(June 3, 2016) On July 12, 2001, I stood outside the emergency room at Randolph Hospital sobbing in handcuffs and shackles, the blistering pavement burning through the ugly hospital socks on my feet. I felt humiliated.
I had overdosed, almost died and was now waiting to be transported by the sheriff’s department to Dorothea Dix Hospital, which was one of our state’s mental hospitals.
I was in shackles and cuffs because when I was told I was being involuntarily committed to the state hospital I became very scared and angry and pretty much tore up the intensive care unit room I was in.
I have bipolar illness. I was diagnosed in 1998.
Doctors say mental illness is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, no different than diabetes is caused by a chemical imbalance in the pancreas. I use medications and lifestyle changes to manage my illness just like a diabetic. People can say, “I have diabetes,” and no one bats an eye. But say you have mental illness and most people get really uncomfortable.
I have experienced many episodes of mania (having lots of energy) and a couple really bad episodes of depression that lasted about a year. I have been hospitalized many times. In between times I feel mostly like other people.
I have had times feeling the world is the most beautiful place to live. But I have also had extremely manic episodes where I have behaved in ways I would not usually behave. I have hurt people. I have deep regrets. I have been so depressed I could hardly get out of bed for days.
I have not always taken medications because of side effects and sometimes because I felt better. Sometimes I have seemed to be going along fine, then spun into mania again, which is always followed by a depressed period. Because of the uncertainty of my moods, I have isolated myself over the years.
I have a family and a few close friends who are knowledgeable about mental illness and have always been very supportive, but there have been times when I was so sick it became too much for them to bear. My behavior was so bizarre they simply could not deal with me anymore for a period of time and did not know what to do to help me because I would not listen to anything anyone said.
Some days I live in fear knowing that no matter what I do, there is always the chance I might become sick again.
I hope that one day we will live in a world where mental illness is not something we fear, but something we recognize as an illness with no stigma attached. Where saying, “I have bipolar illness,” will cause no more alarm than saying, “I have diabetes.”
SHARON WOMACK
RAMSEUR, NORTH CAROLINA
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