[Replay] Dartmouth Delusions

The first time I lost my mind was at Dartmouth College. By my junior year I was walking through campus with psychosis. A movie camera followed me wherever I went. I imagined myself dying in beautiful and surreal ways. And ultimately I wanted my life to end.

In this episode with fellow writer, JD, I share my first experiences with bipolar disorder. When I welcome guests on the show, I want them to know I've had hard times as well.

Memory is imperfect. Old delusions and imagination swirl together. You may notice a swift change in seasons, when my memory of a summer hospitalization is told as if it were a freezing winter day. Because that’s what memory can do...combine feelings and images in a way that captures an experience, even if imprecise.

Join me and write your difficult memories down. Let stories emerge. Contact me to tell your stories. We need fearless voices to fight stigma and shame. Is it too much to demand new treatments and cures? Let's get there one story at a time.

Transcript

Welcome to Bipolar She. I'm your host, Janine Noel. Bipolar She is a storytelling podcast about living with mental illness. The content of the show may include stories of suicidal ideation and suicide. At the show's website, bipolarshe.com, I've listed ways to find support. If you ever need immediate help, please dial 988-A-SUICIDE-AND-CRISIS-LIFELINE. 

 I believe in the healing power of writing and speaking about our darkest of days in raw detail. So let's go.

 I was staring at a bottle of Paxil. I think that's a very common image or experience for someone that is having suicidal ideation. Just wondering like huh, could that really hurt me to swallow all that? I don't know. Should I do it, should I not? I called 911. Two sheriffs came out. They were taking me to the hospital and I'm driving with them going, I'm leaving a world—I am leaving the land of sleeping kings and queens.

Today is one of our pre-show episodes. Before I host guests on the podcast, I want to give listeners a bit of my personal story with mental illness. So you know why I'm motivated to gather guests and ask them to tell a difficult story. After a few interviews with me, I'll step into the role of host and will listen to your unique stories. Today, JD, a fellow writer and storyteller will interview me. All right, JD, let's do this. 

JD: So, Janine, take me back to where it all started. 

 Janine: The first time I lost touch with reality was in college at Dartmouth. 

Okay. But I have to preface this and say I wanted to be an actor. That's all I wanted in my life. I was really, really set out to do that. So I need that to. I need you guys to be reminded of that as I tell the story. 

 JD: Okay, you really wanted to be an actor and you went to Dartmouth All right, yeah, and I love Dartmouth. 

 Janine: It was great. All right, um, it was just amazing. But by the time spring came around, the rains just did not stop, and I was tromping through that campus, the campus green, I had mud in my boots and the rains. I just got so sad. I wanted to go home, I wanted to go in my dorm room and cry, and it was…it was like seasonal affective disorder and I ended up calling my mom sort of begging to come home, because I was just so sad and I didn't know what that sadness was. I had never felt anything like that before, and so by the end of my first year I was done with Dartmouth. I didn't want to be there at all. 

 JD: Wow. 

 Janine: So I went home that summer and I coached a swim team, which sounds really fun. 

 Yeah. 

Janine: But it was miserable. I had ulcers through my throat and I was taking medication for that. I was in a lot of pain, obviously depressed, but I didn't know what was going on. With all the stress it was just, you know, nobody talked about it. I didn't know who to ask about it. So I had this like secret life going on. I was this bubbly swim coach, but I was miserable again, crying in my car going home. 

 JD: Right. 

Janine: So I mean I kept with it. I went back my sophomore fall and I just—I tried to hang in there as much as I could. But then I went and did an exchange program to get away from things. It was an acting program, oh, and I thought I would love it. I thought it would just change everything. But it turned out to be a very stressful program and it became very clear that I was a bad actress Really. 

 JD: How did that become clear? 

 Janine: It became clear, like in mime class, we had to, you know, get on the stage down on all fours and melt like a stick of butter

 JD: Oh God.

Janine: And I tried it different ways, like kind of wobbling to one side, letting my arms go out and sticking my butt out, and it was. I was terrible because they would call the next person. I was getting a C in mime class, so it was very, and I also was the preppy girl. It was all these students from Oberlin and Bard and they're very earthy and artistic and I was in a Kappa Gamma sorority girl shirt and was teased for being like the blonde preppy girl. 

