Zahava has gone from self-made millionaire to homeless person on the street, all thanks to bipolar disorder with psychosis. Now that she has a name for her condition, she has learned how to manage it and live despite it.
Zahava's Story
"I was screwed up for a really long time."
I tried to commit suicide several times when I was little. When I was four years old, they found me sleeping on a railroad track. I slept on the streets as a homeless person for ten years. I was going through garbage cans, I was hit, and I was beaten. I had a feeling of emptiness inside. I felt like I was dying. Sometimes the emotional pain is one thing, but it turns into physical pain and the pain is so horrible that you can't even sit down in one place. I was 93 pounds, and it was like I was in Auschwitz or something. I felt like everything that I would eat would contaminate me, so I would stay up 9 to 10 days in a row. I finally called the police and asked them to take me in. I was hospitalized, and then I learned I have bi-polar disorder with psychosis.
"I wish I could put a camera in my brain to show you what I see."
When I get into psychosis, I see a lot of images and see a lot of people and hear a lot of voices. Some of it is incredible and full of awe, and some of it is just really, really devastating. You see people being chopped up and killed and mutilated. I saw my daughter – she was eight years old – hanging from chandeliers every place I went to, wearing the same outfit that I did when I was a little kid. It was my imagination, but it was real to me. You can't tell yourself that it is not the truth.
"I started taking medication, and it started working."
When I finally got help, I was one of the sickest people that they have seen in a long time because I had gone so long without medication. I didn't start medicating myself until it very late, not until my mid-40s. I told the doctors I would take the medication as long as I felt that they were doing the right thing for me. At first, I felt like I was going to die, because it brings you down all at once. You feel like there is no breath of air and you feel dead. It took weeks and weeks to get used to it, but after about six months, I started to feel better.
Today there is so much knowledge about this illness, and there are so many places to get help. I wish I had never let it go as far as it did before I got help.
"I'm able to watch myself very carefully now that I know what to look for."
If I hear something, I get very alert, and I verify all the time. I will ask my husband, did you hear that, and sometimes he will say he did hear it and sometimes he didn't. That helps me out with my anxiety, and as I lower my anxiety the feeling usually goes away. If it persists, then we have to make some major changes.
I immediately call my doctors. I have people on call 24 hours a day – every city has a crisis line – which I like because they come to your house, calm you down and sit with you until your episode is over. Sometimes it can take three days and sometimes it can be an instant. One time I saw my face burn completely and a bunch of flies above something. Then there was a little screw on the table and I thought it was a worm and I was screaming like a maniac and my daughter picked it up and said, "Look mom it is just a screw." Then the whole episode instantly stopped. I touched my face and I was okay, it wasn't burning. Having people keep you in check is very important.
What I see in my mind and where I go, you have never been there. It is another world that is completely different. I wouldn't have understood a lot of people if I hadn't been able to look at the world the way I have. It's incredible to see how good the good is, even if it means you also have to see how bad the bad is.
I once read a quote that said, "I am responsible for what I see, I choose the feeling I experience, and I decided upon the goal I will achieve." Bipolar is the illness; I am not the illness, I merely have the illness. I am not helpless, I can always correct myself. I can fall down on the sidewalk, but I can pick myself up.