JD Stottlemire

Posted 2/12/2008 

JD’s story as it appears in Chapter 7 of You Me and Apollo: Hope Beyond Bipolar Disorder, presented with the author’s permission

“The Moon’s Bay”

I don’t want to write this chapter, but I feel it is important. In the 1940s, before the advent of modern medicine, more than 40% of people with Bipolar eventually committed suicide. Even today, the number of those who lose their lives to this disease is staggering.

All of us who have this Bipolar know “the dark hour.” We are alone. We are afraid. We feel that the whole weight of the world rests upon us and we cannot carry it one step further. In that hour, above all other times, we must know that this is not what the world is truly like. The foreboding thoughts are not what we really think. The terrible weight and craving for darkness are not our thoughts. They are the products of changes in the frontal lobe of our brains, in the rate of neuron growth, in the shedding of the myelin sheath around our nerve cells. We are, in that dark hour, locked in a false prison built of thoughts produced by this disease – a disease that has altered the very function of our brains. If we die in that hour, the disease wins.

My darkest hour came on a beach in California. I’d taken one of my famous road trips, all the way from Kansas to the coast in three days, then spent a week cruising northern California. This time was different. I had been back and forth between depression and mixed episodes for six months. Although I beat around the California countryside for a week, my intent was clear. In the back of the car was a rifle I’d purchased especially for this occasion. I’d even bought an old junker car and left my more expensive one at home to be sold to cover the bills. I don’t know what day it was when I found the bay. It is somewhere North of Mendocino; a beautiful horseshoe bay with high cliff walls and a narrow outlet to the sea. I played around on the beach for a few hours. There were large lava rocks scattered here and there and a small scoop of a cave off to the right. I decided this would be the place.

I went into Mendocino and fiddled around that afternoon. I was wearing an Other and I’m not sure what I was doing. I know I ate dinner at a restaurant attached to a hotel. I remember this because I had a flimsy internal debate about whether or not to skip the whole suicide thing and get a hotel room. I didn’t have the money, not that it would have made a difference.

It was fairly late at night when I went back to the bay. I set myself up on a large rock, rifle in hand, suicide note in pocket. I didn’t know about Apollo 13 then, so the significance of the bright moon shining directly overhead was lost on me. It was only a day or two from full. I could see kelp tops underwater. It was that bright.

I began to cry almost at once. I cried because the soul that is me was rebelling against the urge to die that was not me, an urge created by my disease. As I cried, the tears changed. From somewhere inside, a sense of determination appeared. I told myself, in spite of everything, I wasn’t going to die. I gave myself permission to live. My tears of fear and sorrow became tears of relief and also grief for the part of life I’d already lost to the illness. Gradually, there came anger. If I didn’t want to die what the hell was I doing on a beach in California with a gun? What was driving this? Although I would not get into treatment until the next time I got seriously depressed, this was my first moment of awakening; a separation between me and the disease. This was the moment that gave me the power to seek help.

I don’t remember falling asleep, but I woke up on that rock several hours later. It was cold and lava rocks are not very comfortable. My right ankle hurt where I had been lying on my foot. The moon was lying low over the sea and her reflection was like a sidewalk out to her. I didn’t take that walk. I tore up the note, got in the car and started driving. I slept the rest of the night on a roadside somewhere else and had an uncooked frozen pizza for breakfast.

I don’t know why I got the sudden will to live. Higher power? So I could later bring my daughter into the world? A little extra Vasoactive Peptide in the Cerebellum? I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m alive. It’s not my fault that I have this disease and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let it kill me, or anyone else I can keep away from it.

I know that the real me has never wanted to kill himself. My suicidal thoughts were caused by a disease. Having pneumonia will make you cough. Having Bipolar makes you think about death. It’s not you. It’s the disease.

A lot of folks who are on the edge of suicide end up calling local law enforcement in order to prevent themselves from carrying thorough with ending their lives. Paramedics and police officers know the mental health supports that are available and can help you. If you are standing at the dark doorway and can’t wait to call your doctor, local mental health clinic or a religious figure, put down this book and call 911 or the local emergency phone number. I want you to live. I can’t bear to think that you would get this close to hope and not make it. If you need help, go get it right now.

You can order your copy of You Me and Apollo: Hope Beyond Bipolar Disorder on Amazon.

6 Responses to “JD Stottlemire”

  1. JD Stottlemire on February 16th, 2008 12:00 am

    Thanks so much for posting this. I’m about moved to tears.

