A Promise to Keep Choosing Life: Bipolar, Psychosis, and Recovery

by Meegan Simpson-Cooke

Listen to Executive Director Gabriel Nathan read this post aloud:

In the fall of 2014, anxiety was my constant companion. I tried different psychiatric medications under the supervision of my psychiatrist, but I continued to feel my anxiety grow. By Christmas, I began losing my appetite, eating half of what I normally did, and instead of reaching for support or talking about it with loved ones, I began masking the extent of my anxiety and stress. I kept up a facade that I was happy in life. I felt that if I did not speak about my real feelings and tried to keep going, having a bipolar episode would not become a reality. This contradicts what I now know about recovery: acknowledging what is not working and asking for support is crucial for staying well.

My seven-year relationship had a strong undercurrent of unhappiness. I was stuck in the role of caretaking (both in the emotional and domestic sense), a pattern learned in childhood from caring for a parent with a mental illness and addiction. In trying to support my partner and create an organized, healthy home for his children, while also working in a demanding job in a helping profession, I was exhausting myself. I had trouble drawing boundaries. Not only that, but caretaking had become second nature. On one hand, I felt deeply stuck in an unhealthy life. On the other hand, I was overcome with guilt at the thought of leaving. I felt like I was letting down my partner’s family, with whom I had grown close. So, I stayed.

I started experiencing insomnia in the spring of 2015. I rushed to the ER alone because my anxiety was so high. I remember saying something like, “I’m not in psychosis, mania, or depression, but I feel so anxious.” They sent me home the same day because I was not “unwell enough” to be admitted.

However, my mental health was deteriorating slowly and steadily. One important breaking point came when my partner wanted to take a holiday early that summer. I told him I was too exhausted and worried about having an episode. I just wanted space for myself to relax, apart from my partner’s family, to experience some deep rest. He got upset with me. Looking back, I wish I had been more curious about his response. Even though I expressed to him that I was on the edge of an episode, he couldn’t see the signs of my deteriorating mental health. Unable to set a boundary and guilt-ridden, I went on the trip. By the time my vacation was over, I was acutely distressed. I called work on the morning I was supposed to return from vacation, crying. I let them know that things weren’t going well, and I needed time off.

Shortly after this vacation, I experienced a massive panic attack at the public park. I was unable to calm myself, so I called an ambulance. My partner left work to take me to an emergency. Since my heart rate was jumping all over the place, they hooked me up to an ECG machine to make sure I was not having a heart attack. I was only 35 years old. At this point, as I waited to see an emergency doctor, I set a boundary—I asked my partner to go home. Our relationship was a big part of the stress that I was experiencing, and I knew I would feel better alone than with him. I was released in the middle of the night (once again, not considered “ill enough” to be hospitalized) and took a taxi home.

Shortly after, I took myself to a hotel for a couple of nights and finally told my partner how unhappy I was. Unfortunately, months of insomnia and exhaustion from the slow dissolvement of our relationship, mixed with other stressors, tipped me into psychosis. I came home to my partner’s house and told him that I was having an affair. I was not, but the narrative of psychosis and past trauma was taking hold.

I packed some of my stuff and left our house. I drove around the city and spent a night parked outside a home I used to live in. Nobody knew where I was. Then, I erratically drove to an old psychiatrist’s office in the morning. He was no longer there, but the people working in the office could tell that I was not well, and they called the ambulance.

I was admitted to the hospital at that point. All in all, I experienced six months of psychosis, including auditory hallucinations, while simultaneously experiencing grief-fueled depression. During this time, I was hospitalized twice. I was discharged from the hospital after my first stint as an inpatient, but I was still ill and, after an attempt to live on my own, ended up back at the hospital. I had failed at my relationship and job, and I felt like I let a lot of people who cared about me down. My auditory hallucinations were telling me I was a terrible person. My heart was broken, and I was flooded with past trauma. I was at rock bottom.

Eventually, I was discharged from the hospital the second time and decided to go to my mom’s place to take a break from everything and just recover. I spent six months sleeping peacefully, eating well, journaling, and walking my beloved dogs. I was learning to care for my mental health. It was then that I made this promise to myself and my loved ones: I would do everything in my power to prevent another traumatic bipolar episode. My first bipolar episode was at age fifteen. In my lifetime, I have had eight episodes spanning twenty years. At this point in life, I was committed to recovery despite not having a clear picture of what it meant for me. After the break, I returned to the city, found an apartment, and went back to my workplace. Over the next four years, I rebuilt my life. I worked on creating a day-to-day balance. I worked on creating boundaries at work and spent time hiking and rebuilding friendships. Little did I know that this accelerated growth would, yet again, take me to the edge of an episode and test my commitment to my promise.

