Suicide, Bipolar Disorder and Victory

‘Certified Crazy’: My Sister’s Struggle Living With Bipolar Disorder By Cristy Marrero Medically Reviewed by Allison Young, MD Suspicion, speculation, stigma, stereotypes, segregation, solitude, sadness, seclusion, suicide … these are just few of the words that come to mind when I remember my sister’s life with bipolar disorder and breast cancer. Surprisingly enough, all of them begin with the letter 's.' 'S' as in sister.Hot and extremely humid and bizarre was the description of this Saturday afternoon in Puerto Rico when my mom and I found my sister lying on the floor of her room in fetal position, her head tilted slightly upward, staring ahead with bubbles of drool coming out of her mouth; her gaze lost and downright frightening. We’d heard her weeping like a 2-year-old; prompting my mom to run to her rescue — a scene that had become far too familiar for our family. But this time was different: My sister was inconsolable. She wouldn’t move, blink, or speak. We sat next to her for a few minutes … or was it hours? She was only 17.. Bizarre is the word for this day; the most bizarre day yet of my then 15-year-old life. My big sister was acting weird, and we couldn’t do anything to help her. The days that followed this “episode” were somber, sad, and full of silence and tears. The morning following the episode, we drove my sister to the hospital, where she remained under observation for two weeks. I remember my mom calling pretty much every psychiatrist in San Juan during that time, as well as my father, her sister, and, lastly, my grandmother, with whom she shared what she thought was going on with my sister. “She is sick. She wants to quit architecture school. I’m scared,” I overheard her say while eavesdropping. “This time was different: My sister was inconsolable. She wouldn’t move, blink, or speak.” My sister was only 16 when she was accepted to the University of Puerto Rico School of Architecture, which admitted just 30 students per year after a rigorous application process that included artwork, endless interviews, and three or four tedious exams. Of course, my always-brilliant big sister passed them all with A-pluses. When she started at the university, she was the youngest person in the class once again. My mom — and especially my dad — always bragged about how she spoke her first words at 11 months, started at a Montessori preschool at age 2, and by first grade could read a book from cover to cover and knew all her multiplication tables by heart. The next exam, she was promoted to third grade right away. Here Comes the Diagnosis . It was obvious that my mom hadn’t slept in 10 days. My dad was making stupid jokes to calm his nerves. This was the first time both of my parents had been in the same room since their divorce 10 years prior. My sister was waiting for us behind a glass window. We went in one by one, as requested by her on her visitor’s list. We only had two hours total, so we had to be quick and clever. Saying the wrong thing at the wrong time could be extremely detrimental to her recovery. A team of doctors, two of them female, came to the visitors’ room after my sister was sent back to her “cocoon,” as she referred to the psychiatric ward she was in. They confirmed our suspicion: She suffered from type 1 bipolar disorder. My big sister, as she later jokingly referred to herself, was “certified crazy.” Speculation immediately followed our visit, as we tried to figure out how to process this diagnosis and figure out what the best treatment for her would be. Lithium, the doctors all recommended. But my sister couldn’t bare the side effects of this strong medicine, despite all the studies that prove it to be the most effective in helping patients balance their mood swings. Genetics quickly came to mind as one of the possible causes — one more unfortunate piece of my sister’s “misery team,” as we liked to call it. “Your grandfather was schizophrenic,” my mom reminded us. And my father’s dad, a veteran, was brilliant and had an impeccable sense of humor — just like my sister. One of the most discussed family stories was that he came back from Korea “crazy.”His family had certified him as crazy. My poor abuelo hated being exposed to electric shock therapy back in the day. The practice, now called electroconvulsive therapy, is still being used to counteract severe depression, treatment-resistant depression, severe mania, catatonia, and agitation and aggression in people with dementia. (1) Life After the Diagnosis The next two decades were full of ups and downs; crises; two more hospitalizations; a few suicidal moments that luckily resulted in aborted missions, thanks to the vigilant efforts of my younger sister, my mother, and me; insomnia; stress; and more than 40 different psychiatrists. Related Conditions My sister didn’t like therapy at all. She’d always say that she ended up telling the doctors more about her condition rather than the other way around. The level of misunderstanding and stigma combined with the lack of both answers and treatment options — options that would make those ghosts