Como encontrei o equilbrio depois de um diagnstico psiquitrico.
Translator: Theresa Ranft
Reviewer: David DeRuwe
I’ve been feeling
a little nostalgic lately.
These past few days, I’ve been reminiscing
about my time as an intern,
how different the pace was then.
I remember I would arrive at the office,
press the button on the computer,
and it would take a while to turn on.
And I still had to connect
to the internet.
I worked in the communications department
and dealt with large image files,
and every time I had to save an image,
I’d get up and get a cup of coffee
or chat to people,
because it took so long.
Then, suddenly, everything changed.
The world became fast-paced,
uncertain, complex, and ambiguous.
The demands increased,
and with them, the need
to do things faster and faster.
And I tried to keep up with the pace.
The only thing I didn’t expect
was I would be forced to take a pause,
against my will.
I was in a rising career abroad
when I was caught off-guard
by an unexpected psychiatric diagnosis.
In March of 2005,
I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder
with psychotic features.
At first, the situation didn’t look good;
the outlook even less.
I even had a doctor
who said that I should retire
and go on disability.
Imagine this: I was in my early 30s
with so much life ahead of me
when my life came to a sudden halt.
In the case of bipolar disorder,
I have two distinctive behavior states:
one is depression,
and the other is euphoria,
which was previously called mania.
The euphoric phase was an energy
unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
I remember going to the office
and working late into the night,
only to come home and continue working
as if it were the most
normal thing in the world.
That was until my boss
said to me, “Dyene, slow down,
the other departments
can’t keep up with your demands.”
Then I started to get worse,
and I couldn’t see things properly.
It was like I had stuck my face
out the window of a fast-moving car,
and I couldn’t distinguish
the objects properly.
I once looked at the fridge
and saw moving shapes and colors.
I still occasionally look at the fridge
to make sure it’s still in its place.
At times, it affected my hearing too.
I’d hear things
that no one else could hear,
like a basketball
bouncing incessantly next to me.
My biggest fear at that time
was that I would gradually go crazy,
until I was no longer myself at all.
And after all this euphoric energy,
I would fall into
an overwhelming depression.
That phase was very difficult.
I felt like an invalid.
I would cry all day
for no apparent reason.
I remember once we threw
a birthday party for my husband,
and I couldn’t get out of bed.
I remember that I prayed,
begged, and bargained,
but my body wouldn’t respond.
That was very strange
because I have always been
an extremely sociable person,
and acting that way was very unlike me.
At times like this, I’d feel really guilty
for not being able to do things so easily.
And along with the guilt,
there was shame, sadness,
and tremendous agony.
And that agony continued to escalate
until I wanted to sleep
and never wake up again.
I even started planning
my “disappearance” -
if you know what I mean.
When I told this to my therapist,
she said, “Dyene, this is very dangerous.
You’re having suicidal thoughts.”
And that word I know well
because my grandmother
committed suicide at the age of 56.
She had also suffered
from bipolar disorder.
So my therapist suggested
that I go to a psychiatric hospital.
The term “psychiatric hospital”
is enough to scare anyone.
But what scares me the most
is the stigma, the prejudice,
because that’s what prevents people
from seeking appropriate treatment.
I went to the hospital
where I had people
assessing me 24 hours a day:
professionals, competent doctors.
This really helped my recovery.
When I left the hospital,
I think what helped me the most
was being able to count on the support
and unconditional love of my family.
I remember once, at the hospital,
I told my husband,
“Darling, if you want
to divorce me, I’ll understand.
I have nothing to offer you right now.”
And he said to me, “You’re crazy
if you think I’ll divorce you!”
To which I replied,
“Well, the fact that I’m crazy
has been proven -
we’re in a psychiatric hospital!”
And as time passed,
my desire to improve continued,
and I started to visualize my recovery,
which was nothing more
than an optimistic view
of who I wanted to be.
I imagined myself studying, working,
doing the things I’ve always enjoyed.
And I remember it was January of 2007
that I decided to make
a New Year’s resolution.
