Post grad Highschool and College

Episode 3.  Post Grad High School & College

In my senior year of high school, I found acting.  I wanted to do something other than play soccer and I thought “this might be interesting”. Acting was the first time I found my “hyper focus.” It was immediate dopamine, and wouldn’t you know it, I had talent. I loved the theater.  Everyone agreed, this was the path. 

I spoke with my guidance counselor, and she suggested that doing a postgrad year was about the only way I could get into a decent college.  We found a boarding school with a theater program, and I was offered a full scholarship.

This boarding school was as strict as they came. It was a Victorian style boarding school (I think “style” is the right word). This meant it was run the same way when I was there as it had been 100 years prior.  I have no idea why, but I loved it.  Everyone was wonderful.  And my new-found friends and I found many ways to intelligently break the rules. 

I was 18, and now the bipolar was starting to show.  I had developed an entire persona at this school. I even talked differently. People do this all the time when they go to new places, but mine was extreme.  No one noticed.  Everyone knew I was there to be an actor, and I studied hard in my acting courses. I struggled a bit in the other courses but the teachers at this school were of a whole different caliber. They truly made you want to learn and they  knew how to keep young people engaged. This by all accounts was my favorite year. I was happy. It was very structured, but I loved finding the loopholes. 

I ended up doing two shows for them that year: one musical and one drama play. I won awards for both.  I was happy to be there and then I was happy to leave. 

1999 was the best summer of my life. I had been working out and my body and face looked the way I had always wanted them to.  It was wonderful seeing my friends from back home that summer. The disease had not taken my looks…yet.

The school I had chosen was the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. It was the day I left home to attend this school in New York that bipolar hell started.

A lot has been written about bipolar symptoms starting at 19.  It started the moment I stepped into New York at 19.  I stopped eating. I couldn’t eat anything from the moment I got there.  This was to become the biggest problem in my life.  What I know now is that being in New York triggered a psychotic state. I say psychotic because I now can feel the difference between manic, hypo manic and psychotic.  (I will elaborate on these experiences in detail in a later post.)

The first few weeks I did the best I could. I hoped I would find relaxation and be able to eat and sleep like a normal person.  It would never happen.  So, I did the only thing I could do. I worked. I studied harder than I had ever studied and was determined to be the best they had. And of course, this triggered manic states. Manic states, as most of you know, can feel good. They can become addictive and can keep us from taking care of ourselves.  By the end of the year, I had lost 20 pounds and looked completely different than I did when I started the school year. My parents chalked it up to having a tough first year. 

I put that last sentence in bold because I have a child ready to go to college. I will be watching like a hawk.  If a 19 year-old comes back from college and looks completely different, acts differently, or is withdrawn and there is any history in the family, it’s therapy time.