Grace Seward, 18, Shreveport
The original plan wasn't to drop out of college
mid-semester, move back home with her family, and work a 9-5 job at Panera
Bread, but after being stalked by an all too persistent man for more than two
years, the alternative didn't seem so easy.
She ignored him for ages. Originally he only followed her around when she was out in places where he could go unseen, mainly when she was shopping or socializing. When he started appearing outside her dorm room, it went from being annoying to terrifying.
She ignored him for ages. Originally he only followed her around when she was out in places where he could go unseen, mainly when she was shopping or socializing. When he started appearing outside her dorm room, it went from being annoying to terrifying.
At some point, no amount of rationalizing could talk him
away. The only way to rid herself of the problem came in child-proof bottles.
Varying, and continuously increasing doses of antipsychotics, antidepressants,
mood-stabilizers and other treatments for her bipolar disorder and borderline
schizophrenia now fill a clear medicine bucket that sits on a wooden chair next
to her bed. At 18, Grace Seward faces a diagnosis that limits her from owning a
gun, being an astronaut and, at this point, finishing her fourth semester of
college.
“Originally my goal was to finish TALH and go straight to real college then get into medical school, to overall just exceed. Now I’m thinking if I can just make it through undergrad then I’ll be okay. If I can just make it through TALH I’ll be okay. This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s not what I’m used to and it’s not what I’m supposed to be doing. It wasn't the plan. But I just don’t want to die, I don’t want to have the urge to die all the time. It’s awful.”
The 60 plus students at the Texas Academy of Leadership in
the Humanities, an early admittance college program at Lamar University
Most of what they do, they do together. They share their meals, morning evening and night, they volunteer at food banks as a group and they've even teamed up to sneak a swimming pool into the dorms as a finals week relaxation tactic. But dealing with mental illness within the student body isn't something they discuss at their Monday afternoon community meetings and it left Grace facing her brain, and its creations, on her own.
“I wanted to tell them. When I would have random outburst of anger or when I’d lock myself in my room for a few days, I wanted them to understand, but they thought I was a weird freak. I walked around everyday wanting people to know why I did what I did and how I worked. I’d want them to understand that my hallucinations are real. They are physical things in my life even thought they aren't in other people’s lives. Because a lot of people blow it off and are like, ‘Oh yeah, haha, you hallucinate. I bet you don’t.’”
Most of what they do, they do together. They share their meals, morning evening and night, they volunteer at food banks as a group and they've even teamed up to sneak a swimming pool into the dorms as a finals week relaxation tactic. But dealing with mental illness within the student body isn't something they discuss at their Monday afternoon community meetings and it left Grace facing her brain, and its creations, on her own.
“I wanted to tell them. When I would have random outburst of anger or when I’d lock myself in my room for a few days, I wanted them to understand, but they thought I was a weird freak. I walked around everyday wanting people to know why I did what I did and how I worked. I’d want them to understand that my hallucinations are real. They are physical things in my life even thought they aren't in other people’s lives. Because a lot of people blow it off and are like, ‘Oh yeah, haha, you hallucinate. I bet you don’t.’”
By nature, living in a close-knit environment makes keeping
secrets near impossible. Added to this, Grace’s roommate, and best friend of
two years, was struggling with an untreated case of depression.
“I feel like I definitely made her worse. You know how you can be affected by people? Even before she knew anything about it, when she had bad days it made me have bad days. When I was bad it made her worse. It was like we were connected on a different level.”
Living across the hall from someone with an anxiety disorder,
two doors down and the floor above a boy with bipolar disorder and in the room
over from a girl who’s just learning how to handle her depression created an
unbalanced environment for Grace.
“My medicines stopped working. Just one day I woke up, the man was back, the wolves were back, I was completely out of control. Three weeks [after that point] I was literally on the verge of suicide. I had this thought of jumping off the balcony and how peaceful it would be to land at the bottom and not wake up. I would have the fall to think about it and once I’d hit, it would be over. When I had those thoughts it really scared me because deep down I don’t want to die. I want to live.”
“My medicines stopped working. Just one day I woke up, the man was back, the wolves were back, I was completely out of control. Three weeks [after that point] I was literally on the verge of suicide. I had this thought of jumping off the balcony and how peaceful it would be to land at the bottom and not wake up. I would have the fall to think about it and once I’d hit, it would be over. When I had those thoughts it really scared me because deep down I don’t want to die. I want to live.”
All of a sudden things started moving fast. That next morning she walked into her school counselor’s office. TALH students, being college minors, live under gated security. Their administrator’s offices are on the bottom floor of the dorm building in the rooms where alumni once fermented mead in large tubs stored in their closets and kept scorpions as pets. But making the trek to ask for help was easier when it was only from room 9205B to 9104A.
“My other options were wait and tell my psych and get put on
more meds, deal with it forever, or die. That was really my other option. So, I
went to Corwin [my school counselor] and she asked me questions about what was
going on, if I was suicidal, if I had a plan. By law she had to take me to inpatient.
We drove there and she was telling me everything was going to be okay and that
she’d come visit me and that this was the right decision. She was talking me
into coming to terms with the fact that I was about to be locked up.”
The process meant waiting in a lobby that, on the outside
reflected the waiting rooms of every typical emergency center. The things it
was missing were the televisions playing TV shows like Dora the Explorer, the
wails from children with abnormally high temperatures, and there definitely weren't any parenting magazines lying about. Instead, the room was meant to be
calm and quiet, the magazines on the corner tables, things like People and
Vogue, were meant to keep people distracted from the serious problem at hand.
It was a systematic process, one the staff had obviously become adjusted to doing, and Grace faced it with a certain amount of numbness.
“It was a long process. They took blood and urine samples. They’d call me back to talk to one counselor and send me back to the waiting room, then they’d call me back to speak to another counselor and I’d repeat the story verbatim. I did this three times.”
Grace went from being on campus with 60 dynamic teenagers and a five person administrative team by her side, to being stripped of her clothes, her personal belongings, her cell phone and her one last outside connection all in a matter of a Thursday afternoon.
It was a systematic process, one the staff had obviously become adjusted to doing, and Grace faced it with a certain amount of numbness.
“It was a long process. They took blood and urine samples. They’d call me back to talk to one counselor and send me back to the waiting room, then they’d call me back to speak to another counselor and I’d repeat the story verbatim. I did this three times.”
Grace went from being on campus with 60 dynamic teenagers and a five person administrative team by her side, to being stripped of her clothes, her personal belongings, her cell phone and her one last outside connection all in a matter of a Thursday afternoon.
By the regulated bed time she was in her own room, on a
floor with adults, in a building that smelled of antiseptics.
“They made me speak to another counselor and repeat my story again, and then they started me on a new medicine that night, Saphris [an antipsychotic used to treat bipolar I and schizophrenia]. They told me it would make me sleep so then I went to bed and slept really hard, missed morning breakfast call. I eventually had to be woken up by a nurse.”
“They made me speak to another counselor and repeat my story again, and then they started me on a new medicine that night, Saphris [an antipsychotic used to treat bipolar I and schizophrenia]. They told me it would make me sleep so then I went to bed and slept really hard, missed morning breakfast call. I eventually had to be woken up by a nurse.”
Breakfast was the same for five days. It consisted of a
biscuit, jelly, a piece of bacon and an 8 ounce juice of choice, apple for
Grace. Her stint in recovery meant missing a test on Thursday, two classes on
Friday and another test on Monday. Even away from the bulky textbooks and the “cram-in-all-of-a-semester-into-one-night”
allnighters, Grace hoped to avoid missing more than one day of each class.
Saturday, Grace reacted to the Safris. Her vision blurred, her tongue swelled up, she couldn't speak from the constricting in her throat. This led to a dose of anti-antipsychotics, two days unmedicated and more time than planned to work out her treatment.
