*Trigger warning* Trauma, mania, manic episode, manic depression, psychosis, bipolar disorder type I, psychiatric facility, recovery, medication, healing, alcohol, marijuana
Have you ever lost your mind, lost yourself, and basically been a bystander in your own life as your world collapsed around you?
This is my story of how that went down for me.
Before I dive into it, I want to clarify that I am not here to trauma dump on you without your consent. If you don't want to read this and potentially risk being triggered by me sharing my experience with mental health (which was traumatic!), please click away. But know, if you absolutely cannot contain your curiosity and decide to continue reading, you might learn something about me, about yourself, and human resilience.
. . .
I was a 19-year-old university student, living my best life after successfully making it through second-year exams. With stats and biz calc out of the way, I booked a one-month backpacking trip to visit my brother in England and drink 2 euro wine in the Italian countryside with my cousin.
Days were filled with galavanting through cobblestone streets, admiring 17th-century art, and doing just about any and every free activity.
Nights eating endless tapas in Barcelona turned into dancing till 5 am, walking "home" to our 4-bed mixed dorm hostel room under the soft glow of sunrise.
Things were easy. And fun.
From there, I flew to Montreal, where I spent six weeks "learning French" through a Canadian scholarship program. Let's be honest, sure, I was there to collect my 3-credits of an accredited elective course, but truly, I was much more entertained exploring a new city and making new friends.
Having fun outside of the classroom was the priority. And I regret none of it.
I do want to say I was "living my best life" okay, and like most at that age, I loved to party. Nothing crazy, just the usual suspects (alcohol, marijuana). No more or less than the average binge-drinking high-achiever student. The only main differences were that now, instead of having fun AND a semi-routined life, things were all over the place. Especially my eating and sleeping habits.
This was the first time I had lived in a different province. Away from family, with roommates, outside of my normal support systems, with really no one around who really "knew" me...
So, fast forward five weeks through weekly concerts, outdoor festivals, and fun… it was the last Friday before our final exam. One week and I'd be flying home! Everyone was going out dancing in the Plateau and Mile End. I decided against drinking, to save myself for my studies, and was happy to just go out and have a good time with my friends. That night I ended up taking one tequila shot to celebrate my friend's birthday. I thought all was well until I went back to my apartment and had a pretty sleepless night. I thought it was just insomnia, something I'd dealt with sporadically as a teen. But then Saturday night rolled around, and still no true sleep.
In the morning, a few of us girls went to the Notre Dame Basilica for Sunday morning service followed by a delicious brunch filled with all the French pastries. I can remember breaking down in tears halfway through mass, feeling so out of it and exhausted. Now, looking back, I know I was overwhelmed and my nervous system was severely dysregulated.
Monday morning rolled around, and SURPRISE. Still no luck sleeping.
At this point, things were going downhill fast. I had gone over 48 hours without getting the rest everyone’s body needs to function on a physiological level.
I didn’t have any clue what was going on, I had never experienced this before, let alone knew that what I was going through was ultimately dangerous. Without sleep, I wasn’t taking care of my basic needs, like remembering to eat or drink water? Forget about it, that was just not on my radar.
My mind and body were in survival mode.
Somewhere along the way I began to experience visual and auditory hallucinations, delusional perceptions, and paranoia.
For me, this transition went by pretty unnoticed (by me!), although at times it was unnerving, I remained on average my usual positively optimistic self.
What did this look like?
I became incredibly aware of my surroundings, my emotions, and those of others around me. My senses were so heightened, I remember having to wear headphones constantly during class because there was too much sensory “noise” going on around me. I also thought and believed that my inner intuitive knowing had expanded beyond anything I’d ever experienced before. And in some ways it had.
When you are hallucinating you are ultimately experiencing a different level of consciousness. A combination between wakefulness and REM sleep. Without sleep, my brain and body did everything it could to protect me, attributing meaning to perfectly normal events, like the colour red quite literally embodied the meaning of a “no-go zone,” something to avoid. So, for example, if I saw three people in a row wearing red, I would turn and walk the other way or think that it meant I shouldn’t do whatever I was considering doing at that moment.
Somehow in the midst of this all I was still attending class. Clearly, a deeply motivated part of me wanted to believe that I could still do it all.
Accomplish what I set out to do.
To get the grade, get the credit, and get home.
I knew something wasn’t right, but I also didn’t feel like something was entirely wrong either. This is where things were dicey…
You may be wondering at this point… how the fuck did you not seek help?
Better yet, how did no one around you notice you had gone off the deep end?
This is where things were dicey okay…
I had moments of extreme clarity and was on average quite capable of talking myself through the rollercoaster of emotions, which meant, I could also talk others down from their concerns and panic.
In a more troubling moment, one of my roommates found me sitting in the shower crying endlessly. A closer friend showed up, and they decided to call 911 and try to get me to the hospital. Of course when the EMTs got there I answered their questions sufficiently and ultimately refused to go out of fear.
