crisis

I haven’t been treated for 6 years. Then in 2006 I had a big crisis. I thought the world was ending and I was the messenger that would save it. When my husband came home one day, the apartment was a disaster. I tore it up. My mania and psychosis had gotten so bad that he had to call 911.

Three police officers and two paramedics arrived at my home. It looked more like a criminal arrest than a medical emergency. They tied me to a wheelchair and took me to the hospital in an ambulance.

I ended up in the psychiatric emergency room. The doctor who admitted me opened the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Bipolar Disorder. He asked me, “Do you have any of these symptoms?” and pointed to the side. I said, “No, no, no.” But he said, “Yes, yes, yes.”

For 2 days I lay on a stretcher in the corridor of the psychiatric emergency service because the hospital had no open spaces. They sedated me heavily to get me out of my severe manic episode. I woke up in a containment unit in leather cuffs. It was unsettling.

Before I was released, I had to make an appointment to see a psychiatrist for treatment. A few weeks after I started taking my medication, I felt healed and no longer needed it. So I stopped taking medication, got sick and was hospitalized again. I was hospitalized three times – in 2006, 2010 and 2014. A separate manic episode led to my arrest for breaking into a place of worship to pray, again thinking the world was ending.