Reclaiming My Health

When I was diagnosed with manic depression (now called Bipolar I), at the age of 19, as a student at Indiana University in Bloomington in 1989, I was told that I would have to take lithium for the rest of my life. I started taking it the summer before my sophomore year, and my athletic performance was immediately negatively affected. I quit the soccer team because my coordination had become so poor. I could no longer quickly visually track the ball on the field and I couldn't handle the ball or pass or kick as well. My body felt alien to me.

I spent my sophomore year focusing on school and trying to get used to my new life on medication. I had some friends on a cycling team who knew that I had quit playing soccer, but not really why, and they asked me to ride with them the upcoming summer. After a couple of rides they told me that I was really good and asked me to join the team. So, I joined the team, but something was still off physically, and I knew it. After not performing as well as I would have liked in the first few races, and also having unpleasant problems with dehydration, I decided to quit taking lithium. I told my teammates that I had manic depression, as it was called at the time, and that I had decided to quit taking my medication because it slowed me down too much. My athletic performance improved almost immediately. After discontinuing lithium, I usually placed first, second, or third in my races and was ranked third in the Midwest in women's collegiate cycling. My team also won the Women's Little 500 bike race, which was very exciting! However, I was having trouble concentrating, and feeling very restless, unstable, and pulled in different directions, and also experiencing psychosis at times, so after not graduating on time, I decided to start taking lithium, quit racing, and focus on my studies. Of course, I ended up gaining weight and suffering physically. I did not enjoy feeling slowed down, but I thought it was the price I would have to pay to get on with my life, and I finally graduated.

After graduating, it seemed like the best thing to do would be to continue to take my medication, even though it felt like a weight was tied to my feet when everyone was encouraging me to swim. I was not only physically slowed down, but I also experienced cognitive dulling. When I moved to Louisville, where I still live, I started seeing a new psychiatrist. I remained in his care for 16 years because he had a good reputation, my parents had chosen him for me, and it is really hard to find a good, or even decent psychiatrist. He seemed to believe that I needed to be heavily medicated.  At my most highly medicated, I was taking 1800 mg. lithium, 400 mg. Lamictal, 600 mg. Seroquel XR, Ambien to sleep, and Provigil for alertness (which didn't work for me). It felt like way too much medication and I was exhausted all the time. My life was out of balance. Work was my focus because I had little time or energy for anything else. My psychiatrist was resistant to making changes to my medication, insisted that I take lithium, and told me that he would not continue to treat me if I quit taking lithium, as he considered it to be the cornerstone of my cocktail of psychiatric medications. I consulted with a lawyer to discuss filing a lawsuit for malpractice, because I felt I had been turned into a zombie, and she did some research and told me that I was taking enough medication to knock a horse over. Instead of going through with the lawsuit though, I let it go and quit taking my medication without consulting with my psychiatrist. I lost 60 pounds in a year without trying that hard, and felt better, but I ended up becoming manic and being hospitalized again. After that hospitalization I told myself I would take my medication no matter what, and I did. I still had severe mood episodes and I developed serious side effects: hypertension, borderline metabolic syndrome, and sleep apnea. I also gained a tremendous amount of weight. When I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I weighed 130 pounds, and after taking medication for close to 20 years, I was up to 278. I had gained 148 pounds. My weight had more than doubled.

After suffering a terrible depression, having ECT, and ending up on disability, I finally decided that the seemingly substandard psychiatric treatment was just too much for me to handle and I couldn't take it anymore, so I found a new psychiatrist. She is a woman who is a few years younger than I am and she understands my concerns about weight gain and side effects and agreed to help me change my medication since I knew I could not just quit taking it myself without serious repercussions. I had educated myself about withdrawal from psychiatric medication and I found that many medications have withdrawals that mimic symptoms of bipolar disorder. She agreed to let me taper off of lithium. When I did, I experienced a bout of hypomania, but I also lost weight, was not thirsty all of the time, my hair became thicker (it had been falling out for years at that point), my psoriasis began to clear up, and I felt sharper and had more energy, and started becoming more active and taking better care of myself, and with alternative medications, my moods began to stabilize.

I have kept regular appointments with my new psychiatrist since 2010 and my health has improved a great deal. I no longer feel extremely slowed down by my medication and it is easier to work, cook, clean, exercise, socialize, spend time with family, go to doctors' appointments, and to appointments with my therapist. I have realized that in the past I waited too long to seek treatment too many times. Mania, psychosis, anxiety, paranoia, and depression can overwhelm me pretty quickly both mentally and physically. I need to take action and get help from my psychiatrist and therapist before I get swept into a downward or upward spiral.

