A deep blue blanketing of 1AM sky envelops my car as I sit in my parents’ driveway in February 2010, pondering my next, last move. I have just driven home in a blur from someone’s house after a typical night of self-destruction, racing along the winding, backcountry roads of the town I grew up in, a primal scream emerging from somewhere deep within me, ripping at my throat as it pushes its way out and makes my eardrums ring. My desperate desire that a deer leap into the road, smash my windshield, and crush me to death has been left unfulfilled, and I’ve now realized for the second time in my life that a future of inner peace and contentedness is just not in the cards for me— my bipolar disorder is just too severe, and it’s in my hands to do something about it.
I stare listlessly into the encompassing darkness beyond my windshield, my guttural screams now quieted by a wave of deep detachment from myself. As tears push themselves from the corners of my eyes and roll silently down my cheeks, I sense only pervasive nothingness. In the past year, I’ve been swiftly spiraling down the drain of existence, drowning myself slowly and leaving the few people I’ve not yet pushed out of my life floating safe and sound on the surface above, despite their attempts to help me. With this combination of hopelessness and isolation fueling a desperate urge to escape myself, I’ve now placed alcohol at the center of my universe, which has officially become smaller, darker, and emptier than it’s ever been before. The time seems right to complete the job I’d left unfinished two Novembers ago on the rocks in Maine, and to do it right this time. I feel a sudden surge of motivation.
With my heart pounding and eyes widening, I feel paradoxically alive with anticipation that I’m finally about to go to sleep forever. The same familiar relief I felt that November day starts to creep back in, and I can feel my heart beating harder in my chest with a sense of confidence in this decision. I once again feel nostalgia for what my life had been a long time ago, knowing that my last breath will take place in the house in which I grew up, and that I’ve come full circle, the beginning now becoming the end. With my parents out of the country and my grandmother asleep in the guestroom upstairs, I know I’m in the clear to ransack all the pill bottles in the house and meet my fate. I have surrendered.
Suddenly, however, I notice my hands moving to my pocket to retrieve my cell phone, my fingers dialing a number I recognize. The phone is now at my ear, ringing once. Why am I doing this? Twice. Why can’t I hang up? Three times. I feel possessed, aware of what is happening to my body but mentally paralyzed to make it stop. Four times. All of a sudden, my father’s voice, roused from sleep, is on the other line.
“Hello?”
Without my permission, my throat and mouth begin to formulate words.
“Dad, I’m scared I’m going to kill myself. I don’t know what to do. I’m in the driveway at home and if I go in the house I’m going to die.”
I sense fear in the changed tone of my father’s voice, but also firm determination.
“Laura, you’re going to be OK. Can you drive to the hospital? Go straight to the hospital. You’re going to be OK. I’ll stay with you on the phone.”
I hear the engine start, baffled by how that could be until I realize that my hand is on the keys turning the ignition. I watch as this hand, which seems to be on a stranger’s arm, shifts the gears into drive, and now a foot down below slides over from the brake to the accelerator. After watching the car make a three-point turn, I find myself sitting in the driver’s seat of this vehicle that is now leading me out of the driveway, my hands somehow on the steering wheel. I feel confused, as I am making no conscious decision to do any of this.
Ten minutes later, I found myself walking through the sliding doors of the local emergency room with tears once again streaming down my face. This time, however, they felt different. I felt them on my skin, tasted them on my tongue, watched them stain my shirtsleeve, for I was now actually crying— deep waves of emotion, both uncomfortable yet vaguely familiar, had begun rolling through my body, gushing over the high tide mark and beyond the steep dunes that had built up and blocked me from myself for so many years.
I told the first nurse I saw upon stumbling through the doors, bleary eyed and emotional, that “I’m here because I’m going to kill myself if I go inside my house.” It didn’t matter to me that I sensed the subtle disgust in her rolling eyes as she sat me down to measure my blood alcohol content. It didn’t matter that the rest of her colleagues in the otherwise quiet ER— a group of strangers who knew nothing of my past, of my pain, my loneliness, or my desperation— may have been judging me, because I felt, for the first time in a long time, something stirring deep within me that mattered more. It didn’t come from my mind— not from a thought, a calculated decision, or any sort of cognitive process— but rather from something visceral, something primal, a force residing in the very fabric of my being that couldn’t be put into words. I felt something ignite inside of me that awakened a feeling I couldn’t remember having had in a very long time— that I was going to be OK, and that I didn’t have to die. I didn’t how this was true, or why this was true, just that it was true.
