While I was out driving around, this old song, “Hold On,” by Kansas, came on the radio station. I grew up — in Kansas, poetically enough — listening to Kansas and Styx and Rush and Van Halen and Peter Frampton, and yes, even Rick Springfield.¹

But here are the opening lyrics to the song:

Look in the mirror and tell me
Just what you see
What have the years of your life
Taught you to be?
Innocence dyin’ in so many ways
Things that you dream of are lost
Lost in the haze

Most people, somehow or another, are tormented — whether by cruel others or the workings of their own cruel minds — throughout adolescence.

Lucky me: I got both.

I’m deep into my 40s now. I developed bipolar II disorder at age 13. Three-plus decades is one long time to live with a disordered brain. It’s been really, really ugly, I have to tell you.

A lot of the ugliness came from the things others put on me: I’ve been abused, by people related to me and by significant others I stupidly thought loved me as much as I loved them.

I’ve been made fun of for the way I look. (I’m not deformed, I’m just fat.) I’ve never forgotten the guy in 10th grade who sat behind me in a class to be left unnamed and said to someone about me — with me in earshot, mind you — “she’s the nicest girl, but she’s so damn UGLY!” That whole sticks-and-stones thing is desperately untrue. I mean, 10th grade for me was 1981. It’s 2012. I still remember that incident. (I also remember the jerk’s name, but I’m choosing not to shame him.)²

Perhaps that’s why the next verse had meaning for me:

Hold on, baby, hold on
‘Cause it’s closer than you think
And you’re standing on the brink
Hold on, baby, hold on
‘Cause there’s something on the way
Your tomorrow’s not the same as today

I assumed the people who were mean to me were seeing things I didn’t see. I figured I must be deserving what I was getting. If you look at old pictures, I was always smiling. But then my brain and the world at large started conspiring against me.

I still have a terrible time believing I’m worth liking, or loving, or whatever. I spend a lot of time apologizing to people for being a pain in the butt, because that’s what I’m pretty sure I am, most of the time. It took a long time to get this way and it’s taken me a long time to even start to overcome.

I’m fortunate now to have people who believe in me and who haven’t run away, no matter how hard I’ve tried to push them to go. Yet it’s hard for me to let them freely offer to me their love and caring — honestly, it scares me. Even if they’ve given me no reason, ever, to think they’d abandon me, I’d rather keep my distance than risk being hurt again. The song’s next refrain speaks to that:

Don’t you recall what you felt
When you weren’t alone
Someone who stood by your side
A face you have known
Where do you run when it’s too much to bear
Who do you turn to in need
When nobody’s there?

For that matter, it took me 30-odd years to get to where I had no problem telling bullies where to stuff it, but I’ve learned to be outspoken.

I’ve also learned to be outspoken about my mental illness. I don’t hide it anymore. In part, I can’t — it’s taken a turn for the worse in the last couple years. In part, I don’t want to — people need to know that mentally ill people might be their nurse, or their yoga instructor, or that cute, funny cashier at the grocery store. I don’t know if the statistic about 1 in 4 people having to deal with it is still accurate. And the people who do have to deal with it do so in varying degrees of difficulty.

Four months ago, I was in the crisis care unit of a psychiatric hospital, on suicide watch — the one where they check on you every 15 minutes, 24/7. If they don’t see you, they’ll kick open the bathroom door. If they don’t see the outline of a body in bed at night, they’ll shine a flashlight in your eyes. They lock up your shoelaces (to keep you from hanging yourself), for god’s sake. It is not a pleasant place.

For nine months before that, I underwent electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). It’s not “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” stuff anymore, but it too is not pretty. And all I got for it was two and a half months of relief before my therapist went sprinting out of her office to find a psychiatrist to sign a commitment order.

I happened to be hospitalized Thanksgiving week. I would say it is a conservative estimate that I got four times the phone calls of the rest of the floor combined, particularly on Thanksgiving Day itself, from people wanting to check on me and wish me well. In the depths of the abyss, when your brain is telling you it’d be a really swell idea to swan-dive off the nearby overpass, it’s also conveniently forgetting to remind you people care. But they do. It’s frustrating to have to work to remember that when it should just be a given.

The state motto of Kansas is “ad astra per aspera” — “To the stars, through difficulties.” In spite of all that has been difficult, there are still people out there who care enough to try to inspire hope.

Outside your door he is waiting
Waiting for you
Sooner or later you know
He’s got to get through
No hesitation and no holding back
Let it all go and you’ll know
You’re on the right track

My point is: I’m not immune. Even after all these years, the crap — whether awful people or wonky brain chemicals or whatever the theory du jour is — still gets to me. The stuff still happens. The difference is, I say so. And the more people who are willing to say so, the more people who are needlessly suffering silently might come forward and ask for help, instead of feeling shamed, or bullied, or like nobody gets it.

As for that song? I think the lyricist, Kerry Livgren, might be one of us. But it sounds to me like he came out on the other side. Maybe that’s where he found the inspiration for the song title:

Hold on.

Somebody will always get it. I can guarantee that: My email address is at the bottom of this post.

