Mom came to the hospital June 14, her birthday coincidentally to tell me that my father had died on his boat coming back from Catalina. I screamed. I remember screaming and feeling the worst feeling I have ever felt. My father and I were close. Despite the problems, he was closer to me than anybody else. That actually isn’t that rare in cases like ours. Without getting into a bunch of jargon that means basically nothing. I loved him and I hated him. I hated him because I felt he caused a lot of mixed up feelings inside of me. I hated him because I still loved him so much. It is hard to explain. At least we had that day on the beach.

I got over my tears and went to my group therapy, feeling that if I ever needed to talk about something now was the time. I was to mourn him for a long time but that came later. Now I felt only anger at him having died. Anger at myself for being angry with him.

My life had changed that day, I lost my father. I still had things to work out with him — feelings and emotions about him that needed to be explored. When I was released from the hospital and I returned home I think the real mourning set in. I got a job waitressing at an amusement park nearby and tried to get through my days not missing Joe too much. I turned all my emotion on him. I suppose that it had something to do with losing my Father. But again it could be expressed in a lot of jargon that I will try and avoid.

I got my Father’s Lincoln and used it daily to drive to and from work. Joe said that he wanted to come out at the end of the summer to California so that I had that to look forward to. I suppose with hindsight the beauty of our friendship, actually the beauty of him could be easily seen in the fact that he didn’t abandon me during my psychotic episodes. He didn’t understand it, but he tried hard and stood by me. I had told Joe about the problems with my Father, and his reaction to his death was, “Good now the bastard can’t hurt you anymore.” The reality was that the damage was done.

That summer was a good one. I liked my Job, and despite the tragedy of my Father’s death I felt pretty good. The only problem was really that the Lithium was not quite stabilized in my system, or actually I just didn’t take to it very well, because I had shakes constantly and felt nauseous. The doctor’s advice was that I would have to get used to it. It was basically the only therapy that worked for a bi-polar disorder.

Joe came out at the end of the summer just as it was promised. It was so good seeing him again. I had lost a little weight and felt better than I had in a long time. Joe loved California and our relationship seemed to be stronger than before.

I followed him back to N. Jersey for School. It was our Sophomore year and we were going on our second year together. I got into a medical single room. The University had a provision that students could have a single room if they had a medical reason. Because of my experiences the year before it was suggested that I should have a single. Roommate pressures would be avoided. I ended up with a double room, without a roommate. So I was even more fortunate.

The first semester of my sophomore year was pretty successful. I stayed out of the hospital and had completed the courses I took as incompletes as well as achieving the status of Dean’s List by the grades I received that semester. The truly amazing thing is now when I look back I don’t see how I did it, except for with the help of a psychiatrist. Dr. Giulano. The University felt as a provision of my return I should see a Doctor regularly, he was suggested to me thru the counseling center and Tony. Doctor Giulano and I had sessions about once, sometimes twice a week. He helped me realize that the relationship with my father although it was important was perhaps not the most dangerous to me. He felt that I connected too much with my mother and that the thing I had to concentrate upon was my feelings towards her.

I had to look at why I was behaving in a self-destructive pattern. Why did I feel responsible for her mental health or illness? Also I had to learn to differentiate myself and my problems from her. He questioned me about whether I resented her. Did I blame her for my problems?

I would come to understand through my experiences that there is nobody to blame. That. at least bi-polar disorders were bio-chemically predisposed and that I could no more blame myself for her problems or her for mine than I could blame her for my blue eyes.

It wasn’t until February of 1982 that my problems resurfaced. I don’t know why anymore than I know why the sky is blue. I lost contact with reality for another go around. Mom wanted me back at Las Encinas so when I was deemed well enough I flew to L.A. then was admitted. The Doctor felt that this has gone on one too many times in the recent past and that I should examine my feelings and stay longer this time. What had happened to me was again that I had taken too many of the pills without the Cogentin, and suffered a distonic reaction. This reaction makes you feel like you are completely Mad. You posture and you lose control of your muscles and face. It is horrible. This doctor didn’t tell me that it was the medications. I would suffer this experience again at the hands of incompetent professionals. I know from my own experience and that of other patients, that this is like hell to go through and can totally make you feel like you are even more worse off than before. I am not in anyway suggesting that all doctors are incompetent or that the medications do not have value. I feel however that because it can so easily be avoided, it most definitely should be.

I would also come to experience during this hospitalization another problem with the Mental Health profession. Namely not all who work for it are ethical. I was placed on a special ward of the hospital because of my bizarre behavior caused mostly by the medications, this was a locked unit. When I finally came out of the convulsion-like state, I was given the opportunity to shower.

I went into the Shower room and undressed. A Male attendant on the ward, Rudy; came in after me. He came over to the shower and began touching my breasts and my pubis. I was not in convulsions, but I was also not in any state to fight off a 185 pound attendant. I finally got away from him, grabbed a towel and ran down the hall to my room. Of course the staff didn’t believe me, when I tried to tell them what happened. Who believes a patient in a Mental Hospital? The Director of Nurses was informed of my complaint and it was left at that.

When I was finally released from the hospital this time I told my sister Debbie what had happened. She was appalled.