in her head go away for even just a bit — kept the whole family in a perpetual state of frustration. Not to mention our fear of genetics. Research shows that as a sibling, I am 10 times more prone to develop bipolar disorder than someone without an affected sibling. (2) But even at my craziest and darkest times, I can say I have never experienced depression or mania, the two main components of bipolar disorder, in my life — at least not in the way my sister did. I consider myself blessed but don’t take my own mental health for granted for a second. As I was writing this story, I called my mom to help me relive some of the most somber moments with my sister. I wanted to document them as they'd felt at the time. Her response was: “Please make sure whoever reads this article understands that your sister’s breast cancer diagnosis was nothing compared to her bipolar disorder diagnosis. Bipolar disorder really shaped her destiny.” In 2007, at age 30, her body joined the “misery team” her mind had successfully founded 13 years earlier. My “certified crazy” big sister ALSO had breast cancer. Another genetic disorder was confirmed to all of us when my sister learned that she was BRCA2 positive (two of our aunts have had different forms of breast cancer, which puts us at increased risk). I have chosen to never be tested for the BRCA2 gene mutation, though, mostly because my mom couldn’t bear having another diagnosis in the family. My sister's battle — actually, to be precise, OUR battle — with cancer lasted seven long and incredibly fulfilling years. I had moved to New York City by this point, so I flew down to Puerto Rico at least every other month to be with her and my mom, to take her to her endless chemotherapy appointments, and to be there when she woke up from each of her five invasive surgeries. We tried it all! We did what every loving family facing this tragedy does: We had her back. Related Conditions What happened to her mind while her body was weakening over the course of those seven years is still beyond our belief. She experienced no major mental crises during this time (other than a bunch of tears and fear associated with the cancer treatment, of course), took no depression meds, and had zero visits to the psychiatrist; she didn’t need the treatments. It was almost as if her body and her mind signed an agreement to let her lead as ordinary a life as possible despite her illnesses, and the disclaimer stated: “Valid for at least seven years.” Her mind gave her a break for the very first time. While she was never truly in remission from her cancer, her mental state was okay. Her mood swings were under control, and she was determined to win the cancer battle — and smiled more than I could remember since her bipolar disorder diagnosis. I call this period our beauty within the tragedy. Then May 16, 2014, happened. My sister’s cancer had spread to her lungs, and on this day, her body succumbed to the disease. As her body shut down, her last words to me were loud and clear. So was her mind. “Take care of our baby nephew. Buy him a bunch of candy, and let him do whatever he wants. And you always be yourself and never let anyone put you in a box like they did to me. I am proud to be certified crazy, but you are not crazy.” She died at age 37. Way too young! And I choose to remember her — every day of my life — simply as my big sister. The best one I could have ever asked for. My hope is that with the research experts are conducting, they will be able to more precisely decipher what bipolar disorder is all about and figure out how to make patients’ lives less secluded and lonely. As more brave souls like Catherine Zeta-Jones, Demi Lovato, and, most recently, Mariah Carey (3) come forward and tell their stories of living with this disease, bipolar disorder will hopefully shed some of its stereotypes as a crazy person’s disease. Meanwhile, I have not only bought our nephew all the candy he wants, but my younger sister and I make sure he knows his Auntie Ana is watching him from heaven and protecting his every step. Bipolar disorder is not the enemy. The worst part of this terrible condition is the stigma it carries, as do all mental disorders. There needs to be more compassion and understanding. I strongly believe that putting a face to bipolar disorder helps humanize our “certified crazy” in the eyes of our “not certified crazy” world. Like Ana would always tell me: “I’m not the crazy one. I see what others can’t. We are just humans fighting to fit in this crazy world.” That’s my sister. Nichole Marbach’s Healing Journey From Trauma to Triumph by Nichole Marbach What value would you put on hope? For Nichole Marbach, it was worth her life. Read her incredible healing journey of trauma to triumph. You will be inspired, as she was, to know that nothing is impossible with God! “You don’t have to do that anymore.” These were the words of Jesus to Nichole Marbach, who for years had cut herself with knives and razors. Many wonder, Why would anyone do this? “I started having flashbacks of sexual abuse,” Nichole shares. “[And] having stepparents that I didn’t feel