The Long, Winding Road of Recovery: Reliving the Past
Monday, April 23, 2012 at 10:44AM
Lynn Elliott Letterman's "The Long & Winding Road"
Editor's note: I wrote this post a year ago, but didn't pubish it at the time due to just not being ready to talk about some of the darker aspects of my treatment, but after touching on these themes in articles for BP Magazine last summer and Essence Magazine most recently in January, I decided that this might actually be of benefit to other mental illness sufferers or loved ones caring for someone struggling with mental health issues.
I've always been someone who was good at compartmentalization -- which, for me, is the ability to function under horrible circumstances. My gift for it often masked the depths of my disease, bipolar disorder, because I was so "high functioning." Kind of like an alcoholic who can hold down a job. Or, in my case, a manic-depressive person who could get a college degree, have a career and have healthy relationships with friends and family ... and still be incredibly self-destructive.
As a kid, even when I was dealing with intense bullying and harassment, having daily anxiety attacks and going to the nurse's office almost every day at school, I still got straight As. I think this lulled myself and my parents all into a false sense that I had great coping abilities or would just "out-grow" these issues. When, in reality, I didn't have good coping skills and they just all turned into something else. I got better and better at putting the hurt in a box when it came time to "perform" as a good student. The day I couldn't suck it up and just perform anymore was the day I realized I had a serious problem.
Right now, I'm working on chronicalling the hardest part of my struggle with mental illness, 2001 through 2009, almost a decade of severe depression marked by insomnia, hypomania and self-destruction. And remembering all that time has brought up a mix of emotions within me.
There's a line in the graphic novel "Watchmen" were an aging, female super hero who had survived a brutal sexual assault by a friend and lover (amongst other tragedies), recalls her past, saying that time had essentially caused even the grimy parts to be a bit brighter. This often happens with my own memory, where I tend to dwell on the good times more than the bad. How sometimes I have to remind myself how truly horrible something was because I'd put the nightmare in a box and didn't care to look at it anymore.
Writing a book means opening up those old nightmares and reliving them again. Every moment with them is a reminder of how better I am and how truly awful it used to be.
Like, I tend to focus on my time in California as overwhelmingly positive. A place where I made many good friends, had a lot of adventures, felt loved and respected and had a very good job with a great newspaper. It's often difficult to reconcile the bliss I often felt there with the fact that I was sick most of the time, was hospitalized for depression three times, spent too much time in Bakersfield Hospital's emergency room, had to take extended leaves of absence from work and when I was at work, was so miserable the most I could do was grunt a hello. If that. That my mental illness was "life-threatening," in that my peers feared I'd kill myself on a whim or on accident and my mother would call me at 6 a.m. in the morning because she was having anxiety attacks over me being so far away and sounding like a corpse over the phone.
Like, how if either of my sisters came to visit I was so happy to see them, but almost always flew into a deep depression the minute they had to return to St. Louis. Two of my hospitalizations happened shortly after one of my sisters had come to visit me. The first time was after my sister had spent a summer with me, then returned to St. Louis. I missed her so incredibly much and felt so alone, that I stopped sleeping and eating, developed a violent nervous twitch that I still sometimes deal with to this day and three weeks after she left had to be dragged to a hospital by my friends and co-workers.
This sounds weird to say, but I think the only reason why I survived it was because so many people were completely invested in keeping me alive, even if I was only half-assed interested in living. I had A LOT of friends for a self-loathing, suicidal person. Even my employers seemed dedicated to the task, once forcing me to take three days off work and see a doctor after I'd fallen asleep, mid-meeting, mid-conversation with one of my editors. I never once got a bad employee review. They never once even came close to firing me even though my medical bills and chronic absence had to be money losses. Even after I had to be moved to part-time for six months, they tried to figure out a way to accommodate me and make things work. I eventually left on my own, realizing I couldn't do the job anymore. Then, even though I quit, they approved my unemployment insurance because they agreed that I was too sick to do my job. Me sobbing on the phone profusely, recounting all the hospitalizations and leaves and my executive editor on the other end of the phone, agreeing with the claims adjuster that I deserved the unemployment check. I'd been very sick.
