12 Large: My Battle with Mental Illness

I debated writing this. First off, I want to make it clear I didn't know Larry Sweeney (real name Alex Whybrow). Like many others, I was just a fan of his work in wrestling. He was one of the most fascinating and entertaining people I'd ever seen. His charisma and presence were off the charts. Plus, he was beloved by dozens - in an age where rumours and dirt are quick to make their way online, I hadn't ever read anything bad about him. I was just a fan.

Like many fans, I was shocked by his death on April 11th, 2011. I remember talking to Lee when, I believe it was Chris Hero, who first posted the news on Twitter. I was stunned and followed the news as it unfolded over the next few days. It unfolded that Larry had killed himself after a life long battle with mental illness. He was bi-polar, a fact that I hadn't known and probably other fans hadn't either. But his family and friends had. But in that sense, I felt like I knew him - I have a mental illness as well, like millions of people world wide.

I am not bi-polar, however. I was diagnosed with depression when I was 20 and have been on medication for it ever since. Zoloft, Paxil, Effexor, back to Zoloft. I have been in therapy off and on - counselors, psychiatrists, psychologists. Mental illness runs in my family - my cousin is bi-polar, so is my sister. My mother suffers from depression and chronic anxiety. My sister's son is ADHD. There is a good chance that any child I have will also have some sort of mental illness.

For the first time, I am writing about my own struggle with my illness publicly. There is still too much stigma attached to mental diseases, even with all the knowledge out there. People are still taking their lives because they cannot deal with the struggle any longer. Larry did not leave a suicide note, to my knowledge, and no one really knows why he chose to kill himself, but if I had to make a guess I would say it was because he was tired of struggling with his mental illness and other personal problems. So many people cannot see a way out and decide it's better to die than to fight any longer. They feel alone, misunderstood and hopeless. I've been there many times. I'm telling my story now, on the anniversary of Sweeney's death, in the hopes to make myself understood and to let others know who are fighting the same battle that you are not alone.

I had a happy childhood up until I went into middle school, for the most part. I can vividly remember being shy but with friends in my neighborhood I was outgoing and active. Playing baseball, riding my bike, playing in the creek - I was your average tomboy. The only hiccups were when my sister began to act strange. She is eleven years older than me, so when I was about 8 or 9, she was 19-20 and her bi-polar began to manifest. One memory I have is of wanting to wear a different shirt than what she had picked out. When I refused to wear the one she wanted me to, she went off, calling me all sorts of names, leaving me crying and bewildered. It wasn't until much later that I realised she was bi-polar and what that fully meant. She went through her own battle, first to be accurately diagnosed, then to find the right mix of medication, and to finally accept the fact she had to take the medications for the rest of her life. The last took years for her to finally accept and come to terms with. Now, though, I understand what she was going through and know it wasn't her fault.

When I entered middle school, that is where things started to change. Adolescence is hard enough on any child, but for me it was painful. I was shorter than most of the other kids, I wore huge glasses and was a plain, shy child. My nickname for the two years I went to Knight Middle School was "Frog." I had to mask how much I hated that nickname by taking it on and wearing it like it had no effect on me. Hence, why the two yearbooks I have from MS commonly have messages from others that start with, "Hey Frog!" (I have long wanted to get rid of those yearbooks but mom still keeps them.) My grades suffered as well as my attendance record. I withdrew into myself and escaped into books, which caused more ridicule. The only good times I had during those two years were being a part of the "Total Recall" team which was a sort of "trivia" club that played other schools and entered tournaments. There, a nerd like myself could use my misc knowledge for good.