 JD: Right. 

 Janine: And then to deal with that, I started taking my meals into my room and just having not much contact with any of the students there and then they called my mom and said that I wasn't eating and that I was anorexic. I mean, I was able to solve that pretty quickly—to go back and sit with them and eat a meal, but that's sort of where that began like a depression and not eating. It became sort of a give and take. I don't know which came first, but that was going on at that time. 

JD: Did you talk to anyone on campus, like you know, health services or whoever people talk to? 

 Janine: Not for a while and I basically I just kept going and I actually did another exchange program and that was in London and very clearly again, I was a terrible actress. I couldn't do Shakespeare.  

JD: Oh no. 

 Janine: And then I got so depressed to the point where I wasn't even able to smile anymore. Like I couldn't even able to smile anymore, Like I couldn't even pretend to smile and I would end up going down to the tube station and of course I'd have all those terrible thoughts of going in. I never, I never was too afraid, but I just knew something was up. But I didn't know who to talk to at all. And it wasn't until I got back to Dartmouth, and by then it was my junior winter, when I went to health services and I got a form and it said, you know, Are you depressed? Do you lack interest? Do you have trouble concentrating? All that? And I just checked yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I had it all. And they immediately sent me to a psychiatrist, actually off-campus, and so I started seeing her and they put me on Paxil. And it was very interesting because, again, I don't think there was any awareness of these illnesses on campus. I don't know anyone who knew anything about depression. I mean, this was 1995. And I remember seeing a book, like Listening to Prozac. I remember seeing that. 

 JD: I remember that book. Yeah, it was a big deal that book, when that came out. 

 Janine: Yeah, but I really had no idea what this was and I was really hiding it from my friends. 

 JD: Were you like suicidally depressed? I mean, was it really that bad?

 Janine: It got that bad, it did. It took a while. I mean, I just went through everything. I had eating issues. I also had self-harm, like I would dig up my scalp until I got little scabs on my head. 

 JD: Oh that's tough. Yeah, I made it a few more months but by that summer I was very depressed and it's almost like my first suicidal ideation was almost my imagination. I was in the theater and I would look. I'd imagine myself dying in the theater and hanging from the rafters above the stage and I was in a play. I was in A Midsummer Night's Dream and I was a fairy in this play. So, I picture me in my fairy costume lying on my back, the green gauze kind of floating on my sides and this very like elegant death. That's impossible. So, I don't know if that's ideation or just a depressed imagination. 

 JD: Did you have that feeling like everyone's going to feel so sad when they see me that I've died? I mean like you know, like you were overlooking your death, like that famous Tom Sawyer scene where he's looking down on the funeral? 

Janine: I thought the drama department might be sad if I died. 

 JD: That'll show them. Yeah for casting me only as a fairy. I was a fairy. 

 Janine: I had two words and one of the words was a group word. I mean, it was just so demeaning. So, this is when some of my thinking got a little distorted. I started to think well, I didn't get a big role because I'm going to get the next big role and they're going to do Romeo and Juliet in the fall. 

 JD: And. 

Janine: I'm going to be Juliet, and everybody knows that, so that is why I've been given this tiny role. So I start to have some thoughts like that going on in my mind. 

 JD: Were those thoughts kind of comforting, Like oh, okay, I see there's a plan to all of this. 

 Janine: Absolutely. Right? I was able to look at every program that I did and go, okay, I may not have been the best, but you know, I'm small and blonde and I'm going to make it on TV and all these other folks aren't, and so I still believed that I was special and I was going to make this happen somehow. It was that summer in, while I was doing a Midsummer Night's Dream, and while I was doing A Midsummer Night's Dream that I started to have some, well, actually like auditory hallucinations. There was a Fourth of July parade and it was really surreal. 

 I had never seen such an enthusiastic parade before. I have this memory of the Shriners, these men in red caps, in these little tiny cars zipping down the main road and then the band there, and I listened to the parade and then, a few days later, I still heard the parade and a few days later I kept hearing this parade in my head like it was taunting me for some reason.

 JD: So it was staying with you. You were still there at the parade in your mind. 

 Janine: The parade, would you know. The volume would trail off a bit and then it would swell up in my mind. It wasn't always there, but it was kind of following me throughout campus. And then I had another really weird thought. I went down to New York with some friends and I went into this dress store and I bought this kind of sexy dress. It was actually like—it looked like Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, but sexy. 

 JD: Okay. 

 Janine: Plunging neckline. I had never bought a dress like that before and I threw my pink Gap shorts in the bag and put on my dress and I had the women cut the tags off of it and there was something. Again. My mind thought well, that's so interesting. They just cut these tags off me. And now I'm a new person. And when I stepped outside, I imagined this camera, capturing me, like this master camera catches all. That phrase was in my mind. The master camera catches all. And so I'd walk really sexy in the dress. Or when I returned back to Dartmouth, I kept wearing that dress all over campus like a costume basically. 

So I was hearing a parade, I was feeling like this camera was catching me all the time. So these symptoms, my depression, had flipped into early psychosis, basically. 

JD: But it almost sounds like those symptoms were kind of a relief because like, oh, I'm being watched and you know a parade is happening in the background, like those don't seem like unpleasant auditory hallucinations or ideas. Were they unpleasant and disturbing? 

 Janine: No, they weren't scary actually. They were just there and in a way, I think it helped me think I can still do this, I can still be an actor. So so much of my thinking, has been, has always been, involved with this desire to be an actor. But no, it wasn't scary. It turned scary right as this play was closing. I mean, the play basically kept me alive, I had something to show up for and I was organized enough. 

 JD: This is Midsummer?

 Janine: Yeah. So I was organized enough to do that, to show up. The sadness returned and I was writing in my notebook and journal all the time just how I couldn't take classes. I couldn't be on that campus anymore. I wasn't taking classes, I had dropped all my classes. I was basically just hanging out there and trying to do a play. It kind of crept up on me quickly in a sense the whole night where everything happened and again it was auditory. I was in my dorm room and the dorm next to me was a bunch of men and women and they were playing drinking games to the song The Devil Went Down to Georgia. 

 So, I hear this on repeat, on repeat. Devil went down to Georgia. He was looking for a soul and I was convinced the devil was looking for my soul at that point, in a very scary way, like, oh my God, the devil's coming for me. And so that night was terrifying. I didn't know what to do. I was able to think if anything. If anything, my sister would be sad that I was dead. 

 JD: Right. 

 Janine: So I was able to hold on to that thought I was staring at a bottle of Paxil. I think that's a very common image or experience for someone that is having suicidal ideation. Just wondering like huh, could that really hurt me to swallow all that? I don't know. 

 JD: Right. 

 Janine: Should I do it, should I not? And so, ultimately, I called 911 and two sheriffs came out into my room and they like shook the little bottle and I ended up getting in the car with them and they were taking me to the hospital. And I remember it really vividly I had my baby blanket with me and, like my purse, I'm sitting in this cop car with my baby blanket and I'm looking at the campus and it's packed with snow and I'm driving with them going. I'm leaving a world. I am leaving the land of sleeping kings and queens. I am no longer part of that special group of people. Somehow I knew that. 

 JD: Like an exile. You've left the kingdom. 

 Janine: I gave it up. 

 JD: Right yeah, so where did they take you? 

 Janine: To the hospital. When I enter the hospital with my baby blanket and my purse, I walk up to the psychology floor or therapy floor and I demand to see my therapist. At that point I'm really angry at her and, as if she caused this and she was just a resident, she wasn't even a real psychiatrist yet. So I just had all of this anger coming out in all different ways and they said she wasn't there. And then they took me to the actual hospital where I was convinced I was an actress again and I felt they were giving me forms to check in voluntarily. 

 JD: Right. 

 Janine: And I refused to sign them. I started yelling and screaming I'm an actress, I will not sign this contract, I will not sign this. Ultimately, they got me into the hospital because I don't know if I signed it or not, but somehow they calmed me down. I don't know if they gave me a shot and just hauled me in, but yeah, there's definitely a sense like I could tell that my life would forever be different. 