I was escorted to the hospital’s small psychiatric floor to wait for transport the next day to the same psychiatric hospital in Westchester County, New York, to which I’d gone for my first inpatient stay during the fall of 2004. Over five years later, and feeling more desperate, afraid, confused, and profoundly sad than ever before as I tried to go to sleep on the starchy sheets and plastic mattress behind the glass walls of the observation room, I now held onto a strange, new awareness that was faint but graspable nonetheless— awareness that I would have a future. This sensation was so foreign to me that I did not yet realize I’d felt my first glimmer of hope. It was all I needed to make my start.
As always, we appreciate your willingness to share Laura. Thank you!
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Hi David,
Thank you for your support! One of the main reasons I write this blog is to bring out from behind closed doors what I think so many people struggle with but feel too ashamed about or scared of to talk about– the search for self, especially in the context of being labeled with a “mental illness”. The more people write about it publicly, as I try to do here, the more we can see that we all struggle, in our own, unique ways, to make sense of life. It is not a pathological process, but a human one.
Be well,
Laura
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Thanks Laura for sharing your story of survival and of hope rising. It’s just like being there with you. I’m looking forward to the next installment,
Regards, Chrys
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Hi Chrys,
Thank you for sharing your message, too! I’m so glad you’re a part of Mad in America.
Be well,
Laura
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Laura, a hard read first thing in the morning (yeah, I didn’t get up until 11am), but I was there with you while reading it, having been in similar situations. Sometimes my identification, generally a result of the narrator’s/speaker’s mastery of the subject, results in a transportation back to, or into their own bottom [and hopefully subsequent turning point]. It was great to hear you speak at the meeting at our house on Saturday, and as I said to you at Welcome All, while I don’t doubt the private hell you were in, your current state of grace seems to belie that. You’re as detailed at writing as you are at needle-point. Thanks for your message.
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Hi Erik,
Great to see you here on the website :). It’s funny you bring up my needlepointing… I actually see both my writing and the needlepointing as a ‘mindless’ process. The mindlessness of the needlepointing is rather self-explanatory, but let me clarify why I see my writing in the same way– the act of writing is finally, for the first time in my life, coming from my heart, not my head, and it just seems to pour out of me, without me even needing to be consciously aware of what’s coming down through the keyboard. Getting off these medications, which were blocking me from myself and from the rest of humanity, was like freeing up a channel to the deeper parts of me I didn’t even know existed.
Thank you for your identification with my writing– it’s what keeps me at it as much as I can possibly be (which isn’t as much as I’d like, given life happening on life’s terms…).
Looking forward to seeing you soon,
Laura
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I am reading your story with great interest and you are so accurate in everything you write. I checked out your blog as well. There is one question I wanted to ask you:how did you manage to get rid of your diagnosis. Who “undiagnosed you”? because, as you say yourself “once psychiatry diagnoses you, it is for life”. Try as much as you like, the diagnosis sticks. You might know you are well, you have been for years but on paper-should I say on the computer- you are “mentally ill”. At least that is my experience.
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Hi Alix,
Thank you for the support, and especially for this really interesting comment about your perception of me as never being fully free of the “mental illness” label. It is definitely fair to say that the diagnoses I carried still, today, play important roles in my life, although not because I feel enslaved by them or because I am still “symptomatic”. Rather, it is important that I always identify with the experience of being labeled “mentally ill” because it is what drives me today in my work as a peer specialist (indeed, my relationship to and experiences in the mental health system are the tools that I use at work to support people on their own mental health recovery journeys), and because without my past experiences as a “mentally ill” person, I would surely not be who I am today. Who I am today is someone I could never have imagined becoming, and that’s most definitely a good thing. I am a person who has experience with being marginalized, pathologized, labeled, and judged, with hiding from the rest of the ‘normal’ world in shame and self-disgust, and with believing in the deepest part of myself that I am broken and incapable of being fixed. While I no longer experience my reality in this way, I still carry the emotional residue of what that was, and of what complete and utter isolation and hopelessness feels like. I see this as a gift today, as lived experience that I can use to provide support to others who are in the midst of their own equivalent experience. I am proud that I had these experiences, proud that I journeyed into the mental health system and out of it, and, to be honest, if others choose to still see me as “mentally ill”, it is none of my business, and really, at the end of the day, has nothing to do with me.