1. I have a soft spot for Rick Springfield. Try not to mock me. He’s 62 and he’s still smokin’ hot, and he can still sing, and he was the cause of some happy memories from my teens.
2. It’s worth noting that not everybody’s like that. Age and Facebook are great levelers. In the past several months, I’ve received a note from one very gracious man — with whom I had no problem as a child — asking my forgiveness and a chance to atone, because he felt he could have been kinder to me when we were kids and regretted not doing so. Another brought up something it would have taken me forever to unearth on my own — a really goofy memory that embarrassed me, but which he told me he remembered with fondness and appreciated me for it.

Let’s get this out in the open: I am bipolar II. That means the mania is really low-key and infrequent and the depression, at least in my case, for most of my life, has been pretty much nonstop.

There are degrees of depression, of course. Mine gets severe relatively quickly and stays that way a relatively long time. Yes, I have been an inpatient at psychiatric hospitals. Yes, I have self-harmed. Yes, I have been on every psychotropic medication known to man, and failed most of them. The two that I’m on right now combine for one really annoying side effect.

I have even, since about New Year’s, been undergoing a course of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). My memory is shot, along with many other things, but the suggestion to do it came up in month 6 of an unrelenting depressive episode. Nothing else was working.

Despite all this, I’ve managed to push through as best I can. I’ve found work, and a work schedule, that works for me, as well as a compassionate employer.

It’s still hard, though, and most people still don’t understand. They tell me to snap out of it, or that I’m only depressed because I’m used to being that way, or that there are so many people who have it worse than me but fight to overcome it while I embrace it instead.

Twenty-four hours after coming home from a weekend with nonjudgmental friends who “get” me, I mentioned to a fellow writer buddy (who is one of my very most favorite people and was along on the trip) that I didn’t know how long it would last, and it had been so long since I’d felt it that I wasn’t even sure that’s what it was, but I thought I might dare to say that I was still happy. He said he thought there was a title in there somewhere, and here we are.

I have spent the better part of the last year in abject misery. At one point, my profound pain actually made my psychiatrist cry. For now, though, I feel pretty good. How much of that is attributable to the ECT and how much to an all-too-brief weekend with friends, I don’t know. But for the first time in the three decades I have been forced to cope with mental illness, I understand what all those “you have a choice” people were trying to tell me.

Mental illness is not a choice any more than any physical illness is. Heaven knows I didn’t ask for it. The choice comes in deciding to get help and then helping the help, you know? I wasted a lot of time and money (and therapists’ time) by not really doing a lot of work, just showing up every week and going through the motions. It turns out that putting in the effort produces results as you start to gain insight for and into yourself. That’s not really something someone else can do for you.

In other words, what you can choose is your attitude. I think maybe that’s what folks have been trying to get through my thick head all these years: You can’t choose to have or not have an illness, but you can choose the way you opt to cope with it. You can choose to lie in bed all day and think negative thoughts, and some days, that really is all you can do. But on the days when getting out of bed is a possibility, to do that, and get showered and dressed, and go make something of the day even though you may not be feeling 100 percent, is worthwhile. It might even make you feel better the next day, and the one after that.

I am not an easy person to live with. I have no problem admitting that. The people who love me know what they’re getting into and do it anyway, and for that I am ever grateful. It’s been a helluva year — a helluva life so far, really — and it’s going to take me awhile, I think, to figure out the rest of the journey. But I think I’m going to try to dare to be happy along the way. Can’t hurt, might help, and who knows where it’ll lead me.

You can read my experiences with being a birthmom here and here. Part 3 is rather happier: This is the first Mother’s Day following my ridiculously blissful reunion with my wonderful son and his equally wonderful parents.

It’s hard to say much, mostly because the memories of those few days in December are so intensely personal and the emotions still so raw. I’m not quite ready to let the world in on them. What I will say is that, as magical as it all was, and as healing as it all was, it wasn’t a cure-all. Right now, I’m on my third antidepressant combo in two months, trying to get out of the most recent episode, just so you know that even really joyous events don’t instantly cure longstanding mental illnesses and trauma.

I wanted to mention that because May is also Mental Health Awareness Month. I saw a headline the other day stating that most Americans think the stigma of mental illness is fading. I’d say it’s a safe bet those are the people who don’t suffer from it or know anyone who does. My mental health has, directly or indirectly, cost me every job I’ve ever had, and affects even my part-time, work-mostly-from-home gig now. Trust me — there’s still plenty of stigma to go around.

I have tried to be wide-open about the two most difficult issues in my life because I believe wholeheartedly in education. Reporters really are educators, even if they don’t see themselves that way: They go learn about something and then spread the word. Every life has a story, one of my favorite reporters once told me. And every life has at least one story worth sharing. All the best learning comes outside classrooms and textbooks.

So I’ve tried to tell my story — or two thirds of it, anyway — on behalf of the people who are too afraid or ashamed to tell theirs. I hope it helps; I have no idea if it does. If you need someone to share yours with, my inbox is open 24/7 at the address below.

Hug your mom today, if you can, and remember what she always told you about not judging a book by its cover. You never know what’s really going on in people’s minds, hearts and souls. Act accordingly.