A Promise of Possibilities

Stories of Hope: An Interview with Amelia Zachry

This is part of a series featuring individuals who share their life experiences with mental health issues. Recently, I asked author and mental health advocate Amelia Zachry about her journey, her recent memoir and her current activities. Here’s our interview:

DS: Tell us about when you first started becoming aware of concerns related to your mental health. How did these issues continue to affect you before you sought treatment?

AZ: I was in my twenties, full of life, full of fire. I lived on the edge, impulsively and dangerously. Self-medicating, I would drink constantly to numb the pain. Sleeping with random men gave me the power albeit short-lived every time to feel alive. I was constantly chasing a high when I wasn’t depressed and suicidal.

I had experienced trauma in my past and it felt like I was just letting go of the chains and liberating myself. I was on a path to self destruction. I was doing everything I could think of to survive each day, while feeling like I was tainted, flawed, a disappointment.

My family were distant as I isolated myself from them, embarrassed and afraid they would find out about what a mess I had turned my life into. My erratic behavior made it difficult to sustain relationships with friends who found it hard to tolerate my behaviors. Friends came and went; we’d have a falling out or I would slip away feeling unworthy of their friendship.

Sometimes I was life of the party, quick and witty and funny. Next minute, I was being dragged out of a bar for lashing out at a stranger. I lived in my own reality of solitude and detachment. I knew something wasn’t right, but I did not make the connections to mental health issues. I believed I was merely a poorly behaved person who was selfish and did what it took to be alive.

DS: What was the turning point that led you to decide to seek help?

AZ: After a few years of acting out, I met a man I fell in love with. On an impulsive act, I moved to Japan to be with him. I moved in with him thinking that all the maladies of my mind would be cured with love. Japan was an opportunity for me to leave my previous self behind and redefine myself. However, I was highly susceptible to triggers and my maladaptive behaviors trailed me.

He was the first person to witness what would be called my symptoms first-hand in intimate quarters. My boyfriend helped me see that I needed professional help and we were resigned to the fact that being in love or being loved was not enough to face the demons in my mind.

It was clear to me that I could no longer run away from my problems and had to face them head on to move on. Making the decision to pursue treatment wasn’t easy as I subscribed to the stigma that people who needed therapy were seriously ill and belonged in psychiatric facilities and I believed I was not one of those people.

I fought the suggestion hard but slowly realized that looking at how my life was so far and gaining more distance from what I had imagined for myself, something needed to change, and I decided that a therapist could possibly lead the way. I had never been in therapy and my experience of it was entirely what I had seen on TV. Nevertheless, I pursued treatment in hopes to find answers to the restlessness in my mind. I made a decision and was going to give it my all.  

DS: What has your treatment consisted of, and what have you found that has worked well for you?

AZ: We began with talk therapy that led to my diagnosis of bipolar disorder, type 2. I fought this diagnosis especially because I had seen the movies and read the books and did not want the label. But, as we went along in therapy I learned that the maladaptive behaviors I had been struggling with that had impacted my life so deeply were in reality, symptoms of bipolar disorder. To take it one step further, they were manageable symptoms that could be addressed in my treatment plan.

Talk therapy and drug therapy were prescribed and though skeptical, I was obedient. I learned Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as a tool to reframe my thought processes. I memorized the cognitive distortions and processed them, first in a journal I carried around with me, using alarms on my phone to remind me to check in with my thoughts and identify the distortions, then slowly over the years it has become a practiced skill. It was laborious at first but quickly became my survival toolkit to manage episodes. Recognizing triggers, acknowledging them and then avoiding them provided me the relief from unnecessary stressors that stood in the way of my recovery.

I struggled with medications over the years trying to find the right combination that would work and finally did. It took a lot of trial and error and blind faith in the fact that bipolar disorder was going to be manageable for me. I held on to the promise of possibilities, that I could one day be in remission, that I could sustain a loving relationship successfully, I could have a family, I could have a career. I tried every self-care method suggested – yoga, meditation, sound healing, hiking. I stayed on track with my medications and continued talk therapy to manage this incurable condition.

DS: How are things going for you now? What challenges are you still facing? What have you learned that has helped you stay positive and healthy?

AZ: I have been in remission for about a year, with episodes of hypomania and depression absent. I am a mother, a wife, a writer and an advocate, all things that had seemed impossible thirteen years ago when I was diagnosed. It is a challenge to be well, in that I constantly find myself hanging on because I’m afraid the other shoe will drop.

I occasionally doubt my path to healing because I am afraid that the next episode is around the corner. However, I am clear in my direction. Mental illness will always be a part of my life, but it is not who I am. Through the episodes, I have lived a life. One that is full of beautiful moments, tender moments and victorious moments.

I am in full acceptance of bipolar disorder in my life and now I am unafraid because I know I can manage it. I stopped struggling with the stigmas and the diagnosis and the labels. Once I learned to accept that I did indeed have bipolar, I shifted my focus toward learning to live a life with it. I pivoted towards ways to tackle the challenges instead of wrestling with the fact.

CBT is still central to my daily life and I’ve become rather skilled at reframing in a moment. Thoughts aren’t as heavy as they used to be. I made a conscious commitment to recovery and tried not to look back though I would in all honesty, every once in a while.

I also learned how to reach out and lean on others for support. I am blessed with family and friends who educated themselves about bipolar disorder so they could be an effective support system for me. To me, that is like a scaffolding around me so that when I do fall now and again, it wouldn’t be too far and they would be there to bounce me back to where I was.

But when recovery was hard, I hung on to hope that a life that I had imagined was within reach. It had brought me this far in my recovery and will continue to grow me. I have come beyond treating symptoms and avoiding triggers, beyond surviving. I am thriving in a life I have created for myself despite the arduous journey.

DS: Tell us about your recently published memoir.

AZ: Enough – A Memoir of Mistakes, Mania, and Motherhood is my connection to others who have survived sexual assault and live with a mental illness like me. It is a story of hope, of courage and resilience, a story of living the life you have imagined. I wrote Enough to challenge the stigmas around these issues and break the silence. In Enough, I detail my experiences and episodes in a raw and honest manner that those who go through it can feel seen and their experiences validated. Also, for those who care for those like us to understand the realities of our experiences so they can be better allies and advocates. Bearing my intimate experiences, I want to be part of conversations that pivot away from stigma and pain and move towards normalizing mental health and healing.

DS: What would you like to say to encourage others who are still working on their journey of recovery?

AZ: There is a promise of possibilities of the life you have imagined. It may be hard now, and can be ugly, but there is the promise of the possibility of it being beautiful so have faith that you will get there. Hold fast to hope. Always return to hope.

Thank you so much to Amelia for sharing her inspiring story of hope!

Would you like to share your story of hope? I plan to feature more personal accounts like this from time to time on my blog. If you are interested in sharing your story, please notify me via my contact page. Also, please subscribe to my blog and feel free to follow me on X (formerly Twitter) or Instagram, “like” my Facebook page, or connect on LinkedIn. Finally, if you enjoyed this post, please share it with a friend. Thanks!