Posted on 07/12/2009 9:53:03 AM PDT by YaZhynka
I cracked up – for the first time - on June 4, 1988, three weeks short of completing my Masters degree in Psychology. Some would say I had a nervous breakdown. The psych ward doctors said it was major depression. I say that I saw just how evil my sin is in the eyes of God and it scared the hell out of me.
I cracked up, broke down, and de-pressed. I cobbled together some mad reality and blew a fuse. I despaired, decompensated, detached, and derailed. I lost my mind, never to be the same again. Thanks be to God! Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ!
One year later, during my second tour of duty as a psych ward inpatient, I completed my Masters degree in Psychology, taking my final class on three hour passes from the hospital. I woke up in the psych ward, went to class at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, and returned to the hospital for the rest of the day – and night. Now that’s bipolar! Psych grad-student by day. Psych ward patient by night. Two weeks prior to completing my degree, I kicked, thrashed, wrestled, clawed, and bit – literally – to keep from being restrained. I ended up strapped to a bed with a thorazine needle in my arm.
On February 2, 1980, I signed a letter of intent to attend Georgia Tech on a full football scholarship. Six months later I left Atlanta, never to return.
I did not know it until years later, but I was steeped in depression from the time I checked in at Field dormitory for Georgia Tech’s training camp until the day I boarded a red-eye flight back home. I was sad, scared, guilt-ridden, and disconcerted, all while trying to compete at a level of football bigger, faster, stronger, and more complex than any I had ever played.
The anguish over the decision to leave Georgia Tech did not get resolved for twenty years. It hurt. I had busted my butt since I was twelve years-old to earn that scholarship. But without treatment, without some understanding of the disorder that I did not then know I had, leaving, drinking, and/or cracking-up were my only options. Toughing it out would have resulted in all three.
Did I make the best choice by leaving Georgia Tech? Maybe not. A full-blown crack-up in 1980 might have speeded my recovery. It was going to happen sooner or later. Leaving Georgia Tech may have simply delayed my inevitable and necessary crack-up by eight years to the aforementioned 1988 hospitalization.
So why did I leave? Why did I throw away the profound opportunity of a full football scholarship? Why did I give up on my boyhood dream just as it was being realized?
Fear. No, not fear of college football or Georgia Tech or the streets of Atlanta. I was afraid, in 1980, to go face-to-face with myself - alone. I was afraid to deal then with the sin God moved me to confront in a psych ward eight years later.
In December 1999, I was granted a full-tuition, merit-based scholarship to attend St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami, Florida. On March 23, 2001 I was immediately expelled without a hearing, without due process, and without notice of any charges against me. It happened within hours of the Dean of the law school learning that I have bipolar disorder.1
St. Thomas University claimed to have received allegations that I had made threats against the school. I had not and never did.
Further, when I later represented myself in my federal lawsuit against St. Thomas,2 there was no one to come forward to say that they had heard me make the alleged threats against the school.3 In fact, the woman whom I expected to be the school’s star witness against me filed an affidavit stating that I had never made any threats and that she had never alleged that I had made any threats. I lost anyway. I was a resident of Pennsylvania suing a Florida law school in a Florida Court.
I have looked at the above events, cried, cussed, and called it all a nightmare. A tale of wasted potential and opportunities blown to pieces. It is now a tale of God working in all things for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28); a tale of amazing blessing in the extremes. Blessings – all of it! The dizzy joy, the mad energy, the intensity in everything and the depression, despair, anger, failure, and lost opportunities. All of it – Blessing.
Thank you. We can succeed. Yes, bipolar is often painful and dangerous. And, yes, treatment is necessary, but we can succeed. We can thrive! And God can make it a blessing to us. I pray He makes it a blessing to you.
I love the quote next to your screen name. If I had seen it a month ago, I would have stolen it for my book. It was 20 years ago this summer that I last succumbed to the leather straps.
You are in need of professional help right now.
Go and make an appointment.
May I first ask your qualifications for making such an assessment without ever having met me?
Ask your doctor that! See him soon.
You leave me to assume that you have no qualifications to make your assessment. But take heart! I have an appointment with my counselor on July 20 and I have no intention of ever leaving treatment.
Please see a medical doctor. A Psychiatrist MD.
What’s your problem? Why are you trying everything you can to upset someone who’s doing nothing wrong and is living his life well? Shame on you - go see a doctor yourself!
The fact plain to me is that he is in manic with vanity post like this.
Vanity?! How about a man without a license to practice making an internet diagnosis of a person he has never examined, seen, or spoken with? That is vanity.
You tell me to see an M.D. A Psychiatrist. Have you not seen my posts to you in which I say that I have not missed one dose of medication in three years? I thought that would make the fact plain to you that I am seeing a psychiatrist. And I will for the rest of my life. That’s the only way to get the medications which are one of the Blessings of Bipolar.
