Part 2 - From Despair to Healing: Ruth’s Battle with Mental Illness and Her Path to Wellness

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Trigger warning. This episode talks about hallucinations, being taken advantage of, and helplessness.

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It also covers anxiety, depression, and paranoia. If you are feeling any of

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these, please skip this episode.

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Please know there are resources available to help. Please call 988.

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Music.

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Did anything positive come out of the hospital when you were in there?

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Actually, each time I would come out of the hospital, I thought,

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oh, this will never happen again.

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So I didn't have any safeguards up or, you know, or if I was starting to go

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through no sleep, no eating, irrational thoughts, low self-esteem, pariah.

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I didn't pay attention to it. And then it just deepened and developed into a

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major episode instead of warding it off.

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Now I'll tell you another, this whole thing culminated with this psychiatrist

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in the worst nervous breakdown I had up until that point in 1984.

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I had started a new job in an engineering outfit that designed highways.

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And I was given the task to design parking lots.

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I finally had more of work and more respected at work.

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I was there a month and a month passed and a friend of mine from another firm,

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from the other firm that was the Christmas party firm,

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she was going on this, into this seminar,

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a psychological seminar where, you know, You know, you would like have lectures

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and learn to be self-assertive and, you know, review your relationships and

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things like that. It was a seminar.

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It was almost like the Earhart Seminar Workshops of the 1970s,

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if you're familiar with that.

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Anyway, so I signed up for it, you know, and that was in October of 1984.

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It was a five-day program, Wednesday to Sunday, to the weekend,

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Sunday, before Halloween.

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I went to the workshop on Wednesday. We had to pick a buddy.

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I picked a buddy. He was a very abrasive guy.

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We had exercises that were confrontational.

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My stress factor went through the roof. I went past my limitation,

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having all my background.

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I hardly made it through the day. I took the train from the city to the suburbs

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where I was located in an apartment.

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I struggled. I didn't eat, lost sleep.

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And unfortunately, the apartment next to my apartment, they were renovating it.

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So you would hear drilling all day, which was really disturbing to me, to my ears.

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Didn't sleep the next day I went back to the workshop hardly went through it

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I was disengaged I was just not there and there going through the motions.

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Hardly ate or anything came home, didn't eat, didn't sleep I called my psychiatrist

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and I said should I return to this workshop,

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he said don't return so now it's Friday I didn't return they tried to coerce me to come back,

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The the partner, the abrasive partner, he took a train and came to my apartment.

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He was outside the door. Luckily, my door was locked and closed. He called me spoiled.

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He said, you have to come back. He tried to coerce me to go back to the workshop.

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He just kept yelling in the hallway and I didn't answer anything.

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He finally left a letter under my door and he left. I didn't read the letter.

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I was so upset. I just put it in the garbage.

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I was pacing back and forth in my apartment. No sleep. This is the third day without sleep.

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Hardly eating. My mind was racing. racing.

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Every time I would go through these episodes, my mind was right.

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I couldn't control it. That's why I couldn't sleep because my mind was racing with thoughts.

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I was guilty about my sexuality. I was, you know, berating myself for my relationships,

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berating myself for saying something wrong, which I really didn't,

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but I'd saying something wrong was going through my head.

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This went on for Saturday and Sunday.

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My parents, they were away and they came back on Sunday night.

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They gave me a call and I just didn't let on that I was going through this because

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I was afraid they would lock me up.

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I always was afraid that I was going to be locked up in an asylum forever.

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So that was going through my head. No sleep, no sleep.

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Monday, Tuesday morning, I barged into my psychiatrist's office.

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I couldn't get through to him that I wasn't feeling well. I couldn't get I couldn't

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get through to him. He didn't ask me if I was sleeping or anything.

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Instead, he said, I have other patients in crisis. Please come back to my office

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Thursday night, your appointed time.

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I couldn't get through to him that I wasn't feeling well. I was screaming,

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yet nobody could hear me.

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Tuesday night came, I had no sleep. This is the sixth night without sleep.

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And that drilling of the apartment was going on. I thought that my neighbors

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were going to come in and kill me.

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Real paranoia, out the door, paranoia.