They all played a huge part in my recovery, pushing me through it when I could no longer put up a happy face and act like I wasn't sick. My parents. It could not have been easy on my parents who sent a happy, healthy, funny, albeit a touch naive 20-something to Texas to start her career only to have a smelly, unkempt, surly, moody 30-something return. But they didn't give up on me either. They pushed me along, even if I only had a partial interest in things like "getting out of debt" or "finding a job" since I was spending about one night a week in their basement on the phone with the suicide hotline sobbing, wondering how I was going to endure this pain, potentially for the rest of my life.
This may sound kind of obvious, but trying not to kill yourself when that's ALL YOU WANT TO DO is hard. Unable to cope or compartmentalize anymore, all my energy was focused on telling the self-destruct voice in my head to shut up and please leave me alone. There would be days upon days of this. And who can care about the paying of debt or looking nice or finding a job when you can barely get out of bed in the morning and only bathe about once every three weeks? The only reason why I hadn't done it was because of my parents, who I loved more than myself, and couldn't handle the thought of hurting. Especially after I interviewed a bereaved parent support group back in 2001 who told me that no parent ever gets over the death of a child, ever, no matter how that child dies or how old they were when it happened. That the pain stays with you, forever, because a child dying is like having all your dreams and hopes for the future die. You learn how to function and you live your life, but you never "get over" it.
Knowing that my parents were highly unlikely to ever "get over" any untimely demise on my part was the only thing that kept me alive. Knowing that they would spent the rest of their life thinking there was something they could have done, then continually beating themselves up for it, was not something I could live or die with. They'd already proven that they were pretty much willing to give up everything so I could get well. I thought of myself as a giant, misery inducing liability. But for them I was their second-born daughter, the one with my father's face and my mother's charm who drew them elaborate homemade cards for birthdays and anniversaries and talked to them for hours about politics, current events and history. Who they read stories to and took to the zoo or art museum whenever I asked, and taught how to scramble eggs, and oiled my scalp and braided my long hair. I was the one who never got too old to give them a hug and kiss good morning and another hug and kiss good night. Who was never embarrassed to have them around, even as a teenager, and was always happy when they came to see me at school. Who always wanted to be around them. Always. To the point where I had to be nuisance and nosey, from child me sticking my fingers under the bathroom door to get my mother's attention, to teenage me inviting myself along on shopping trips for plants and soil with my father just so I could talk and talk and talk to him. The illness wasn't their daughter. Danielle Belton was. And Danielle Belton was always going to be worth saving as far as they were concerned.
If they were willing to love me even when I was unlovable, the least I could do was not self-destruct.
So, I worked through it. And I got better. And then I got healthy. And it's almost like it didn't happen. Except it did and it all still sits in the back of our minds and none of us ever want it to get that bad again.
I've been "healthy" since the spring of 2009. That was the last time I was in a hospital being treated for my bipolar disorder. And since becoming stable, I promised myself I would never do anything that would threaten that stability -- meaning, I wouldn't ignore signs and expect myself to just "put the bad stuff in a box" and perform to hide the issue. So far, so good. When I recognize that something is leading me down a dark path I stop and reassess. I talk to friends or family or a doctor about it. We find a solution. We work through it. We move on. This is very much preferable to my "old" coping technique of "hope it goes away on its own." But I'm not going to pretend like it was easy to get to that point. It was a lot of hard work.
Now, it's hard for me to believe that I ever though my life wasn't worth saving. Or that I was hopeless. Things are going quite well for me. My writing career is back on track. Things are looking pretty good for 2012. I'm happy. Things aren't perfect, but what's that? What's perfection? It's just nice to not feel sick. It's just nice that when a panic attack does happen, it's just a panic attack, not a harbinger of doom.
Reader Comments (18)
Hi Snob,
Thank you so much for sharing.
As a person, who had watched a good friend go through bipolar episodes (who sadly commited suicide), I understand your agony.
May God see you through it all. I wish you continued recovery.
I really enjoyed this post. It's a blessing to be surround by people who love you and are supportive no matter what. As a writer, maybe the process is different, but how did you deal with any stigma (if there was any)--whether self-imposed thoughts of relapse or employer biases because of your past--when you had to find a job and return to work after your recovery?
