A New Path

I must ponder the question; what caused my mental illness? The science says that most likely there is a gene involved with major bipolar disorder or schizoaffective disorder bipolar type, of which I have had since I was eighteen. I triggered the gene through incredible stress my first year in college. I took seven courses and played two sports my first semester. I was in a foreign state and city, and in a very different climate. I was far from home, and culturally Oakland California was very different than my rainy Seattle and sleepy Lopez Island in Washington. Though that may be the science, there was evidence of this mood disorder and some psychosis before I even left for college. My senior year in high school I suffered a bout of major depression. I had a reaction, a panic attack and erratic behavior, in response to an antidepressant, and this can show leanings toward bipolar disorder. When I was seventeen, I also showed evidence of psychotic behavior, I believe. Many friends knew this in my neighborhood, and at the local coffee house they had a nickname for me, “psycho panties”. This name may have come later at nineteen when I returned from my failed second semester at college in California, after I spent a couple days in a lock down psych ward in Riverside California while attending a conference for my women’s studies class.

As a child I was moody. My mother often was aware of my blood sugar issues, and when I would act up would insist that I eat something. The other day in a meeting, I heard someone with an eating disorder state that eating disorders can cause mood disorders. I believe this is what happened to me. I had an eating disorder at fourteen and fifteen years old while I attended an esteemed prep school. I also discovered pot, alcohol, and psychedelics at this school. I do not think the couple times I took mushrooms and LSD necessarily caused mental illness, but it may not have helped. My acting out may also have been an attempt to self medicate. I came out about my eating disorder at sixteen and told my fellow counselors unit at the YMCA camp I worked at in high school. I actively pursued healing from it at that time, though I did not necessarily tell my parents, nor did they know, until years later when I was a young adult. I quit purging and starving myself, but some of these behaviors persisted occasionally until I was nineteen when I quit for certain. It took three years of soul searching to fully attend to the psychological addiction of an eating disorder.

Being sensitive since I was young with mood issues early on, then an eating disorder, then depression and psychosis, I was well on my way to mental illness before my first hospitalization at eighteen. I tried to hide it and suppress it, and I did not participate in drugs and alcohol my junior and senior years, nor freshman year in college, except for some weed and a couple trips on mushrooms and LSD. I gave up all marijuana use and any psychedelics at 19 while learning to live with mental illness. The drinking came at nineteen or twenty, after my second failed attempt at four year college, and my second hospitalization. I resigned to a simple life of living with my partner and having a job. We eked by a living, him a restaurant cook, and me a childcare professional, and we had a good life. But the pain of living a life with mental illness was real, and I became an alcoholic to deal with that pain. I thought I was a complete failure. I was estranged from almost all of my friends in high school, except for a couple girlfriends that stood by me through the years. I also had a few friends from the neighborhood that both my partner and I had connection with. Still, the alcohol exasperated my illness. It took a while, but I had another psychotic break when I was twenty eight, around my Saturn return. We moved to the island, and I started to drink a little less, though I still drank and I believe it helped me work. Then I broke again at thirty seven, and avoided the hospital. I had to quit drinking. I quit here and there, and then joined AA four years ago. Now I am forty four and have twenty consecutive months of complete sobriety. I still smoke cigarettes, but I am making progress there, and I have faith that quitting smoking will come with time in recovery.

My eating disorder caused my mood disorder, along with the triggering of a gene. Then my psychosis worsened due to alcohol. In these ways I am in control of my own healing, because I can see my choices, and what they led to. I can make different smarter choices now around food and drinking, as well as taking medication and having a therapist and doctor. My recovery community is my home now. I attend at least two meetings a day on Zoom, and I feel I need to. I need the fellowship I have from people who also struggle. It feels really good to take responsibility for my life, and to understand how my choices contributed to my mental illness. It is still an illness, and there is no shame. But now I have hope. I believe there is something I can do about it. I can make good choices, take right action, and grow up. Recovery is about growing the fuck up. I wish to be impeccable with my word and work towards healing through connection and service. I do not cast blame on anyone, and I know I have a choice in every moment to do the next right thing. I am still human, but I feel I am a better human. I am so grateful for my journey in recovery.