Emily's story

​My difficulties with anxiety and depression began a lot younger than a lot of people might expect. I was 12, bullied, and generally miserable when I started to want to self-harm and had my first thoughts of suicide. The fear of being bullied more for being ‘the attention seeker’ left me suffering in silence until I reached university... ​

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In my last year of high school, anxiety was the force that kept me hopping from one terrifying thing to another and the stress of choosing a university and a program, and getting high marks to get scholarships didn’t help. I felt like a horrible failure when I didn’t get into the co-op stream for my program and was terrified that I would be unemployable with just a B.A. in Psychology.

I was terrified to move into residence, because I didn’t have a good track record on the making friends and keeping them front. I definitely thrived socially living in residence with all those people, and that gave me good bursts of feeling good, but living in a single room for me resulted in a lot of alone time, and the lingering constant state of depression was still there. The few pounds that started to pile on from coursework stress and eating prepared residence food brought back all the anxiety I had around my weight with a vengeance. I started to worry so much about what I was eating that I went days without being able to get myself out of my room to eat, which also resulted in me missing classes because I felt that I couldn’t leave my room at all.

I moved alone to a room in a rental house with strangers, who turned out to be four friendly but incredibly quiet young guys, and I felt more alone than ever. I began having panic attacks, which eroded any confidence I had left, and the anxiety and depression took over. I became severely depressed and suicidal, and I was so listless at that point I couldn’t get out of bed. I didn’t eat, I couldn’t get myself to shower, or even to do something as simple as brush my teeth daily. I thought constantly about suicide, and it didn’t help at all when my only confidante, my sister, encouraged me not to go through with it citing how upset our big extended family would be if I did. I was well aware, and thinking about it just made me guiltier about feeling suicidal, which in turn made me even more suicidal.

Things were looking pretty grim at that point, and my family had a vague understanding that I was struggling with living alone and feeling down. They were concerned, but they didn’t know what to do. Being severely depressed at Christmas is the absolute worst I’ve ever experienced. I had managed to make a Christmas list of things I might like that year, something I hadn’t be able to do in a few years because, even now, I am satisfied with what I have. After a small argument with my mother, my depressed brain turned from mole hill to mountain. I tore up the list in anger and threw away the pieces saying that I didn’t deserve anything. I merely existed at that point, an alien that couldn’t relate to anyone. I had the strong urge to run away and drain my bank account. Maybe in starting fresh somewhere else, I could finally outrun the depression and suicidal thoughts that had been plaguing me for almost 8 years, when I swung, for the first time, wildly in the opposite direction.

I woke up the morning of the 31st of December to a feeling of euphoria, and a sudden clarity that was a big contrast to the fuzzy, muttering haze that depression had held over my head for a long time- feeling emotionally flat. The world seemed bright, and between the racing thoughts, boundless energy, highly inflated sense of self-esteem, and high level of creativity that came with my new mental state, and I couldn’t stop talking. I also started feeling agitated, restless, and annoyed by things that felt like they were in my way. My brain was on fire, and I really didn’t eat or feel the need to sleep. I became angry at my depressed self for getting into a sorry state in the first place and vowed never to let myself get there ever again. And then I started to crash, body exhausted, mind still on fire and feeling self-destructive.

When I finally saw a doctor, it took almost 2 months for me to get an appointment to see a psychiatrist in the community and then get back in to see a regular doctor during which time I crashed completely with a civil war going on inside my head between happy and sad, highly unstable. The psychiatrist diagnosed me with Bipolar Depression type I. Then I met the doctor that saved me. We started small, trying a few mood stabilizers and an as needed anxiety pill for panic attacks, and she helped my dig myself out of the academic hole I fell into with the medical notes I needed to help me salvage my semester. It took us over a year to find the right medication regimen that would finally balance out the mood swings into a stable, functional middle ground. My bipolar support group has helped in my recovery too, giving me a place where I can go for social support from people who know what it’s like to feel like your mood is out of your control.

​The stigma surrounding bipolar disorder is still very strong, and it kills. Just over a third of people with bipolar disorder attempt suicide, and 1 in 5 of people living with bipolar disorder die by suicide. All we need from you: friends, family, professors, and peers, is for you to say “I will try to be there and support you, high or low, however you need me”.