 JD: So when you get going to a hospital, does literally they put you in a room with like a locked door or like how does that work? 

 Janine: Oh no, not a locked door. Sometimes you'll have roommates. I remember at Dartmouth I didn't. I mean, there's such a range of psychiatric treatment centers, psych facilities and hospitals. Dartmouth was probably the nicest one I was ever in. It was small and quaint and a very nice hospital.  

 JD: Right. 

 Janine: Another time I was in a county hospital, which was horrifying. Right? Dartmouth was the nicest one in the sense that any of the craziness going on around me didn't impact me. I thought, well, I'm auditioning for a soap opera now and I'm just in the hospital scene, so they're going to find me, like celebrity is going to find me, even here in this hospital. My sister sent me magazines with Sandra Bullock on the cover. I remember and I'm like, yeah, I'm going to be her. My sister's sending me these because I'm on my way. 

 JD: Right. 

 Janine: I am on my way. 

 JD: So the delusions were still just as active. 

 Janine: Very active but protective at the same time. 

 JD: Right. 

 Janine: It's giving me. I still have a dream to do something. 

 JD: Right, like giving you hope almost like a life force, something positive inside of something. Right Like giving you hope almost like a life force something positive inside of you. 

Janine: Yeah, and I think that actually, through all my years with mental illness, that really worked for me and it kept me alive. At the same time the illness was killing me. That dream kept me alive, like, at the same time, the illness was killing me, that dream kept me alive. People would judge that dream. But I know, if I hadn't had that, I would not have made it. 

 JD: It's really interesting. It's like a double-edged sword, right. I mean, it's this thing that's afflicting you, but it's also giving you hope and sustaining you in some way. 

 Janine: Yeah, they thought the dream was killing me. 

 JD: So where did you go from there? From the hospital at Dartmouth, that was your first serious hospitalization, right yeah. 

 Janine: I went back to my dorm room and my mom and I packed my boxes and my mom was not happy about this. It was pretty unpleasant and I have this memory of us leaving Dartmouth, sitting on this airplane and I'm wearing my green hospital gown tied in the back and I'm in the aisle seat and my mom is sitting next to me and she turns to me and says “Do not tell anyone Never.” But when I think about it, I wasn't in a hospital gown on the plane. I was probably in jeans and I don't know exactly what my mom said. 

 JD: Huh. So it's like you rewrote the memory. I mean because you can actually see this happen that way in your mind. 

 Janine: Yeah, I knew I had this gown on that was going to follow me wherever I went. 

 JD: Oh. 

 Janine: And I knew to be silent. My mom said be quiet, don't talk about this. It wasn't actually that painful at that point because I was on a lot of medications and I was numb. I was on an antipsychotic medication. So at that point I didn't feel like oh God, this is shame, and I feel so terrible about it. When I think back to it, I can understand where those thoughts of shame came from—from my mom, within my family, even friends, but at that moment I was actually pretty numb. 

 JD: So that was Dartmouth. Did you go back? 

 Janine: I did. I didn't want to, but I did actually. 

 JD: Why did you go back? Was it your family wanted you to go? 

 Janine: My mom said you are going back to Dartmouth.

 JD: I paid for this. 

Janine: Yeah, no she said my dad paid for it. He didn't pay for all of it. I was on financial aid, but my mom said you're going back there. And they were actually pretty progressive. I would say Dartmouth handled this really well. I don't know if my mom did, if she was in contact with them or I did, but basically they said take a year off, show us that you've had therapy, that you can hold a part-time job and that you can take college level classes. So I had to prove that I was healthy enough to go back to school, and so I did that and I went back the year after my senior year. So I didn't really have any friends left by the time I went back and so, but it's okay, I was able to just study and be quiet and get it done. 

 JD: Acting, or were you studying something else? 

 Janine: I think I was doing some acting then, okay yeah, but I was so mad at my mom but honestly, she gave me like the best advice ever to go back and get that degree. 