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Wednesday came and about 11 o'clock in the evening, and this was Halloween,

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by the way, 11 o'clock in the evening, I tied my flannel bedsheets together, forming a rope.

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I posted I tied the the rope around

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the steel post of my kitchen table it formed

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a rope I took the rope I went to the window

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I went outside I took the

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screen off and went outside my window this is the third story up by the way

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I wanted to rappel down the wall because I felt I couldn't go through my front

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door because people were going to murder me so I tried to rappel down the wall

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The force of gravity was so tremendous,

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like iron chains pulling me, that I couldn't grab the rope in the position to repel down the wall.

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So in about split seconds, I planned my fall.

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I would land feet first and roll over to my side so I didn't hit my head.

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I fell. I blacked out. Didn't know what happened. I was unconscious.

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I fell 30 feet. I woke up in the emergency room of the private hospital.

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I'm still paranoid beyond belief.

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And I sat up, which is an idiot. I'm a stretcher. And then I went back down again.

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I had fractured my back and broke both my ankles.

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One month in critical care, 12 hours of operation.

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One month at Rusk Rehabilitation in New York City.

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And then five months in a wheelchair. Now, in January of 1985,

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okay, I had abandoned that psychiatry and I found a high-risk psychiatrist.

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And my life at that point started to take a turn for the better.

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This psychiatrist, he was a Quaker. He was a veteran of World War II,

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very seasoned, had four children, and great common sense doctor.

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He would listen to me, take notes. He included my parents in a therapy every

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month, included my brother when my brother was in from the army, included my brother.

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He had essays on how to get good sleep and defeat insomnia.

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Essays on how to eat healthy. Essays on how to invest your money beautifully.

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How to establish healthy relationships. And so on. I don't remember all of them,

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but he had all these essay sheets.

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He would offer them. We would talk about them.

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He offered his common sense. He said, limit your stimulus.

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No living on the third story.

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I traveled to Europe, no traveling. I had other experiences,

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no traveling to Europe alone.

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Limit your friendships, not have 30 different friends.

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Limit it and just take it a day at a time.

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Don't look 30 years ahead, which I often would do, which also spurred on my breakdowns.

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I would look 30 years ahead and think I'm abandoned and left to an apocalyptic world.

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World that's why I couldn't go that's another reason I couldn't fall asleep

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during these episodes is because I thought I would wake up and wake up to a

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world that was abandoned.

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Like a wilderness and I was abandoned and

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all alone so that's another reason that

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kept me from sleeping with my racing mind anyway so

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my life took a turn my breakdowns would happen

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every let's say four months or every three

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to four years with him and

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we would talk about dreams we would interpret my dreams I was able to share

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with him more confidence more confidential things in my life we went back and

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studied my earlier years and he just instilled a lot of common sense And you

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have to know your limitations.

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We all have them, you know.

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And then when a breakdown would be coming, after about a couple of them,

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I had four of them over the period of nine years.

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In 1999, okay, I was given the right medication finally, an antipsychotic medication,

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which was very effective.

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A couple of years later, the right dosage was established. It took many years to find this.

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And with that, I was able to realize when an event, when an episode was coming

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on, and I would take more medicine.

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I would talk. I talked to my father. I would talk to the therapist.

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I would talk and get my paranoia out and things like that and just reason it out.

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And eventually, since 2010, I've been break free.

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And that was how many years later? 20 years later, right? 1977 to 2010.

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Holy shit.

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Yep. And anyway, so guess what? In 1980, three years, two years after with this,

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I'm going to call him George, the great doctor, I found my husband.

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We got married, had two children, and my children grew up, you know,

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knowing that I had this situation because they had lived through a breakdown with me.

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So they were very understanding, you know, and they accepted it and it wasn't

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a problem because it only lasted for a duration of three weeks.

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And then I would go back to a regular schedule.

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And then, okay, in 1988, 1988, George said, why don't you take up painting?

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So in 1988, I left the construction architecture world.

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And in 1988, I turned to painting.

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I painted these beautiful paintings, surreal narratives, storytelling.

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I was influenced by Rembrandt.

