Sue
Dark to Light and Back Again

My run-ins with depression started in my teens. I wanted to curl up as small as I could and disappear. For some reason the thought of dying never occurred to me. My depression was never talked about, nor was the fact that my stepfather was sexually abusive. I was just considered odd and different.

In 1990 I was catapulted in a very strange and bizarre world. I had just given birth to my son and suddenly life was different. I became paranoid, believing my house was being bugged. Music and the television spoke to me. I became very interested in emptying my garbage on the kitchen floor and trying to figure out what I could recycle.

I was admitted to the psychiatric hospital. After that, my life spiraled out of control. I lost my job, my house, my car and my friends. It seemed all I had was my family and manic depression. My life seemed pointless, lurching from one depression to one psychotic episode to the next. Over the last 15 years I have had many hospital admissions. They were mostly against my will because I didn’t believe I was mentally ill - I didn’t want to be, no way.

In 1997 I was once again hallucinating and began to cut myself. I knew I had reached the scary depths in my mind and became afraid to be with myself. I telephoned a friend who was a Christian and explained and said I wanted to go to church with her.

I went and found out about Jesus and His love for me. I did not believe it, I was so unworthy. I was a nobody - how could He possibly love me?

Over the following years my thoughts and beliefs about Jesus became entwined with my mental illness so much so that many doubted if I had any faith or if it was just illness.

One day as I sat pondering life and the universe, I began writing about my thoughts, feelings and emotions. The words just tumbled up from inside me. I realized very quickly that by giving the pain within me a way to get out on paper allowed me to express myself without having to say the same thing over and over to different people. I wrote for about 18 months and then just as abruptly as I had started I stopped. (I had not written any poems since I was 13 years old and that was just for English lessons.)

My writing has allowed me to connect with myself and I have begun to feel easier about my past and my diagnosis of bipolar disorder. I am a person first. I am not dominated by my illness.

I read an article in Pendulum and found out about an independent publishing company, Chipmunka.

During this time my mood was doing the typical roller coaster thing, my husband believed we would have to re-mortgage the house to cover costs. This was not the case.

In 2003 I held the first copy of my book. How bizarre was that? I had gone from believing I was a nobody and that my life was over and here I held a book with my picture on the front and full of my words. I went through a period of disbelief.

A book launch was held in my town and almost 70 people came. How inspiring was that? I was almost off the planet. My book was in the widow of the library in my town, sharing space with books by Paul McCartney and Catherine Cookson to name a few.

I know only last week I was struggling to get out of bed, didn’t want to speak to anyone and only wanted to eat pasta, sponge cake and custard. I did lose a great deal to bipolar disorder, but today my way of life has changed. Some days I think things have changed for the better. Other days I mourn friends and jobs long gone.

I know now that I can express myself through words and it does take away my pain and hurt. I also know that it connects with others too.

More about me.