@ Cee:
Due to a blog post someone wrote about me years before I created The Black Snob and wrote about my own mental health issues, it was Google-able knowledge that I'd suffered from mental illness and had to hospitalized. So the first few times I looked for new jobs as a reporter I had at least one interviewing employer ask me about it. While that added an extra layer of humiliation to the interview process, they still hired me. For the most part though, my work has typically spoken for itself, and has determined whether I was hired or not. I eventually got the old, defamatory post someone wrote about me removed and I took over how my disease would be discussed in the future, by writing about it openly on my blog. If you're truly a talented person, I believe you can overcome any stigma. Naturally, you will encounter non-caring or prejudiced people, but you can find an employer who will work with you and understand it is a disease that can be managed.
But the key to long-term employment is understanding and coping with your illness so that you have consistent behavior and act responsibly during unfortunate moments when a relapse or a bad day affect your performance.
Thank you for sharing your struggle. I don't know what it's like to be living with an illness like bipolar disorder, but I identify with being bullied as a child and learning to compartmentalize those feelings and hurt to excel (it's the ultimate "Eff you" to those nimwits, anyway). But you're right, at some point it's hard to lock that in a box and not have it affect you. Sometimes that box gets too full to close completely, and all the junk hits you in the face at once. But I'm glad to see that you're in a better, healthier place, and your story is inspiring to anyone battling depression or insecurities or mental health issues, to know that you can make it through. Here's to even better and brighter days ahead for you...
Wow. Thanks for sharing this and being honest about your struggles! May it be a blessing to others!
Thank for publishing this post.
Very powerful.
It's not easy to talk about something that is so personal and is stigmatized in our community. However, the only we can address an issue is to talk about it.
Thanks for this. So encouraging.
Great for you Snob!
I've been reading your posts about your journey through Bipolar Disorder, and I really appreciate you.
I am slowly gathering the courage to talk to a doctor about the way I've been feeling (i.e. hopelessness, not wanting to get out of bed, suicidal thoughts). At first, I didn't think I really had a problem because I was compartmentalizing and essentially thriving in spite of my issues. But when my life hit a brick wall somewhere around 2006, that lil' voice of self-doubt came back...and she came back SCREAMING!!! Ever since then, I've just been a mixed bag of emotions. Now I see that there is hope, and there is a way to be 'head healthy', I can focus on something other than that voice saying "nobody would even care if you were gone...that's just one less thing!".
Thank you for showing courage, and being an encouragement to others.
Danielle,
Thank you for your honesty. It's so good to hear your perspective. It sounds like you have and continue to receive solid support from friends and family. I used to date a guy who suffered from bi-polar. I would say that in how he seemed to suffer through his bi-polar, I would often get the brunt of bouts of anger. And they really hurt. So did some of his insensitivity - that would lead to depression and I couldn't continue to deal. I feel badly that I had to remove myself but I felt I couldn't be what he needed, especially because he wasn't gettin the help. I've been asked before if, even though I knew of his disorder, did I understand that it wasn't him trying to hurt me. And I wonder, do you feel that because of your struggle, that you would understand why someone would choose to distance themself. Do you blame them? You, of course, don't have to answer, but thank you for listening.
@ Smarty Pants:
I've had my fair share of friends who also struggle with mental illness and I have ended friendships with individuals who did not take responsibility for their behavior. While it's true that mood swings and depression can cause people to do and say things they otherwise wouldn't mean, there's never any excuse for being rude, cruel or hurtful. Bad behavior related to an illness is still bad behavior. Being Bipolar should be an explanation, not an excuse. Bipolar individuals who say hurtful things, disappoint others and are irresponsible have to make the effort to apologize, make amends and find ways to correct the behavior. It's part of our treatment. Being sick is no excuse for being abusive. Until you take responsibility for your illness -- both in treating it and in own up to your behavior because of it -- you can't make progress. It's near impossible to build trust if you routinely hurt people, then wallow in self-pity. It doesn't help you get better and it doesn't bond you any tighter to those you love.