Monday the process started over. A psychiatrist sat at a desk, informed of the allergic reaction by nurses and counselors, and Grace repeated the story again, leaving out no details about the swollen tongue, the constricting throat or the blurred vision. The visit ended with another trial, prescribing Grace just below the highest dose of Latuda, a drug in the same class as Abilify.
“I spoke to a psych the first real day and she said she’d see me Monday. It scared me because then I really knew I wasn't going to be back, that I was in there long term. My goal was Sunday night I would get out, but when I was still there I asked when I would get out and she just said, ‘When you get better.’ That really scared me because I definitely wasn't better.”
Saturday, Grace reacted to the Safris. Her vision blurred, her tongue swelled up, she couldn't speak from the constricting in her throat. This led to a dose of anti-antipsychotics, two days unmedicated and more time than planned to work out her treatment.
Monday the process started over. A psychiatrist sat at a desk, informed of the allergic reaction by nurses and counselors, and Grace repeated the story again, leaving out no details about the swollen tongue, the constricting throat or the blurred vision. The visit ended with another trial, prescribing Grace just below the highest dose of Latuda, a drug in the same class as Abilify.
“I spoke to a psych the first real day and she said she’d see me Monday. It scared me because then I really knew I wasn't going to be back, that I was in there long term. My goal was Sunday night I would get out, but when I was still there I asked when I would get out and she just said, ‘When you get better.’ That really scared me because I definitely wasn't better.”
Prepared for another week, or something more long term,
Grace’s Tuesday morning was unexpected.
“I saw the psych [and] they asked if I was seeing the man,
if I was still depressed, and I wasn’t. I mean, the facility was a depressing
place but that doesn't make me depressed. So she released me.”
As quick as the norm of drives to taco bell in “Cubert” with her friends, and late hour “tumblring” sessions had been taken away from her, it had all just as easily been given back.
“I feel like I should’ve been in there a few more days. That night I had a break down, because I realized I had things to do, I had just left my life. I decided to go home early for spring break and I saw my psych and she upped my antidepressant again…
As quick as the norm of drives to taco bell in “Cubert” with her friends, and late hour “tumblring” sessions had been taken away from her, it had all just as easily been given back.
“I feel like I should’ve been in there a few more days. That night I had a break down, because I realized I had things to do, I had just left my life. I decided to go home early for spring break and I saw my psych and she upped my antidepressant again…
I went back to school, had another break down, realized I couldn't do it, calculated my grades, realized I was failing everything and
talked to Ms. Corwin about dropping out. We realized that was the best option,
so I dropped out and came home.”
From two years ahead of the plan to planless in no time at
all. Before she was officially taken out of the Lamar system, Grace was
accepted to Centenary College in Shreveport ,
LA
She closed up what would be her sophomore year of college and senior year of high school by graduating with the rest of her class. On May 10 Grace crossed the stage in a navy blue cap and gown, wearing her well loved cream lace dress and tan oxfords.
Even after her departure in March, she spent the last day of the school year with her two-year family as if she never left.
“I’m not better at all. I’m not sure if I will be. But I won't live a life like this. I’d die in my twenties. I live day by day. Tomorrow looks bad. Next week looks like I'm going back to work, back to my routine. I feel like everything will be okay the day I die. Everything will finally be all right.”
She closed up what would be her sophomore year of college and senior year of high school by graduating with the rest of her class. On May 10 Grace crossed the stage in a navy blue cap and gown, wearing her well loved cream lace dress and tan oxfords.
Even after her departure in March, she spent the last day of the school year with her two-year family as if she never left.
“I’m not better at all. I’m not sure if I will be. But I won't live a life like this. I’d die in my twenties. I live day by day. Tomorrow looks bad. Next week looks like I'm going back to work, back to my routine. I feel like everything will be okay the day I die. Everything will finally be all right.”
 |
| Often fighting the inability to sleep, Grace goes downstairs to the kitchen and grabs a bottle of Propel flavored water. |
 |
| In her worst moments, Grace would lay on the kitchen floor, tucked into a protective ball. At some point, her family grew to ignore it. |
0 comments: