UC-Berkeley Students Bear With Extremes of Mental Illness
By Sarah Mourra
Daily Californian

BERKELEY, Calif.- After Desmond Moore's first manic episode, ambulance workers found him collapsed on an Oakland, Calif., street, pants unzipped, following a sleepless night in the Oakland County jail.

"Imagine you are extremely aware of everything going on around you, and you're moving really quickly," Moore says. "At the time I was wild and crazy, and out of my mind."

The day before Moore had jumped into a taxicab with no money, overcome by an impulsive need to get out of town. After being let out of jail and found on the street, Moore was taken to John George Psychiatric Hospital in Hayward, Calif.

Clinicians diagnosed Moore, a UC Berkeley sophomore at the time, with bipolar disorder, a psychiatric condition characterized by cycles of depression alternating with periods of mania.

The disorder, which often manifests between the ages of 18 and 24 years, easily disrupts the lives of students like Moore, who left school in 1996 following the incident in Oakland. Although he returned in 2000, he left again the following year after a violent confrontation with police.

University Health Services counselors have seen a sharp increase in students with bipolar disorder, says Deborah Begley, a social worker at the Tang Center. National surveys affirm this trend.

Begley attributes part of this increase to a greater awareness of bipolar disorder in the media, leading to earlier diagnoses. Bipolar students who may not have been able to attend college in the past are now entering universities with the help of medical treatment.

The reason behind the onset of the disorder among college-age students is unclear. A strong correlation exists between those with the untreated disorder and substance abuse. Professionals disagree whether drugs are the trigger or the self-medicative cure.

Forty-one percent of those with the disorder use substances when their illness is not successfully managed. Only 13 percent use them when their illness is under control, according to Ron Elson, chief psychiatrist at University Health Services.

"Drugs and alcohol can sometimes make something worse that is already there," he says. "It can destabilize people who may be OK and often push them over the edge."

Gabe Melero, a UC Berkeley senior in his seventh year, says bipolar disorder runs "up and down the family tree." Self-medication was a remedy learned from family members.

"Among the males in my family the attitude has historically been that if you're feeling bad, you can take something for it - but you don't go to a doctor for that something," Melero says. "Anglo culture would classify that as self-medication, but in my family it's called something else."

Moore, who is black, also faced cultural perceptions about the disorder following his diagnosis.

"In the black community they look at mental issues and people increased dramatically in the past few decades, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. More than 90 percent of suicide victims suffer from a serious psychiatric illness at the time of their death.

"All I would want to do was put on some Frank Sinatra, climb into my bathtub and take all my pills at once," Moore says. "You don't just want to die, you wish you were never born. You ponder that every day for months."

Melero, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder his third year, says suicide seemed like the only option during the spring of 2001. He felt the lithium he was taking to stabilize his mood was not working. So Melero took an overdose of Xanax, a central nervous system depressant used to treat anxiety and insomnia.

To Melero's surprise, he woke up the morning after taking the pills. He says he knew immediately that he needed to go home.

"Suicide comes with the pain and tunnel vision of bipolar disorder," says Jon Pennington, a UC Berkeley graduate student diagnosed with the condition. "People cannot see their way out of their own pain. Many of us have been there."

While suicidal thoughts characterize the depressive side of the disorder, the manic state is marked by hypomanic creative energy that quickly escalates into a hypermanic state of frenzied activity and paranoia.

Melero compares the intense high of the manic state to doing cocaine.

"You have a lot of energy, and you're very egotistical," he says. "Towards the end you become delusional - suddenly every security guard in every store is staring at you, suddenly people on the street are laughing at you."

In one hypomanic episode, Melero wrote an entire short story in one sitting.

"I felt like I was king of the world," he says. "But I could also feel myself losing control of everything in my life. The way I looked at (my manic state) was that famous people behave like this all the time. But at the same time I felt myself completely frazzled."

The seductiveness of these energetic states often leads people to discard their medications.

Others face difficulties just getting the right level of medication.

Misdiagnoses further complicate bipolar disorder. Physicians sometimes mistake the depressive episodes for chronic depression and prescribe antidepressants like Prozac. Without mood stabilizers like lithium or Depakote, antidepressants only aggravate the condition.

"The way things work with the assembly line HMOs is that if someone seems depressed they give out antidepressants, pat them on the butt and send them home," Pennington says. "But taking antidepressants without mood stabilizers will send them right into a manic state."

Because of the intensity of the depressive states, school can become a monumental task for students with bipolar disorder.

"I would sleep during the daytime and miss classes," Melero says. "I didn't see the day for weeks."

Beset by severe depression during his third year, Melero did not attend classes. Although he failed both semesters, he obtained a retroactive withdrawal from the university.

While Melero says most faculty members have responded to his needs, several have made things more difficult.

One semester he missed about four weeks of class because of depression. He approached a professor to explain his situation and asked about making up missed work. The professor responded with an e-mail that read, "I think it would be better that you not come back at all."

Such situations can also put students on financial aid in a bad position because falling under units means losing financial aid.

"If someone in a wheelchair said they couldn't come in for a few weeks because of meningitis nobody would kick them out," Melero says. "But being bipolar is like an invisible disability."

Still, students at UC Berkeley have a place to share these experiences. Melero, Moore and Pennington have regularly attended the Tang Center bipolar support group run by Begley and Elson. It has helped them out of the isolation they often feel and provided space to get feedback on different medications.

"There are a lot of people tripping out who don't know why," Moore says. "You convince yourself that you're just moody. People can go their whole lives without ever going to a hospital. But if left unchecked you can find yourself running down the street one day and not having any idea why."

Copyright 2003 Daily Californian