yelling, screaming, threats, and the police would show up a lot. Looking back, I realize now that my parents did the best that they could with our environment and situation and dealing with my dad's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Back then, nobody even knew what PTSD was or how to treat it. My parents, themselves, came from abusive homes and they didn't have a real template to model their parenting skills after. They were young and kids themselves. I don't blame my parents for my Bipolar Disorder and depression, but after lots of research, education and "Aha" moments, I've come to understand that there's more than just one element that contributes to mental illness and the environment that one is brought up in is one of those elements. An environment can trigger mental illness such as Bipolar Disorder, Anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress (PTSD) and Depression. My environment did.

While our family was living in a barn, I was in 7th and 8th grade. My brothers and I walked on egg shells a lot of the time because both of my parents had a lot of mood swings going on and one person could go from zero to sixty (rage) in nothing flat. My dad was running things military style and that alone brought on a lot of tension.

At 12 years old, I felt like the caretaker of everyone because my parents were struggling in their ability to emotionally and physically take care of themselves as well as us kids. Depression started to overwhelm me, even though I couldn't identify it with words.

Through the demands that I had put on myself to try to remain “normal”, go to school, take care of my little brothers (who are 5 and 6 years younger), I started to sink into a deep, dark depression myself. It was something I couldn’t snap out of. I became numb inside and started to completely shut down. I felt guilty for not being able to snap out of this hopeless, sad feeling. I felt weak and inadequate emotionally. I felt ashamed for feeling such dark emotions. I felt like I was living in a dark cave under the sea, emotionally. The littlest things became HUGE. Just the thought of picking out clothes for the day or brushing my teeth was too much. I would skip a lot of school because I was physically sick with depression and anxiety. During this time, my dad was in a mental hospital in Seattle and my mom needed to leave for a little while. She was having a nervous breakdown. I had learned to be a camelion and to adapt my different environments and look like I was strong and fine on the outside, but really falling apart on the inside.

The one thing that kept me going was my music. My great aunt had sent her old upright piano to me (I actually don't remember how it came!) and when it came to “Survival Skills”, I had one gift that was special to me…my piano and my love for music. I had played the piano since I was 4 and started writing music and lyrics in 3rd grade. I love to compose piano compositions. Writing and composing was where I felt complete solace. I can express myself and pour all of my emotions through the piano and through writing lyrics. It’s always been very therapeutic for me and has always been an extension of where I’m at in life, and a way of communicating to the outside world  what’s inside my heart. I was lucky and blessed to have my piano that my aunt gave me. It got me through some very dark times.

Towards the end of my 8th grade year, my dad started getting better from his PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and he even accepted a job as a high school teacher and basketball coach in a school in Oregon. So, the summer before my 9th grade year of high school, we moved from everything I knew in Washington to one state over...Oregon. Albany, Oregon. 

Throughout the next several years of my high school life, I would experience extreme mood swings from severe depression to mania.

After a year of being in Oregon, my depression started to leave and I started having feelings of euphoria and started to excel academically and socially. This was a nice change from dark thoughts and suicidal tendencies, so I loved these new feelings!

During my freshman year of high school, I started feeling lots of energy, like I could conquer the world.  I became very social, excelled in sports, made the cheerleading squad, and was on the honor roll at school. I realized that I had a photographic memory when this manic feeling came on and didn't need any sleep or study time.  My creativity was at a high level and I would write 10 piano compositions and songs within an hour. I excelled at anything I put my mind to. I felt outgoing, confident and life was great. Any kind of shyness that I had before was out the window and I felt like a whole new me! Things started going, though, from "feeling good" to an out of control, "self-destructive" phase.

My euphoric, happy feelings started to speed up into what I later would know as "Mania". I found myself talking really fast all the time, slurring my words, and my mind wouldn't turn off. The ideas that were running through my head were going so fast that I couldn't keep up with them. I would go from topic to topic when I was talking to someone. Anyone who didn't know me would think that I was intoxicated, except I didn't have any alcohol in me! I also couldn't sleep and would go on maybe 2 hours of sleep each night for about 3-4 weeks. I'd go on shopping sprees and wouldn't remember anything that I bought. In my over-confidence, I dated a lot and went through one relationship after another. My behavior was risky. I had this feeling of needing to fill a void and craziness inside of me. Dark thoughts started entering my mind, again. In my mind, I didn't feel selfish or weak, but I felt desperate. Desperate for my pain to stop. I felt like I wanted to die and so that's what I started thinking about....how to die.

As I was going into mania over-drive, I started to become more paranoid and started experiencing psychosis (things that you can see or hear but are not real). One of the most terrifying psychotic episodes was when I was getting ready for bed one night. I was in my bedroom and was 16 years old. All of a sudden, I heard voices talking in my room and saw my door catch on fire. My room was starting to catch on fire and then I heard the smoke alarm go off. I ran through my doorway to go to my parents' bedroom and wake them up. When I did, the smoke alarm stopped. I had felt the fire against my skin as I ran through the doorway just moments before. I could smell the smoke and hear voices. Just as suddenly as it appeared, it was then gone. My parents told me I must of had a bad dream, but I hadn't even gone to bed yet. I felt severe terror. To calm myself down, I grabbed my Bible and opened to a verse that was meant for me at that moment, Isaiah 41:10. "Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not anxiously look about you for I am your God. I will help you, I will strengthen you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." I read that over and over and eventually fell into a calm sleep.

My mania was full blown my junior year of high school. After the mania, I would crash into a severe depression for a couple of months. Then, the depression would go away and I would have a "Normal Mood" for about 2-3 months and then I would sky rocket into mania, again. This cycle would repeat itself over and over in my life.