I wrote down on paper that I would make
the impossible possible -
I would commit myself
to overcoming this disorder.
At that time, I had started reading
all of the books on bipolar disorder.
I read all the biographies.
And what I learned during that time
is that the pauses aren’t permanent.
In fact, pauses are
an excellent opportunity
to discover a reservoir of potential
that we don’t even know we have.
And in some ways,
I think we’re all experiencing
an imposed pause because of COVID-19.
It’s a very painful time.
But I think if we pay attention,
we’ll be able to draw
very rich lessons from it
in this very difficult moment.
Deep down, everything
starts from within us.
It’s not external factors
that generate stress
but how we deal
with these external factors.
I pay a lot of attention to my stress
because it can be a trigger
for my bipolar symptoms.
And depression and bipolar disorder
are very serious illnesses.
According to WHO,
depression is the biggest cause
of disability in the world,
and Oxford researchers have found
that life expectancy
is 9 to 20 years shorter
for those with bipolar disorder.
And I always ask myself,
“How I can stay out of those statistics?”
The first thing is knowing
that I’m not cured but stabilized.
This makes adherence
to my treatment even greater.
And I also think it has a lot to do
with personal responsibility,
which is my own commitment
to my mental health
in adopting long-term healthy habits.
It may seem strange for someone
who has a mental disorder
to come here and talk to you
about balance and healthy living,
but it makes all the sense in the world.
Maintaining my mental health
is not an option for me -
it’s a matter of life and death.
If I don’t take care of myself,
my probability of committing suicide
increases exponentially.
That’s why I came here today
to share the five steps I take
to complement my treatment.
I’ll give you an example.
Remember I said that when I was euphoric
my thoughts were extremely fast?
This happened a lot.
I think that our habit
of staying constantly busy
is an addictive adrenaline rush.
Then, at the end of the day,
we think to ourselves,
“Wow, I’ve worked so hard,
but I feel like
I’ve accomplished nothing.”
Stanford researchers
found that, when we multitask,
our efficiency and productivity drop.
Our brain is a lot like a computer.
You know when you leave
all the tabs open on a computer?
Our brains are the same.
And deep down, our conscious attention
is one of the most
precious resources we have.
Back in 2007,
when I promised myself
I would take care of my mental health,
the first thing
I looked into was meditation.
And then I tried it.
I was living in Houston then,
and I went to a Buddhist temple
to learn how to meditate.
I confess that I was a real disaster.
You know that concept
of clearing the mind,
focusing on breathing,
and not thinking about anything?
That wasn’t for me.
Then I went to the monk and said,
“Look, I understand
the importance of meditation,
but I don’t think I have
the cognitive capacity for it.”
And he said to me,
with all the tranquility
that only a monk could possess,
“Dyene, meditation
isn’t something we do -
it’s something we practice.”
And he had a point.
So I decided to practice.
To this day, I’ve noticed
that when I don’t meditate,
I don’t sleep so well,
my ability to focus
and concentrate decreases,
and my anxiety increases.
And this lack of focus
and clarity that I had
improved with meditation,
but they weren’t my only symptoms.
Another very evident symptom I had
was my need for isolation.
I think this is understandable.
People who have depression
know it’s an anguish,
a desperation to get away from others.
You don’t want anyone
to see you in that state.
So you distance yourself.
However, the more difficult our lives get,
the more we need each other.
I once heard that monsters
exist in the dark,
but when you turn on the light,
you can see they don’t exist.
Sometimes you don’t have the will
to get up and turn on the switch.
And that’s when you need a helping hand.
When I decided I was going to get better,
I started investing in my relationships -
that was my second step.
So I set up a group of family and friends
and even attended several support groups,
which was very important for me.
And today I see that isolation reigns.
We have so much technology
to bring us together,
but it’s increasingly difficult for us
to form genuine, lasting relationships.
And perhaps it’s even more difficult
for us to coexist with people
who think differently from us.