I suppose that if enough women complain about the same staff member, or if he is actually caught in the act, something is done about it. However, being caught in the act rarely happens because these individuals pick their opportunities carefully. Also, many who this has happened to probably don’t report it. Either feeling nobody will believe them, or fearing and feeling shameful about the experience. This was not the last time that I had to deal with this kind of problem

I was soon moved to the other building, the open ward. I stayed at the hospital this time for about five weeks. Then anxious to return to school, I was released.

I had missed actually one half of the semester, but managed to pass all my courses with a C or better, I do not know how I did this considering I was kept in a state of perpetual medication. Sleeping through lectures was almost a daily occurrence. Sleeping through my readings, falling asleep at the library, and once at the dinner table made it difficult if not impossible to remain inconspicuous. The medication put me in a perpetual daze. I remember one evening in particular.

I was visiting Joe and his roommate, who was Chris now. Keith and another friend were there as well. They no longer passed me the bong, because as they said, I was “a perpetual acid trip already.” I guess that is a nice way of saying somebody is crazy. They didn’t mean it to be mean, however. Joe got really upset with me, he said I was a zombie, that I wasn’t the same person he met over a year ago. It hurt mostly because I knew he was right. Actually I hadn’t changed so much as I was just drugged. Nobody on the amount or medication I was on could be themselves.

I think that was the beginning of the end for us. I can not blame him for needing something more than I was giving him. I don’t blame him for feeling stuck with a zombie. That summer I didn’t work, I just never really got around to getting a job. Actually I had a job for about three days at a restaurant and was basically told I didn’t work out. In other words I was fired. I asked the manager why, he told me I didn’t ever smile, that my attitude was wrong.

I spent that summer in a daze. When Joe came out to see me he stayed two days and left. He was supposed to stay for a week. When I returned to School everything was wrong. I couldn’t even get myself to the bookstore. I was confused and dazed and also I anticipated what was to happen within the week. Joe said it was over between us, he wanted to see other women. If not seeing other women. at least he didn’t want us to spend so much time together.

I understood completely his reasons and I had anticipated them. Yet I was hurt. I knew I wanted just to go home. I couldn’t face school right now. I couldn’t face seeing Joe around campus, but not being with him. At the time I felt I needed him to define who I was. When I told him I was leaving school, he cried. We both knew it was for the best, and yet it still hurt both of us. He asked if would make any difference if he took back what he said. Of course it would not. I knew he had been honest with me. He couldn’t hold onto a relationship with somebody who was floundering as I was.

I think that last day with him will remain one of the most beautiful memories of him. He just held me and told me that no matter what, he still loved me, and that he always would. Both of us were in tears, both felt like hell, and yet we knew the time had come to part.

When I got home, Mom told me that I should go with her to talk with a doctor. I was depressed. All I could do was cry. I think that the reality that it was over with Joe, that I was not in school, that I didn’t know where I was going from there all combined into a major bummer.

I found a job working with Autistic children within the month. One thing that the doctor had said to my mother, was that I was intelligent and talented. He told her I should look for employment but in a lower pressure atmosphere, and not just take any job that came my way. Jay Nolan Center was the answer.

I worked as a behavior technician. My job was to run program with the children and to monitor and administer punishment when necessary. I felt uniquely qualified for this job. I felt too that I had patience and understanding that I never knew I had. I loved it. I also got kicked out of my home with orders not to come back. Mom was on the rampage again. She thought I was having an affair with the tenant who was staying in the spare bedroom. I was not, but she thought I was. I felt hurt and betrayed. But her anger didn’t last forever and I was home by Christmas. I had been living at a friend’s but once I got into an accident with my car, I had to go home.

I visited my sister, Debbie. who lived in Santa Barbara during the school year. She had a new boyfriend named Steve. I met and fell in love with his neighbor, a guy named Mark. Soon I moved in with Mark. I got a job at a convalescent hospital and everything went along pretty well between us. Mark had been in an accident about 8 months before and he was anticipating a settlement of about twenty thousand dollars soon.

Unfortunately at about the same time the neighbors and Steve had introduced Mark to freebasing coke. It was a big mistake. Mark who had always been a drinker, had a new game. Unfortunately I, too, was introduced to the smoke. I had pretty basically given up marijuana because it made me paranoid, and yet I didn’t see the danger of trying free-base. Looking at it objectively it didn’t take either of us long to get addicted it took a total of about 15 minutes. That is the time it roughly takes to cook up the coke and smoke your first hit.

Good-bye settlement. No matter how much he tried to convince himself that he wasn’t going to blow the money on blow, best intentions can go the way of the wind when it comes to cocaine.

We moved from the apartment, trying to convince ourselves that we could get away from coke by moving down the road. It didn’t happen that way. We moved into a house with another couple. I was again off of my medications and by my 21st birthday I had another break. This was the first that Mark and I had suffered together. Two months previous to this I had gotten pregnant with his child and after wracking my brains about what to do, I had an abortion. How I could have believed that he really wanted to marry me, yet was insisting on the abortion, is beyond me.

I think that the abortion was part of what helped me lose touch with reality this time. Mark gave me an engagement ring in the lobby of the psychiatric hospital.

I don’t want to dwell on my time with Mark because there is not much to be said. We were continually getting high on Coke, it was just a bad scene.