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Although much has been written about mental illness in the past, I feel I have a story to tell. It is the story of pain and guilt affiliated with an illness that can be clinically written about yet never truly described. My experiences are personal yet shared with every victim of mental illnesses. To suffer from a mental illness is not only a mental pain; it is also an abusive pain. The pain of discrimination by doctors who attribute all of your ailments to mental disease. The pain of family and friends who don't understand and are ashamed. The guilt over an illness that you have no more control over than one would have over cancer or cerebral palsy. Yet, people do not understand. Today, in all fairness, there is a public outreach towards an acceptance of people with mental illness. The media has made efforts to educate the public about the reality of depression and other problems affiliated with such illnesses, yet as one who has suffered for over twenty-five years-I can tell you-we still have a long way to go.

As a young mother of four children, I knew that my children would rather have said their mother was in and out of the hospital constantly due to kidney failure or heart disease rather than depression or shock treatments. It was only in the last ten years that an accurate description of my condition was diagnosed. I suffer from bipolar disorder, better known as manic-depression. My children have long since grown up. The baggage and stigma they carry today because of my disease is irreparable.

From as far back as 1964, when my illness manifested, I had been called and labeled everything from hypochondriac to a sicko. Parts of my family was and still is in complete denial even thirty-three years later. My own children are more accepting, even though I feel guilty to always leave them behind when I was in hospitals for treatment. My two ex-husbands could never accept me as I was. Perhaps a better husband would have stood by his wife, but mine never did.

I tried to lead a normal life, but the fear of getting sick was always with me. I was feeling guilty for getting sick and then feeling bad again when I was well and had to leave my four children to go to work. My guilt was not like that of an ordinary working mother; the fear and terror I lived with every waking moment, and the fears that haunted my dreams amplified it.

I spent a great deal of time helping people: my children, neighbors, my family, strangers I met in the hospital, everyone but myself! People have told me that my counseling and advice were oftentimes more sound than their own therapist's and psychiatrist's. Imagine that me, the labeled "sicko," helping others. It was during my last hospitalization that a sort of miracle occurred. I was counseling a young girl of sixteen. She also suffered from bi-polar disorder. After I told her my story and let her know she was somewhat fortunate that a diagnosis was made so early on, I found myself telling her "You've got to let go of the guilty feelings and anxieties." I still can't believe it was me speaking, I had been in complete denial about why I helped everyone so much to the point that I no longer help myself.

It was then I realized the battle going on within me and the power I had to let the fears go, let the anxieties go and start living. This is a message I want to reach all those suffering from mental illness. I have a profound story to tell. It is not without therapy and medication that I lead my life, but in addition to that. I study at a local college, I tend for the elderly and I baby-sit my three beautiful grandchildren. There is a way to lead a normal life.

I also want to address the issue of how the medical profession treats people with mental illness. When I arrived at the hospital doubled up in pain from my abdomen, bleeding internally, suffering from diarrhea, I was not taken seriously. My symptoms were dismissed as psychological. When the doctors, nurses, and interns saw the amount of psychiatric medicine I was taking, they immediately attributed all of my physical symptoms to a psychiatric problem. They tried to give me more medication for my mental problems. I was treated briefly and sent home. This went on from July to November. To add insult to injury when the doctors saw that the only insurance I had was Medicaid, I was denied the best doctors' assistance. The message was clear to me, I didn't have the money to pay and I must be crazy anyway. After four months I learned to speak and demand the health care any human being should be entitled to. I was finally diagnosed with a severe bowel infection and ulcerations of the abdomen. Certainly not illnesses that could only exist in my mind. The amount of blood I lost was critical. I want people in the medical profession to hear my story, I want everyone to treat people with disabilities with respect.