really liked me as a kid was very difficult. I was just looking for attention. I was looking to feel loved, and I felt like I needed to punish myself. That’s why I started self-injuring. It was almost like harming myself was a release from that, and it was easier for me to feel the physical pain than the emotional pain I was feeling.” It got worse when her own daughter reached the age Nichole was when she was abused. “That just came back as flashbacks, and the only way to cope was to drink alcohol,” Nichole says. “And so, I became so dependent on it that I started hiding it in the house and not letting my husband know. Even though I was a believer—going to church, going to Bible studies, doing all of this—I felt like there was no way out.” Nichole continues, “I felt so much shame and guilt of just being a mentally ill mother with addictions because I wanted my kids to have a better life than I had.” Worried that his wife was on the verge of suicide, Nichole’s husband, Claude, tried to provide the help and support she needed. “I always wanted to try to find a way to fix it and try to solve the problems for her and try to mitigate things, and I could never do that,” he recalls. “I thought maybe the combination of medication and outside support through Christian counseling would be what was needed. But after years of kind of trying this, it never really worked. At least not, you know, sustainably.” Having been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, it appeared Nichole would have to deal with this for the rest of her life. “I was told it was incurable, and all they could do was manage it with medication.” One day when she was cutting herself again, she heard fateful words from God. He said, “You don’t have to do that anymore, because My Son shed His blood for you.” Hope flickered to life within Nichole. “I just remember I started weeping. I thought I had to get all the sin out of my life before God would want [a] relationship with me or would love me. And here He was, pursuing me with His love, and He was trying to tell me, ‘My Son took the punishment for all sin. He took your punishment at the cross. You are loved. You are forgiven. You are righteous.’ But I just didn’t know how to be well.” But God had a plan. A sister in the Lord came at the right time with the right word to sustain Nichole. “We were writing emails at the time, and she wrote to me, ‘With God, all things are possible.’” At that point, Nichole had a decision to make. “Am I going to believe the Word of God that says I’m healed, or am I going to believe what the doctors say, that this is incurable, and I need to be on medication for the rest of my life? And I got a revelation at that point that, as a child of God, I don’t have to take this anymore. I am healed, and I can use my authority.” This turning point was marked not only by an inward change, but there was an outward change as well. Nichole says, “I no longer cut myself. I no longer drank and got drunk. I no longer, you know, had that suicidal thinking.” God always does more than is expected. With Nichole, He put a hunger in her for truth. “I knew that I needed a deeper foundation in Christ. I knew that I needed a deeper foundation in the Word of God,” she says. And as she sought the truth, she found it. She heard about Andrew Wommack and started listening to him and reading his books. “Then somebody invited me to a Charis Bible College meeting because a satellite school was opening up in my area.” Nichole began attending Charis and started seeing even more change in her life. “Charis is not only helping me . . . become a better mother [and] better wife. It’s helping the brokenhearted out there see that Jesus sets the captives free, and I am one of them,” she explains. “[The] truth of God’s Word that I’m getting from Charis has gone into my books, my materials, and also wherever I speak. I love to go into the places where there are really broken, wounded people, and I tell them how much God loves you and how much God accepts you, how forgiven you are.” Claude shares, “Charis Bible College has grounded Nichole in so many different ways. She is really at peace and really enjoying meeting people where they are. She always comes [home] really encouraged from the classes.” Claude continues, “I think she has such a thirst for learning more and sharing that. She is full of joy.” “Going to Charis has changed my life,” Nichole says. “It has just increased my healing by showing me who I am in Christ and understanding that we already have everything in us through Jesus Christ.” Through your giving to Andrew Wommack Ministries, you have made Nichole’s healing journey possible. And now, untold lives are being touched by the message of hope that saved Nichole’s life. “My husband bought me a license plate that says ‘Hope’ as a Christmas gift one year because that’s our story that we want to get out to people. There’s more than hope in Jesus Christ. There is victory in Jesus Christ.” Craze? Cancer? Terminal? Incurable in all areas? Call the help-lines Dr. Caleb Bibbi Oluranti; 08093142261;08033466574; 08156697540; 08028240983 o