It's been a few years since I was first hospitalized, so I've been thinking about everything that's happened to me. I've decided to share the details of the nervous breakdown I had in the summer of 2000. I haven't disclosed this information until now for several reasons. First, I've sort of been in denial about what happened. I don't really understand exactly what was going on, but I think I need to do my best to figure things out. Second, there's an incredible stigma towards episodes like this, especially after events like the Yates and Lemak murders. I think it's time for me to come forward and describe my weird experience two summers ago. Although I don't really know the professional terms for what I went through and my memory is a bit clouded concerning this time period, I'll do my best to tell my story as well as I can.
In late June of 2000, I had a frightening nervous breakdown. Experiencing a racing heartbeat, fainting spells, and general panic, I was rushed to the emergency room. Once there, I was admitted to the inpatient ward of the mental hospital of which I had been a patient only three months earlier. I spent three days in inpatient treatment and was released from outpatient care in another few days. I wasn't really better, but my parents and I felt I wasn't getting anything out of the hospital's treatments.
After I left the hospital at the beginning of July, I took a huge turn for the worse. I suddenly couldn't sleep. I would lie in bed at night unable to sleep, waiting for morning. I would run into my parents' room every few minutes asking them if it was time to get up even though any reasonable person knew it was the middle of the night. I couldn't eat anything. Everything I tried to eat made me gag, cough, and get sick. I constantly trembled and rambled incoherently. Normal daily activities became impossible.
For a couple of weeks, I basically was incapacitated. Something I remember quite clearly from this breakdown was attempting to shower and get dressed. This sounds crazy, and surely it is, but I could not for the life of me figure out how to shower. I would spend an hour in the shower attempting to figure out how normal people got clean. I would stare at my shampoo bottle, and a flood of questions would come to mind. How much shampoo should I use? How exactly should I lather it through my hair? How do I know when it's completely rinsed out? Do I really need to lather, rinse, and repeat? What happens if I don't? An eerily appropriate quote for this situation can be found in Elizabeth Wurtzel's Prozac Nation. Referring to Sylvia Plath's amazing novel The Bell Jar, Wurtzel writes, "You know you've completely descended into madness when the matter of shampoo has ascended to philosophical heights." Apparently I'm not the only one to experience a psychotic episode that damaged my ability to shampoo my hair. The same questions I had about shampoo popped up when it was time to use conditioner. Scrubbing my body with soap was equally nightmarish. Since I was getting sick all the time, not eating, not sleeping, and sweating profusely, I was really going crazy and was terribly, terribly convinced I smelled. I probably did, but not to the extent I imagined. So I would spend excessive amounts of time in the shower scrubbing myself with soap. After finally exiting the shower, I would put on ridiculous amounts of deodorant. I'd constantly keep smelling myself throughout the day, convinced I needed another shower. As painful as showering was, getting dressed was even worse.
I could not get dressed during my breakdown. This is perhaps the most pathetic aspect of my bout with insanity. After getting myself clean, I would stand naked in front of my closet. I was unable to pick out clothes to wear. I just couldn't figure out what sort of outfit to put on even though, obviously, I wasn't leaving the house or seeing anyone. I couldn't even pick out underwear to put on, so I would curl into a ball, naked, crying in my room. My mom would have to come up and pick out clothes for me. There I was: a seventeen-year-old girl, previously tested by a mental health professional and found to have a ridiculously high IQ, unable to eat, sleep, bathe, get dressed, or function like a normal human being.
My mom stayed home from work to be with me, but my dad, understandably, needed to keep working. I constantly called him at work crying and asking him when he would come home. Needless to say, all of this was incredibly hard on my parents. They were really scared for me, and they had reason to be. I remember holding my wrists out to my mom several times and asking her to kill me, understanding the immorality of suicide. I cringe thinking about how awful all of this must have been for my poor parents. Luckily, however, these hard times didn't last forever.
Maybe it was the new medication my doctors prescribed for me. Maybe whatever was wrong with me ran its course, so to speak. Whatever the reason, I regained my sanity before my birthday in mid-July. I was able to rest and recover during the rest of my summer and managed to start college on schedule. To this day, though, I have never gotten a clear answer as to what exactly happened to me those terrifying days in July.
While attempting to defeat the mental illness(es?) that were crippling me, my doctors tested out all sorts of medications for me. The few I remember are Mellaril, Risperdal, Depakote, and Zyprexa. Each was given to me in conjunction with Zoloft, which I've been on for years. According to an online pharmacy website, Mellaril is used to treat "disordered thoughts and some other emotional, nervous, and mental problems." WhatMeds.com is more descriptive, stating that Mellaril is used to treat anxiety, tension, mixed states of anxiety and depression, agitation, psychosomatic disorders, sleep disturbances, and schizophrenia. The pharmacy website says Risperdal treats schizophrenia and "helps patient keep in touch with reality and reduce his/her mental problems." www.risperdal.com describes Risperdal as useful for "the management of the manifestations of psychotic disorders." Depakote, the pharmacy website says, is for the "treatment of bipolar disorder and mania," among other things like seizures. www.nami.org, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, states that Depakote is helpful in treating "manic episodes associated with bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression." Finally, the pharmacy site says Zyprexa is used "to treat emotional and mental problems like schizophrenia or psychosis. Also used for the treatment of other emotional or mental problems like manic-depressive illness/bipolar disorder." www.zyprexa.com says Zyprexa is "an atypical antipsychotic" used to control "both positive (hallucinations, delusions) and negative (apathy, social withdrawal) symptoms."
Research of these four different medications results in a variety of possible diagnoses: psychosomatic disorders, depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, schizophrenia, psychosis. My doctors have kept me in the dark concerning a definitive diagnosis. Whether this is because they don't want to scare me or because they don't know, I'll never be sure. To this day, I have no clue exactly what was wrong with me those crazy days, and I fear I never will. While it's incredibly discomforting to have been plagued with a mystery mental illness, it's comforting to know this experience is over and, hopefully, will not be repeated.
When The Cut Goes In Deep originally posted on 03-05-2000 and
reposted after remodeling on 06-22-2000.
Ronnie 2000-2004 ©
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