There is no way for me to prove to you that I am doing well, enjoying my life, and having more peace and joy than ever before - and doing so WITHOUT wild spending sprees, promiscuous sex-catastrophes, believing that I am Christ, and going for days without sleep. I am simply very pleased with my life in spite of my failures. Maybe because of my failures. God has used my experience with bipolar to teach me contentment. You may never believe that, but, I do appreciate your concern for me. Thank you.
You are manic, in my informed by close experience of the condition over many years opinion. And I am speaking with you, or rather keyboarding. We are engaged in a bidirectional flow of ideas.
Yes, I tell you again to see an MD — a psychiatric MD. Not just a counselor — for counselor is the word YOU used. And now today, based on this new information I tell you to get a second opinion. See a different psychiatric MD and get a independent diagnosis from that doctor.
I am not using the phrase “suggest you see” because I’ve been through the hell of living with a person in manic stage. A suggestion would be ignored!
I’m telling you. See an independent, new, psychiatric MD, and get a second diagnosis.
I see an M.D. psychiatrist regularly who has many bipolar patients. He has experienced many more people with bipolar than the one person you have. And he is not emotionally involved with that person as are you.
My family, with whom I am very close, and who has seen me have an extreme manic episode, all believe that I have been more stable for the last 3 years than I have ever been at any previous time for even one month. And they have seen the post which I have written as well as the rest of my book. There opinion on bipolar in general is at least as informed as yours. And they have known me for all of my 47 years , not just a few posts on a blog over two or three days. Again, I appreciate your concern, but you simply do not know what you are talking about. do you know that counseling is available for family members of those who have a mental illness. I, unlike you, frame that as a suggestion. You seem like you might be rather bitter about your experience with bipolar. But I could be dead wrong about that since we have next to zero information about each other. I wish you all the best. And I pray that
God will grant you the deep peace of Christ.
Ping!
Hmmm ... you are making a good effort, not the best, but good. Still, mention this thread to your doc. Bring your laptop, or use his computers to show him (or her) or make a printed copy.
I’d like to hear what the doc has to say, if you can report any of it. Only stuff pertinent to this thread.
You would not trust my report of what the doctor said. Buy a copy of my book and get the opinion of your group therapist;
Families of Mentally Ill
NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness)
National. 1100 groups. Founded 1979. Dedicated to improving the lives of persons living with serious mental illness and their families. Has local self-help and educational groups for family members and mental health consumers. Online community message boards, e-newsletters, blogs and online fact sheets. Quarterly magazines. Focuses on support, education, advocacy and research. Provides online veterans resource center.
Write:
National Alliance on Mental Illness
2107 Wilson Blvd., Suite 300
Colonial Place Three
Arlington, VA 22201-3042
Voice: 1-800-950-6264 or 703-524-7600
Fax: 703-524-9094
Website: http://www.nami.org
Verified: 10/14/2008
That’s not good. Follow my original advice.
This discussion has not been about my disorder. This discussion has been about you transferring your feelings about your bipolar loved one onto me. I’m glad I was able to provide a way for you to vent your unresolved psychodrama. But seeing these people would be more effective:
Families of Mentally Ill
NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness)
National. 1100 groups. Founded 1979. Dedicated to improving the lives of persons living with serious mental illness and their families. Has local self-help and educational groups for family members and mental health consumers. Online community message boards, e-newsletters, blogs and online fact sheets. Quarterly magazines. Focuses on support, education, advocacy and research. Provides online veterans resource center.
Write:
National Alliance on Mental Illness
2107 Wilson Blvd., Suite 300
Colonial Place Three
Arlington, VA 22201-3042
Voice: 1-800-950-6264 or 703-524-7600
Fax: 703-524-9094
Website: http://www.nami.org
Verified: 10/14/2008
I knew this would be rough. You need help.
Families of Mentally Ill
NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness)
(BILINGUAL) National. 1100 groups. Founded 1979. Dedicated to improving the lives of persons living with serious mental illness and their families. Has local self-help and educational groups for family members and mental health consumers. Online community message boards, e-newsletters, blogs and online fact sheets. Quarterly magazines. Focuses on support, education, advocacy and research. Provides online veterans resource center.
Write:
National Alliance on Mental Illness
2107 Wilson Blvd., Suite 300
Colonial Place Three
Arlington, VA 22201-3042
Voice: 1-800-950-6264 or 703-524-7600
Fax: 703-524-9094
Website: http://www.nami.org
Verified: 10/14/2008
I do not know why this is a topic on free republic, but having experienced someone who was bi-polar for a long time, I feel for you and your story.
Thank you. I’m sorry to hear that bipolar was so difficult on your family. It caused much distress for my family, but my parents and siblings are incredible. somehow, we kept it together and are still very close. I would never deny the pain and suffering of bipolar disorder. But neither can I deny my experience of being abundantly blessed in it. I know that in ALL things God works for my good. (Romans 8:28)I know because He has done it in the midst of bipolar disorder.
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