I was Manic Once — Or Maybe I was Just an Anxious 24 Year Old...

In February of 2013, I got engaged to my boyfriend of seven years who is now my husband. What should have been an exciting announcement to my family really was just extremely nerve-wracking. We had been living with each other for the majority of our relationship and wanted to get married a few years prior. My mother shut it down hard — I was being ridiculous. We were still in school. We were too young. He didn't have a steady job yet. — My mother's approval meant everything to me back then so we called off the engagement but stayed together.

During the 2013 engagement, I was finished with school and he only had a few semesters left because he was working full-time and going to school part-time. I had a steady full-time job with part-time wages that I loved. We took care of each other and lived on our own without help. Things were different but my fear to tell my mother was the same. Surprisingly, when I called to tell her the news she acted excited but asked me if I could wait to get married until 2015 so she could have time to save to pay for it. Looking back now, I feel like she probably wasn't as excited as she seemed. It seems to me now that she was just trying to buy time to stop it. We were together for 7 years, if she wanted to pay, why hadn't she saved the money already? Regardless, something didn't sit right with me when I told her.

We went along with the plan for 2015 at first. We checked out venues and discussed costs and details. There was always some kind of issue. It was too much money or my mother didn't like that we didn't want certain people or children in attendance. The constant pushback was exhausting.

Ultimately I decided that the best way to handle the wedding was for my husband and I to plan and pay for it ourselves. I got a full-time job that I hated so we could afford the costs — though money was still tight. We found a traditional Chinese Buddhist temple in Orlando that was beautiful and planned for the wedding date to be February 15, 2014. The temple only asked for flowers to be given to the Buddha during the ceremony and rejected any sort of payment. They also allowed us their party room to have a small gathering after.

Even though my mother was no longer paying for the wedding and she had no interesting in helping plan — not even going wedding dress shopping with me — she still had a lot of opinions about the planning. I eventually allowed kids to come to the ceremony — something I regret as one parent was not watching their kid when they ruined my guest signature canvas. I also increased the guest list some — making the wedding less intimate, which my husband and I hated. The two things I would not budge on with my mother is that I would not allow her in-laws to attend and my stepsister, whom I barely knew, would not be a bridesmaid. My fight against my stepsister being a bridesmaid was easy to sidestep but my mother gave her invitation to her in-laws to make it look like they were invited when they definitely weren't. They were not nice people and I did not want them there. That should have been enough.

During this time of planning on a budget and being harassed by my mother about every decision I made, my husband to be was working over nights and I was working a morning shift at a coffee shop in a hotel where I was constantly bullied by my coworkers. My soon to be husband working overnight was hard for me as I have a lot of trauma associated with bed time and sleep and I did not feel safe going to sleep that entire six months he was working when I was supposed to be sleeping. I probably got two to four hours of sleep a night max. The job I hated wasn't helping either. For some reason, my coworkers really didn't like me and did everything they could to make my job harder. I was so stressed out after every shift that I would drive straight to my favorite Asian-Hispanic fusion restaurant to stuff myself with my favorite Thai curry burrito for comfort. The owner often gave it to me for free, which I appreciated. It was the only time in my life I relied on food for relief.

In January, I lost my first beloved rabbit suddenly and was struck with grief. I didn't want to continue down the path of being miserable I was on so I quit my job a half hour before my shift began. A few days later, I convinced my husband that we should move to New York City for better job opportunities. Looking back now, I was very naive. My husband is from Brooklyn and he always wanted to go back to the city so he was on board no matter what. The plan was to use our wedding money we got from family, drive up, stay in an Airbnb for a month while we look for jobs and housing, and ultimately live happily there. We were going to leave in March so we could stop in New Jersey to see my family on the way and celebrate my birthday there.

Everyone thought we were crazy and we kind of were but, like I said, also naive. We had a dream and we thought it was a good one.

In February, we got married as planned. My mother didn't see my wedding gown until I was putting it on. No one had. My sister hadn't seen her bridesmaids dress until she put it on. Thankfully, we were the same size at the time. There was no bachelorette party planned for me. No wedding shower. No engagement party. Everything we did, my husband and I planned it and paid for it. The wedding was beautiful and I had a good time but I was so sick for days prior and I had a sprained wrist for two weeks up until the wedding from falling into my rabbit's pen. I was getting injured and sick a lot during that time. We were also planning for the move at the same time so it was extremely stressful.

