My First Episodes (2007 to 2009)

I have realized that I have always been bipolar even though I wasn't diagnosed until age 23. Age of onset for mental illness is late adolescent/early twenties. I was ripe for an episode. Episodes are also triggered by traumatic life events. My first episode (a bout of depression) occurred during the fall semester of my second and last year of graduate school. I was student-teaching 2nd grade in New Brunswick, NJ. I had a lot of anxiety around teaching. I mean, who would trust me alone in a classroom with their children? I was terrified to teach despite always wanting to be a teacher. Around November 2006 I became depressed. I stopped eating, I stopped grooming, I stopped hanging out with friends and taking phone calls, I cried almost every morning before I had to go to the elementary school for student-teaching. I was around 120/125 pounds. I dropped down to 106. I looked skeletal. I wasn't sleeping. I stopped sleeping in my bed because I couldn't fall asleep there so I took to sleeping (or rather "laying," since I rarely slept) on the couch downstairs in the living room.

I felt like I was a failure at student-teaching. I was teaching full time and had one graduate class for a few hours every Thursday night. I told my cooperating teacher how much I sucked. She had done alternate route (meaning, she did not do a traditional teacher preparation program). She told me that I was a lot better than her during her first year. Her kind words did nothing to placate me.

I don't know how, but I managed to finish student-teaching in December. I knew something was wrong. I worked up the courage to seek help. I went to Rutgers student health services. I had every symptom of depression except suicidal thoughts. The therapist told me that since my mom had private insurance I should seek outside help. I felt dismissed. He did not take my depression seriously because I wasn't suicidal. I never sought help again. It took all I had to go to see him; I couldn't do it again. My mom snapped her fingers in my face and said "snap out of it." Such an insensitive comment, from my otherwise very kind and thoughtful mother. No one says crap like this to people with cancer or diabetes: "you can will yourself to be better." Yeah, right. The reason I stopped taking my family and friends calls was because they were so well-meaning, trying to cheer me up. I knew I was being irrational, but I couldn't change my negative thoughts. So instead of sounding like a broken record, I just avoided all contact. Even though I wasn't suicidal, that doesn't mean I wanted to live. I wanted to press the "pause" button on my life and wake up when I was back to normal.

January came and I went to Jamaica with Chavonne and Niama. I don't remember having much fun. And I haven't been back to a Caribbean island since. (I travel frequently; I've been to Spain, Morocco, Egypt, Italy, Japan, South Africa, and Costa Rica).

I don't remember what month it was, but sometime in the spring semester I started to feel better. I didn't spend any money when I was depressed because I didn't think I would ever have a job or money. At this point I had zero credit card debt. However, I started shopping. I bought two Gucci bags ($1400), three Lucky jeans (at $100 a pop), $100 in costume jewelry accessories, and I have no idea what else I bought. But when all was said and done I had charged $10,000 on my credit cards in less than two or three months. I still wasn't sleeping or eating. When your manic, your brain doesn't think it needs food or sleep. I got very euphoric. I started talking very fast. I got excited about my future again.

The euphoria turned to irritability after awhile. I started arguing with the members of my household. Grad school was going so-so. My professors and advisors thought something was off. Because clearly it was. I applied for a job with a charter school in Newark, one of the better ones in the city. The interview went well considering I was manic. However, it all fell apart when it came time to ask for a recommendation from my cooperating teacher. Since I gave her such a hard time when I was depressed in the fall, she requested I not be returned to her class in the spring for my teacher-researcher project. Instead, I worked with a first grade teacher down the hall. Needless to say I did not get the job. In retrospect, I'm glad I didn't. Charter school schedules are too demanding and are not sustainable for healthy people, let alone diagnosed folks.

In April I was committed to the hospital. I knew I needed to go. But first I wanted to have a going away party at Makeda's in New Brunswick. I wanted to go to the mall to get a new outfit, I wanted a new hair do, and I wanted a manicure and pedicure. Needless to say I did not get to have my going away party. I was very upset about it too!

I was in the hospital for 17 days. It's incredibly hard to be the only manic person around severely depressed people. Whereas everyone else was moping around, I was literally bouncing off the walls. I couldn't sit still long enough to watch a movie. I couldn't sit still long enough to eat my meals; it took me anywhere from 40 to 60 minutes to finish eating. I was irritable with the staff and other patients. I threatened someone, saying, "You don't know me, I'm from Newark, I'll cut you!" I don't even talk like that. I had one fight in 6th grade with an effeminate boy and he beat me. The staff threatened to involuntarily sedate me with a needle if I didn't calm down. They didn't. But I moved rooms to remove myself from other people. I took my blankets and went to sleep in the observation room (I call it the padded room, except the walls weren't padded). Two symptoms of mania are hypersexuality and lack of impulse control. I remember one time after I got out of the shower, I came out of the bathroom in just my towel. One of the patient care technicians saw me and told me to put some clothes on. Despite being 106 pounds I was still shapely. I think I aroused him. And he treated me like an asshole. The psychiatrist (the one with the negative connotation to his name) called me psychotic. I was offended. They tried at least four or five different medicines. I was on 2500mg of either Depakote or Risperdal. 2500mg is the highest dose possible. It did absolutely nothing for me, I was that manic. Next, the doctor tried Seroquel. I had vivid nightmares the first few nights. I dreamed that the nurses and doctors had Tommy guns and were coming to get me. It felt so real. I remember calling my mother and crying about the hallucinations I was having. I have consciously chosen not to do drugs (I've never smoked; I drink probably twice per year) and here I was hallucinating. It was a hard pill to swallow. All of the staff treated me poorly. They treated me like I was their first manic patient. I did not have a positive experience on the behavioral health unit. However, there was one nurse who was nice to me. She was a middle-aged black woman. She treated me like family. And I will be forever grateful. This was in 2007, when I went back to the hospital in 2013 she was still working there. I wrote her a thank you card. She was so moved by my words that I saw her sharing the card with the other nurses!