All the knowledge didn't save me, however, from being bullied almost constantly. I had to have my family take me to school in the car due to being harassed on the school bus - with the driver knowing and sometimes taking part in the bullying. It got to the point where, instead of taking a "secondary" class like computer graphics, art or woodwork, I did errands for the office. The ladies who worked as the secretary and in other positions liked me and for that hour each day there was a reprieve. This didn't go unnoticed by the other girls though, and they would routinely make up for it when we had to attend P.E. We all had to change in a locker room (always a traumatic experience for girls like myself going through puberty) and one day while entering the locker room, one of the girls told me that as soon as they had changed back into regular clothes I was going to get it. I knew what "it" was. I changed as quickly as I could, grabbed my things, and as they would spot me if I tried to leave the room, I went back into the old showers (Knight used to have students shower after PE but this had been stopped before I started attending.), shoved my backpack under a seat and stood on the seat. There was only a sliver of wall that separated me from being seen. This time my smallness was an advantage. I remember standing there for what felt like an eternity until I heard the next class coming in. I heard the bell ring that started next period and I realised I was late for whatever class was next on my schedule. I didn't care. I was scared and went to the office. The principal called my mom who came up to talk about my being bullied. The principal's response?

"It's a good thing she was smart enough to hide." I've never forgotten that. Mom's response was, "She shouldn't have had to hide." Needless to say, nothing changed, and my attendance got so poor that Knight refused to have me back. Which was fine, as my family had moved to another side of town out of Knight's district. Mom and dad decided to put me somewhere that was safer - and what could be safer than a private school? For grades 8 through 12 I attended Highview Baptist School. Which, true, I was safer physically. But the usual taunts and verbal slams continued. Silly me, I thought kids at a private Christian school would be nice - I learned quickly that kids were kids, no matter where they attended school at.

Nonetheless it was here that I started to develop who I was as a person. I made a few life long friends and pretty much coasted until I graduated. The biggest things during this year were when my family got a computer and America Online in May 1997. Thanks to a Marvel Chatroom called "The Danger Room" (so-named after a location in The X-Men comics), I was able to be a completely different person and make friends that eventually became real friends, beyond online personas. But it was also here that I went through a two year obsession with a guy in our circle of friends that played me, along with every other female in our circle. It wasn't until he completely cut ties with me, changing all his screen names and disappearing that I was able to start thinking clearly. It was here, in March of 1999, that I happened upon WWF RAW after Wrestlemania 15. I'm not lying when I say wrestling helped me get through that - I simply transferred from one obsession to another. Which wasn't really healthy, but it got me through that hard time, and has gotten me through several others since then.

After I graduated, I had a tough transition to make, and it was here that my depression started to manifest. I was 18, graduated on Friday, and started work on Monday at my mother's place of work. She helped me get my first job as a medical records clerk at a cardiology office. Since her and dad divorced in 1999, she needed my help to sustain the household. I had to put off college.

I started to spiral. I hated the work, I hated the woman I worked under (my 'team leader' was a mousy woman who sucked up like no one else), I hated the fact that I would have to work for the rest of my life. I had a breakdown at work and mom took me to the hospital to talk to a psychiatrist. Of course, I told him what he wanted to hear - if I had said that I couldn't see the point of living if all it was going to be was dull, dreary work, he would've admitted me to their psych ward. He thought I was just going through a rough time and I would get through it.

I quit my job in December of 2001 after mom walked out (things had evolved to the point where I was working directly with her and only staying to help her out) and only a few months after in March 2002, my grandmother (mom's mom) had a seizure. I can vividly remember mom shaking me awake and telling me to go downstairs where Nannie was on the floor. She was still seizing and I remember thinking that she was going to die in my arms right there in the basement. She didn't, and she got to the hospital where after a battery of tests she was diagnosed with lung cancer that had gotten to her lymph nodes and spread to the brain, creating a tumor which had caused her to seize. The tumor was in a part of the brain that was inoperable. Radiation and chemo would cause the tumor to shrink, deceasing the chances of another tumor, but that was it.

Nannie was going to die. Since she lived with us, I saw her go downhill day by day and I saw the toil it took on mom to take care of her. I learned what true strength and love is from my mother during that time. During that time, I got a job at another cardiology office, and it was a blessing to be out of the house for those 8 hours a day. I was too weak to handle the emotional stress at home. Nannie liked for me to read to her, but I only did twice. Her last words were to me, wanting me to stay home with her. But I had to go to work. She was so weak that that Wednesday she stopped talking. Everything started shutting down until only her heart (that she had had quadruple bypass surgery on in 1996) was keeping her alive. I can still hear her labored breathing and see her wide eyes, staring at the ceiling. We were out of the room, mom and dad were eating, and I was thinking about going in there to read to her when we heard a last gasp. Mom had walked in right as she breathed her last.

