M.S.

About six months ago, I was sitting in front of a lecture hall full of high school girls leading a discussion about grit and mental health. For the first time in my life, facing a room full of strangers, I said “My name is Madi, and I have a personality disorder. It greatly affects my everyday life, but I’ve been able to wake up every morning and keep working toward my goals despite it all”. A couple weeks later, I found myself on the Grizzly Youth Academy campus, a structured military boarding school for kids who previously struggled in school due to academic, social, or familial problems, as part of an intimate mental health mentorship discussion. For the first time, I felt as if my mental illness was more than a collection of invisible setbacks hidden by academic achievement and physical wellness. I was seen, and I was supporting others. 

I am a high-functioning hard-worker—throughout high school and college I got perfect grades, held leadership positions in multiple organizations, and dedicated a lot of time to my physical health. I’ve always thrived off of the adrenaline of being busy. I managed to channel my depression and anxiety into succeeding academically, and exercise has always been my most versatile coping mechanism. I am about to graduate with the highest honors, and I am in the best physical shape of my life, but the journey to this point has been anything but linear.

I was born and raised in central Maryland, and I thought that moving to California for school would alleviate some of the burden of my mental illness. If I was away from home with new people, learning new things, I would feel better. Unfortunately, this was not the case, and my depression and anxiety in particular became exponentially harder to manage. On top of everything else, one of my childhood friends who I looked up to unconditionally died of a drug overdose just two days before I left for San Luis Obispo. This event has had a significant effect on my relationship with drugs and alcohol which made making friends and maintaining social circles in college a challenge. I started taking antidepressants and gained about twenty pounds despite healthy eating and routine exercise. I lost the passionate, fun-loving, and energetic version of myself to my medication. I was succeeding in the classroom, but I wasn’t interested in anything. I felt like I didn’t have any real friends.

During my sophomore year at Cal Poly, I went to Counseling Services in crisis twice. The first time, I had fallen back into a terrible pattern of self-harm that I could not overcome. After this visit, my doctor suggested that I change my medication. After that medication intensified my suicidal ideation and I returned to Counseling Services in crisis, my doctor dramatically increased my dosage and eventually recommended a different medication altogether. Just a few days after starting this new medication, I woke up with memory loss. I did not know my name or where I was, and I was delusional. I know now that I was experiencing psychosis triggered by the new medication. After meeting with my doctor once again, my diagnosis changed. I have Bipolar Type II. I always thought that Bipolar people were violent, unpredictable, and incapable of social and professional success. This was a death sentence. I almost dropped out of school. I hated my body and my brain. 

This diagnosis and the stigma around it have influenced my life very significantly. First, I had to start taking completely new medications that had a wide range of effects on my body. I could not control when I gained or lost weight, my ability to concentrate essentially disappeared, and my memory has never been the same as it once was. I’ve also had to face the harsh reality that alcohol and mood stabilizing medications do not mix. My insecurity related to alcohol and friendships returned, but I also started to recognize new behavior patterns. I began experiencing what I can now say are hypomanic episodes where I feel invincible. When I am hypomanic, I have a hard time controlling my speech. I am a generally introverted person, but during an upswing, I cannot stop talking. I speak quickly and sometimes don’t complete thoughts. I become intensely irritable, but I launch into an extremely “productive” pattern. 

During a hypomanic episode, I can spend countless hours working, exercising, studying, etc. without rest. When the hypomania ends, a more familiar depressive episode settles in. My depressive episodes manifest as deep, intense feelings of loneliness and insecurity. Although I rarely spend days in bed as a result, I experience untriggered crying fits, bouts of nausea, and extreme social anxiety. I become very inwardly cruel and demand absolute perfection from myself in everything that I do. I tell my partner to break up with me. I ignore my friends. I dedicate time to thinking about all of the failures I’ve experienced. Bipolar Type II is hard to manage. Sometimes I feel especially horrible and ashamed because someone who experiences Bipolar Disorder can explain it over and over, and in a million different ways, but because I appear physically “normal”, many people just don’t get it. 

But despite all of that, I've managed to maintain strong academic standing, to develop both social and professional relationships, and to stay physically healthy. This is something I am incredibly proud of myself for. It makes all of my achievements feel that much more relevant. I am creative. I am determined. I am kind. Yes, I worry about my ability to hold down a job, to be loved wholeheartedly by a partner, to be a good friend among so many other things, but I’ve come to realize that the way my brain works is okay. Every day is a challenge, but I am a more driven person because of it. I have achieved so many things because of it. Although I am nowhere near the point of seeing it as a gift (I need a lot more therapy to get to that place), I am whole. To all of the people who have been my caregivers in any shape or form—thank you. To anyone experiencing anything similar—terrible days may be inevitable, but that does not mean that you are incapable. Be open to sharing and recognizing your unique strengths, and accept the support you deserve.