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And because of my By half discipline in architecture, I could develop a full

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discipline in my paintings.

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They're detailed, they're figurative with animals, situations,

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very detailed, very difficult paintings, very difficult to orchestrate.

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But I did it with that discipline and I built on it and built on it.

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And I was able to develop a discipline that I lacked in the architecture field.

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And I was able to channel my imagination because I have a real active imagination, as you can see.

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I focused it on the paintings. And then in 1995, I began writing poems to each painting.

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So each painting has a poem to bring you further into the story and narrative

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and poetry of the paintings.

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And then in 2010, I started writing my memoir.

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And I started writing that. So the poetry developed into writing a memoir.

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And it took me a while to write that memoir. But it's called Journey of the

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Self, Memoir of an Artist, which depicts the years 1977 to 1987, 10 years of my life.

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And the message in that book and the message here is never give up.

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Things may look so bleak but

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a month later you might you might have a different scenario in your life which

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happened to me never give up so insane i'm so happy that you finally were able

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to find that one doctor that was able to help you because you know when you're in therapy.

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It's hard to find that right fit i know like for me i went through three different

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therapists before I actually found that therapist that worked for me.

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But, you know, you have to be tenacious about it and self-advocate.

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And it just sounds, and part of it is like the medical field did not do you any services.

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No, and you know, I didn't know, back then I didn't know enough.

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Instead of waiting seven years with the wrong psychiatrist, after the first,

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I don't know, half a year, if it wasn't effective, I didn't know enough to go

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and find another therapist, you know, research and find another therapist that would connect.

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But it was so early on in this whole experience, the whole experience of therapy

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in society, you know, and also, and it took me a long time to find the medication.

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But today, it's different.

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If you're on a medication and it's not working after three or four months,

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try another medication.

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There's so many out there. But then at that time, there wasn't that many.

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I had no choice but to take what was given to me because there was hardly any choice of medication.

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And the therapy back then, you know, wasn't as exercised as it is today.

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And today you have so many different therapies. You've got behavioral therapy,

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cognitive therapy, and all kinds of therapies, you know, that you can experiment

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with to see what works with you and what therapist works with you.

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And that's my advice to anybody going through it don't wait a year even a year

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with the wrong therapist or psychologist go and look and the medicine don't

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wait if it doesn't work in 3 or 4 months don't wait change it you know.

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And you're able to do that today. But back then, it was kind of hard to do that.

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Yeah. Yeah. I mean, wow. This has been an amazing episode for me.

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I mean, I can't even imagine what that was like for you.

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I love how you are able to kind of look back on it and not necessarily appreciate

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it for what it was, but giving yourself grace, right? No one knew what was happening, really.

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No. And unfortunately, the boyfriend, Morty, he didn't accept it.

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He treated me like a second class citizen.

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And that was horrible. That just compounded everything.

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You know what? Screw Morty. Screw Dennis. Screw Dennis. I don't like that.

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No, they were not good. They were... No. No, they did a lot of damage.

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The bad doctor. or a lot of

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time yeah but you are strong

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and you're here and the message you're delivering to to myself and our listeners

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included is to not give up yeah don't give up and you know what I was in that

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after that 12 hours of surgery I was in the critical ward with casts up to my

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hips and a cast around my torso.

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And I was in the bed for two weeks like that until they cut the cast in half up to my knees.

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So you can imagine, my mind was still racing and I was still paranoid in that situation.

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But you know what? I was there. And then in 1987, my life took a real about base.

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I was able to achieve some sort of normalcy in my life.

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So somebody might give up being in that bed with the cat up to their neck i didn't give up,

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no because you had that glimmer right there was

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that little glimmer in the back of your mind of it it could get better right

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and i think that's an important message is that it can get better but you know

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what you have to be a little tenacious about it too absolutely you can't give

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up you can't give up and you can't wait for somebody else to make that decision for you,

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you have to make that decision for yourself and i i'm just i'm so proud of you for finding that.

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That will and finding those answers.

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Your story is like so inspiring to me because I can see how your story can help

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maybe somebody else that's kind of going through the same thing.

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But, you know, you're right about therapy.