That summer I spiraled harder. The regrets about Nannie tore me up. The only positive side was that I had started a relationship with one of the online friends that I had known since 1997. Andrew stayed with me and helped me through Nannie's illness and death. He, himself, had a form of cancer called Neuroblastoma that he had been diagnosed with at age 12. I didn't understand it at the time, but it was a miracle that he had lived as long as he had up until then. Nonetheless, I tried Andrew's patience. My moods shifted rapidly. I still saw life as one big meaningless thing that either ended in sickness and death or old age and loneliness. It felt like all there was was work that just wore you down.

It was during the summer of 2002 that I started cutting myself. I felt like the only thing I had control over was myself, and I used, of all things, a curved dagger I had bought at the flea market a few years ago to cut my arms. Never deep enough to draw blood but enough to leave marks. It was a release, a way of affirming I was in control. I still have a scar on my right wrist (it was my arms I mostly cut) from this period in my life.

One night in September, I was on the phone with Andrew and I was cutting. I told him what I was doing and he begged me to stop. I finally asked, "Why do you care?" Drew started crying and said, "Because I fucking love you!"

That got through. I quickly hung up and realised what I was doing, to myself and to him. That's when I knew something wasn't right. When mom came back from her trip, I had a serious talk with her. I then talked to my primary care doctor, who put me on Zoloft. She diagnosed me with depression and recommended I go into counseling.

Over the next few years, I saw several different therapists and counselors, who helped me break through my shyness. Before, I couldn't even make small talk with a cashier at the store. That's how severe it was. And large crowds, forget about it. I'm still shy, but at least now I can make conversation and be more open. But I've always been more open and outgoing online - that hasn't changed. At one point, I was switched to Paxil by my doctor. I still harbored regrets about Nannie, but after her death, I made a point to always tell my family and loved ones that I loved them. Whether I was going out for the day or hanging up the phone, I told them I loved them. Eventually my parents and family started doing the same. I became a believer in that you never knew what each day would bring, and I resolved to never let angry words be the last words I spoke.

It's why I hate losing friends and if I can, I make amends and rebuild bridges. I have so many regrets, and I continue to have regrets and make mistakes now, but Nannie's death really brought home to me that you never know what might happen.

During the 2000's, the medication and therapy worked, but there were still times I struggled. Andrew and I split up in 2004 and I treated him terribly. It wasn't until 2007 that we started to talk again. He wanted to be friends but I pushed him away for a long time until then. He said his health was acting up and the cancer returned off and on but he always bounced back. December 2007 I sent him an email telling him Merry Christmas and, since I hadn't heard from him since October, asking if he was okay. That was Christmas Eve.

January 8th, 2008, I received a voicemail on the way to work. It was Alex, Andrew's younger brother. He told me that Andrew had passed away on the 7th. I lost it completely and only barely managed to pull over into a parking lot. I called mom and inbetween sobs told her what had happened. She urged me to come back home but I had to go to work. I had to. I remember very little about that day, other than calling Alex on my lunch break and hearing him tell me that him and his parents were looking at coffins. I almost threw up.

Mom tried to dissuade me from going to the funeral but I had to. I hadn't been there for him, and I felt bound by our friendship to go and pay my respects. God bless his family, they treated me like I was his widow. I wasn't sure how they were going to receive me, but Alex, Diane (his mom) and David (his dad) treated me like I was family. There were pictures of Drew up on a board and several of them featured shots of us together. Saturday was the viewing, Sunday was the Mass. His family talked to me, so did his friends. Sunday, for the Mass, his family sat us by them in the first pew. I'd never been to a Catholic ceremony, let alone a funeral Mass - it was beautiful and so heartwarming. Andrew had been a firm Catholic Christian, and even in his darkest moments, he never blamed or hated God. On the contrary, his faith was strong and he remained hopeful and strong to the very end. He looked peaceful in his casket. Before the lid was closed, I leaned over and gave him a kiss and whispered that I loved him and that I was sorry.

