Krista's Recovery Experience

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My first experience with mental illness was a severe depression that I suffered when I was 17 and had gone away to college. My parents came and rescued me from Georgetown University where I was on a full athletic scholarship for volleyball. I got on anti-depressants and lived with my parents. A few months later, I became manic and was admitted to Yale Psychiatry Hospital. The doctors there diagnosed me as manic depressive. I stayed there for three months and was taking lithium. The next fall I attended the University of Connecticut on a full athletic scholarship for basketball. I did well and graduated in 1988.

I took a job in New York City, found an apartment and began my new life. Basically, the same thing happened as when I went to Georgetown. I went back to my parents house and went back on lithium. This time I avoided the mania. You see, I had stopped taking it in my sophomore year. The next March I moved to Florida since I was sure I have seasonal affective disorder, although I didn’t even know it existed back then.

I stayed on lithium for many years. I moved to California in 1993 with my boyfriend, Steve. We got married in 1996 and had our first daughter in 2000. I stopped taking the lithium during my pregnancy and nursing. When Kendra was 6 months old I knew it was time to go back on the lithium so I stopped nursing. In 2002, we moved back to Florida while I was pregnant with Sara. The move was sort of stressful and my husband was not happy with his new sales territory. Sara was born in January of 2003. I nursed her for a while and again, decided to stop nursing to go back on lithium.

In July, I went to a new psychiatrist and he prescribed the lithium. After a month of side effects that I never suffered before, I went in to see the doctor again. He suggested that there was a chance I was incorrectly diagnosed as manic depressive. He suggested that I go off the lithium. I was pretty excited to think I wouldn’t be reliant on medication for the rest of my life.

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