Anisha’s Story

**Trigger Warning: this content contains sensitive material, and covers the topics of depression and suicide.

If you feel triggered or are in crisis, please reach out to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing or texting 988.

    Things like this weren’t supposed to happen to people like me. Straight A student through high school, band geek, “Little Miss Perfect”, by society’s standards. How did someone like that, get diagnosed with something as debilitating as Bipolar Disorder? The question still puzzles me. I guess the signs were there all along, the lows at least. Bouts of depression throughout high school, planning my suicide and writing good-bye notes to my family in tenth grade…

  College went by without incident though, apart from alcohol-induced blackouts. Blackouts that inevitably led to physical bouts of anger and interminable tears.

    I was initially diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder in 2014, after 3 stints in 3 different hospitals. My family and I did not accept my diagnosis, until I relapsed in 2016. It's important to explain the events leading up to this point.

  2014 was a whirlwind year of suicidal ideation, hospitalization, degradation and transformation. At the start of the year, I was packing my bags to go back to Los Angeles, my temporary place of residence. I was leaving all that felt right, all that was secure, in my hometown of Atlanta, Ga. Bags packed and ready to go, I remember kissing my mother goodbye, willing the tears in my eyes to stay at bay. Refusing to choke up in front of her, I gave her a peck on the cheek and fled her room. En route to the airport with my dad, blood started to gush from my nose, without warning. I was so distraught about going back to LA, that my body was wreaking havoc in protest. You see, I felt that if I went back to LA, I was dooming myself to a life of depression, and a possibly never-ending foray into the drug scene.

The first five months that I was back in LA, I lie in bed for days on end, only sauntering outside my 8x8 bedroom, for morsels of food and water. On Valentine’s Day, I took a half-hearted attempt at committing suicide. It was not my first attempt, and it would not be my last. Downing about 25-30 painkillers, I willed God to take my pain away. I cried myself to sleep more nights than I care to remember. It wasn’t until April of that year, that I realized I needed psychiatric help. I had been going to therapy intermittently, at “Open Paths” counseling center in Culver City. The counseling sessions were not enough for my serotonin-depleted brain. Hesitant to reach out to a psychiatrist, I contacted my GP in hopes that she could cure me. I told her about my stifling anxiety, and my soul-sucking depression. I unabashedly explained to her how I couldn’t bare to be around other people, could barely stomach being around myself.

She prescribed Prozac, and eventually, Klonopin, to lessen my symptoms. The Klonopin instantly turned me into a stoner, sucking the life from my eyes, and zapping my energy almost in seconds. The Prozac, she disclaimed, would take about 8 weeks to take effect. Unsure of what else I could possibly do, I took the Prozac as prescribed, most nights opting out of the Klonopin, though. I faithfully swallowed the white pill of fluoxetine, nightly at 10PM. Prozac, in the beginning a saving grace, would soon be part of my demise.

In May of 2014, only 4 weeks into taking the Prozac, I had a full-fledged suicide attempt. In the wee hours of the morning, I woke up, and violently retched the painkillers from my system. I would live to tell the tale.

By mid-July of 2014, my battle with depression had finally seceded. I was hanging out with new friends, going to church weekly, and living my best life. (The sunshine wouldn’t last long though.)

The following month, in August, my life changed forever. It all started with the death of iconic comedian and actor, Robin Williams. Robin “The Genie” Williams. I was crestfallen, and even more so, when I found out it was due to suicide. Hearing his story catapulted me to open up about my two most recent suicide attempts, and how I had overcome depression. It was an overwhelming period in time for me. After sharing my story on Facebook, I received an amazing outpouring of love from others. From phone calls to text messages and Facebook messages, masses of people thanked me for being so transparent. Many opened up and confided in me their own dark truths. With every inbound phone call, I shed tears of joy and pain. Joy, for what I had overcome, and pain, for mourning all I had endured.

Around this time, I gradually started sleeping less and less. Like I said, the entire experience was overwhelming (to say the least). It’s also important to note other things going on at this time: I was becoming more and more spiritually aware, getting Baptized a week after posting my Testimony. I was also living with a roommate, whose cat scared the living daylights out of me. Around this time, I also decided to go “off” of my Prozac. I felt that God had healed me of my depression, once and for all. Thus, without consulting my doctor, I stopped taking the Prozac, cold turkey.

So let’s review: I was barely eating and sleeping, crying every other day because I was reliving the earlier part of 2014. Now, to top it off, I was removing my high dosage of Prozac from my daily routine.

Within a span of a week, my mental psyche was thrown for a loop. Convinced that my roommate’s cat was demon-possessed, I performed an exorcism on it. I walked up and down the streets of the dark and eerie Venice, CA., hyperaware and incredibly sensitive to the spirits of others. I befriended an equally out-of-touch homeless man named Black Eagle. I met with him frequently, and allowed him to convince me to take my car on a drive, while I went on to a hospital in Marina Del Rey, to “heal the world”.

Refusing to sleep in my apartment any longer, I went to my friend Dalia’s apartment, and slept on her couch for a week. It was here that I lost my mind completely. By this point, I was so full of paranoia, about a demon-infested LA/Hollywood, that I was too scared to sleep. No sleep and no eating for a week. Thoroughly convinced that her roommate was demonic, I sat in their living room watching my Baptism footage, listening to Jeff Majors’ “Psalms 23”, and shouting Bible scriptures at the top of my lungs. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff comfort me!!” I roared repeatedly. When I tried to sleep, I felt the eyes and cold, chilling breath of Satan penetrating my soul, eager to take me over. I was, and wouldn't realize it until two years later, manic.

Dalia, terrified and uncertain as to what to do, messaged my mom on Facebook late into the night. Backstory: It was almost time for my mother and I’s 2nd Annual Mother/Daughter Trip, and she was scheduled to arrive in LA two days later for the vacation. Dalia’s message to my mom read: “Mrs. King, I think something’s wrong with Anisha. She told Camille that she stopped taking the Prozac last week. I think that you should get here sooner, if you can.”

Within the next 24 hours, my mother was on a Red-eye flight to LA, unsure of what to expect. Within those 24 hours, I spent time at a health store in Marina Del Rey, telling two teenage girls that I was the sister of Jesus Christ, the second-coming, the “next in line for the throne”. I remember a man with a dark spirit coming into the store, and giving me a necklace for “protection from evil spirits”. I accepted the necklace, which immediately made my neck itch. Convinced that it was a gift from the Devil, I tore the necklace from my neck and thrust it at a foam-spitting homeless woman on the street. She uttered what sounded like a curse at me, and I walked away as if I had won a small victory.

Upon leaving there, I walked into a Guitar Center, also in Marina Del Rey. I vaguely remember having lost my cell phone, and blaming it on the “Satanic” employees that worked there. An hour later, I walked outside to my car, only to find my phone sitting in the middle console, untouched.

As I sped away from Guitar Center, I drove towards LAX to pick up my mom from the airport. I managed to drive us back to my apartment complex, without injury. Once we had made it inside my apartment, it was 2:30AM. I asked my already-exhausted mom to fix me a frozen dinner, while I unconsciously re-arranged all of the items adorning my bedroom windowsill. We lay down to sleep, my food untouched, and I attempted to do what I had been unable to: get some shut-eye. Every half hour or so, I woke in a panic, shouting and shoving my mother awake. “Mama, mama! Wake up! The devil’s trying to get on you!” I hollered. “It's okay baby, it’s okay”, she soothed, confused as to what else to do.

The next morning, my mom fixed breakfast for the two of us. I asked her to go back to the health store from the day before, and pick me up some sleep-inducing beverages for me. By the time she got back, I was talking angrily on the phone with my dad, shouting about God knows what. Hanging up the phone with him, I started packing up my soon-to-be vacated apartment. As my mom opened the door to my room, beverages in tote, I bellowed at her “Get behind me, Satan!” Pouring “holy” water on the floor to divide us, I told her that she wasn’t able to cross the line of division.

Bewildered, my mom didn’t cross the line of “holiness”, retreating into the living room to call my dad. When he didn’t pick up, she called her childhood friend (who is also a minister), Rev. Yolanda "Yogi" Thompson. With Yogi on the phone, my mother re-approached my room and, without crossing the holy water, handed the phone to me. Full of rage, I shouted to Yogi about my mom “not being my mother”, with a mention of “false prophets”, and shoved the phone back at my mom.

Unbeknownst to me, Yogi had instructed my mom to call “911”, in fears that I would hurt myself. When the paramedics arrived on the scene less than half an hour later, I thought my “Lord” had sent angelic saviors to rescue me. I answered the paramedics’ questions undoubtedly with bizarre responses. They asked me if I wanted to go with them, and with a look of disgust and utmost hatred at my mom, I responded “Yes, because I can’t bare to be in her presence any longer”.

I was transported to Marina Del Rey Hospital, where my delirious and malnourished body was ready to collapse. In my mind, the hospital patients and staff were either angels or demons, in human form. It was my job to heal who I could, and perhaps, I should try to “save” the soul of some of the demons along the way. I remember being strapped down to a hospital bed, and being sedated. When I awoke, my mother was sitting beside me, and the hospital staff was inserting an IV of agony-causing calcium into my body. I winced for a short period of time, not before whispering “Hey Mommy” to my mother, and drifting off to sleep.

When I awoke, I was being transported to a psychiatric hospital, in Marina Del Rey. It was my first admittance into a psychiatric hospital, but it would not be my last. Sitting up on the hospital gurney, as they rolled me inside, I breathed a sigh of relief. “Finally”, I was somewhere I truly belonged. I stayed in this first psychiatric hospital for a total of 6 days, before I was discharged. They sent me away with some sleeping meds, even though, I was still for all intents and purposes, full-blown manic. I lasted outside of the hospital less than a week, before I was re-admitted into a second, much more intense psychiatric hospital.

After a 10 (or maybe it was a 15)-day stay, I was out again. My parents, (my dad had flown in a few days after my mom), were by my resistant side, trying to figure out how to fly a manic me, home to Atlanta. My parents had packed up the rest of my apartment for me, while I was hospitalized, and placed my belongings in storage. Somehow, I behaved well enough to make it on a flight home to the east coast.

In Atlanta, I was under the supervision of both of my parents, but that would prove not to be enough for me, and all of my mania. I was under their care for all of a week, before I was hospitalized for a third time. To tell you what happened within each of my hospital stays is a book unto itself, but just know that each stay was more traumatizing than the hospital before.

By the time I was discharged from the third hospital, home in Atlanta, I was finally stable. Throughout my various stays, the term ‘Bipolar” had come up time and time again. My family and I denied the diagnoses, assuring ourselves that sleep deprivation and going off the Prozac cold turkey, had been a dangerous combination. It wasn’t until February of 2016, when I relapsed, that my family and I realized mental illness could be a contributing factor.

The reason for my relapse, once again, was sparked by sleep deprivation.

During 2016, I was admitted into four different psychiatric hospitals, followed by a rehabilitation center, all located in Atlanta, GA. During my time of rehabilitation, I entered a program called Skyland Trail. There, I learned of and accepted my diagnosis. The doctors had thrown out diagnoses of “OCD”, “PTSD”, and “Schizoaffective” all before concluding on my illness. Three weeks after graduating from the Skyland Trail program, I moved back across the country, to pursue grad school at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. So that’s my story. I, Anisha Joi King, have Bipolar 1 Disorder. I have attempted suicide more than once. I have been hospitalized 7 different times, but most importantly, have lived to tell the tale. I have come away with a greater sense of self and purpose, and I know that there is no such thing as a “perfect” life. We are all afflicted in one way or another. My affliction just happens to be a battle with mental illness. I am so proud of how far I have come, and know that with the presence of God and my family, I can overcome any obstacle thrown my way.