His parents gave me a lily from his funeral wreath and I've kept it preserved ever since. At the wake, they gave me a sealed letter he had written me before his death as well as his half of the necklace I'd given him. It was one of those that each person wore a half and they fitted together. I'd long gotten rid of my half, but he never got rid of his half after we broke up. It wasn't until we were back home (he lived in Pittsburgh) that I read the letter.

It was only one sentence. "Jenny, I love you more than tongue can tell, always. Drew." A line from The Twilight Zone, one of our favourite shows. My heart broke and I mourned for years. I felt like I had betrayed him, and as a consequence, I vowed that I would remain single for the rest of my life. I went on a downward spiral as regrets and memories ripped me apart. It took a year to re-coop from his death, but the vow remained engraved in my heart.

It was in 2009 that I found SHIMMER and 2010 that I attended my first show. During these years, the Paxil hadn't become as helpful so I started seeing a psychiatrist and a counselor, the former changed me to Effexor, the latter helped me get through my anger issues with a co-worker. However in January 2010 I was fired after my temper got the better of me. Plus, I found out that if I skipped even one dose of Effexor, my body would go through massive withdrawl symptoms. Shakes, fever, headaches, not to mention my mood would shift rapidly. 2011 I went back to Zoloft. I couldn't handle the Effexor's side-effects. It's a mild dose of Zoloft, but it helps keep me from becoming dangerously depressed. Although the medicine doesn't completely control my moods. Case in point what happened after Lee and I broke up.

2011 was honestly the best year of my life up until now. When Lee and I met over the SHIMMER weekend of September 2010, there was instant attraction. After he kissed me, however, I went outside to my car and cried. I was still wearing Andrew's half of the necklace - I'd never taken it off except for showers since receiving it in Jan 2008. I felt guilty for kissing a guy I barely knew, and ashamed - that wasn't me, I didn't go around kissing guys in bars. Despite how liberal I had become in a lot of areas, I still felt the shame and discomfort when it came to physical/sexual matters that the five years at Highview had installed in me.

I thought, "What would Andrew say? How could I do something like this? I don't kiss guys in bars, what kind of woman does Lee think I am?" and so on and so forth. I couldn't face him or anyone else. I wound up back in 39TEN and hid in the restroom until closing time. I had to calm myself, I almost took the car and went back to the hotel I was so freaked out. My reaction has almost always been to run away from difficult situations. But once we got back to the hotel, I went to my room to change shoes and I thought about it. I realised I'd been punishing myself for two years. My regrets about how I had treated Andrew and not getting to say goodbye had torn me up - but that Drew himself had forgiven me a long time ago. I knew he would want me to be happy. So..Carpe Diem.

As a result, 2011 was the best year of my life to date. I grew as a person with Lee's help and encouragement, and I embraced the sexual side of my personality that I had long hidden. For the first time I felt like a whole woman. He encouraged my blossoming and we both reaped the benefits. I was alive. That isn't to say that we didn't have our down moments, mostly due to my fear - I had to fully trust him, not only with myself but also that he wouldn't cheat on me, and eventually I did. I told him everything about myself - my fears, hopes, dreams, fantasies - everything. And he trusted me in return. I experienced more in 2011 that I had in the past 28 years of life.

He dealt so well with my moods, he was compassionate and understanding and patient. I didn't make it easy for him, but with his willingness to be so patient and accepting of my boundaries (I made it clear from the start that sex before marriage was off the table - to my pleasure and surprise, he accepted that and never broached the subject except when I brought it up), I began to think that maybe Lee was the one. I'd never thought about kids, but I started to think that maybe having a family wasn't out of the question. I had hope.

I didn't realise he was having a hard time with our distance and with problems of his own until after the SHIMMER trip in October 2011. We had a talk and I told him that I would give him all the time he needed - that I would let him make the decision. I was capable of waiting until the circumstances were right and one of us could make a permanent move. He had to decide for himself if he could. It wasn't until February of this year that he decided it would be best to break things off.

To say I was devastated is to put it mildly. I had started to spiral during the intervening months between Oct and Feb, going from hope to despair and back again, and then at the end of January my mom went into the hospital. She'd contracted pneumonia and had gotten so bad her kidneys had shut down. Her body had started to shut down. If dad hadn't taken her to the hospital, she would have died in the next day or two. It felt like too much, like life was crumbling around me.

