By Brian Boyce
TERRE HAUTE — On the upside, bipolar disorder does generate a considerable amount of energy.
And it’s with an upbeat, raging sense of humor and brutal honesty that one of Terre Haute’s newest authors, Heather Brown, recounts her own struggles with the mental illness also known as manic depression.
Sitting inside the Vigo County Public Library on Saturday morning, Brown hosted one of that day’s two book-signings for “Big Crowd at the Crazy House,” an autobiographical account of her 1997 diagnosis, the struggles leading up to it and those that would follow.
“I started the book 12 years ago,” she said at her table full of books and jeweled page markers, recalling one of her trips into residential treatment. The story of those 12 years and the poetry written therein fills the pages.
Bipolar disorder, she explains early in the book, is a medical condition which causes uncontrollable mood swings, or episodes. On the manic side, individuals experience extreme elation, excessive motor activity and flights of ideas. But on the depressive side, the fall is just as severe, delving into unresponsiveness, inactivity and even suicidal tendencies.
About 5.7 million Americans suffer from the disorder, she said, noting that about 32,000 suicides are attributed to it annually. Brown herself attempted suicide twice since her diagnosis, incidents she describes in the book.
But from the outside, it seems a long stretch for the North Central High School alumnus who would graduate from Indiana State University in May 1996 with a bachelor’s degree in printing management. Brown competed as a bodybuilder, worked as a fitness trainer and model, and branched into multiple business endeavors within the health and fitness industry.
But the ups and downs were extreme, and after the surge of that first year out of school, on Aug. 16, 1997, she was taken in-residence first at Charter Hospital and next at St. Francis Hospital of Indianapolis.
She writes of that initial admission: “The day I lost my mind my mother and sister led me into the insane asylum while I shouted, ‘Show me the money,’ and clapped my hands. I don’t remember it, but that is what they told me … I would become one of the millions that are labeled: Insane, crazy, nuts, psycho; I was bipolar, otherwise known as manic depressive. That’s a hard label to shake. It’s hard to sugar coat the fact that you have been diagnosed insane.”
The years which ensued ebbed and flowed as the fitness model battled 90-pound weight gains caused by her medication, competed in bodybuilding contests, bounced from job to job and in and out of hospitals. Thanks to “miracle drugs,” Brown said she’s put her last “episode” far behind her as she maintains regular employment as an aerobics instructor at Anytime Fitness in Terre Haute.
But it’s been a long, hard haul, one about which she says she’s “totally honest” in the book. Since its publication in October, Brown said the e-mails she’s received from readers have been inspiring. One, from a 13-year-old girl who e-mailed to tell her that she, too, was suicidal invoked a particularly quick and proactive series of responses, she recalled, adding that a close friend of hers recently died by his own hand. Also contained within the book is contact information for those suffering from bipolar disorder and for their families.
“Bipolar people are some of the most creative people,” the 36-year-old entrepreneur of multiple past endeavors said, laughing. “I’m already working on my next book,” she added, describing it as a collection of stories from others who suffer from the disorder.
Keeping busy and motivated tends to help, she offered. “Finding something you love to do and doing it.”
Saturday, Brown was on her way to an afternoon book-signing at A Gathering Place in her hometown of Sullivan, which will be followed by those at BookNation and Baesler’s Market later in January, she said, adding that her book is available there and through her Web site.
At first, telling the world she’s bipolar was a little tough, she said. “Yes, but not as bad as it used to be,” she said of the stigma attached to mental illness. But the more she talks about it, the more people she meets who, like her, are living with it day by day. “Everybody knows somebody that’s bipolar.”
Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.
Book
• For more information on “Big Crowd at the Crazy House” visit www.bigcrowd
atthecrazyhouse.com, e-mail bigcrowdatthecrazyhouse@gmail.com or call (812) 230-2205. The book is available online as well as in local bookstores.
