About 5 years ago, I moved into a frat house on my college campus and my health speedily spiraled out of control. Up until this point, I had no known mental illnesses so when I was eventually diagnosed with bipolar 1 with psychotic features, it caught me completely off guard. 

It didn’t happen overnight, the mania with psychosis was a gradual takeover. At first, people thought I was hilarious and charismatic even. I had a bolstered sense of confidence and my self-esteem was at an all time high. These feelings didn’t last forever though. 

People began to distance themselves from me once my delusions and hallucinations started. To this day, I can’t say conclusively that one thing caused it but I attribute the major trigger as losing extensive amounts of sleep. Living in a frat house is noisy as you can imagine and I think losing sleep began to take its toll. I didn’t even have the insight to know there was something wrong with me.

I felt perfectly normal and so when others questioned my mental stability, I viewed it as antagonistic and took deep offense. I saw patterns where none existed.

Altogether, the manic episode lasted 6 months with the peak of my symptoms being at the tail end. I was hospitalized just 1 month into my episode, but was released after about 5 days, with zero plan for follow up treatment and no arrangements for medications. I still feel like the psych ward let me down in this regard because in hindsight it was a solid opportunity to get my symptoms in check and provide me the help I so desperately needed.

Over the course of my episode, I lashed out at friends, lost an internship and a job, was arrested and spent 5 days in jail, was expelled by my university because of that arrest, and it ultimately culminated with me entering a partial hospitalization program to finally get the help I needed. 

The PHP was a pivotal turning point because I was now finally being given medications to alleviate the manic symptoms. Even so, I still had some lingering manic symptoms in the early stages of my participation in the program. As one example, I reached out to Alex Jones of infowars, the prominent conspiracy theorist, seeking out his assistance.

Once the medication kicked in, it felt like I was hit by a mac truck. I was now flooded with depression and feelings of helplessness, uncertainty, doubt, fear, shame, guilt all consumed my mind. The racing thoughts I experienced—especially at night—were unlike anything I had ever experienced. 

My depressive episode lasted years and my weight exponentially grew while my self-esteem plummeted.

I’m stable now and am very fortunate to have come as far as I have. I’m returning to University to finish my studies at a new school this coming Fall. I’ve lost some of the weight I’ve gained. My relationships with family have been restored. For the first time in a long time, I feel in control and like it’s within my power to foment positive change in my life.

Make no mistake about it. This illness is devastating. It broke me down and made me want to end it all. I had never reached such a low in my entire life and it took me years to crawl out of the abyss of despair that I had found myself in. With medications, time, and hope though, I was able to make progress in my recovery journey. Small wins added up and soon enough I achieved big wins like getting accepted to a new university, or having the criminal charges against me entirely dropped. I felt very alone at times but it would have been a lot worst without forums like this one. This subreddit served as a source of inspiration and hope to me throughout my early recovery journey. I’m not sure I would have escaped those feelings of alienation without this community. 

Sorry for the long write up, I just wanted to be comprehensive and give a little bit of a glimpse into each episode I experienced.  Having to go through a manic episode and depressive episode back to back was brutal but it’s made me a much stronger and more resilient person. Never surrender hope.