Bipolar disorder: Let's take this deadly disease seriously

Sometimes the memory of my hospitalization comes back to me in cinematic flash backs.

“Give me paper. I need paper,” I screamed at the triage nurse in the ER.

This was the second time I’d been to the ER in as many weeks. I apparently had my shit together too much during my first visit to the ER to be admitted. I was put on a waiting list to receive outpatient treatment.

But, by my second trip to the ER, my mania had tailspinned into psychosis. Bipolar disorder with psychotic features  is common in type 1 bipolar disorder.

I grabbed the paper and pen from the nurse’s hand and scribbled “Jesus loves Karl Rove.”  I underlined the phrase and then shoved the paper back at the nurse.

In my demented mind, I firmly believed that the campaign tactics used by Karl Rove in the 2004 presidential election were an elaborate scheme to shove me out of the religious community in which I had grown up. I had lost everything after those elections, or so it seemed. I became severely depressed and once my depression lifted these manic thoughts took over.

I don’t remember anything else about the triage room after that point. I woke up to my grandparents beside me in my hospital bed.

A doctor soon came in to tell me that I was coming down from a manic episode and that I had a textbook case of bipolar type 1.

That episode occurred 10 years ago. I’ve been on 900 to 1200 mg of lithium daily since. I’ve had great success with my treatment with little side effects, but not everyone is as fortunate.

The death of 28-year-old Natalie Fuller should remind us all how serious this disease really is. Natalie lost her battle with mental illness on March 14.

Natalie experienced her first psychotic break at 22 — the same age that I was when I experienced mine. 

Natalie’s mother wrote an account of Natalie’s battle with mental illness in the Washington Post. In the story she said Natalie would go through phases were she would quit taking her medicine. She said Natalie didn't think they worked for her.

When I first received my diagnosis, the psychiatrists at KU Med put me on a cocktail of lithium, Depakote and Risperdal. My hands trembled, I gained 20 pounds and I felt no emotions. I wanted to get off it all, but the doctors convinced me to tapper down to just the lithium and give it a try. They explained that every time you relapse the episodes get worse and the shorter the period between episodes the more intense subsiquent episodes will be.

Getting off medication is not an option, they said. You will end up back in the hospital; you might end up in jail; you could end up dead.

I've been on my medication for 10 years because the thought of the hospital, jail and death scare me.

15 to 17 percent of people who have bipolar disorder die by suicide.  Put inperspective, approximately  .0101 percentof the general population in the United States dies by suicide. The survival rate of stage 2 breast cancer  is higher than that of bipolar disorder.

This, my friends, is a serious, deadly illness. Let’s start treating it that way.