I really want to thank you for posting this comment, Alix, because in writing my response, I feel more full of pride and confidence in myself that I have in a while! Feeling liberation from psychiatry and everything that came with it most surely didn’t happen overnight, but what I had all along in my journey, even in the very beginning, was a deep desire to discover who I truly was, beneath the psychiatric labels and psychotropic medications. To feel like I know who I am today, especially after feeling convinced I had no true ‘self’, is a priceless gift to me that I want to pass on to others, regardless if I’m still seen as “mentally ill” or not.
Be well,
Laura
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Laura, your capacity to trust yourself without judgment in a moment of desperation is extraordinary. It shows deep strength. This is beautiful writing. Thank you for giving me hope.
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Hi Thalia,
Wow, thank you for this comment. I really, truly believe that the spark I felt within me is something that anyone and everyone has the capacity to experience. I wish I could say I know HOW or WHEN that happens, but I don’t… Mine happened when I was faced with the most basic of decisions– life or death– and although I would like to think it didn’t necessarily have to go so far into darkness for me to have been able to find the light, it is what it is and there’s no sense playing mind-games with myself about how else it could have happened, or if it could have happened in any other way at all. It inspires me to hear that I’ve given you hope. In fact, that very concept is what drives me to share my story in the way I am, as I truly believe that without hope, all is lost. Again, thank you for your kind words, Thalia.
Be well,
Laura
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Dear Laura:
What do you think psychiatric hospitals should do to help patients not feel so afraid, disoriented, once they leave?
What do you think gave you hope?
I’m wishing you every strength.
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Hi Xena,
Wow, that is a very big question that I most definitely do not have a clear answer to! In my heart of hearts, I find that most everything about the experience of being a psychiatric inpatient is paradoxical and contradictory to the idea of recovery, so I believe it is a much deeper systematic issue that needs to be addressed, and not as much an issue of how psychiatric hospitals, as they currently are, can help people feel courage and hope. I must say that the most influential staff I’ve ever had during inpatient stays were the ‘lowest on the totem pole’– the mental health workers, who worked long hours and made little money. it’s tragic that the most powerful, highly paid staff are the ones patients see the least (my experiences with psychiatrists on inpatient units were, at most, 15 minutes a day), and that these psychiatrists, at least in my experience, were the ones who inspired the least hope in me. It was very common for me to be told I’d be a lifelong patient, that I’d need medications forever and that I’d “maybe” one day lead a somewhat ‘normal’ life (aka job, marriage, etc.). The staff who inspired the most hope in me were the mental health workers who were there because of a deeper yearning to help people (as it most surely wasn’t the paycheck).
I see that my response to you really doesn’t answer your question at all… I think the better question to ask would be, “Is inpatient commitment, whether voluntary or involuntary, really an effective means of inspiring hope, courage, and strength?” My answer to that, based on my own experiences, is no.
Your second question, about what gave me hope, will most definitely be addressed as I continue to write my story ;). It has been the most important part of my recovery.
Thanks for your well wishes. I’m sending the same back to you!
Be well,
Laura
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Dear Laura,
I have read each of your blogs and anticipate each addition installment; I appreciate your courage in writing about personal matters. I hope that you realize that you have an exceptional gift of eloquence; your professional writing skills bring your experiences to life and promote true empathy. I hope that you are able to combine your blogs into chapters for a book; I believe that your writing skills give your work broad appeal.
Best wishes, Steve
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Dear Steve,
Thank you for your support and your kind words about my writing. I said in an earlier reply to someone that I am writing my story so publicly because I want to help others, who may be hiding behind closed doors, see that the experiences that led me to be labeled with a psychiatric diagnosis were not pathological, but human. The search for self, and for meaning in life, is a universal one, and to throw a psychiatric label on that experience is to insult the very nature of being a human being. This deep belief is what is driving me to write this blog, and, someday in the future, a book. Thank you for your encouraging words– it has been my dream for the last year and half to turn this blog into a book, and I am confident that I will make it happen. When, and how, is another matter… But I know, more than anything I’ve ever known, that I will do it. Getting messages like yours inspires me even more to make it happen.
