Daily Warriors

a support group for Filipinos waging a daily battle with mental health conditions

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A Person With a Disability—But More Importantly, a Person

A mother teaching her daughter how to read

Looking back on my younger years, I was every parent’s dream child, free from disability and brimming with boundless potential. Or at least, that was how my mother would describe what I was like back then. With a wide smile on her face, she would often boast about my achievements to anyone who would listen, all the way back to the time I could first read.

If you asked me to describe how I was as a kid, though, I wouldn’t be so sure about being anyone’s dream child. Perhaps I’d be the kind of dream that would send both thrills and chills down your spine—the kind of dream that would distort into funny shapes and blend from technicolor into shades of gray, the walls shifting into ceilings with a sea of faces morphing every second, as though they were made of putty.

I think I was really more of a parent’s bad acid dream, though, if you catch my drift.

From Invincible to Invisible

Still, I probably should give credit where credit is due. I understand why my parents were so proud of me and how they saw my childhood years as an opportunity for them to parent me until I became someone they wanted: an intelligent and successful individual, with nothing (and nobody) getting in her way. I gave them every reason to believe that I was invincible, completely unbroken inside. With stellar grades, near-perfect recall, and a socially acceptable addiction to reading, I left them very little room to doubt that I wouldn’t turn out to be who I am today—irreparably flawed, unapologetically damaged.

But intelligence and books can only go so far. My parent-proclaimed genius mind neither prepared me nor predicted that I would become what you call a person with a disability (PWD). However, if I’m being honest with myself, the signs of disability were always there. In 2006, I started suffering from a chronic sleeplessness that I never rebounded from, even to this day. This was coupled with a severe bout of what I now know is called a major depressive episode.

To my dejection back then, I moved on to ricocheting from profound sadness to a seemingly drug-induced euphoria. I would frequently soar high—with a grin from ear to ear—and then, in a matter of days, snap back to feeling like a loser, a failure, a waste of space. It was during this period, my high school years, that I had my first taste of what it’s like to have a manic episode.

A person with a disability suffering from insomnia

We can probably say by now that the signs of disability have always been there, but in reality, those not-so-subtle indicators were actually far too subtle in everyone else’s eyes—almost invisible, one can even argue. To my family, my teachers, and my friends, I seemed perfect. But the more perfect I seemed, the more I descended into madness. And that left me feeling more invisible than ever. Did anyone even care enough to notice that I was withering within?

From Decay to Decadence (and Even More Decay)

For most of my formative years, I struggled to keep my burgeoning mental illnesses in check. I was decaying inside, and still, nobody bothered to look twice. But that all drastically changed in college.

The year 2011 was marked by my whirlwind romance with a hedonistic lifestyle. Finally liberated from the watchful eye of my parents, I spent the better part of my college years rebelling against the version of myself that studied and read all day, every day. In between drinking sessions, I would be found in the smoking area on campus, taking drag after drag of my nth cigarette. Going to parties was mandatory; attending classes was optional. And I rarely ever took that option.

A person with a disability becoming self-destructive

However, while my party-girl notoriety in school progressed, so did my mental illnesses. If you crossed paths with me then, you would have caught me in the middle of a nervous breakdown almost every week. Perpetually sleepless, perpetually drunk, perpetually erratic. The quiet chaos that once resided within me finally erupted and growled.

It wasn’t that people now bothered to look at me twice. It was that everyone did. And it wasn’t any better; in fact, it made matters with my mental health much worse.

From Psychosis to Diagnosis of a Disability

A person with a disability suffering from psychosis

I meant what I said earlier: Everyone noticed the mental deterioration that took control over me. Although they have been present ever since my first depressive episode, hallucinations were soon increasingly flooding into my reality. Seeing and hearing things that weren’t there, I eventually landed myself in a psychiatrist’s clinic at one of the hospitals nearby. For an hour, I sat in his office—senses dulled and tears silently falling. Despite doctors being known for their illegible penmanship, his initial diagnosis of me was written on the prescription he gave me, clear as day: major depressive disorder, with adjustment disorder subtype.

Admittedly, I had limited working knowledge of abnormal psychology, but I knew for a fact that his working impression of me was telling only a fraction of the truth about my disability. The following year, he proved me right; he later diagnosed me with borderline personality disorder (BPD). A highly stigmatized psychological disorder, BPD explained my erratic behavior, my rapid shifts in emotions, and my propensity to be impulsive and reckless in my pursuit to feel alive. It didn’t explain everything, though. But it didn’t matter; I was officially someone who had a diagnosed disability, and from then on, I felt so far removed from whom I used to be—a human being.

The world was merciless to me in the years to follow. Everyone who knew about my mental illness began to look at me like I was crazy and psychotic—someone they should stay away from at all costs. To make things worse, they treated me like I was fragile. Long gone were the days that I was put on a pedestal for appearing invincible, impenetrable. Perfect. I was indeed a person with a disability; there was no doubt in my mind. Because no one ever let me forget it.