I wanted to die. I spent weekends in bed, only getting up to go to work and half assing it there, getting up multiple times to go into the bathroom to cry. I watched my mom try to recover and suffer fall after fall again and again. I have been taking care of her more and more each year since 2006 when she had a lot of health problems. She falls a lot, cries often, and for a few years now I've had to put her medicine in a weekly box and keep up with her medication list. My sister has her own life out with her son and boyfriend and hardly has the time to come over, let alone help out. It's all on me and dad.

At one point I looked at the kitchen knives and thought about how easy it would be to get into the bathtub with warm water and slit my wrists. Just fall asleep and fade away. Two things kept me from killing myself - the support of my friends and my mom; and fear. I was simply too scared to die. But I was in pain and I lashed out - I wrote in my written journal and lashed out on Twitter and Facebook. I didn't realise how much I was hurting Lee, and how out of control I looked, until Rhia finally told me about a week or two before the latest SHIMMER trip, March 17th. The depression had consumed me - depression is anger turned inwards, and I was turning my anger outwards. I didn't care how I looked - I just knew I had to get my anger and sadness out.

And shame. It took a year to grow completely comfortable, physically, with him. To get rid of the shame I felt regarding sexual matters. But in the aftermath of our breakup, I would lie in bed at night and the memories of our times would come roaring back. I was disgusted with myself - I felt dirty and ashamed that I had gone so far with him. I felt cheap. I struggled with these thoughts and they were part of why I wanted to kill myself. I felt like damaged goods. It was only through talking to friends like Amber and Emily that I realised I had nothing to be ashamed about. I am a sexual person. Lee helped me realise this. That one boundary was never crossed, I can take pride in the fact I never crossed it, and grateful to Lee that he never pushed the issue. But it was something I also vented about publicly, which I should not have done.

Again, it took someone who cared about me to get me to see what I was doing. After Rhia's note, I looked at what I had written and I felt ashamed of how I had reacted. Which made me go deeper into the hole I was in. Again I thought about suicide, but again the fear was too much. Then, mom went into the hospital - for the second time, she'd been prevented from dying. This time it was me who saved her life. The idea that if I had gone to work and not called 911, I would have come home to find her dead still haunts me. The past four months have been so chaotic and horrible. The only bright spot was SHIMMER - it was a healing experience, being with friends who love and care about me. Growing closer to Amber in particular has been a real blessing. She and Eric helped me through the darker times when I wanted to kill myself.

I am not trying to excuse what I did, however. I could have vented my anger and sadness privately, and I did do so to many friends who listened. I could have simply logged off Twitter and Facebook - the fact that I did not, and as a consequence hurt Lee when he was already down, is a source of shame and regret. I have apologised but have no way of knowing if he's read my messages or not. I have no way of knowing if we will ever talk again - and that hurts. He wasn't just my lover or my boyfriend, he was also my best friend. His absence hurts, but I acknowledge that I am to blame completely for my actions in the aftermath. Depression may have driven me, but I could have made better choices. I don't ever want to use my mental illness as an excuse or a crutch. It's...honestly, it's confusing. Because sometimes, people with mental illness honestly can't control their emotions. But can we control our actions if emotion is driving us? I don't know. All I know is that I have more regrets added to the ones I already have. I hope one day he will forgive me. I remain ashamed of myself for behaving the way I did and lashing out. All I can do is take from this the lessons I have learned and try to make better choices in the future.

Mom left the hospital and is now more alert than she has been in the past two years. It turns out that the medication she has to take due to her chronic pain left her groggy and unable to think straight. While in the hospital, they put her on a routine that spaced out her medicines and lowered her pain medicine dosage. However, due to a lack of oxygen from both times (she had aspiration pneumonia, which you get when you inhale some of your food, which she had done when she was groggy at night), she lost brain cells. Her short term memory has been really affected and we have no way of knowing if her brain will recover or not. As a consequence, her and I made up a daily medicine chart, noting what times to take what medicines. I monitor her pain medicine daily as well as the new medicine she takes for her anxiety. I call in her prescriptions and take note of what she needs. I also now keep her checkbook up to date, and do her bills. All of them. Her and dad are going to put me on their bank account so I can sign the checks. She makes dozens of notes on paper, and also on a recorder for me each day when I get home from work. It's not uncommon to have 10-20 messages waiting for me. Most of them is her repeating herself - she is afraid she will forget something important. Her, dad and myself have had to have a lot of patience with her and she cries frequently she gets so frustrated. It's added a lot of stress to our lives, and sometimes I get depressed thinking of what all she is going through.