Be well,
Laura
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Thank you for sharing your story and for spreading hope.
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Dear Suzanne,
Thank you for the message, and for all that you do. Jake’s story, and yours too, are ones of such extreme importance and play a huge role in this movement. Will I be seeing you in Philly?
Be well,
Laura
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Dear Laura,
Thank you for sharing your journey. It’s helping me through a rough patch.
Mathew,
Australia
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Dear Mathew,
I’m so glad that reading my story has helped you through a tough time. It’s definitely been my experience that leaning on friends who’ve walked on the same (or a similar) journey has allowed me to move through some really challenging times in a way that leaves me even stronger on the other side, instead of trapped, flailing and helpless in the quicksand, as was the case for me during the years and years of time spent sitting in a doctor’s office asking ‘What do I do?’
Good luck on your own journey. Maybe it’s one I’ll get to read about one day, too :).
Be well,
Laura
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Thank you so much for sharing your story. You really can’t know how profoundly and positively it has affected me and how much strength I have taken from it. I was even brave enough to leave my name: imagine that! Posting anonymous here just seems/feels like a weenie move:))
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Laura-
I just stayed up way past my bedtime reading your entire journey (posted so far, anyway) and watching your speech in Philadelphia. I was diagnosed at 19 with major depression and at 20 with bipolar disorder (likely triggered by the antidepressants). Medicated for 17 years on a cocktail of 2-4 different drugs at a time (including Lithium, Cymbalta, Imiprimine, Effexor and Ativan), I had forgotten how to have real feelings other than general sadness. More often, I had no feelings.
I tried to go off of my meds a few years ago and was hit with intense panic attacks and promptly went back. Thankfully, I found a psychiatrist while in my grad program (in Boston) that believed my hunch that I didn’t need the meds, and likely wasn’t bipolar at all.
7 months ago, after about 6 months of tapering off of Cymbalta and enduring the brain zaps, nausea, anxiety and crazy irritability, I stopped completely. A week later my father passed away. I’m not sure how I got through without going back to the meds, but I do know that if I had I would have never been able to properly grieve my father’s death and would simply be depressed while on antidepressants.
I’m currently in an MFA program, and a lot of my work revolves around these last 17 years (how could it not?). On the day I took my last pill back at the end of October, I counted one at a time, on video, the number of pills I estimate I had taken since that first prescription at age 19. My final number, based on the most specific information I could get my hands on, was 36,835 capsules and tablets between the ages of 19 and 35. If you’re curious, a clip from the full nine hour and forty-one minute video is here: https://vimeo.com/34618952
Anyway, I just wanted to say that your story touched me, and I’m looking forward to reading the path back to real emotion as much as I’m enjoying my own. Be well!
-Jodie
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Just want to say again, two years, one month, and one day after you posted this account of a day 4 years ago that I’m so glad some part of you overrode the decision to die and instead, demanded “NO. MY LIFE IS NOT FINISHED YET.”
you posted this in april 2012. 5 months before, in december of 2011 I was in the car with my mom on my way home from my first semester of college for winter break, listening to an interview you did with will hall on madness radio as we journeyed through the darkness. I listened to part of your story for the first time and said something along the lines of “Holy shit! She went to McLean!” and felt connected to you and more hope for my own ability to recover from intensive psychiatry, which I now was acutely traumatized by, and which only days before beginning college i had left behind.
we would meet about a year and a half after you wrote this- I would find out about the group you were running and think, “Oh my god! Laura Delano (THE Laura Delano) lives in Boston and is running a group!” It’s been so incredibly inspiring to know you and see someone whose journey I relate to in certain key ways be surviving and recovering from all the toxic shit psychiatry, including America’s Number One Mental Hospital can cause. You story and stories like this ARE SO FREAKING IMPORTANT. Yes, definitely, it’s really fascinating and important when established mental health professionals “come out” as formerly crazy decades after the fact. But we need more stories like this written, of fairly young survivors living in the psychiatric hell and walking out to a better life.
I’m glad you exist, I’m glad you’re alive, I’m glad you continue to share your wisdom and continue on your path towards healing.
I’m proud of you, and think you’re awesome.
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