 JD: Well, actually it sounds like you know Dartmouth actually was helpful during that period for you like providing some structure, and you kind of had a plan. You know that they made you follow. 

 Janine: Yeah, they handled it really well. I wasn't the first person that that had happened to, even though I thought I was, but obviously I wasn't. So they did. Yeah, they handled a medical year off and I think they were ahead of their time. I don't think that many schools did that. 

 JD: So things were under control at this point, like with the meds, like your delusions and whatever was going on. 

 Janine: They were under control for about two months. 

 JD: Okay. 

 And then I started. I was with my sister and I started feeling very scared. I was pacing a lot. I would go out on these long walks and not come back when I would say I would. I was listening to a lot of Alanis Morissette on the bike path. 

JD: That's it. That's truly a problem now. 

 Janine: Yeah, I was listening to that a lot and just high anxiety and I remember going into a Walgreens and it was October, so all of these witches and ghosts and goblins were hanging in the candy aisles. 

 JD: Right. 

 Janine: And they're only supposed to like cackle when you're near them. 

 JD: Right, uh-huh. 

Janine: So I'd walk by them and they'd cackle. 

 JD: Yeah. 

 Janine: And then they would just start cackling on their own and I was convinced that I had some energy or dark energy that they were tapping into and I, like, had to run out of Walgreens and get the hell out of Walgreens, and then they threw me into another hospital. 

 JD: Yeah, I mean, I just want to say because I mean I'm laughing, but I know that when it's actually happening to you it's not funny at all. I mean it sounds a little absurd because it is a delusion, but it's really traumatizing when you know reality is warped in that way. 

 Janine: Yeah, it's really scary. And for me a lot of it was like the devil in my soul and that is where my darkest thoughts were going—that I was on my way to hell. 

 JD: What did hell look like? I mean, was it like you'd be in flames, like classic version of hell, or what? 

 Janine: Yeah, I think so. Wow, when I think of hell, I think of like you know how we walk here, that the people in hell their feet match ours down below and they're walking like that, so it's kind of upside down. And so every, every step you take is connected to someone in hell. 

 JD: Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, ooh, scary 

Janine: That's what I used to think, um then. 

JD: Right. 

Janine: So then they threw me in another hospital. It was a very nice hospital and what I remember is the OJ trial was going on and then there was an arts and crafts room and I remember standing. It's so weird. I was in the arts and crafts room—I was standing in front of an art project—and the nurse comes over. She's like, That's really nice. And I said, But I didn't do that, that's not my art project. She's like oh yeah, it is, you did that. But just one of those moments where her perception was entirely off, like, I knew I had not done that craft, but it made sense to just not argue with her. It was a very weird moment. I'm like I think I have enough of my mind to know if I've made a heart decoupage. 

 JD: Right. 

 Janine: But and that hospital was hard. Like a friend from high school came to visit me and like I was on a medication that made me catatonic—like my body started to freeze. 

 JD: Wow. 

Janine: And there's someone visiting me and this is happening and they're watching this. And then I remember meeting a woman who was a lawyer and she's probably 35 and I'm 20. And she's telling me that her employer knows that she's in the hospital. Her employer knows she has bipolar disorder. And I'm looking at her thinking, holy shit, that's not going to happen to me, that will never happen to me. This is it. This is a one-time deal, and that's all I knew at that point.

 JD: So had you ever been exposed to that term bipolar disorder up until that point? 

 Janine: Technically, I wasn't even diagnosed bipolar at that, okay, I was just major depression with psychosis. 

 JD: Ah, okay. 

 Janine: So I'd be introduced that label a little bit later. 

 JD: All right, I look forward to that. So now you're only 20 years old. 

 Janine: That all happened when I was 20. 

 JD: Oh, my God, you're just a kid, so, and you graduated, though, eventually, from Dartmouth. 

 Janine: I did, and then I moved to New York to be an actor. 

 JD: Ah, that sounds healthy. Should we go into talking about New York, or is that a whole other chapter? 

 Janine: Oh, I mean it's all linked. All these things in my mind are linked. 

 JD: Well, I look forward to hearing about it the next time. Guitar solo.