Dear Dr,

Someone dear to me recently committed suicide most unexpectedly. Any comments?

Lami Semoyan, Kafanchan, Plateau

Dear Lami,

Read the following contributions by Cristy Marrero  and Nicole Marbach from the internet…

Suspicion, speculation, stigma, stereotypes, segregation, solitude, sadness, seclusion, suicide … these are just few of the words that come to mind when I remember my sister’s life with bipolar disorder and breast cancer. Surprisingly enough, all of them begin with the letter ‘s.’ ‘S’ as in sister. Hot and extremely humid and bizarre was the description of this Saturday afternoon in Puerto Rico when my mom and I found my sister lying on the floor of her room in fetal position, her head tilted slightly upward, staring ahead with bubbles of drool coming out of her mouth; her gaze lost and downright frightening; weeping like a two-year-old.A familiar scenario.But this time was different: My sister was inconsolable. She wouldn’t move, blink, or speak. We sat next to her for a few minutes … or was it hours? She was only 17. This was the most bizarre day yet of my then 15-year-old life. My big sister was acting weird, and we couldn’t do anything to help her.

The days that followed this “episode” were somber, sad, and full of silence and tears. The morning following the episode, we drove my sister to the hospital, where she remained under observation for two weeks. I remember my mom calling pretty much every psychiatrist in San Juan during that time, as well as my father, her sister, and, lastly, my grandmother, with whom she shared what she thought was going on with my sister. “She is sick. She wants to quit architecture school. I’m scared,” I overheard her say while eavesdropping. “This time was different: My sister was inconsolable. She wouldn’t move, blink, or speak.” My sister was only 16 when she was accepted to the University of Puerto Rico School of Architecture, which admitted just 30 students per year after a rigorous application process that included artwork, endless interviews, and three or four tedious exams. Of course, my always-brilliant big sister passed them all with A-pluses.When she started at the university, she was the youngest person in the class once again. My mom — and especially my dad — always bragged about how she spoke her first words at 11 months, started at a Montessori preschool at age two, and by first grade could read a book from cover to cover and knew all her multiplication tables by heart. The next exam, she was promoted to third grade right away.

Here comes the diagnosis

A team of doctors, two of them female, came to the visitors’ room after my sister was sent back to her “cocoon,” as she referred to the psychiatric ward she was in. They confirmed our suspicion: She suffered from type 1 bipolar disorder. My big sister, as she later jokingly referred to herself, was “certified crazy.”

All the doctors recommended lithium. But my sister couldn’t bare the side effects of this strong medicine despite all the studies that prove it to be the most effective in helping patients balance their mood swings. Where did this come from?  “Your grandfather was schizophrenic,” my mom reminded us. And my father’s dad, a veteran, was brilliant and had an impeccable sense of humor — just like my sister. One of the most discussed family stories was that he came back from Korea “crazy.” His family had certified him as crazy too. Next after lithium was electroconvulsive therapy, still being used to counteract severe depression, treatment-resistant depression, severe mania, catatonia, and agitation and aggression in people with dementia. The next two decades and we had two more hospitalizations; a few suicidal moments that luckily resulted in aborted missions; insomnia; stress; and more than 40 different psychiatrists. Of those harrowing times, My mom says- “Please make sure whoever reads this article understands that your sister’s breast cancer diagnosis was nothing compared to her bipolar disorder diagnosis. Bipolar disorder really shaped her destiny.”In 2007, at age 30, her body joined the “misery team” her mind had successfully founded 13 years earlier. My “certified crazy” big sister ALSO had breast cancer.

Healing journey from trauma to trumph

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“You don’t have to do that anymore.” These were the words spoken to Nichole Marbach, who for years had cut herself with knives and razors. Many wonder, Why would anyone do this? “I started having flashbacks of sexual abuse,” Nichole shares. “[And] having stepparents that I didn’t feel really liked me as a kid was very difficult. I was just looking for attention. I was looking to feel loved, and I felt like I needed to punish myself. That’s why I started self-injuring. It was almost like harming myself was a release from that, and it was easier for me to feel the physical pain than the emotional pain I was feeling.”

It got worse when her own daughter reached the age Nichole was when she was abused. “That just came back as flashbacks, and the only way to cope was to drink alcohol,” Nichole says.

“And so, I became so dependent on it that I started hiding it in the house and not letting my husband know. Even though I was a believer—going to church, going to Bible studies, doing all of this—I felt like there was no way out.”

Nichole continues, “I felt so much shame and guilt of just being a mentally ill mother with addictions because I wanted my kids to have a better life than I had.”

Worried that his wife was on the verge of suicide, Nichole’s husband, Claude, tried to provide the help and support she needed. “I always wanted to try to find a way to fix it and try to solve the problems for her and try to mitigate things, and I could never do that,” he recalls. “I thought maybe the combination of medication and outside support through Christian counseling would be what was needed. But after years of kind of trying this, it never really worked. At least not, you know, sustainably. ”Having been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, it appeared Nichole would have to deal with this for the rest of her life. “I was told it was incurable, and all they could do was manage it with medication.”

One day when she was cutting herself again, she heard fateful words from God. He said, “You don’t have to do that anymore, because My Son shed His blood for you.” Hope flickered to life within Nichole. “I just remember I started weeping. I thought I had to get all the sin out of my life before God would want [a] relationship with me or would love me. And here He was, pursuing me with His love, and He was trying to tell me, ‘My Son took the punishment for all sin. He took your punishment at the cross. You are loved. You are forgiven. You are righteous.’ But I just didn’t know how to be well.” But God had a plan.

A sister in the Lord came at the right time with the right word to sustain Nichole. “We were writing emails at the time, and she wrote to me, ‘With God, all things are possible.’” At that point, Nichole had a decision to make. “Am I going to believe the word of God that says I’m healed, or am I going to believe what the doctors say, that this is incurable, and I need to be on medication for the rest of my life? And I got a revelation at that point that, as a child of God, I don’t have to take this anymore. I am healed, and I can use my authority.” This turning point was marked not only by an inward change, but there was an outward change as well. Nichole says, “I no longer cut myself. I no longer drank and got drunk. I no longer, you know, had that suicidal thinking.”

Craze. Cancer. Terminal? Incurable in any form? The fullness of the stories from Cristy Marrero and Nicole Marbach you will find in our blog www.mediamedix.blogspot.com. There is hope for you. Just reach out and call the help-lines.

Cheers.

You and Your Health every fortnight, on Thursdays with Dr. Caleb Bibbi Oluranti, in Daily Sun