My mania followed me to college in Kirkland, Washington, as well. I ended up going on extreme shopping sprees, became paranoid and made bad decisions. I did things that were VERY out of character for me. Along the way, I hurt many people and burned lots of bridges. My rage that was triggered by my mania was even terrifying for me.

When I would go visit my family in Oregon from college, I would drive from Seattle to Albany, Oregon in 3 hours or less, in my little yellow AMC Spirit. (This is normally a 5 hour drive!)

I felt destructive…I WAS self-destructing.  I was impulsive. I was also delusional at times. I weighed a little over a hundred pounds but saw 200 pounds when I looked in the mirror.

I couldn’t distinguish reality from distorted thinking. Things were always in one or two compartments in my mind…black or white, perfection or chaos, saint or sinner. Rage inside of me was constantly triggered.

In college, I was having anxiety and panic attacks that felt like heart attacks and became physically ill because of them. 

Oversensitivity consumed me. Someone could be giving me a compliment but I would hear something completely negative. My self-esteem came from what others thought about me and my need for approval was my priority. My "People Pleaser" Attitude was an addiction. I was always walking on egg shells around everyone. Later on, I would find out that these are all the symptoms of someone who has Borderline Personality. ( By the way, the label, Borderline Personality, is misleading and is currently in the process of being changed to something else.)

I had learned the art of wearing a mask, becoming a chameleon and looking like I was completely fine on the outside. I tried hiding this craziness that I was experiencing and in the process felt very alone and scared. Nobody had any idea what was going on inside of me. On the outside I was laughing, easy going, always joking around, but on the inside I was fighting off demons of my very own.

When I was in my second year of college, I tried escaping my reality by going to Sevilla, Spain...to Sweden, traveling through Europe, Rock of Gibralter, Africa...then back to the states to Anchorage, Alaska. My illness followed me wherever I was, though.  I felt very alone because nobody knew what I was going through.  If anything, my symptoms were viewed as "character flaws" and "spiritual weakness".

In 1996, I met someone who would change my life…my husband. We dated for 3 months and got engaged. Four months later we had a beautiful Christmas wedding.

Well, they always say the first year of marriage is the hardest, but my poor husband didn’t have any idea what was in store for him. I had used my “Survival Skills” of wearing a mask and acting like everything was fine on the outside, but emotionally I was dying on the inside. Everything that I had carefully tried to internalize, hide and conceal was somehow being triggered the first year of marriage.  I was trying to use my survival skills and they weren't working. I carried these survival skills over into our marriage and he saw the real me and all the symptoms that I brought with me.

Today, after almost 15 years of marriage, my husband jokingly tells people that he married me under false pretenses! Ha. We can laugh about it today, thankfully. Back then, in the beginning, though, I was a mess. I couldn’t hide my depression or manic episodes or anxiety anymore and to my surprise, he wasn’t angry, but he was worried about me.  He cared enough to work through it all with me.  He told me that what I was doing to myself and to our marriage was not normal and that I needed to get help. Help??? I didn’t even know there was help for what I was going through! So, I agreed to see a doctor only if he went with me. I was so broken on the inside and hurting emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually, that I didn’t have the words to describe my agony. I had shut down and walls were up.  So, Jonathan was my voice and my advocate. He did what no one else ever dared to do...love me regardless, even when I was unloveable. 

When I went to a psychiatrist (someone who does talk therapy and can prescribe medication as well) for the very first time, I was nervous and scared. I didn’t know what to expect. My fear of needing to let my guard down and not pretend like I was fine was also there. My husband was there to make sure I didn’t wear my “I’m okay mask” to the doctors.

For the first time, when I was 29 years old, I was diagnosed with Severe Depression, Bipolar I Disorder (Severe Mood Swings of highs and lows), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Anxiety. I was actually relieved to know that there were names for all of the craziness I was experiencing and that there was help and treatment and there were others who felt like me. I honestly thought I was the only one.

It’s not an easy road to walk with someone who has Bipolar Disorder. I have been like a caged tiger, trying to fight this illness inside of me, but lashing out at my loved ones in the process. It’s been a long road and I’ve learned that recovery isn’t a destination, but a journey.

I would love to stay that I’ve been stable ever since that first visit to the doctors, but that is not the nature of the beast. Five years after being on medication and involved with talk therapy, I slipped into a debilitating depression after our second son was born. I ended up needing to go into a psychiatric hospital for 2 weeks. That stigma scared me to death, but I knew I had no other choice. I was desperate because it didn’t affect just me it was effecting my family. So, I went into the psychiatric hospital for help.

That experience, of going into the hospital, was one of the best experiences of my life. The doctors and nurses who took care of me were so nurturing and taught me that it’s okay to take care of myself. I had been so used to taking care of everyone else around me, that I neglected myself. I came away from that experience with new medications that worked in my system, a new outlook on life and made lasting friendships inside that hospital who were struggling just like me.

Through talk therapy, regular check-ups with my psychiatrist/counselor, support groups and medication (anti-depressant, mood stabilizer, and anti-anxiety medication) I started my road to recovery. It has literally saved my life. Through education from my doctors and self-education, support groups, my spirituality, journaling, music and other healthy coping skills, I have learned so much and have been able to remain stable and healthy.

My view on doctors is this: “Doctors are just like movies, just because you don’t like one, doesn’t mean you should stop seeing them!” I was blessed to have found a good doctor right away. I’ve also grown and have changed doctors many times to fit my needs as life progresses.

I’ve gained knowledge, insight, support, coping skills, and even more humor along the way and I’ve wanted to share these things with others. It’s easier to listen to someone who has walked the same path and so I hope I can be of some kind of encouragement to those who read my story and continue on this journey with me through my blogs. If I can help just one person, then it has all been worth it.