It was December. Six months had passed since he moved 3,000 miles away for graduate school. Six excruciating months of pain, sorrow, heartbreak, frustration, depression, and too many failed attempts at creating intimate relationships with complete strangers. What else could I do but attempt in futility to fill the sudden gap of companionship plaguing every second of my existence? I had no other friends to lean on, or at least I was too uncomfortable with friendship to ask for help. My connection with family was shallow. My connection with myself was deprecating and destructive. And now the one connection that brought me joy was ripping at the seams, the fabric disintegrating like dust in the palm of my hands.
It was December. Christmas break to be exact. Though we had officially ended our year-and-a-half strong relationship about a month into his absence, I still wanted to see him when he came back to visit. So I did. And I remembered what it was like to be next to him, sleep in his arms, look him in the eyes, and feel wanted. I was falling in love again. What a terrible mistake.
It was December. A cold month for a beach trip. But my mom had booked a condo for the week, which was graciously left vacant for a few days so I could travel with my ex-slash-soon-to-hopefully-become-long-distance-boyfriend-again for a romantic vacation. Excited for the adventure, I moved playfully through my room, grabbed his hands, and said something spoken countless times before. Except this time it was different. This time my life would be forever changed.
“I love you.”
Silence.
Nothing but silence. Those three words lingered in the air, stagnant and haunting. His eyes betrayed conflict. Recognition slowly creeped in. Desperately, I inquired: “Why aren’t you saying it back?”
I don’t remember exactly what he said, or how he said it, but the meaning was clear enough.
“Because I don’t love you anymore.”
Silence.
Dizziness.
Clarity.
Nausea.
Heartbreak.
Pain. Again, and again. Pain. Pain. Pain.
I obviously deserved it.
And I knew what to do.
On autopilot, directed by the shadow that still lies within me, I floated into the kitchen, grabbed the sharpest knife I could find, quickly locked myself in the bathroom and cried, cried, cried, while the blood ran bright red down my scarred wrist. No cut could hurt worse than the blow I had just received. But I really wished it could.
It was December. The perfect weather for the most depressing beach trip of all time. Marinated in despondence, I spent these days alone, cutting off all contact with the outside world. I emerged in no better shape than I had left. I wanted to die. I hated myself. I had no idea how I would finish college in this state — full scholarship, straight A’s, leadership positions, all for nothing. I wanted to give up on life, but not on the goals I could accomplish. I needed to succeed, to perform, to reach my full potential. So I did the best thing a lonely, depressed, suicidal person could do for themselves. I finally got help.
It was March. I had a regular therapist, and had even taken a 5-week course in mindfulness meditation by this time. My spirits had been lifted, temporarily. But the pressures of junior year and the obligation of leading an upcoming international trip weighed heavily on my sanity. I could not focus. I could not breathe. I could not meditate. I sunk deeper into that dark place of December, the new home of my mentality. Nothing was working. I still wanted to die. I still hated myself. Something had to change. So I did a thing many lonely, depressed, suicidal people do to themselves. I asked for medication.
I had never believed in prescriptions for mental illness. This was a true act of desperation, and in my mind, a true act of defeat. But I had no choice. I was depressed. I was suicidal. I needed help. So the doctor did the most logical thing a medical professional trained in the Western world could do to their depressed patients. She prescribed me an SSRI.
And then my depression ended, and I lived happily ever after.
Not.
For the first time in my life, I felt imbued with such erratic energy that I could not sleep. I was virtually jumping off the walls. My brain was on fire. At first it felt exhilarating. But it quickly felt uncomfortable. And it certainly did not make me any happier. So two weeks in, toes barely dipped in the dangerous dosage of antidepressants, I quit taking them.
Coincidentally, I cut myself off while on that international trip I was leading, in Trinidad. One night, we shared a special, vulnerable moment as a team, explaining our biggest failures to one another. I cried. She cried. He cried. We all cried, and ended the rare discussion with a group hug and shout-outs. I finally knew what it felt like to be connected to people. To be vulnerable. To be a leader, to be a friend, to be loved and to love others. I was imbued with hope. I had changed. And I returned to school more positive than ever before.
So I moved through the next month always remembering the warmth in my heart from that moment. But I wasn’t sleeping much. And I was uncharacteristically extroverted, devoting my former alone-time to strangers at bars and bad-influence friends. I became unable to focus on my schoolwork. I was the exact opposite of the person I had been pre-Trinidad. This behavior was ingenuine. It was exhausting. But it was out of my control — as it turns out, my mood would be from here on out.
Finally, I crashed from the extended high — falling, very, very far down. I simply woke up one morning, mind, body and soul akin to death. I had never felt worse. I could not get up. I could not bear the burden of life. The involuntary serotonin-drip of the past month, gradually increasing in intensity and decreasing in pleasure, suddenly ended. Mania turned into deep, dark, debilitating depression. And thus the cycles began.
