The day I was set to leave, I paced the floor of the ward, anxiously waiting for my social worker and inpatient therapist to finish my release paperwork. Because the university counseling center had flagged my file, I had to be assigned new providers in the community. When they finished signing off, my belongings were returned (including my books and a small vape) and I jumped into a friend’s car, spending the 50 minute drive ranting to her about how being committed had “opened my eyes” to the snakes in my life. I was taking medication but it was still not what I needed, so everything felt like a revelation. At least in this moment, I wanted to live to see a better day.
My first appointment with my new psychiatrist went much better than others had at the university. I was seen by an Asian American woman who took one look at my file and FINALLY prescribed what my brain desperately needed: lithium. It’s an old therapeutic that is being slowly phased out but it works, quickly halting a manic episode in its tracks. She prescribed enough for a grown man double my size. To this day, 8 years later, I take the same dose. My brain, in the environment I was in (alone, suicidal) needed every milligram. And still does, to balance the stimulating effects of the antidepressants I need to take in order to get out of bed and be a human.
With the correct medication, and grace from the Holy Spirit, I slowly began to heal. The chaos inside my head began to quiet and my mood stabilized. My sleep became more regular, with my body temperature decreasing in the night as it should. At first it was tough to notice the numbness. I thought the lithium would rob me of my ability to feel forever, diminishing my creativity, which is such an integral part of who I am. However, with time I soon began to regain my creative spark, just without the dramatic mood swings whenever the seasons changed (fall/winter = crippling depression, spring/summer = psychotic mania).
I began working soon after graduating with my Masters degree. I didn’t display the degree at first, it felt like a mockery of my failure to finish my doctorate. Around this time, COVID-19 had begun, placing everything on lockdown, so I didn’t get to walk or have a graduation. My diploma was mailed in a Manila envelope, along with the booklet of graduate names and honors, which I placed under some dishes in a box full of haphazardly packaged belongings that I had thrown together in my hurry to move from the two bedroom apartment I could no longer afford without the stable income provided by my graduate stipend.
Even with my Masters from the treacherous Ivy League university that had scarred then abandoned me, I couldn’t find a job that paid me enough to survive, so I ended up working 2 jobs that together, kept me and my baby Nemo afloat. We moved 3 months later across town to a neighborhood with much more diversity than where we had been. We were technically squatters on the top floor of a house shared with 3 other families. The building was infested with mice and there was no AC. We were on the 4th floor in the dead of summer, with windows that opened to torn window screens. Regardless, the Holy Spirit held my hand through the uncertainty. Each day was the same, work my first job, work my second job, return home around 9 pm to Nemo, half a bottle of cheap whiskey and a room decorated minimally with fairy lights to make it home. I didn’t know what the future held, but I knew Nemo and I would be ok.
All of this happened over a decade ago, and there was more tragedy to come in the years to follow. I would live through a severe episode while working in biotechnology doing work I loved, developing DNA genotyping assays using applied mathematics. After being placed on medical leave, I would quit and look for jobs that would fire me some months later. During those months I struggled through active addiction, alcoholism, and the suicidal ideation would return in full force. But at this point I didn’t have the luxury of death. I had responsibilities, family to support.
An entire region would turn on me for struggling to survive in the only way I knew how, despite my disabilities and despite the fact I was still young and liable to make mistakes. I was bullied mercilessly everywhere I went. No grace was given from the people around me. Only the grace of the Holy Spirit walked me through the fire, helping me to forgive myself for my mistakes while asking God for forgiveness. I will never quite understand why I was never allowed the space to mess up, but I’ve come to learn that this is your life when you’re Chosen. Now I expect nonsense wherever I go. Now I don’t let the opinions of others shape what I believe about myself. Now, I couldn’t care less if my energy or how brightly I shine makes others uncomfortable. Be and stay mad. Never have I thought I was better than anyone else and I don’t expect things to be handed to me simply because I’m gifted. In fact, I expect things to be incredibly difficult as someone living at the intersection of race and gender (and not the preferred ones). I have all the friends I need so I don’t need new ones (monitoring spirits) and I’ve learned and grown from every fall, every bully, every insult. I am unfazed because God’s got me. Knock me down 9 times but I get up 10.
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