During this time, I was also exhibiting weird behaviors. I would wake my husband up in the middle of the night — after he switched to a day shift — to rearrange all of our furniture at 3 a.m. I would wake him up regularly at 5 a.m. to go get breakfast at our favorite coffee shop around the block that opened at 8 a.m. or get to the grocery store when they opened at 7 a.m. I made our wedding invitations on my own in the middle of the night. They were confusing and there were a lot of spelling errors. I was also spending way too much money on eating out and stupid things.

In March, we headed up north as planned. As soon as we got to Brooklyn, I knew it was a mistake. I felt so sick and had the worst migraine of my life. I had vacationed there multiple times but there was something different about planning on making a life there that I hadn't considered. I grew up in a small town that became slightly larger suburbs. I was not set up for the city life — or the cold — or the fact that I could use my car but there was nowhere to park! I was heavily depressed for the 29 days we were there before we gave up and went back home. My husband's family was not helping at all. They were constantly treating me poorly and even had an intervention for my husband to leave me. We had been married for 2 months at that point. Needless to say, he cut contact with them after that.

My mother and stepfather promised to get us back home and pay for a deposit and first month's rent on an apartment. I was elated and so grateful so we started planning our return. However, it wasn't until too late that we realized they were only willing to give us $500 toward returning which wasn't even enough for the deposit for the apartment. We used it to ship our stuff back home and for a hotel stay and then we couch surfed for weeks until we found a place to live. The apartment had bullet holes in the walls and a crackhead landlord who would bang on our door starting at 6am to fix a toilet but it was home for then.

When we got home, I felt like I failed and I was still extremely depressed. I went into my first inpatient stay and the doctor had me go home after the 72 hour hold, saying I didn't really need to be there but legally they had to hold me that long. It was awful. I barely remember any of it because the experience of being at that hospital was so traumatic. First of all, I felt betrayed by some things that were said and taken out of context, so I didn't trust anyone. I was strip searched like a prisoner and it was horrific. At one point, I tried to dial 411 to get my psychiatrist's number to talk to her about talking to the doctor at the hospital and the desk forced the phone to hang up and reprimanded me because they thought I was calling 911. I remember a guy crying because he couldn't go home and ripping the entire phone off the wall and throwing it, which isn't an easy thing to do. I remember sneaking into my room because I wasn't allowed to be in there during the day and wearing my husband's hoodie and crying and then pretending to be sleeping when the nurse came in to help my roommate with something. I remember being a bunch of adults coloring and watching Finding Nemo. I do not remember any therapy actually taking place.

Note: Not every hospital is like the one I went to.  There are decent ones.  Do your research before going. Don't resist help. 

I finally got home and I was more depressed and more traumatized. Another one of my rabbits died during surgery and I was stricken with more grief and devastation. I quit my job at a call center because the manager was talking openly in front of employees about a girl, using her name, who couldn't come in because she was at a psychiatric hospital. Danger alarms went off in my head and I took my stuff and left.

Things started getting harder. I started having paranoia and delusions. I felt like there was someone watching me behind every mirror and ultimately avoided them for months. Sometimes I felt like I was being followed in my car so I would drive to the police station to get them off my trail. For an entire week I thought I was in love with my best friend — I wasn't. It was awkward but everyone understood that I was going through a rough time and my brain wasn't quite right.

I also kept trying to go back to work, but couldn't stay at any job. Every single job I tried to work at, I would have a panic attack and leave. That's one thing that never went away. The same thing happened while working for a nonprofit for two weeks back in 2020. The only way I could handle work was working for myself — which I eventually did but it really didn't pay the bills, though it was extremely fulfilling. I was healing and in a better place by then.

Anyway, according to all of this, it looks like I was in a manic episode and deep in it. I don't doubt I was but I have also had therapists tell me I was 24 and under an extreme amount of stress with a history of trauma so these symptoms made sense for the time. Unfortunately, that wasn't something I was told for about a decade and I was pumped with mood stabilizers and antipsychotics for years. They really messed me up. My mother was actually the first person who suggested I may be manic and have bipolar, and like the obedient daughter I was, I sought out help with that as fact rather than opinion. As of today, I have been diagnosed with Complex PTSD with episodes of psychosis, not bipolar disorder, as I was diagnosed with in 2014. I have been off the bipolar meds for over two years and I haven't had one manic episode.

Now that I'm being treated for the right things, it is a little easier but not much. It's still really hard to heal but at least I have a good team of professionals helping me through it and I am no longer going to psychiatric hospitals for bad reactions to antipsychotics.