by Katie Wayles

“9-1-1, what is your emergency?”

“My sister is going to kill herself. Please send an ambulance,” I said with a shaky breath.

I reread the text from my sister:

I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll keep it short. I don’t think I can continue on like this. You have always been my best friend and I will always love you.

“Please hurry,” I begged the operator.

In May 2018, my sister attempted to kill herself. When emergency responders arrived, they forced her into an ambulance for a medical evaluation and transported her to Washington Regional Medical Center. There she was strapped to a table and emotionally poked and prodded by a multitude of physicians and psychiatrists for hours until she was considered mentally sound and stable enough to be discharged.

After she was released, my parents immediately moved her out of Fayetteville, Arkansas, and back to our home in Dallas, where she was under near-constant surveillance and psychiatric evaluation. Many tearful therapy appointments later, and she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a debilitating mental illness that affects 2.8% of adults in the U.S., according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Of those cases, 83% are classified as severe.

Bipolar I disorder affects people of all ages, however it is most commonly diagnosed when the person is in their teens to mid-twenties, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. My sister was 19 when she was diagnosed.

To better understand her diagnosis and the implications of the medication she was taking, my sister’s psychiatrist recommended that she turn to discussion boards online. She had no idea that she would soon find a world full of acceptance, understanding and explanations that she had been seeking for years.

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My sister is now a 20-year-old student at the University of Arkansas. She is majoring in marketing and struggling with the challenges of young adulthood, like calculus homework and dating on Tinder.

At the time of her diagnosis, she was serving as a student ambassador for her sorority, where she managed college seemingly as well as anybody else. Everything was as it should be — or so it seemed.

In reality, she was struggling to stay afloat in a world of due dates and high expectations.

“I was so lonely, man,” she said to me about her life before her diagnosis. “I had always felt like something was wrong, even when we were kids. I just felt so different, so alone.”

In high school, she could usually be found in her room, sleeping at odd hours of the day and waking up with a disgruntled demeanor. We thought she was just being a teenager, but little did we know she was struggling with a severe mental illness.

When she graduated high school in 2017, we hoped college would be her shining moment where she would find her niche and finally feel at home. When she expressed an interest in joining a sorority, my parents were supportive and encouraged her to find friends involved in similar activities. Unfortunately, she elected to participate in activities that led to erratic, drug-fueled manias and debilitating depression.

“It’s like, I was trying so hard to be normal,” she said. “I tried everything. Then it all stopped. It was like everything came to a screaming halt. The future just seemed…like blackness.”

Dr. Matthew Rudorfer, a medical doctor involved in bipolar research, describes mood swings as, “severe, long-lasting and maybe most significant of all, they interfere with some important aspect of functioning, such as the ability to work at one’s job, or manage one’s home, or be a successful student.”

During this time, my sister was spending hours on social media sites and dating apps like Tinder and websites like Seeking.com, where young women look for rich older men to “spoil” them. Her experiences with the internet had been nothing but toxic.

“Everyone else had it all together,” she said. “Making friends, going to functions and having fun. I was just trying to exist.”

Today, she considers the internet her safe haven, a place of acceptance rather than rejection.

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After her diagnosis, my sister reached out to the internet to find resources and advice. Today, she is thriving in online friendships with bipolar bloggers and activists.

Julie A. Fast is a lifestyle blogger with bipolar II disorder, which is a form of bipolar disorder that cycles through depressive episodes followed by hypomania. Fast has written books called “Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder,” and “Get it Done When You’re Depressed.” She writes for a multitude of online communities, and has a podcast where she answers user questions about bipolar disorder and writes an award-winning blog, “Bipolar Happens: Straight Talk on Managing Bipolar Disorder.”

Fast describes her experience with bipolar disorder on her blog, saying, “My bipolar disorder is so intense it rips through my entire body like a tornado. Other times, the bipolar literally makes me catatonic. It’s as though all the life has been sucked out and all that’s left is the shell.”

The part of Fast’s blog that spoke to my sister the most was the “Just Diagnosed?” section of her website, which offers advice for medications and recommends other blogs for more information and perspectives.

Fast was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder in 1995 after a “slightly manic trip to China.” Several of her questions about herself and her behavior were answered with her diagnosis, and she was very relieved to have an explanation for why she “had been so odd for so long.”

“If you were just diagnosed, you may be very scared, worried or even incredulous. What? I have a serious mental illness! No way! Then you read all of the symptoms and it makes sense.”

“If you love someone with the illness, you are probably scared and worried.”

Many sites like Fast’s recommend engaging with other people, some sites even directly rank chat groups in order of significance and topic. Under their self-care strategies, the Harbor of Refuge bipolar help site says, “Don’t let yourself become isolated — seek out support from family and friends (including, of course, the support available to you at the Harbor of Refuge).”

This blog is one of many that offers advice, sympathy and a general sense of camaraderie for people suffering with bipolar disorder. The bipolar online community has saved lives— including my sister’s.

Whenever my sister was diagnosed, my family turned to YouTube for information. People would post their own stories, participate in documentaries and discuss their issues in real-time with YouTube’s streaming option. My sister’s psychiatrist recommended that my family and I watch two YouTube videos, “Up/Down” and “Living with Bipolar Disorder.” Each video is a documentary-style informative account of what it is like to live with mania and depression.

Before we watched the documentaries, my family was overwhelmed by the definitions and social stigmas associated with bipolar disorder:

Will she be able to hold a job? Graduate from college? Find love? Be independent?

Nobody was more scared about the diagnosis than my sister. “I think I kind of freaked out at first,” she told me. “I didn’t know anyone else who was bipolar. I thought, ‘There’s no way I’m one of those crazy people on Dr. Phil.’”

My sister does not use her real name in any of her posts, and mainly scrolls through pages without interacting. Sometimes just knowing other people are out there is enough to make her feel less alone. My sister now prefers self-help sites to chat rooms, as she feels her medication and therapy program are working for her.

Chat rooms, support programs and online counseling are just a few of the resources offered to people with this disorder. People can Skype in for group therapy, message a therapist online and create appointments that can be carried out in real life or online.

For my sister, the internet has been a place of education, advice and opportunities to understand herself better.

While that is not what it is for everyone, the internet is what you make of it.

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If you or anyone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts please seek professional help.

For help, call 1-800-273-TALK or 1-800-SUICIDE

Or consult these Web sites for expert advice:

www.healthyplace.com/Communities/Depression/nimh/bipolar_suicide.asp

www.nimh.nih.gov/HealthInformation/GettingHelp.cfm

www.suicideinfo.ca/

www.cdc.gov/ncipc/

www.afsp.com/
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