From the Psychiatrist’s Clinic to the Psychiatric Ward

How people perceived me then did more harm than I would allow myself to admit. I was ostracized for having BPD in a way, forced to shuffle back into yet another cage, this time one that restricted those who lived with a disability. I was called toxic and manipulative by my friends, my then boyfriend, and even my psychiatrist. Feeling defeated, I withdrew from the world and slid back into a depressive episode—albeit more severe than before—until I was so far gone that I finally snapped. Once quiet, calm, and collected as a child, I grew self-destructive. In the span of a year, I made several attempts to harm myself and end my life.

After one of my more serious suicide attempts that rendered me unconscious, I was rushed to the hospital. And in the blink of an eye, I found myself in the isolation room of a psychiatric ward.

The psychiatric ward

What happened, how I got there, and how I was found is a long, winding story, to be told another time. But in any case, my suicide attempt led me to the most crucial piece of information that I needed to know about myself, which is that apparently, I had bipolar disorder, too.

To add insult to injury, it wasn’t even your run-of-the-mill bipolar disorder; according to this new psychiatrist, I had bipolar I disorder with psychotic features.

If that sounds bad enough as it is, imagine what it’s like to live with it.

From One Invisible Disability to Two (and Then Some More)

Several years have flown by since my last major suicide attempt back in 2014, and so much has happened, but I suppose that one of my defining moments in my mental health journey was learning what I had—and I’m still learning. In fact, over the years, the more I tried to live my life, the more psychiatrists labeled me with additional diagnoses: ADHD, OCD, OCPD, and PTSD—you name it.

By now, you may be wondering: How can someone be diagnosed with so many mental illnesses and still function? The truth is that, for the longest time, I didn’t. For the longest time, I refused to abandon the decadent lifestyle I picked up in college, pouring gasoline all over what was left of my mental health and setting it on fire.

In spite of it all, though, I lived my life. And I lived it well until, after some time, I didn’t.

A person with a disability acting self-destructive

I no longer remember whether it all happened magically one day or whether this feeling insidiously crept in, but how I came to my realization doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, I was just sick and tired of following this dangerous trajectory, of drowning, and of failing to get back up.

So, voluntarily confining myself in the hospital may sound like a silly, costly decision, but on some unremarkable day in 2018, that’s what I decided to do. This time was much different, though; it was absolutely my choice to have myself admitted. And it was the bravest, smartest thing I have ever done for myself because, during this time, my case was finally handed over to a psychiatrist who treated me quite differently from the rest.

From Disability to Ability

Determined to avoid any shape or form of relapsing into my self-destructive ways, I started seeing this psychiatrist more diligently and more frequently. Out of all of my psychiatrists, she saw beyond my disability; in fact, she treated me much like how people used to treat me prior to my diagnoses—as though I were unstoppable. In most of our early sessions, she would constantly ask me what I wanted for myself, to which I replied with ambitious statements of becoming a psychologist and novelist someday. And because of these sessions, I steadily became more inspired to be a better version of myself.

Recovering from disability by going to therapy

This inspiration reached its summit during one session with my psychiatrist, wherein I went on incessantly about some trivial romantic relationship. My ramblings about relationships then prompted my psychiatrist to advise me with her words of wisdom:

You know, Jebbie, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way. But all of these problems that you have—these are just extra stuff getting in the way of what you want.

Interestingly, her words didn’t leave a negative impact on me. Perhaps the average person would have taken offense to what she said, but I understood where she was coming from: I am so much bigger than my problems. That memorable session led me to reflect on who I want to be, and eventually, this reflection led me to a life-changing realization:

I’m a human being, just like everyone else. And disability or no disability, I breathe the same air, and I share the same joys and suffering. But more importantly, just like everyone else, I am capable. I am capable of going beyond my disabilities and seeing myself for who I genuinely am and who I genuinely am not. Although my parents may have had a skewed perception of me as child, they were right to believe that, despite all of my problems and shortcomings, I am brimming with boundless potential all the same.

From the Beginning to the End

We all know that one of the very few constants in this world is change. It follows then, that I’ve changed insurmountably, too. But I think it’s really funny because this story about disability has come full circle: Once, I was on a quest to unlock my potential, and despite everything that happened, here I am, still bearing an appetite for meaning and fulfillment.

Right now, I’m reminded of one of my favorite quotes from Catcher in the Rye: “The more things change, the more things stay the same.” This very truth, mirroring reality, may have been unkind to me over the years, but in the end, it’s the same truth that has never sounded so sweet.

Jebbie

Jebbie is a mental health writer and copy editor who earned a master’s degree in counseling psychology. A mental health advocate and aspiring psychologist, she is one of the administrators of the Daily Warriors support group.

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