Global Courant 2023-05-22 17:55:15
Rosie hadn’t slept all night. She was excited to fly to Croatia to join her parents on vacation. She had been having trouble sleeping since the recent breakup with her boyfriend. Despite that, she felt oddly elated.
She kissed a stranger in a cafe, stole items from stores, and treated everyone at a McDonald’s restaurant to breakfast.
“I was really convinced that ‘this isn’t real life,’” Rosie described to BBC Access All, a podcast that deals with health issues.
She felt hyperalert. Her vision and hearing were sharper than ever and her heartbeat was so strong it “sounded like the end of a concert.”
Once at Stansted airport, Rosie began to question what was happening to her and had a sudden urge to call her mom.
“When she answered, the illusion was broken,” says Rosie. “I realized that this was real life and that I had reached a breaking point. I had a huge feeling of panic.”
Rosie looked around and saw a hole in the wall and ran towards it.
“I jumped over the baggage claim area. There was a fire alarm to the left and I remember hitting it with my hand.”
“All I remember is hearing alarms and seeing police officers running in my direction.”
The cops caught up with Rosie as the rest of the airport was being evacuated. She soon realized that she needed to go to a hospital and that she was hallucinating.
Although the presence of the police may have been unsettling, Rosie says, “I remember a rare moment of relief that I was getting help.”
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Rosie hadn’t been feeling well for a long time and her reactions to events always seemed more “extreme” compared to her friends.
Channel 4Rosie is a model for major fashion brands including Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent.
“If something really insignificant bothered me, I would suffer three weeks of depression that just didn’t make sense,” he says. On other occasions she couldn’t go to work “because a guy ghosted me” (she ignored her), but she didn’t know why she reacted like that when other people didn’t.
He had consulted with his doctor several times but did not know how to articulate what he was experiencing and the support he received was not necessarily helpful.
The breakup with her boyfriend had been one of the first signs that something was seriously wrong. Instead of feeling devastated, Rosie was jubilant and full of energy. Her friends presumed that she must be trying to hide her sadness.
Then his language and thoughts became – to use his words – “super spiritual and religious.”
“My parents lost a son to leukemia when he was 7 years old and I started sharing online that I felt like he was reincarnated.”
That would later become a major indicator that Rosie was in a manic state. Combined with a lack of sleep, Rosie would experience a psychosis in which she would see and hear things that were not there.
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Diagnosis
After the incident in Stansted, an ambulance took Rosie to the emergency room, where she stayed for 24 hours. Her older sister accompanied her and her mother flew back from Croatia.
“I had moments where I understood what was going on,” Rosie recounts. “But then he would say things like ‘is it okay if I go on vacation?’”
They found her a bed in a psychiatric ward and she was admitted under the Mental Health Act, to ensure she was safe and received proper treatment. She would remain an inpatient for three months.
“I have moments where I remember parts of it,” he says. “Basically, I didn’t sleep for another two months. That level of psychosis was weird because I didn’t even recognize my parents for like two weeks.”
“I can’t verbalize how I felt, being locked in a room because of the way your mind thinks.”
After a couple of days in the ward, Rosie was diagnosed with type 1 bipolar disorder.
She says it took about six weeks for her new antipsychotic drug to start working and for her to understand what the diagnosis meant.
Medications, exercise and diet
According to Mental Health UK, a UK support charity, type 1 bipolar disorder is characterized by at least one episode of extreme euphoria, known as mania, lasting for more than a week. Affected people may also feel depressed between euphoric periods.
Rosie also has cyclothymia and suffers from mood swings that can occur in a matter of hours.
It is a lifelong disease that can be managed with various treatments, including drugs.
“There’s no instruction manual,” Rosie points out, saying she’s handling it as well as she can. “Honestly, I take my medications religiously and have come to accept that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.”
“If something is bothering me right now and it brings me down, I wouldn’t say my medication is going to cure my depression, it just makes me feel more rational.”
After being discharged from the hospital, Rosie was also offered three years of outpatient support through the NHS, to develop a treatment plan based on diet and exercise.
Channel 4
Rosie finds that she gets “stronger” when she eats well, drinks little alcohol, and has a good sleep routine. Running has also become a “place of well-being”, which allows you to get rid of accumulated energy, quite the opposite of what happens with relaxation exercises, such as yoga.
Going for a walk “without my phone and listening to the sounds of the world” has also become a key activity for finding perspective during difficult times.
She made a film about her experience called “Modelling, Mania and Me” for the UK’s Channel 4, which offers a raw glimpse into her life with bipolar disorder.
“It was an outlet like no other,” he says. “I felt like I was talking to a therapist or a friend.”
Four years have passed since the incident at Stansted Airport and Rosie has learned to live with the condition hand in hand with her modeling career for major fashion labels such as Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent.
“I’m still a normal 27-year-old thinking ‘how am I going to deal with this and everything else?’ It doesn’t get easier, it’s your mindset that gets better.”
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