    JD Stottlemire

  2. Mother of a bipolar child on February 23rd, 2008 5:07 pm

    I know what it is like being the parent of more than one bipolar child..from the outside..watching them..but htis opened my eyes to their world..from the inside..For one it is too late..for another..I recognized her through your eyes today..I just wish she would read it..I do believe there is hope here.

  3. JD Stottlemire on February 27th, 2008 4:18 am

    Good luck mother. There is always hope.

    JD

  4. Steve on July 19th, 2008 4:51 am

    JD – Your book sounds like an adventurous read. My life is different than yours but similar at the same time. I was diagnosed with bipolar II seven years ago when I was 42. What a relief, for my life since then, to finally have been treated correctly for a disease I’d had for 23 years! I have been much more stable now that I am on several meds, including mood stabilizers, rather than just an antidepressant.

    Anytime that I have tried to go off a med I have been tossed down the whirlpool again into suicidal depression. Unlike you, I do not suffer from mania. But, I do get very irritable and make it difficult for my wife and children to coexist with me. Since I began taking Lamictal, I am a little easier to live with. However, I have a bad temper which I display at work. This is not helping my career, as I have gotten a reputation as a hot head. I work in engineering (in Los Angeles), and all of my colleagues are so logical and unemotional that I stand out like a soar thumb.

    I became severely depressed after my first year of college at 19, 8 years after my father committed suicide. I was home for the summer in Connecticut. My home life was unstable, as my step father was not interested in us kids, and my step sisters came and went and treated my mom with disrespect. I got so angry once that I almost drowned my step sister. My depression cast a pall over my summer. I suffered through suicidal thoughts and anxiety, worried that I would kill myself as my father had.

    I was haunted by another major depression a year after college. I spent eight months in Europe on my own, and then went to Pakistan, again by myself. When I got dissintary, I had to come home right away and wasn’t mentally prepared for a job search. I spent the next several months living with my parents and looking for a job, while suffering from bouts of anxiety and depression. Once I got a job as an engineer in L.A., I went through therapy for about 2 years. Alternating dark and normal periods repeated every few weeks. This was the hint that mine was not a standard major depression. A major depression is supposed to have a beginning, a middle and an end, rather than cycling between normalcy and blackness.

    My last major depression occurred after my favorite (great) uncle, grandmother and step father all died within a few months of each other in 1997. If it weren’t for my wife and kids, I may not have made it through. Since then I have suffered with short bouts of depression. Triggered always by events at work, it is amazing how I can go from happy but stressed to depressed in only a day or two. But perhaps more serious is my fight with irritability and anger. Screaming at the kids, yelling at work – I have found no cure for this. I have gone to anger management with a bunch of guys who were ordered there. That was no help. Taking more Risperdal seemed to help some.

    I am on too many drugs. I feel sedated. My balance is off and my memory has gotten very poor to the point where it is affecting my work performance. The drugs I take? Risperdal (going off), Abilify (to replace the Risperdal), Neuronton (gabapentin), Lamictal, Paxil. Does that sound like too too much to anybody? It sure does to me. But I have been unsuccessful at coming off of any.

    So my life is excellent but challenging. 4 beautiful children, a beautiful wife, a good career. But what will the future hold? Only one way to find out!

    Thanks for bearing with me! I wish the best to all of you.

    Steve

  5. JD Stottlemire on September 8th, 2008 1:43 am

    Hi Steve. JD Stottlemire here. I just found your post. Sorry it took so long. Thank you so much for sharing your story. I too crash again if I quit taking the medicine. For me the really life changing drug has always been lithium.

    Sounds like you are doing well; a beautiful wife and children.

    I wish you the best. You can contact me at persiangoodbye@yahoo.com if you’d like.

    thanks,

    JD Stottlemire, author,
    “You Me and Apollo: Hope Beyond Bipolar Disorder”
    http://www.youmeandapollo.com

  6. Beat Depression & Anxiety For Good. True Stories. | 7Wins.eu on October 9th, 2008 3:52 pm

    [...] Beat Your Depression | | How can you heal depression naturally? Facebook Syndrome: 8 Ways to Beat Your Facebook Addiction | The Daily Mind – Making the Daily Grind MeaningfulMy Depression Post | Cheaty MonkeyDepression: Based on a True Story | no diseaseDoes Depression Impact on Friendship? (Reprise) | Overcoming Mental Illness Sex offenders on probation: setting them up to fail | a public defenderGreene’s Release ? Blog Archive ? End the Emotional Roller CoasterBipolar Disorder | Bipolar Disorder For Dummies | Bipolar Story | Bipolar Stories | JD Stottlemire |… [...]

Leave a Reply




PsychCentral Best of Web - Blog Award

Pages & Stories

Blogroll