Inspirational Speech No. 543:

I've never been to Malta before. I've traveled widely in Europe and Central America, but this is my first time on this beautiful island. When I was leaving my father said, "Well, it was good enough for Churchill and Stalin and Roosevelt, so it's got to be a great place for a conference." I said, "Dad, that was Yalta." The reason I'm in Malta now is, of course, because Astra Zeneca invited me to speak. But the reason I was able to say yes to that invitation is because of Seroquel.

I'm not vain enough to believe you haven't heard patient testimonials before. And perhaps what's important about my story is that it's not unique--that what happened to me can and does happen to other people all the time.

I had a happy childhood. My parents loved me and doted on me. I lived in an exciting city in a tight-knit community with friends on every corner. We lived near a large city park with a fountain that children and dogs played in in the summer, and that iced over into a cool, beautiful blue in the winter. I enjoyed my schoolwork and as I got older I began to sing in the choir and act in school plays. I applied to university and was accepted to my first choice. It was an unremarkable life, but lovely in its way.

Then, when I was 18, I was raped. The circumstances are unimportant, but what I've been told by doctors is that the trauma of being raped triggered an illness that lay dormant in my genetic code. My mother had bipolar disorder--also called manic depression in English--but I had not inherited it. Or so we thought. But it was simply hiding, and after the rape, it surged into being. Though I struggled through college--grappling with hallucinations and depression--by the time I was 22 I was no longer able to live normally and I had to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital. The next few years were horrible: an endless, nightmarish litany of new drugs, new side effects, new hospitals, new doctors. I tried to kill myself many times and, worst of all, by the time I was 24 the psychosis had gotten out of control.

Most people haven't experienced psychosis, so I'd like to describe it briefly. Psychosis is very noisy. Like when you vacuum the floor or wash the dishes--it's that kind of surging noise that won't go away. You hear people speaking to you, but they're all talking at different speeds, and you know, even through all this, that they're not really there. Your senses are heightened. So something you'd normally hear as background noise--maybe someone sweeping the street outside your window--becomes painfully loud. Your thoughts won't stop jumping. They feel like they ricochet off the inside of your skull. After a while it becomes so tormenting, you detach from reality.

During my fight against psychosis, I was given shock treatments or electroconvulsive treatments. I lost a good deal of memory because of those treatments and have cognitive problems I still struggle with today. But that's how desperate I was. And they didn't work.

Because my diagnosis is bipolar disorder, I was given Lithium, then Depakote, then Prozac, then Zoloft--the list is longer than you can imagine. Finally, in a hospital, a doctor finally gave me an antipsychotic for the first time. It was Thorazine and, for the first time in many years, things were quiet. I didn't know what they gave me, but I knew I wanted more.

Of course, these days, you can't stay on Thorazine or you're liable to end up with tardive dyskenisia, and no one wants that. So I tried Zyprexa. And it worked, which convinced the doctors and I that antipsychotics would be the answer for me. But I gained 30 pounds and was so depressed, I refused to go with my mother to buy a wedding dress. She picked one out without me, and I felt ugly and ashamed. Next I tried Risperdal, which also controlled my symptoms. But this time I got pregnant. My breasts hurt, my body felt heavy--all the signs were there. My psychiatrist told me to consider an abortion because I wasn't able to have a child given my illness. When I went to my gynecologist to discuss it, she told me I wasn't pregnant after all. The Risperdal had simply raised my prolactin levels so high, it gave me a false pregnancy.

Because all the antipsychotics had failed in one way or another, I was back in the hospital in 1997 because I'd tried to kill myself again. Now I had to take money from the government because I could no longer work. I had become a burden to society. Then, in 1998, my doctor told me about a new drug he thought was worth a shot. I was skeptical--wouldn't it just be the same old problems? But I decided to try it anyway because even when you have no reason to hope any more, you can't help it--you hope.

The day I tried Seroquel was the day my life changed forever. All those voices were quiet, the noises, the chaos, was hushed. I felt peaceful, and was able to think clearly. Though I worried for weeks about weight gain, I never gained a pound. In fact, I lost weight because I was off all the other drugs that had caused the gain. I didn't have any bloating or dry mouth. I simply had, well, peace. It was finally, after all these years, a drug I could not only live with but thrive on.

Gradually, my life began to improve. I took a part-time job that turned into a full-time job. I became self-sufficient. I moved into an apartment of my own and stopped relying on my parents to care for me. In short, I began to live the life I deserved and fought for.

I know I've taken far longer than I was supposed to, but I think it's important for you to know how important what you're doing really is. This drug saved my life in every way possible, which is why I started by saying it's what enabled me to be here with you today. I'm very grateful to you all for your committment to helping people live full lives, especially those of us with bipolar disorder. Thank you.