I didn’t want to make whatever I was experiencing into a big deal. Out of fear and protection for myself, I knew I didn’t want to go to the hospital. Not there at least, I didn’t know what that would look like, in a different province, away from family. What if they didn’t let me leave and fly back home on Friday?
I did what I believe ANY scared, confused, and sleep deprived teenager would do in my situation. I made the best of it.
With a whole lot of help from a few great friends (that I’m gratefully still close with today!) I somehow managed to get my ass home on my scheduled departure flight.
My best friend back home even arranged a Westjet agent to help me get to my gate and you know what I did?! Hid in the washroom, lost my boarding ticket, and went on Facebook Live singing Marvin Gaye’s classic Ain’t No Mountain High Enough. Fitting. But, also, wildly concerning. If you know me you’d know I don’t even like singing karaoke… lol.
I’ll save you the trouble of creeping my socials to find that video, because it was swiftly deleted after my BFF called me and brought me back down to reality. So yeah, that happened, amongst a few other "oopsies."
My behavior was manic, but not suuuuper risky or dangerous. The most significant risk I put myself in was when I boarded my flight with an old roach in my purse, which I later forgot on the plane... Sorry!
After arriving home, I knew I needed help, and so we went to the hospital. They monitored me for several hours got my fluids up and the next morning, I had a scheduled assessment with the in-take team at our local in-patient psychiatric facility.
With a little luck (for a single room!) and a lot of acceptance of my situation, I eventually made the choice to sign myself into a psych ward for an undetermined amount of time. Till I was better, more balanced, and sleeping again.
And that’s exactly how it went and I am so glad I was able to ask and receive help when I did, because I don’t know where I would be today if I hadn’t stabilized my mental health.
Although essentially being under lock and key wasn’t a fun place to be by any means, I needed it. I needed the time, space, and professional care to help me put my brain back together again. Day by day things got better. Of course not without the help of some pretty sedating anti-psychotic meds, love and care from my family and friends who visited me daily, with REAL food in tow from the outside world.
After two weeks of a whole lot of the same routine, I started to come back online and by week three I had successfully hit all the marks and checked all the boxes the team of doctors needed to see in me before letting me go home.
My time being in in-patient care was honestly the easy part, it was what came after that was the hard part. Post mental breakdown and bipolar type 1 diagnosis, rebuilding my mind is what sucked. Not gonna lie. The meds I was forcibly put on by monthly injection really messed with my body. I had body tremors, zero spatial awareness, and brain fog like no other. Likely in part due to the extreme brain inflammation and brain injury I had experienced. Hell, I couldn’t read for three months afterwards because things were so shaken up in there.
And it took me over a year to gain my clarity and focus back enough to feel even remotely close to 100%. Experiencing what the doctors called a severe manic episode with psychosis was not the hard part. For me, that was easy, 10 days living in limbo, in an altered state. It came and went like a really big set of waves, think fast and the furious.
It was the recovery and the fact that I didn’t have anyone around me who I felt like I could truly relate to, which was tough. Day in, day out, watching the ebb and flow of daily life return to some semblance of normalcy. Feeling like I was living on the outside, looking in. Things were slow. There was a lot of time spent just being, and after years of living a pretty go-go-go lifestyle, that took some getting used to.
Over the past several years of rebuilding, refocusing, and reconnecting with myself, I realized I would likely never find someone who has shared the exact same experience as me because it was mine, and everyone else's experience is their own. My hope in sharing this story with you isn't just to open up a dialogue about mental health and share old wounds, sure that can be extremely helpful, trendy even, but more so to share a sliver of my story, a piece of my past, exactly how I want it to be told, with the "ending" being spoiler alert I've had seven incredibly stable years of learning and growth behind me since then.
Sure, life's regular ups and downs have passed by, but I've not once experienced anything like that again. And I likely won't ever. That's why you might've noticed I didn't refer to my experience directly as an episode, because that implies an event occurring as a part of a larger sequence. Instead, I've chosen to always call it like it was, a moment. That's it, that's all. Not good or bad. Just a moment in time.
So, to those of you who are questioning a diagnosis and don’t really feel like they fit under a label, keep asking questions. Stay curious. Definitely don't wear that label like a cloak. Read peer-reviewed articles, gather differing perspectives and opinions, think critically about widely used tools like the DSM-5, pharmacology, and don’t let anyone dictate what story you tell yourself.
Because at the end of the day, it’s you who gets to live within your own mind and identity, you choose which beliefs to subscribe to, that dictate your actions, and ultimately your life. And if there’s one thing I know to be true, it’s that our words, and the stories we tell ourselves matter.
What story are you telling yourself?
What messages are you sending?
What voice are you choosing to listen to?
I'm so proud of you bunny ❤️