Issue date: 4/17/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Doug Klembara Kristy's emotional roller-coaster is a day-to-day ride. Diagnosed when she was a child, she has many years of medical help on her side fighting the heights of each emotion. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: Doug Klembara Kristy compares her depressed episodes to nothing like what anyone else experiences. When friends try to offer their support, she feels as though they can't understand what she is going through. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: Doug Klembara This Texas A&M student didn't have the best childhood. Her father was abusive and her mom just didn't care. [Click to enlarge]

The words of grunge band Nirvana's front man Kurt Cobain have served as a rallying cry for the dejected and degenerate youth of the post-baby boomer generation since the early '90s. For Cobain, however, they may have served as a window into a darker man who suffered from severe bipolar disorder, a disorder that would play a part in his suicide three years after the band made it big.

Cobain was one of more than 5 million Americans who live with bipolar disease. For some, the disorder presents minimal problems, but for most it completely shapes their way of life. For a Texas A&M student, who wanted to be referred to as Kristy Johnson, it's something that she fights with every day.

"I am bipolar," Johnson said. "I was diagnosed, or labeled, earlier in my life. Sometimes I'm very depressed, sometimes I'm really happy and sometimes I've heard from other people that my happiness tends to be overdramatic."

Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in a person's mood, energy and ability to function. It's different than the normal ups and downs that everyone goes through, as the symptoms of bipolar disorder are severe.

On this day, Johnson is in a good mood, and it shows. She's chatting my ear off, all the while smiling and laughing. She sits across the table full of life and energy.

"Right now I'm just having a good moment. If you had tried to talk to me a few months ago, I would have said no. I was really depressed, thinking about killing myself all the time."

For Johnson, this manic behavior is something she deals with all the time. During manic episodes, she said she becomes a different, hyperactive person. On many occasions, she has gone out and spent money like it was nothing, seeing something she wanted and buying it without paying attention to price or fiscal responsibilities.

"I used to spend a lot of money [during manic episodes.] If I saw something I wanted, I bought it. One time I decided that I really liked these certain socks, so I just up and bought 38 pairs. My therapist told me to take them back, but I had already opened them! I will obsess about CDs and music, spending all my money on whatever I was obsessed with at the time. Those feelings went with the disorder. I was never thinking about the consequences or about the money, I just thought 'I want that' and never thought about the financial implications."

Johnson was diagnosed with bipolar type I when she was younger. Bipolar type I disorder is more severe than bipolar type II. Type I requires a history of severe manic episodes. Major depressive episodes also occur.

"I've been labeled bipolar I. That's the person that has hallucinations and delusions that really interfere with their life. I sometimes think I see people following me and become paranoid that people are out to get me, tapping my phone. Once you are labeled bipolar I you will never get rid of that label."

Johnson said she grew up in a household that was not very conducive to her needs. Her parents separated when she was little. Her father, an abusive man with a quick temper, left her and her siblings with their mother.

"My father was physically abusive and had a pretty bad temper. He never really abused me, but it got to the point to where I just didn't want to be around him. He left us and got remarried, and we kind-of grew up without him."

Her mother acted in a similar way. She had her children young and by the time she split from Johnson's father, she wanted little to do with the kids.

"My mother was very neglectful of us. She was extremely egocentric. She had kids when she was young and she didn't want to deal with us once my father was gone. My childhood was not that great - a lot of times my mom just didn't want to hear about what was going on with us. When I was a child, before I was diagnosed, I felt like I needed to be alone and would stay in my room and read and sleep a lot."

As a child, Johnson experienced something that has happened to many who have suffered from bipolar disorder: thoughts of suicide.

"When I was young, I tried to kill myself. Everything just seemed so dark. I felt that I had lost my soul - I was completely depressed for several months. One day I decided I just couldn't deal with it anymore and I tried to kill myself. I was put in a mental hospital. They transferred me to another hospital, where they labeled me bipolar."

This was one of Johnson's first depression episodes, leaving her in a dark and terrible place.

"When I'm really depressed, I tend to sleep a lot. I think only about suicide. I believe that my life isn't worth anything and can't remember at all when I was happy. I don't feel happy at all and think I'll never come out of my depressed state. I push away my friends and isolate myself. They are happy and it drains my energy to try and put up a fake front when I'm dying inside. Culture says we are supposed to be happy and it makes it really hard when we are expected to be smiling and cheerful when I'm just not."

Now Johnson is at A&M, suffering every day in an environment that may not be the most accepting to what she is going through. Before coming to A&M, Johnson attended a smaller school that was very accommodating of her disorder and worked with her when she needed to miss class or go to the doctor.

At A&M, she said she doesn't feel that she can ask for help and even if she did, she wouldn't get any and people wouldn't understand what she is going through. She said that having to hide her disorder puts more pressure on her performance.

"People here do not understand disabilities. I have had professors tell me that they don't want to hear about my experiences, even if they could help enlighten the class. Bipolar disorder is like a blind disability, meaning that if you don't ask for help, no one notices. I am afraid to ask for help. I don't like to tell people about my disorder because I'm afraid of how they will interpret it."

Johnson doesn't ask for pity or for people to understand what she is going through.

"I've had a lot of people tell me just to think about happy things and my depression would get better. Let me tell you something -- it won't. People don't want to hear about what is going on inside with me. People think they can equate their sadness and melancholy mood to mine - they can't."

Still, this day is a good one for Johnson. She isn't swiping credit cards like a wild person and can't seem to stop talking. Thoughts of suicide are far out of reach and the sun seems to be shining inside and out. Some of that mood can be attributed to the help she is seeking, be it professional or from those she has close to her.

"For the most part, I am lucky because I have loved ones to support me. I have a therapist that I go to every week - it helps to have someone to talk to. I'm taking medication, too, but I don't think it helps. People close to me say it does, but I don't see it. The medicine isn't a quick fix for my problems; it just helps manage my mood swings. I take antidepressants, an anti-psychotic and something for my phobias, as well as anti-anxiety medicine."

She's trying to cope, trying to finish school and trying to live a normal life. But for her, life is still anything but normal.

"My life, no, I wouldn't say I'm handling it. This is still something I struggle with just as much now as five years ago."

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