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Five years earlier at age 42, I’d had a joyous revelation


that changed the rest of my life. I was diagnosed with rapid cycling Type 1 bipolar disorder. Joy came not from being bipolar, but from having a name for that which had made me a prisoner of my mind. My struggles over the past few decades were no longer personal failures. Tey had a name, and I had options.


Inward chaos On the surface, my life could seem ideal. I graduated early from high school and college, got married, served as an Army officer in Europe in my 20s, earned a doc- torate by 30 and traveled to about 25 countries. Cur- rently I serve as a senior epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, am financially sound, and have wonderful relationships with friends and family. Yet until age 42, my outward success was a thin


veneer over inward chaos. I graduated early because, unable to connect with family, I leſt home. My marriage lasted only 71 days. My military service was plagued with mental health problems resulting in a mandatory psychiatric evaluation. I couldn’t stay in any job more than two or three years. Virtually all of my friendships were permanently marred. Most of all, I was spiritually numb. Toughts of suicide were almost a daily event as I


wondered when my mind would betray me again and how bad the next episode would be. Previously I had been misdiagnosed with depression—quite different from bipolar disorder. While working for a medical examiner’s office in


After a misdiagnosis of depression early in life, Deb Karch was correctly diagnosed at age 42 with bipolar disorder. That diag- nosis changed her life, and opened her up to a life of faith.


ROBIN NELSON By Deb Karch T


he front pew was comfortable enough, but I decided to move to the very back of the sanctu- ary. Ten I reconsidered and moved to the middle.


Why? One word in the worship bulletin: “communion.” If served from the front, my ignorance of the process


would show aſter a 30-year hiatus from church. Tey might also begin in the rear. But the middle was safe: I could observe and mimic without embarrassment.


New Mexico where I saw death every day, I decided how to take my own life. In that job, I failed to see any evidence of God in death. But there was peace in the faces of those who were gone—a peace I wanted. In January 2006, I took 120 Valium pills. I have no


memory of the next four days. Waking up in the hospi- tal, I was angry to learn I had survived. Fast forward to a few weeks aſter my diagnosis: driv-


ing home from work, I thought, “So this is what regular people feel like.” Medication quickly created a fragile stability, but my bipolar mind wasn’t suddenly well just because the chemicals were better balanced. I needed time and care to cultivate the will to live and develop capacities most people take for granted: the ability to love and forgive, to feel empathy, develop mutually supportive relationships, find joy in serving others and understand that I was a part of something bigger than myself.


18  May 2014 17


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