At first, the swings were short. A few days of unbearable depression, then I would return to my baseline: somewhat bearable depression. Then, out of nowhere, insomnia would steal my precious sleep. My mind would work double-time to stay awake, my parasympathetic system on constant alert. Finally, utterly exhausted, the unbearable depression would start again, stay a few days, dissipate, invite in the mania, only to return with revenge, ad nauseum.
Then the bouts of depression grew longer. I would spend a week in a state of despair, showing up to class only to have tears uncontrollably flowing from my zombie-like face. I have no idea if anyone noticed, but I simultaneously hoped they did, and that they didn’t. I wrote poetry instead of notes. I had no other way to express emotions — they had been locked up so long inside of me, only to be released all at once by the heartless response fed to my hopeful “I love you.” This trauma, paired with the brain-triggering SSRI doubled with a life-changing positive experience, created the perfect storm for my evolving mental disorder.
The semester ended. I got straight A’s again. I had no feelings about this whatsoever. And I have no idea how it happened. But it didn’t matter, anyway.
_________________________________________________________________________
It was August. Senior year. Perhaps I should have been excited, or nervous, or feeling any emotion at all. But I was numb. That summer had been a tireless exercise of mood swings. Thankfully I had a relaxed research job which allowed for flexibility. I could go home and sleep if I suddenly lost all energy, and preferred nothing else but to lay dormant in a state of antipathy. I could not have functioned in an internship, with expectations imposed upon me from every direction. My life was already overspilling with expectations — from no one other than myself. I had a 4.0, and I intended on keeping it that way. Otherwise everything I worked for up to graduation would be for naught. I had to be better than everyone else, better than my pitiful self. So my brain helped me out. Emotions got left behind, buried, stuffed under rug after rug of defense mechanisms. Eventually they drifted away completely, leaving me empty, thoughtless, numb.
Classes began. I had chosen my major and minor carefully, and thoroughly enjoyed the subjects I would be learning in this final year. But as syllabi were distributed, assignments were generated, projects were initiated, I was nothing more than a neutral observer. A ghost, even. I took the papers, noted the assignments, and went home. Day after day after day.
It was a miracle I got anything done. I had no willpower. The only motivator was my pride, my success, the stamp of Valedictorian on my resume. So I did lackluster work, while actually forgetting some assignments for the first time in my life. The numbness worsened. My brain was shutting down. I was fading away. But I didn’t care. Nothing mattered.
It was October. I had been riding my longboard around campus all semester, finally unfazed by the looks given me by judgmental college students. (I suppose you could thank the numbness for that.) This particular day, I was feeling fairly peaceful. In the sense that my mind was blank, my soul was empty, and I had nothing to worry about — even if my grades were falling and my relationships were nonexistent. So I dumbly got on my longboard, and rode down the sidewalk, on my way to the next class.
This would be a normal scenario in most circumstances. Except, the building I had departed from was at the top of a steep hill. And at the bottom, there was a road with a 3-way stop. And it was lunchtime, a busy hour on campus. None of these factors crossed my dull mind. I am not a risk-taker by nature, in fact quite the opposite. And longboards are made for shredding — sinuously meandering, smoothly, back and forth on a wide road to slow the descent. But this day I had subconsciously chosen to cruise straight toward oncoming traffic on a 4-foot wide sidewalk.
My speed quickened, and I approached the stop signs. Unfortunately, so did three other cars. One of which was rolling right into my path, blocking my body from safely reaching the other side of the street. I was moving too fast to stop. That moment of clarity lasted a few seconds, and in those seconds I had no reaction. No fear, no anxiety, no anticipation. The danger did not register to my tired brain. My body responded instead, veering slightly left in a futile attempt to avoid the aluminum wall ahead. But I did not quite make it behind the car. Instead, I crashed right into it.
The impact was shocking but brief, and I immediately bounced up from the pavement, and ran onto the grass. I walked it off, as any skater would. I was dizzy. So, very dizzy. Then I looked down, and the blood made that dizziness even worse.
A nice motorcyclist who saw the whole thing, later comfortingly confiding that “no human body should ever bend that way”, stopped to help out. The poor woman driving the campus vehicle had no idea how to respond. My right elbow was split open, bloody and imprinted with asphalt. A circular road-rash the size of a softball graced my right hip, a scar which remains to this day. The police were called. The ambulance arrived. I was taken to the E.R., but not before the sadistic EMT unnecessarily cut my entire pant leg in half so I had to walk into the establishment trying to keep myself covered.
“Next time, wear a helmet,” the other asshole EMT scolded me as I sat down to receive eight stitches. “Fuck you,” I bited while collapsing into sobs, disgusted at the viciousness they both displayed to me in this time of obvious emotional and physical suffering. Tears poured from my eyes. A needle was shoved into my wound, now being wound shut with thread. I sat in anguish, disbelief, and grief for letting my indifference get this far, until the tears could no longer come and the only feeling that remained was the emptiness of life’s meaning.
In the days following, I panicked, realizing how badly I could have hurt myself. Yes, a helmet would have been a useful tool to protect my brain from a concussion of unknown proportions, had I been unfortunate enough to knock my head. A few seconds earlier and I could have been run over by the moving vehicle. I could have broken my elbow, or any other bone in my body, but I walked away with eight stitches and a large bruise. The laptop in my backpack? Completely fine. The phone that was lodged on my right hip, right above the road rash? Untouched. My longboard did not sustain a scratch. I healed quickly. As far as I was concerned it was a miracle.
Later I remembered the yellow butterfly flitting around my head while I waited for the ambulance. She must have been a guide, an angel, watching over me, providing solace and hope. From my point of view, this accident was of divine intervention. It was a metaphor for the dangerous road I was mindlessly traveling down, oblivious to the speed at which I was racing toward my demise. That accident slapped me awake. Without it, I would not have snapped out of my hypnotized state, perhaps to the detriment of my grades, my leadership opportunities, my ability to heal, and love, and bring my story to others. Without this accident, I would not have realized that something was truly wrong — not with myself, but with my brain. So shortly thereafter, I went back to the doctor with medication in mind.
This time, I saw the psychiatrist. We finally diagnosed my condition: Bipolar Depression. I was prescribed Lamotrigine, a mood stabilizer, in progressively higher doses. I improved. I improved immensely. And as the year went on, this medication — coupled with individual and group therapy, intense personal work, and an incredibly disciplined meditation practice — I finally remembered what it felt like to be myself.
Mood stable, I was able to focus my energy on healing, and on accomplishing my goals. I could think again, care again, cry again, laugh again. I still felt pain, very strongly indeed, but it did not overtake me. I learned the emotional scope of my Self, more than ever before. I blossomed into a motivating force, telling my story to the myriad mentees I was fortunate to guide. I was more mature, more beautiful, more creative, more confident, more powerful than ever before. I was finally, for perhaps the first time in my life, Kelly Janae Harris.
As fortune would have it, I graduated Valedictorian of my class. I received the Academic Achievement award in my department, and the Award of Excellence from my favorite organization on campus. I worked in three research labs; conducted independent urban ecology research and presented at a prestigious conference in Ft. Lauderdale; traveled to Costa Rica, Iceland, and three times to Trinidad on sustainability-focused service learning trips, two of which I planned and co-led; planned events as an executive committee member for my scholarship cohort; gave several speeches to audiences of over 250 people; and taught a leadership development course for over 30 outstanding students.
I wear these honors proudly as a testament to my determination, strength, and smarts. But what people do not see as they peruse my resume is the path between the awards, experiences, and accomplishments. “Overcoming a mental illness” is, unfortunately, not a qualifying trait for most professions. In fact, mental health is such a taboo subject that the mere mention of your experience can completely scare away an employer — a subject I touch on later in this series. However, it was my mental health journey that shaped me into the inspirational, positive person I am today.
Without hitting the bottom, and working tirelessly to climb back up, I would be nowhere near as compassionate with others, and especially not with myself. I would likely still abhor human beings for no reason, radiating disdain through my pores everywhere I go. I definitely would never have become the friend or partner that I am today — conscientious, open-hearted, humble, and overspilling with unconditional love. My life path would have strayed from my real truth: the truth of who I am, beneath the trauma, behind the stories that constructed my warped reality. I would never have had the chance to connect with others on a deep level — a level of understanding that we are all hurting, and that we all need someone to remind us that We Are Not Alone.
And of course, Ethereal Ecology would never exist. I would not be constantly brainstorming ways to provide relatable content to my fellow humans going through similar or different situations. I would not have discovered spirituality as it unfolded for me, and consequently been lost in a haze of existential crisis and isolation. I would not have my story to tell, and may not have believed so strongly in my ability to achieve my dreams.
As this story illustrates, the right prescription medication, taken at the right time, in the correct doses, and — most importantly — supplemented with therapy, self-care, and community, can be a literal life-saver. But, for most, these medications should not be considered permanent solutions. I firmly believe that each of us possesses the answers to our mental health (and physical and emotional health, for that matter) within our souls, minds, and very DNA. We know how to get better, and myriad holistic, ancient healing methods exist to support us. Medicine is anything that heals; which includes a long hug, the beauty of nature, the energy of a crystal, the sound of joyful music, quality nutrition, exercise, and a positive state of mind.
We live in an age where all of this knowledge is at our fingertips, available for all who choose to work toward their health and happiness. As such, two and a half years after remaining steady on Lamotrigine, I have made the decision to wean myself off, slowly and deliberately. Without the rigor of school or corporate life weighing me down, I am free to explore my body’s needs and supplement my lifestyle accordingly. I am determined to gain control over my emotional landscape, and medicate myself in the most wholesome, natural, and spiritual ways. I am ready to Reduce the Dosage.
(Subscribe to the YouTube channel to watch the Reducing the Dosage video series!) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL4fxzTnPlEj8vJ_IRnqbtA
Ethereal Ecology 
Wow, what a powerful story! Thank you for sharing Kelly :)
Thank you for reading <3