2017, by no exaggeration, was the worst year of my life. It was doomed before the clock struck 12 am, January 1st. I won't rehash the details of the onset of my disorder or psychosis since many of you have read that in past posts. But to paint a clear picture, I spent December 31st, 2016 in two hospitals, leading to an 11-day stay in the psych ward. These first 11 days are a blur. I remember bits and pieces, mostly of times in a state of psychosis. When I was released to go home on January 10th, I wasn't better. The psychotic episode that lasted several days had lived and died, but I was still manic.
I was granted a six week reprieve from work, and my husband graciously decided to take advantage of this time off work and took me to Universal Studios in Orlando, FL - my favorite place on earth. My husband and I went, just the two of us, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I still feel like I was at least hypomanic at the time, taking any opportunity to spend money. On our way back from FL, we stopped in Memphis for my live AGT audition. The reality of the whole ordeal set in when I saw the sheer number of people auditioning, and again when all the other singers in my group were just as good, if not better than, me. No way I was winning AGT, much less getting accepted to the show. Ego deflated a little, I still enjoyed myself and vowed to try again next year (now this year, and I haven't gotten the courage to try out due to the extenuating circumstances).
I spent the next few weeks with my family. At first, I couldn't be alone with my kids, per orders from Crestwyn. It was a weird feeling, kinda like having the rug pulled from beneath you.
February came and a few days in I went back to work. I poured myself into my work like I'd never been gone, but it didn't take long for work to become incredibly hard to do. I was pretending nothing had changed, but my reality is that something just short of everything changed. I was now seriously mentally ill. A far cry from the episodic depression and anxiety I'd struggled with in years past. I had new diagnoses I was still breaking in, and my PTSD had been greatly exacerbated by the psychotic break. I began to have invasive flashbacks to the events of December 31st, and often they clouded my entire day with darkness and trepidation. Counseling children and families, especially those with mental illness or trauma similar to mine, became almost impossible. I struggled through each day of work, challenged almost beyond what I could do. I dreaded work. Not because of the "I hate work blahs" we all get, but because I had to face my demons everyday and was expected to somehow help others face and eradicate theirs, too. It was almost too much.
In March I found myself with physical health problems and ended up in the hospital for about a week. My bile duct was blocked again which required a new stint. Due to my PSC I bled a lot internally which required me to need a blood transfusion. My family remarked how pale and sick I looked, but it compared nothing to what I felt inside. I remember just laying there in my hospital bed, day after day, doing nothing or watching TV mindlessly. I was depressed in a bad kinda way. For every bit as manic as I had been during my break, I became that much more severely depressed. After my hospital stay I was released back to work, but again it was almost impossible to function. I began to struggle with suicidal ideation worsening by the day. I told my husband but I don't think he knew how to react other than to tell me to keep pushing through. One day, mid-day, I had had all I could handle. I had worked that morning and had a personal therapy appointment coming up, then was expected to go back to work and work well into the evening hours. I wanted nothing more than to die. My mind and body were exhausted to the fullest extent and I found no peace or joy anywhere I looked. The only thing that kept me from finding a way to end it immediately was the thought of my children and them growing up without a mother. When I got to therapy I shared all of this with my therapist who suggested that I be placed inpatient due to the severe suicidality. She called Crestwyn, upon my request as I was at least familiar with them, and they accepted me. I had to drive back home from Jackson and pack my bags, and then my mother-in-law and sister-in-law drove me to Memphis.
I was there for several days, and from almost the very beginning begging to go home. I was sure I'd do better at home with my kids not away from them. But they insisted that I stay for at least a week and so I did. Every day was a countdown to going home. My experience was a lot different this time. After one night I got to move over to the "normal" wing, where things were much calmer in general. My first night, an aggravated, psychotic patient was screaming and cursing, stomping up and down the halls for hours, scaring me and keeping me from sleep. The last time I was there, that person could have been me. Being hospitalized for depression/suicidality is totally different that being hospitalized for mania/psychosis. This time around people weren't scared of me, they were just silently miserable just like I was. Going through the motions during group therapy time, saying the answers that we knew the therapists wanted to hear. Finding little solace being in a facility, but the hope of medication changes and symptom alleviation were present. This time around my therapist placed me in an EMDR (Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) class for trauma. It was one of the most unique experiences I've been through. We were partnered up, one of us the "processor" and one the "facilitator". As the processor we were to close our eyes for the length of the exercises and share the most intimate details of our trauma to the facilitator, who was just another patient, a perfect stranger, while they kept a beat tapping on our knees. I could have chosen a few different scenarios but I chose to go with childhood traumatic experiences with my father. It's hard to say if it worked or not...I think about those things less as time goes by but I don't know that it's due to the EMDR.
Little worked to help my depression. Medication changes just made me sleep more, which was counterproductive. My therapist discussed with me that she did not think it would be appropriate or beneficial in any way for me to return to work. This instantly wrecked me with anxiety because I did not know how my husband would respond to this or how we would fare without my income. At that time my husband did not have a job lined out for the fall yet. Sure enough, he came across to me as furious when learning their recommendation. I felt like he blamed me for everything and like it was all my fault. Thankfully, after several days my husband came around in agreement that work was not for me at this time, and arranged for me to apply for Social Security Disability, with recommendations from the doctor in hand.
I came home from the facility and resigned from my job, which was so incredibly hard to do and not done without tears. My job of almost 2.5 years, gone because I simply could not function at the capacity needed for this job. I found myself sitting at home every day, which may sound like fun but it reality it was depressing, knowing that my condition had worsened to the point to where I couldn't work or even care for myself some days.
My husband became my strongest support and worked to help me get through my days. We took a vacation to Las Vegas in June and I had a really good time, for being somewhat depressed and forlorn. I enjoyed the summer after that with my husband and children as much as I could, but darkness still impeded in nearly everything. I attended regular therapy and medication management appointments and continued to stay about the same. In July I wrote a 5-part blog series on living with a serious mental illness (you can go back and read them if you so desire) that really covered my life during and following my psychiatric break.
Admittedly much of 2017 is a blur; as a result of my deep depression I suffer from memory loss. There are many chapters of my life in which I have to rely on my husband to recall because I simply cannot do it. I remember a few bright spots, such as my son starting Kindergarten, my youngest turning two, and my oldest turning 6. I mostly remember walking around in a fog, sleeping many of my days away and longing for meaning. I remember parts of going to a Queen + Adam Lambert concert with a good friend, and going out to eat a few times with friends. Around November I started coming to terms more with my diagnoses and the healing process, which I blogged about. It was and is still a messy, complicated, and sometimes scary thing.
2017 was hard. 2018 is proving to be a little better but still a trial every day. A couple months ago I received a new diagnosis of Schizoaffective Disorder, Bipolar type. This is due to my increasing hallucinations along with the continued mood disturbances. The hallucinations are usually minor but bothersome. My Disability was denied and I am now awaiting a court date in the appeal process. I will post more about this at a later date. I mainly wanted to finally wrap up my 2017 post.