Now that I have time to live a balanced life, because I am appropriately medicated instead of overmedicated, I focus on taking care of myself physically, mentally, and spiritually. I do not live a perfect lifestyle, but it is greatly improved from how I lived after my first breakdown, and for many years afterward. I work part-time and try to keep my stress levels low. I exercise, meditate, spend time with friends and family, and do volunteer work. Wellness is the focus of my life because if I am not well I can't enjoy anything or be of service to others.

Growing Up

When I was growing up, I worked hard at everything. In school, I was told it was important to become well rounded. So, without really thinking deeply about it, that became my goal. I took accelerated and advanced placement classes, played soccer, tennis, swam, ran track, rode bikes, acted, sang, and danced in plays and musicals, and sang in my church choir. I enjoyed engaging in different activities, because when I was engaged, nothing troubled me.

The hardest thing about my childhood was that I moved a lot. By the time I was in high school, I had been to seven different schools in five different states and Canada. I expected to move every couple of years, and if I didn't, I felt that something was wrong, that I had been stuck in the same place for too long.

My parents were happy with my productivity and encouraged my interests. Then I got to college, and I had to choose a major. I started out as a theater major, which my parents strongly discouraged. My father wanted me to study business which, at the time, I  thought was much too boring. I was creative and considered myself to be unconventional, and didn't think I would fit into that school. I settled on journalism because I liked to write and take pictures, and my university had one of the best programs in the country. It seemed like a respectable enough path. I also had to choose a subject for my concentration, so I chose biology, because I had always found it interesting, and I imagined that I could work as a science writer. That was the first time I set major goals instead of just trying to excel at everything. Then, I had my first breakdown and dealt with the aftermath.

Shortly after I returned to my university, I applied for a prestigious scientific grant and got it. I was given money to study sensory perception in the mating system of a species of parasitic wasp. Exciting! I felt like a real adult. I was doing research! I had loved all of my science classes in high school, but I had never imagined myself working in a lab, and I had applied for the grant on a whim and couldn't believe I had actually gotten it.

One reason the professor in charge of the lab wanted to work with me, is that he hoped that I would help him with his writing, and I did. It was an honor. I couldn't believe he appreciated my help. After the initial excitement though, my attitude toward working in the lab changed. I was the only female and the only undergraduate in the lab. The professor treated me respectfully, but the other researchers hit on me mercilessly. I had never even considered that might happen. They were really geeky guys, and I was certainly not attracted to any of them. They were not threatening, they just became more and more annoying each day, and I started to feel claustrophobic in the lab.

Around that time, some cyclists, who were aware that I had recently quit the soccer team after a mental breakdown, tried to recruit me to be on their team for a big bike race held every year on my college campus. I told  them I was busy working at the lab in the afternoons when they wanted me to practice. One weekend though, I went on a ride with them and they told me that I had talent and that they hoped I would join their team. Shortly after that, I abandoned my research and started racing bikes. With the help of their coaching, I became really good at it, especially, I discovered, without lithium, so I was lithium-free for most of the rest of my college days. We won the big race on campus, and I won a lot of bike races on my own, and ended up being ranked 3rd in the Midwest Collegiate Cycling Conference in 1992.

Achieving success as a bike racer helped me deal with the pain of losing my mind, but I knew I could not keep winning if I started to take lithium. When I take lithium, it seems like my muscles just don't twitch the same way, and I can't push myself hard enough to win. I used to enjoy riding so hard that I could taste blood, and I am just not that intense when I take lithium. But I knew I needed the medication to live a productive life. When I was racing bikes, I didn't become extremely manic, but I was hypomanic, and also depressed and angry at times. I often felt disoriented and disorganized and there were some times when I couldn't remember things I had done recently, even though I hadn't been drinking or using drugs. The people around me were supportive and thought my spaciness, and unpredictability were, for the most part, funny, but I knew that I wouldn't be able to continue living in that fragile state and keep up with my adult responsibilities. So, because I was used to closing chapters of my life, I easily quit bike racing, resumed taking lithium, and eventually graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism with a Concentration in Biology, amidst very little fanfare.

Bike Racing

This is a picture of me racing bikes in college in 1992. I had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but didn't take the medication because I could never win when I took it, but I almost always placed well without it.

College was a crazy time for me, but I don't think I would do things differently. I wasn't ready to settle down and live the extremely controlled life it takes to manage a serious mental illness.

I was pretty much out of control, but I was enjoying myself. I'm sure others would see things differently because, while I could be very entertaining at times, I know I was often hard to deal with back then.