Rough Draft

The Unknown

I never knew I had a mental illness growing up.  Bipolar is a mood disorder that effects someone’s mental state.  Bipolar disorder, formerly called manic depression, is a mental health condition that causes extreme mood swings that include emotional highs (mania or hypomania) and lows (depression).  When I become depressed, I may feel sad or hopeless and lose interest or pleasure in most activities. When my mood shifts to hypomania (less extreme than mania), you may feel euphoric, full of energy or unusually irritable. These mood swings can affect sleep, energy, activity, judgment, behavior, and the ability to think clearly.  I also suffer from severe anxiety and both these disorders have come into play during important times in in my life.

The anxiety attacks started right after I had my children.  My boys are now 14 and 11 years old.  I will never forget the night that I had my first panic attack as an adult.  Our vehicle had been broken into it.  My oldest son Dominic was only about 6 months old at the time.  On this night, Dominic had fallen asleep in the car and was still sleeping when we pulled up to our home.  Dominic looked so precious and so peaceful sleeping that we did not want to wake him up with any noise.  It was always our routine to hit the lock button on the remote keychain but seeing how we did not want to wake the baby up with the noise of the horn beeping when you lock so me and Joe decided to wait until we got upstairs to lock our doors.  We lived on the third floor, so it took a good 5mins to get upstairs from the parking spot.  When we finally got inside our apartment, we slowly took the baby out of his car seat, we changed him into pjs all while trying to not wake him up.  We were going slower than usual.  Once we finished getting baby into pjs, one of us remembered that the doors of the Jeep were still unlocked. I rushed to grab the keys and walked over to my big picture window that faces the street where my car was.  I had a perfect view above so because of being so high on 3^rd floor, I can see into the Jeep. When I looked down, I noticed that there were papers on my passenger seat that I know I did not leave there when I left the vehicle.  I try locking the door, but the horn does not set off like it is supposed to when you lock it.  I told Joe right away that something did not seem right and being the protector that he was, he of course ran down to the car to go see what was going on with that.  I had a bad feeling in my gut, like someone punched me, I am starting to sweat and get all nervous watching my child’s father go down there.  What if someone is sitting in my car? What if I have stuff missing from my car? I had so many thoughts run through my mind.  Finally, he opens the car door and starts looking through our vehicle.  Joe looks up at me in the window and shakes his head as if he is disappointed.  I knew it! I thought to myself.  I had a feeling the whole time that someone had gotten into our truck and sure as hell I was right!  The car doors were left unlocked for literally no more than 30 mins and someone during that time went into my personal space and took some of me and Joe’s personal belongings that were in the car.  I did not want to wake the baby up to go downstairs so I grabbed the baby monitor and ran to Joe downstairs to see it for myself.  I instantly started bawling my eyes out.  I never felt so violated like this.  I felt like someone punched me in the stomach and knocked the wind out of me.  Joe did his best to console me, but I couldn’t help but be distraught over it.  We finally made out way back upstairs and this time I MADE SURE that I locked the doors.  That night, I could not help but to consistently go back and forth to the window to check that no one was around my car again.  I became so paranoid that I would push the lock button each time I went to the window pushing the lock button continuously “beep-beep” (doors lock) “beep-beep” (doors lock) “beep-beep” (doors lock).  I never slept that night after that.  That night was when the panic attacks really started….

I had been home all day with Joe and our two boys Dominic and Damien.  Dominic was almost 3 years-old and Damien was only a week old and weighed about 8 pounds.  It was right around 1am and Damien had woken up to eat as he normally did every 2-3 hours.  After every feeding, I would always burp Damien, change his diaper, and lay him back down to sleep, like all newborns do.  On this night, after I had finished feeding him, I placed the bottle down on the table and sat Damien up on my knee while one hand is holding him from his chin, lifting his head and chin up and stabilizing his wobbly neck.  The other hand is gently patting him on the back so that way he can burp up the formula.  I always made sure that Damien burped before laying him down because as a newborn they can choke on their spit up.  So, I made sure that Damien gave me a couple of good burps before laying him down.  I laid Damien down next to me on the couch in the living room while I was watching TV.  As I am sitting there, I notice in the corner of my eye Damien squirming around, but he is not making any sounds.  A few seconds later he started to cry but his cry just did not sound right.  My heart sank to my stomach.  I knew my child and I knew something was going on.  I grabbed him quickly and lifted him up to my chest, patting him on his back.  His cries sound like he’s gargling water in the back of his throat! My son is choking! Joe rushes to the phone and calls 911!  I somehow managed to keep it together as far as not screaming but I could not handle it, I panicked! I felt like I was going to pass out.  It felt like I lost all the blood flow in my body especially when I saw my son starting to turn blue in the face.  My life was flashing in front of me.  Joe grabbed the baby instead and I grabbed the phone to try and talk to the 911 operator and was repeating to Joe what the operator was saying to do.  It felt like eternity waiting for the ambulance to come.  Damien’s mouth started foaming up and he’s still squirming around trying to grasp for air.  I felt helpless and sad.  I ran downstairs to unlock the door for the police and paramedics.  I have never run down a flight of stairs so fast in my life before.  The policemen were first to arrive on scene.  The first police officer flew up three flights of stairs running to save my son.  He ran as if It was a family member of his own that was in trouble.  I of course ran with him.  We made it up 3 flights of stairs in matter of seconds.  He grabs Damien and flips him on his stomach laying Damien down on the officer’s forearm as he gently pats on Damien’s back stimulating his spine. Then another officer and paramedics show up and before I knew it, Damien was let out this cry, a normal cry, a clear sounding cry.  I felt so relieved.  Everything around me became clear again.  I felt my blood rushing through my body as if the blood were flowing back into my body.  My chest stopped being tight and my heart felt like it was thumping normal again.  My face gaining its color back.  My son had choked on his saliva and had acid reflux and it did not go down.                                                                                                                     

In my most recent accomplishment, it has been that I started school again and I am now attending college for criminal justice to become either a police officer or a court officer. During the application process, my anxiety was already at its high.  I started procrastinating the second it was time to send that application.  I started doubting myself and making excuses about whether I should be doing this.  All I kept thinking about was reasons why I “cannot” do this (going back to school) instead of thinking about why I “can” and reasons why I “will” go back to school.  After hesitating for so long and contemplated on whether I should hit the send button for the application to be processed and sent.  The adrenalin runs through me from my nerves catching up to me.  The anxiety rushing through me, punching me in the gut.  I ask myself “Why am I so nervous?” I am nervous because I just committed to a life changing decision.  After I am finished with college, I would like to become a police officer or court officer so I thought to myself “I will not let my anxiety stop me from doing what I have always wanted to do”.  Finally, I talk myself into hitting the send button for the application.

There have been many situations that have caused me to have anxiety and panic attacks.  Even my children have witnessed me in panic mode and all I can do is try my best to not show them when it is happening.  My anxiety has affected my family in any ways, good and bad.  Sometimes my anxiety caused me to argue with my parents, my sister, my boyfriend and even sometimes my own children.  I have had anxiety attacks for happy moments, sad moments, and serious moments.  Anxiety and bipolar disorder are part of the of three most common mental health disorders. An estimated 18.1 percent of Americans have anxiety disorders, and an estimated 6.9 percent of Americans live with major depression.  More and more people are starting to open up about mental illnesses.

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