I still live with a lot of regrets: about Nannie, about Andrew, about Lee, about other friends I've treated badly in the past. Before Leslie moved to Japan, I wrote him a letter apologizing and he forgave me. Also, someone else that I treated poorly, Melanie, reached out to me to my surprise early this past year. Given how badly I had done her, it was a shock to hear from her. My irrational anger faded away and I no longer feel angry, instead I feel shame for what I've done to her as she did nothing to me. After receiving that email I feel that at least we are on civil terms. Those are two bridges rebuilt (at least one partially), and that means the world to me. But I still hold onto regrets and with death, there is no way to make those right. I have to live with that.

All of this leads up to where I am today. I'm still on the Zoloft, but despite being on medication, I still am prone to bouts of depression and mood swings. This past week, Monday I felt terrific. Tuesday I was on a downswing. Mental illness is a constant battle, a struggle, that I live with each day. Sometimes, I can feel extremely good and all it takes is one sentence or one action (unintentional or not) to make me plunge downwards. I've had well meaning people tell me to think positive and choose to be happy. And on good days, I can believe that and practice it. But on bad days, I look at these people like they have two heads. People with mental illness can never fully control it. Never. We can only try to manage it and we lose that battle on some days.

And some of us, like Larry Sweeney, simply can't fight the battle anymore. Could someone have saved him? Possibly - no one is beyond help. But no one should be condemned for giving up either. Some folks think that those who kill themselves are weak and deserve to be scorned (I never heard this about Sweeney fortunately), but I disagree. Sometimes it's too hard to keep fighting. And sometimes, mental health resources aren't available, depending on where you live. Insurance in this country has a virtual stranglehold on how much service hospitals can provide. It's a no-win situation. I've seen it, since I currently work as a receptionist at a hospital that provides in and out patient services for people who have substance abuse as well as mental illness problems. Patients get kicked out when insurance stops paying. It's truly fucked up.

"She's crazy." "He's lost his mind." "She's gone psycho!" Then there's the stigma still attached to mental illness. I'm guilty of using phrases akin to what I just listed, but there's also people who throw these at people who have an illness. Maybe they are trying to deliberately hurt others, maybe it isn't deliberate. I've been called crazy before.

I am not crazy. I have an illness. Like millions of others in the world. It is not something I chose to be born with and I shouldn't have to be ashamed of it. No one should. No one should have to suffer in silence.

Larry Sweeney would have been 31 years old this past February. Instead, friends and family and fans are mourning his loss today. He may be gone, but don't let his passing be in vain. If you know someone who you suspect is suffering from any type of mental illness, don't wait. Go to them. Most often, all we need is someone to listen to us. To try and understand how we are feeling. If you can, call a mental health organization and get some guidance on how to help them.

The National Suicide Prevention Hotline in the US is 800-273-8255.

Or try www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org.

Thresholds is an organization that helped Sweeney when he was in Chicago. They do wonderful work and are a non-profit group that can always use donations. Make a donation in Larry's name. http://www.thresholds.org/explore-thresholds

There is hope and help for people who live daily with mental illness. Don't let them suffer in silence. Reach out before it is too late. I'm grateful to God for my family and friends who have and continue to help and understand what I am going through. Chances are, someone you know is suffering in silence. Help them. Please.

*This post was edited on 9/10/12. I would also highly encourage everyone to read Rhi's blog posted here for World Suicide Prevention Day: http://bubblesrhi.tumblr.com/post/31264173650/swinging-between-the-lines  It takes a lot of courage to be as open as she has. Rhi is a lovely, compassionate, caring woman and it's been my honor to get to know her as a friend. The last line is powerful: "Don’t be afraid to ask someone if they are okay, it could just save their life." Amen.