And what we should strive to do
is build more and more inclusive,
diverse relationships
because the more inclusive
and diverse we are,
the greater the possibility
for us to find solutions
to the most complex problems
that humanity offers.
It’ll be collaboration
mediated by technology
that will allow us to reach
the highest innovation rates.
And this technology
comes with some challenges -
for me at least.
One of them is digital overload,
which is understandable considering
we’re in front of screens all day -
computer screens,
televisions, and cell phones.
University of Chicago intellectuals
have even said
that social media is more addictive
than alcohol and cigarettes.
So to help me balance out
this digital overload,
I prioritized sleep in my life.
If when I was depressed
I’d sleep 18 hours a day.
and when I was euphoric
I wouldn’t sleep at all -
today, I know that
seven to eight hours is my ideal.
Restorative sleep enhances
our ability to learn and memorize
and also decreases the risks
of developing some types of cancer,
diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases.
I remember when I was younger,
I used to think it was great
to pull all-nighters working.
Today, I know how harmful
this was to my health.
Improving my sleeping habits
was the third thing I did
to improve my mental health.
The fourth was exercise.
I always used lack of time as an excuse,
until a friend of mine said,
“Dyene, a day has 1440 minutes.
If you can’t find 30 to exercise,
then you’re doing something wrong.”
And he was right.
So I started to see exercise
as a medical prescription,
as something that would help me
fight my comorbidities.
And when I started
to see exercise that way,
it became much easier to overcome
procrastination and get off the couch.
I think procrastination is something
we’re all somewhat familiar with.
Sometimes it’s so difficult
to get our dreams off the ground
because we’re so afraid
of making mistakes.
I once heard
that somewhere in the world
there’s the Museum of Procrastination.
There, you can find that incredible book
that was never written,
that brilliant canvas
that was never painted,
and that brilliant innovation
that was never patented.
We have to remember something:
life is very different from school.
At school, first we have the lesson -
first we have the lesson
and then we have the test.
In life, first we have the test,
and then we have the lesson.
And to counteract this procrastination
imposed by my illness,
I needed a lot of discipline
to do the four steps
I told you about today:
improve my sleep, exercise, meditate,
and seek healthy relationships.
And it was with this discipline
that I kept moving forward.
I had to pause; I even took a step back.
But I continued.
Today, I can say that bipolar disorder
has transformed me.
I don’t complain about my job
because I know what it’s like
to be incapacitated.
I know that unforeseen events
happen to anyone
and that the sense
of control I thought I had
was a mere illusion.
I also recognize the privileges I had -
one of which was access
to quality healthcare.
And my most sincere wish
is that everyone who suffers
from a mental disorder
can have accessibility
to the same opportunities I had.
Today, I do what I like doing.
I’m a marketing global director
at an intelligence
and information company,
and I’ve told my story through a book
called “Vencendo a Mente.”
I deliberately used a gerund in the title,
“Conquering the Mind” in English,
because the work never ends.
Telling my story so openly
was a real challenge.
I was very afraid of being ridiculed,
stigmatized, or even excluded.
But that didn’t happen.
I was treated with
a great deal of kindness.
When the time came for the book release,
I had to tell my boss,
and I thought I was going to get fired,
or that my career
would end at that moment.
And he surprised me when he said,
“Dyene, courage, authenticity,
and vulnerability
are characteristics of true leaders.”
Hearing that was very important
for me to move forward.
For a while, I had considered
publishing the book anonymously,
but then I would miss
an excellent opportunity
to show people that it’s possible
to live with a mental disorder,
to live a full life,
and also to reinforce the importance
of the treatment that makes this possible.
In the end, it was through healthy habits,
self-awareness, and discipline
that I managed to turn the tables
and resume my momentum -
not forgetting the importance of pausing,
whether it be deliberate or not.
It was through pausing
that I was able to connect
with who I really was
and tell own my story.
A wise man once said,
“Change, but start slowly
because direction
is more important than speed.”
So start where you are,
go at your own pace,
and never give up until you find
your point of equilibrium.
Thank you.
(Applause)