Living successfully with a mental illness.

by Julie Nondorf

My first encounter with mental illness was with my own anxiety. I was five or so and absolutely sick over whether mama would be able to fix Pebbles, my beloved, though hairless, doll who'd lost both her curls and a leg to a neighbor's bullying ways. 

“I needed more than just a diagnosis, more than medication, and even more than just those things plus therapy. I needed all that plus education, community, and support. 

 And that's when I found NAMI.”

By the time I was ten, my anxiety had shifted into a strange hyperactivity my Singing Hills camp counselor referred to as "squirrellyness." I was terribly hurt by her remark and cried on and off for days at her words. When I finally got home and Daddy asked if I'd "had funzies" I blew up and stomped off to my room. 

 At fifteen came a suicide attempt. It was the dead of winter: cold and endlessly dreary, a season of dragging myself through the motions, exhausted regardless of how much I slept, ravenous no matter how much I ate, tearful with or--as my sisters claimed--without cause. 

 I wept when I awoke to discover I'd failed.

 But then, decades and a half-a-dozen traumas later, a proper diagnosis came. I was lying on a bare mattress on the floor in the psychiatric intensive care unit in a "turtle suit"--the modern-day version of a straight jacket, I suppose--when I heard the soft voice of the unit psychiatrist asking, "Are you awake?" 

 I felt as if, for the first time in…ever, perhaps, I might actually be. “What happened?”

 “You have bipolar disorder, Julie.”

 Those five words changed the direction of my life, making sense of the senseless, and bringing logic to that which was illogical. Ironically, being told I was sick was the beginning of my getting well. 

 But it wasn't a cure-all. 

I needed more than just a diagnosis, more than medication, and even more than just those things plus therapy. I needed all that plus education, community, and support. 

 And that's when I found NAMI. 

 The group I attended at NAMI Racine County after another psychotic mania befell me (despite being medicated) in 2016 helped put me back together in a way I've never had my pieces glued together before. With caring, compassion, and a complete lack of judgment, I found staff and volunteers who truly “got” it. 

 It wasn't overnight, of course. I think I spent my first meeting crying in a corner, but the facilitators and other attendees stuck with me and we all helped pull each other through. I don't know what I would have done without the classes, activities, and groups NAMI has offered me through the years. 

 Thanks, NAMI Racine, for helping me get and stay well!