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You know, I'm in my early 60s. And as I was growing up, you know,

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we were told, you know, let's not talk about our mental health.

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We're going to shove that down as as far as we can go and, you know, kind of just move on.

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But I'm so thankful for organizations and the medical society and the therapists

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out there that are really pushing for mental health because it is so important

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that we focus on it and get those emotions out because putting that shit in is just not healthy.

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Yeah. These types of conversations take that shame away from it.

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Right. Right. We should be able to be open and honest and speak our truth and

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not feel ashamed. and I just hope that continues to grow with all these conversations.

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So this is- This is great. This is great what you're doing.

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You're promoting talking about it.

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Yes, absolutely. I mean, I'm hooked now.

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I don't even, I didn't know what to expect coming into the conversation and

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now I'm just like, wow, you have inspired me. You're very inspiring.

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So thank you so much, Ruth.

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Thank you for having me and thank you, really. I

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think that we can get the message out people who are

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you know suffering and you know the other thing is they feel alone that's

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another thing you feel alone and you feel like you're the only

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one going through that which is also compounding yep

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i love self-esteem you feel alone you feel like everybody

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else is like growing in their life and they're leaving you behind you know succeeding

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so did you ever feel because being an extrovert like like yourself did you ever

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portray yourself as being like all well well and good on the outside,

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but on the inside, you were like.

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You just wanted to get the shit out of yourself every single day.

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It wasn't every day. It wasn't every day that I beat myself up.

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It was the times where I was going through an episode.

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Ripples, I had ripples in episodes where I would like really be very critical

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of myself and very harsh conscience.

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Always worried that I was saying the wrong thing. They could see through me,

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that kind of thing. I would turn on myself on my episodes.

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Whereas in between the episodes, I would be fine. I wouldn't berate myself.

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I would fall into the pattern of being too personal.

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And then it would develop, you know, something would kick it off and then develop

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this self-taught, this self-incriminating, you know, dialogue with myself.

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But not all the time. It wasn't all the time.

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That was part of my ailment. I thought I was so fine in between episodes that

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I didn't prepare myself for the next episode.

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So what do you do these days for self-love and self-care?

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Well, I'm writing. You know, I'm writing a fiction book. I make sure I get my

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sleep. I take my medication.

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I talk a lot. I have a good friend, a close friend that I talk with all the time.

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You know, I go out and have coffee. The little things I really appreciate, you know?

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Believe me, I completely agree with that. I mean, I'm looking forward to having

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coffee today and a little cookie. Oh, I love that.

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That's what I, you know, I've slowed down. I'm in my late 60s.

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Unfortunately, I have arthritis in my hands. So I'm kind of going for therapy

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with that so I can get back to painting. I haven't been able to paint.

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And my writing is kind of limited right now because of this arthritis that I have in my hands.

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But I've been taking care of that, going to physical therapy.

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And I do have some handicaps back from my injury, falling 30 feet.

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I wear a brace on my leg right now, so I'm taking care of that.

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You know, I'm just taking it easy, you know, and, you know, doing that.

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Yeah, we were laughing the other day, just like all the crap we did as kids, right?

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Ah. Once you turn 60, I'm telling you, it is from the time from you're 59 one

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second and the next second you're 60.

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And everything hurts. And it was like I snapped my fingers and everything that

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didn't hurt like it when I was 59 automatically started hurting at 60.

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I think it's mental, but but I'm so, so happy for you.

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And now can everybody can they find your book on Amazon?

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Yeah, they can find it on Amazon. I have a website.

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OK, it's RuthKonjorski.com. perfect

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I'll make sure to have that information in our

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show notes and I I'm so

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thankful for you sharing your journey Ruth you are you are so tenacious yeah

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absolutely I appreciate it very tenacious I you know I want to share that book

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with people because I think it will I think it will help you know also by saying

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if she can go through all that I can certainly go go through what I'm going through,

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you know, you know, I agree.

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Thank you again, Ruth. I appreciate it.

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I am going to get the book for sure. I am too.

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Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you, Ruth. Thank you.

00:23:25
Bye all. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I'm G-Rex.

00:23:29
And I'm Dirty Skittles. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review this podcast.

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Music.