I’m sharing my story with the intention of helping to change the way people view mental illness and helping others who have similar struggles.
I’m Sarah. I am frum. I am a psychologist. I am just like you. But there’s something I keep beneath the surface that separates us, something I think you may not understand. That is my bipolar diagnosis.
Until I was 27, I was just like everyone else, going through the same milestones and changes in my life. I got married and had two healthy pregnancies and two kids. Then, when my younger son wasn’t even three years old, things changed. My sleep patterns changed and that led to a full-blown manic episode. I was hospitalized for three-and-a-half weeks. When I finally walked out of the hospital, I had a bunch of prescriptions and a label attached to my name.
It was a difficult adjustment getting back into the real world, a world that is unfortunately filled with stigma. Being bipolar is such an important part of who I am, and yet I knew I had to be cautious about whom I shared it with. It was like I had to put on a mask: The mask would show the world how normal I am, but underneath the mask I knew I wasn’t normal. I wasn’t like everyone else.
Gone were the days of certainty, the days when I knew what would happen. My life seemed so much less predictable. Two or three nights of no sleep could land me in the hospital, and I would no longer be able to play the role of wife of my husband and mother to my children. It was hard to learn that I couldn’t control my own behavior and actions at times and that sometimes the safest place for me was in a hospital.
For a while, I stayed stuck as a victim of my life and mental illness. I was told there was something wrong with me (that I had a mental Illness), so I acted like something was wrong with me. I felt incapable of handling my own life. I felt separated from other frum people, because I thought they would stigmatize me if they knew the truth. I felt like I couldn’t form relationships with people, who would not accept me if they knew the truth about me. I even stayed away from some old friends, because I thought they might not accept me if they knew the truth.
Inside, I was lonely. And I felt different. After years of feeling different from other people, my bipolar diagnosis seemed to solidify those differences: I had a mental illness and you didn’t. It was tough to look back at the times I was manic and think about some of my behavior. It didn’t feel like it was me, but I remembered doing some of the things I did.
I started to experience a deep fear of sleep deprivation. And then, of course, I started suffering from sleep deprivation for months. It was always scary knowing that, if I had one really bad night, I could end up in the hospital. I tried to put my mask on tighter when I experienced the sleep deprivation. I was afraid to tell the people at my internship about my bipolar diagnosis. It made things so much more complicated, because we were living in two different worlds. They didn’t understand why the sleep deprivation was such a big deal for me, and yet I was terrified of what could happen.
Recently, I’ve started changing my view of my bipolar disorder. I’ve begun to look at it as just one part of me, not an all-encompassing thing. I’ve come to understand that it’s a disease like any other and not a statement about me. I’ve realized that, just like everyone else, I am living with a lot of uncertainty. We all live with uncertainty. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I’ve begun to realize that I have a lot to offer the world just the way I am right now; I don’t have to wait until I don’t experience sleep deprivation to follow my dreams. My journey towards complete acceptance of my mental illness isn’t over, but I feel that at least I’ve taken some steps in the right direction.
To contact the author, email Survivor65@ymail.com (not gmail, ymail).