2020 brought the pandemic and a tsunami of fear, loss, and illness around the world. For me, my work life became a daily challenge as we changed policies and procedures to adapt to a changing world. My two beloved dogs, Laya and Tobee, whom I had inherited from my relationship, died that year, four months apart from each other. To this day, I keenly miss their sweet presence and the joy that they brought to my life, bringing a warmth that helped me through the challenges that mental illness brought. Cuddling and walking with them gave me deep comfort. Loving them was uncomplicated, and this was healing for me.

Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, I was heading towards kidney failure because of the lithium I was on. I remember sitting in the nephrologist’s office; he said I had a choice: stay on lithium and live with kidney dialysis forever, or change medications. I knew there was no way that I was going to sacrifice my kidneys. So, I began careful medication changes under my doctor’s supervision. As the stress mounted, I lived in the terror of having another episode.

Two things stood out to me as lifelines during this time—one was therapy, and the other was art making.

In therapy, I learned healthy practices to help regulate my body in times of acute stress and how to process ongoing triggers and past trauma. Time with my therapist has been a safe space to explore and voice my feelings without the fear of judgment. I learned a sequence of visualizations that are part of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy. My therapist called this sequence Safe Space, Container, and White Light. I created the imagery of these visualizations with my therapist and learned to accompany them with bilateral stimulation, like hugging myself, and tapping my left hand to my right shoulder and right hand to my left shoulder. Bilateral stimulation engages both sides of the brain and helps to stimulate neural pathways that heal trauma. Imagining the ocean became my safe space— with each wave coming to shore, I took a deep breath in, and with each wave out, a deeper exhale.

At the same time, I started to experiment with making art. One day after reorganizing my house to instill a sense of beauty and calm within me, I challenged myself to create. I remember feeling genuine joy for the first time in a long time. I explored different forms of art, particularly drawn to tactile things. Beading, gluing, cutting, and painting became meditative. During this tough time, my creativity proved to be a true resource. When my thoughts felt tangled, I would find respite in joyfully creating, using glitter, feathers, metallic paint, and beads. I even moved my bed into the living room so that I could make space for a writing and art studio.

Sometimes I turned on the fairy lights in my studio, lay on my yoga mat, and just soaked up the serenity of the space. This art-making room reflected who I was in a deep and meaningful way. It brought out an integral part of me that was stifled in my previous relationship and work. Of course, the stress in life continued to ebb and flow. I got Covid twice, including long Covid. I started to experience muscle tension in my neck, accompanied by dizziness, headaches, and strange sensations in my head. My anxiety was high, and I cried almost every day for relief. It was then that I was reminded of the promise to myself once again. I knew I was close to the edge of an episode. So, this time, I acted fast and made the difficult decision to go on medical leave. I knew that, unfortunately, this decision put extra stress on co-workers whom I cared for, but I also knew that I couldn’t sacrifice my mental health. Months later, I stood by myself once more by making the ultimate hardest decision to leave that workplace. Like my relationship, work had become family, so I endured several months of grief. I have spent the last year and a half recovering, slowly rebuilding my work-life, and mapping what mental health means to me. I regulate my nervous system by engaging in physical activity like walking, yoga, and resting. One of my biggest emotional outlets and creative endeavours has been writing about mental illness and creating my website, The Art of Mental Health, to share stories and information about mental health, recovery, and therapeutic arts.

My promise has only expanded over time. Not only do I want to stay well, but I also want my outer self to be more congruent with who I am and how I truly feel internally. I give myself permission to honour my triggers and ask for boundaries. By embracing my mental illness through therapy and writing about it, I experience less internalized stigma and fear, which helps me live a healthier life. While avoiding an episode is not a guarantee, today, I have better self-care strategies, deep and empathetic insight, and can ask for support easily, which have proven to be powerful resources in my recovery.

​EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Gabriel Nathan | EDITOR: Kavita Sarmah | DESIGN: Leah Alexandra Goldstein | SITE ORIGINATOR: Bud Clayman