It sounds like your ex really needed to learn how to take responsibility for his behavior and take his treatment serious. Being so sick that you can't control your mood and you take it out on others is a major problem that will greatly affect his ability to live a full and healthy life. He can't just take it as something he can't do anything about, because you can get your moods under control with lifestyle changes, therapy and/or medicine. But it's often hard for Bipolar sufferers to get out of the cycle of self-pity and make real amends and progress. It's a trap many of us fall into. But you can only throw up your hands and say "I'm sick" so many times.
No one has the right to verbal or psychologically abuse anyone. Even if they are mentally ill. It was probably for the best for you to separate yourself from him until he takes his treatment more seriously.
Thanks for your honesty and bravery, both in confronting depression and in writing about it.
Also, I really want to know what newspaper that was. 'Cause the ones I worked at were in no kinda way like that. Wow.
I hate to think what would have happened to you at somma those places. And they were big ones, too.
@ Kim
I was at The Bakersfield Californian newspaper for five years, from 2002 until 2007, and I really can't say enough nice things about how the management handled my illness. I was always afraid to talk to anyone about it, but everyone was just so understanding. I think that had a lot to do with it being a family-owned paper and the publisher's dedication to both her paper and the community. Plus, my executive editor at the time was extremely sensitive and supportive as well. It really was an anomaly, as despite the fact that many newsrooms are full of people with emotional issues, management usually doesn't give a crap. But everyone at TBC, my Union rep, my line editor, my fellow staffers, were just the best about it. I know everyone isn't that fortunate.
Wow. Danielle, I'm so proud of you for being brave enough to post this. Black folks don't generally do mental illness well as far as discussing it or getting help,so it, ironically, worked in your favor that you were sooo very far beyond falling back on the Strong Black Woman cape.
God truly blessed you with such caring friends, family and even employers. Thank God the paper was family owned and not corporation run or owned.
Your post will surely help at least one person take that step to get the help they need, and another not to end their life.
I'm not bi-polar or even severely depressed to the point of remaining bed ridden, but sometimes I do fall into some serious funks, and suicide has crossed my mind more than once. I never took it seriously for the very reasons you mentioned-the effect on my family. I'd never want to put my family through the agony; it would kill them.
A childhood friend committed suicide due to a chemical imbalance and mental illness, and his previously happy family was never,ever the same afterwards.His brother had a bold, and outgoing personality like the sun, and he just dimmed out completely. His mother turned gray overnight, stressed out to the point of becoming seriously ill and ultimately died an early death. The death of a child is bad enough, but suicide plunges families into life long torment. Our lives are never solely about us; we're connected to our immediate family and loved ones more deeply than our supposed independence likes to believe.
Again, thank you for reminding us that mental illness can be treated, we're none of us ever completely alone, and suicide is never just about one person.
Best of luck to you,Danielle.
Mary
@miss jackson, I was in major depression from the age of 9 to mid-20s, when I finally sought treatment. Go for it! You have nothing to lose but your misery. There is Life after depression!
And thank you, Danielle.
Danielle - I applaud you on your sincere desire to share your story with others. It can be a risky proposition. I too live with BP and have been fortunate to have a healthy, viable support system. I would especially be nowhere without my parents and wife. It was through a combination of tough love and gentle compassion that I was moved from being someone who was essentially non-functional to a responsible, productive member of society.
If you care you can check out my blog at: http://workingonwellnessbuffalo.blogspot.com
God Bless
Karl
Thank you for this very personal yet open account of your journey. I am inspired by you and your bravery.
Excellent...I was diagnosed at 37, and work hard to give myself credit for surviving in fairly good shape (rather than bemoaning how I "never lived up to my potential." Like you, I was highly functional; unlike you (and simply through fortune) I've never been hospitalized. But I'm deeply in the "mental health closet" and congratulate you on coming out into the open. Someday I hope I can follow in your footsteps.
Thanks for posting this bringing awareness to mental health disorders and helping some of us not feel ashamed. It's frustrating that people still don't believe they are real, treatable and alot have a biological pathology. I am really happy I found your site and look forward to reading more of your posts.