Next, I was put on a small dose of Lithium. I don't remember the dosage; I think it might have been 300mg or 600mg. But it began working almost immediately. I felt the fog begin to lift. Now, I was still manic but I felt myself coming down. It was hard to still be on the unit when people came after me but left before me.

My mom came to visit me every single day. I can't imagine how hard this had to be on her. How draining and taxing. I made her buy outside food for all of the patients. She complied. I don't know why she didn't tell me "no." I also had other visitors. I really appreciated them for coming to see me. Especially when I was not a nice person. I am now embarrassed by my behavior. Luckily I have not acted this way since.

After my 17-day bid (because that's exactly what it felt like: a prison sentence), I did 6 weeks (or 18 sessions) of Intensive Outpatient Therapy (IOP). It meets from 10:30am to 2pm daily. It's a combination of group therapy led by nurses and therapists, individual sessions with a therapist, and individual sessions with a psychiatric nurse practitioner or psychiatrist. I thoroughly enjoyed IOP. I recognized some familiar faces from the hospital. But not everyone at IOP is hospitalized prior, some come in on their own or at the recommendation of their providers.

I withdrew from graduate school with only one month to go to graduation. I was very sad not to finish graduate school on time. I attended Duke University for undergrad and the majority of my friends were in law school or medical school. Looking at their updates on Facebook I felt like such a failure. Playing "keeping up with the Joneses" was not good for my self-esteem. One of my grad school friends got a job teaching kindergarten at a Newark charter school. She told me her job was hiring teacher's assistants. I applied. Got the job and started working there in November 2007. My first year I was a kindergarten teacher's assistant and as-needed substitute teacher. My second year I was a 5th grade teacher's assistant. My first year I was a star employee. However, by my second year I stopped caring. I hated my job. It was such a toxic environment: the teachers yelled at the students, there were fights everyday (mind you, this was a K-5 school), the principal was ineffective. He'd hide out in his office avoiding confrontations with parents. I started coming in late every day. I just didn't want to be there but I needed the job. I had student loans and credit card debt to pay off. I was making around $25,000. Well below what my degrees could demand. I was three classes away from finishing my master's degree and becoming a certified teacher. I was more highly educated than half the teachers at the school, but I wasn't a teacher.

After my second year, my friend from grad school, the kindergarten teacher, told me I was a "b*tch." And she was right. I, too, started yelling at the kids. At 125 pounds I do not have a commanding presence; and my classroom management skills were non-existent. Working at the Newark charter school changed me. For the worse. Even worse than my personality change was what I did to my nephews. At the time, my brother, his fiancee and their two kids were living at my mom's house. When I came home I was so drained. I would go into my room and shut the door to avoid my nephews. This was not fair to them.

Meanwhile, I was avoiding finishing up my grad degree. I had an irrational fear of teaching. I thought if I taught I'd get depressed again. My therapist, whom I love, told me: "Krystal, who cares if you teach, just finish the f*cking degree!"

I was depressed practically the entire two years I was working at the charter school. I was still in therapy and compliant with all of my meds. Then something turned around during the spring of 2009. I had had it with my job and started applying to other places. I started working on the 4 papers I needed to finish for my master's. In retrospect, it's crazy that it took me two years to write four papers. If I had been mentally well I could've written them all in a week.

I applied to about 20 different jobs. Most were with non-profit organizations. I applied to two teaching jobs: a GED teacher at a halfway house and a high school teacher at a private school. Would you believe it that the only callbacks I got came from the teaching jobs! I interviewed for the GED teacher opening. I thought it went well. The interviewer made it seem like I had the job. Then they never called. My aunt works in the halfway house's headquarters. Her view was that I didn't get the job because I was too pretty. It was an all-male halfway house. In April 2009 the private school had a diversity recruitment event. I saw it in the Star Ledger. The event was beautiful. The people were warm (the students, parents, teachers, administrators). I was struck most by one teacher's story about feeling guilty after she transitioned from a public school to this private school. Her words resonated with me.

I spoke to this teacher. And I also spoke to the Diversity Director. There was an opening for high school English. I went to graduate school for elementary education and would be certified to teach K-8. I did not have high school certification. But the Diversity Director told me that I didn't need state certification for private schools. That made my day. Next I talked to the Associate Head of the School. She was really nice. She asked me if I attended a Nemnet recruitment event. Nemnet is a hiring firm for school districts specializing in placing people of color in schools. I did register for the Nemnet event, but I was hospitalized when it took place so I couldn't attend. But she remembered my resume! I was so impressed.

The next day the Associate Head of the School emailed me to ask if I would be interested in applying for the high school English position. A few weeks later I had my interview. I had to teach a 40-minute demonstration lesson to a class of students. I asked the teachers at my job for feedback on my lesson. I taught the poem "Invictus." I had the students closely read the poem. Then for "homework" I had them imagine they were a therapist, they had to write about how they would use the poem in a therapy session with a client who was going through a divorce, lost their job, and was in the process of losing their house. It was a full day of interviews. I had one-on-one interviews with the Upper School Director (principal), the Diversity Director, and the Associate Head of the School. I had a group interview with the entire English department. I was on! I was my usually bubbly and alert self. I answered their questions thoughtfully and asked them questions in return. A few weeks later I was informed that I got the job! I have been at this school for five years now. I love it: the students, my colleagues, my principal.

My current school is so different from my job at the Newark charter school. Night and day is an understatement. My current school suits my temperament much better. And I don't yell at students! And I can teach. I love discussing books. Every school should be like mine.