A Bipolar Shift
This is a rough, single perspective of working in the news industry while battling Bipolar II Disorder.
It was a S.W.A.T. call out this time.
A year without symptoms and they returned with a vengeance. I was called to report on a Special Response Team call out in middle-America. A man had reportedly called family sounding distressed. When I arrived on scene for reporting duty, I learned the man allegedly had a gun and had poured gasoline throughout his home and on himself. I was told, as per usual, to wait until S.R.T. was cleared from the scene before I could leave. The event ended with the house on fire.
I witnessed a man commit suicide. There was nothing I could do to help him.
Let’s back up several years to 2017. I graduated with a Bachelors in Media and Information from Michigan State University. I had no idea what career I wanted. All I knew was my desire for story-telling and inspiring change. How many 20 year-olds graduate with a B.A. and know what they want to do? Well, I didn’t anyhow. The first job I was offered was as a primetime T.V. anchor and reporter in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I moved an eight-hour drive from any family and friends — my only support system — to work my first “big-girl gig.”
Sadly, I only lasted a few months before my second suicide attempt (my first being at 16 years-old). New Year’s Eve of 2017, I swallowed a bottle of pills and drank enough 40 proof tequila to knock me out long enough to fall asleep, indefinitely. I was hospitalized and then prescribed with an increased dosage of Lexapro, an antidepressant. Doctors, bless their hearts, still thought it was just clinical depression. There was no follow-up with a psychiatrist. For years I had been consistently prescribed antidepressants, by multiple doctors, at higher doses until I reached 120 mg of Lexapro, twice daily.
It wasn’t until 2018 when I started seeing a therapist again that I realized the pills weren’t working.
That year I was working as a local radio host in my hometown. I had moved back home with my family and my boyfriend a month after my second suicide attempt. Life was good. Until a few months of working at the radio station I started experiencing the same symptoms again. I still didn’t know what was happening.
I was driving home from work. After a normal nine-hour shift of talking about world news, national news and local stories I felt worn out but wasn’t exhausted to the point of tears. It wasn’t until I started driving the fifteen-minutes to my boyfriend’s that I started to feel the shakes. I shake when I feel a panic attack or when I am about to implode. The tears started rolling and I lost all control. There was no trigger this time, not one I can identify.
I can’t stop my panic attacks without eliminating environmental stressors like work, school or relationships. That is damn near impossible in this world. I can’t stop my bipolar “episodes” either, unless I eliminate underlying stressors. Again, it’s impossible in this industry.
I visit my therapist the next day after driving the day before with tears flooding my face, my body shaking into a cold sweat and my emotions all over the place.
“Chelsea?” My (anonymous) therapist asks. “How are you doing?”
Something happened inside me. For the first time I spoke about my personal trauma ( a sexual assault and suicidal thoughts) and about the pressures of working in journalism. At that time I hadn’t even begun to experience the true pressures of journalism. I was so young. How could I leave when I’d barely started?
It was that session where I submitted to being placed in a psychiatric hospital for one week. If you’ve ever seen “It’s Kind of a Funny Story” you’re basically spot on with your interpretation of a psych ward. I was placed in a basement, away from my support group, for several days where I watched rom-coms and watched T.V., alone, in the visitor’s room. It was there where I met my first psychiatrist and I finally received my diagnosis. I have Bipolar II Disorder.
Fast-forward, again, to 2020 where I stood for several hours witnessing a man die. I couldn’t save him.
The pressure of a 45–50 hour a week job in the midst of a global pandemic and my own struggle with mental-illness became to much. I was a two-day drive from any family and friends and my own partner was depressed — emotionally and mentally distancing himself from everything and every one. I had no one. The demands of the job are not compatible with my mental health, though I know I can do it on my “good” days.
I can’t control my disability. But it shouldn’t hold me back.
I should be able to provide cutting-edge reporting and maintain my professionalism. But instead, I shake and I cry and fall into a dark space that is almost indescribable unless you know the pain and sadness like I do.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced me to work from home for several months, further isolating me from other human contact and, quite literally, forcing me into a dark space. I was reporting from home, stepping into the sun only on the rare occasions where I could. The only contact with the outside world was through a screen or scrolling through the rather toxic world of social media.
It was all toxic, to me.
I am out now but still hold that special place in my heart for telling stories, even the uglier ones. I continue to write. I talk to people and learn their truths.
I hope one day I’ll be able to work in news again. Despite it all, I hope to be able to change lives through my writing and provide some inkling of hope for others, and myself.