1984, My brother was diagnosed with this wretched disease. None of my family knew whether we were coming or going. My poor mother was devastated. This was her favorite child, her precious baby Farooq, who was 20 at the time. We were all under so much stress, that my mother went into a severe depression and I too, started slipping into a depression. My depression became so severe that I felt like I had completely lost myself. There was nothing of Samina left. Not her laughter, not her interest in life, not her love of music or books, nothing at all. I didn’t know what was happening to me and I kept thinking “How do I live without myself?” I started thinking about swallowing a whole bottle of my mother’s tranquilizers which I had hidden in my room. I thought about it daily for weeks. No one was paying any attention to me, we were all totally involved in the disaster that my brother’s life had become. He did not want to see psychiatrists, he did not want to take any medication. He went into a full blown manic phase, so much so that he was out of touch with reality. He had to be hospitalized with a 3PC (a three physician certificate, used to hospitalize a mentally ill patient by force.) In the hospital, they gave him lithium and major tranquilizers and he became totally his normal self. Once he was discharged, he threw away all his medication and of course started to get sick again. He went to my step dad’s office and told his secretary to tell him to “call off the dogs.” Classic paranoia in the psychotic (out of touch with reality) phase of mania. Again he had to be hospitalized. His doctors worked with him, trying to explain to him that he could not control his own brain. He must stay on his meds. As soon as he was released, he again threw away all his meds, insisting he could control his own brain and didn’t need any medication. We all tried to tell him he needed to keep taking lithium and other meds his doctor prescribed. But he wouldn’t listen. I was steadily going downhill, and one day told my mother and step dad that no one was looking out for me and that I didn’t feel well. I was put on antidepressants (without lithium) because no one knew at that point that I too had bipolar disorder. I had, at any rate, decided never to attempt to take my life. It was amazingly because of a song I’d heard on the radio by Wilson Phillip, called “Hold On For One More Day!” I literally took that song to heart and in a way it stopped me from doing anything to myself I would later regret. Once on the antidepressants, without lithium, I started to become manicky. Talking a lot, listening to music very loudly, shopping, driving extremely fast. And, in the middle of all this, I a job in New Orleans, I drove my car down there. Nejat, who was my boyfriend at the time, was doing his postdoctoral fellowship in New Orleans, and I went there to work and join him. Once I got there, the antidepressants pushed me into a full blown manic phase. I became out of touch with reality. I thought everyone was trying to prove that I was schizophrenic. I thought the shower was bugged and people were listening to everything I did. Again total paranoia. I thought there was an under world gang of people who were following me to harm me and Nejat. I thought everything that anyone said was just dialogue for my benefit. I once called Nejat’s boss, telling him to leave Nejat alone. I told hime I knew about his designs on Nejat. I also, bizarrely, told him about the sweet olive bushes and how good they smelled… Needless to say, the man had no designs on Nejat and was married with kids! Nejat didn’t know what was going on with me, and I was pretty far gone by then to help myself. Finally, one day at 3 in the morning, I called my psychiatrist. His answering service said it was too late to speak to him. I unloaded a barrage of insults and pretty bad language on the woman who had picked up the phone, because I was sure she was in cahoots with the people who were trying to prove that I was schizophrenic, when in fact I had bipolar d/o. She must have realized that I was very sick and had my psychiatrist, Dr. Roniger, call me back immediately. I told him how people were hounding me and trying to prove I was sicker than I was. He asked to speak to Nejat and told him to take me to the emergency room IMMEDIATELY, as I was in a full blown manic phase. I packed my things and I even packed all of Nejat’s things, including his toothbrush, (the poor guy had no toothbrush the next morning) because I had to protect him from all these nefarious people who were trying to hurt us. On the way, I saw a man fixing his car, with his hood up, and I was sure he was trying to give me messages! Once I got to the hospital, they signed me in, and of course told Nejat to leave. I looked for him until they gave me huge doses of major tranquilizers, and put me in a group ward. I kept trying to get up and find Nejat. They had to put restraints on my arms and legs and tie me to the bed, I remember all this. Then I must have passed out from the meds. In the middle of the night, I awoke to find myself in a strange place with strange looking women. One woman, Myris, had tried to slash her wrists and they were all bandaged up, it was quite frightening. I had no idea what I was doing there. The next morning Nejat came to visit me and he said he cried when he saw me in restraints and looking as white as a ghost. I was in the hospital for one month. 30 days. For a while, I started thinking I was Alice in Wonderland. Dr. Roniger and Nejat were both the white rabbit. There was a young guy there, he always wore red tee shirts, he was the Queen of hearts. There was a male nurse, Albert, with red hair and a wide smile, he was the cheshire cat! Once, I went into another patient’s room, and it was such a mess that I cleaned it all up!!! Not something I was really supposed to do… Slowly all that started to pass as the meds worked. However, the major tranquilizers gave me, among many other side effects, a mask like face, and akathisia, which is a distressing sense of restlessness. So that when Nejat came to visit me, which he did everyday (!) I looked like a rigid mask and could not show him how happy I was to see him. Because of the akathisia, I must have walked about 500 miles around the floor where I was hospitalized. I used to have a dress that apparently looked like a nurse’s uniform, because Mr. White, another patient, always said to me when I was marching “Nurse, you do your rounds really fast!” There was Rachel, a very troubled teen, who actually tried to attack me once. There was Mr. Bartley, whose wife had abandoned him because, I think, he suffered from dementia. George, the Queen of Hearts, wrote beautiful poetry and went to high school everyday and had been in foster care and was sad that he didn’t know who his parents were. There was a young boy, Joseph who was a troublemaker. There was a young man Guidry, who though Nejat was my father and always called him “Sir” and apologized to him endlessly, saying he hadn’t touched me!!! Damn straight he hadn’t touched me, I would have clocked him if he’d tried! So I got better and finally 30 days after I’d been admitted, and after daily begging to be released, I was released. And I just took up my life where I’d left off. I went back to work, started cooking and having friends over for dinner. No side effects, no remaining symptoms. This was in March 1986. The next time I was hospitalized was in December 2009, and this was because my psychiatrist took me off lithium and put me on a drug that is totally ineffectual against bipolar 1 (the more severe form which I have) called Lamictal. I was on it for about 6 years and finally it pushed me into a full blown manic phase. And I flew myself down to New York City and admitted myself into the Psychiatric ward of Columbia Presbyterian. But not before being held against my will in CPEP (Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program). A hellishly depersonalizing, awful, prison like place. But that story, another time.
Palestine WILL Be Free 