How I Battled Bedlam

ABOUT TWO MONTHS BEFORE MY 18TH BIRTHDAY, I NOTICED a lack of
clarity in mythinking. All of my mental processes seemed to be closing in
on me, as though I were living in a haze. My mind seemed to dart in all
different directions. If this sounds pretty frightening, I can assure
you, it is.

Somehow I knew what was happening to me--that I was developing a
chemical imbalance, although it would take some time to convince my
family of this. The psychologists I saw could do little for me.

My fate changed at New York University Hospital when a neurologist
named Dr. Jonas confirmed that my illness was probably chemically based.
He said I needed help from a psychiatrist who had knowledge of
medications and how they act on brain chemistry. It was years, though,
before doctors found the right combination of medications to help me
significantly.

Before this, my mind was often muddled. That's the best way to put
it. It felt like hostile forces were somehow invading my mind. To keep my
sanity, I had to channel all my awareness to battle these forces. I think
that many people faced with these kinds of pressures become completely
psychotic. Fortunately, I never heard voices or suffered from feelings of
persecution. Every imbalance is different, I guess.

It took three trips to the Carrier Clinic in Belle Meade, New
Jersey, to bring me closer to an answer. The first took place in 1975
when I was 18. I was frightened and I asked a nurse if I could call home.
But she wouldn't listen and she wouldn't help me use the phone. I tried
myself and failed, which made me agitated. I pleaded and begged, but she
continued to ignore me, and I became hysterical. I was crying and
yelling. Finally something did happen. Aides took my belongings out of my
room and ordered me to follow them. I watched them wheel my belongings
down the hall. Ashamed and confused, I wondered where they were taking
me. They escorted me to Edward Hall, the closed ward.

In Edward, you had no control. You were allowed only one
five-minute monitored call a day. And it was hard to get any kind of help
from anyone. I felt like I was in Bedlam, and some of the staff didn't
seem fit to handle Fido.

I was hospitalized at Carrier two other times. Despite good
intentions, I wasn't helped very much. I made some friends and calmed
down, but I always felt as if I were on the outside looking in. There
were other people around, but I always had feelings of solitude. As I
watched others, it seemed that there was some sort of magic formula, some
sort of secret they possessed that made them able to function in a way I
could not. In a sense, that was true.

In 1985, my mother and I moved. I discovered an institution called
Community Mental Health. I participated in therapy groups there, but the
real breakthrough came when I started writing for the facility's
newsletter. Suddenly all the torment I had suffered turned to insight. I
wrote about people interacting with other people, about painful elements
in our lives and how we deal or don't deal with them, about triumphs and
tragedies and how they mold us into what we are. My own struggle became a
source of awareness and a way to help others.

No sufferer should give up, hide away in shame, feel odd, helpless
or worthless. The person with a chemical problem was put on earth to be a
teacher, both for other sufferers and for the more fortunate. I know that
my struggles are not over, but I also know I'll overcome them.

Susan Parker, who lives in Bloomfield, New Jersey, has been
diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder.