AstraZeneca has been a proud supporter of World Mental Health Day for over ten years, an annual activity designed to help raise awareness about mental health worldwide. To continue to demonstrate its commitment to promoting mental health awareness, last year AstraZeneca developed an artistic contest designed to educate on living with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia with a goal of providing a deeper understanding of what these diseases are like from the point of view of those who live with them. Guidelines for participating in the 2007 contest are available in the box to the right labeled “additional information”.

Last year the contest focused on written essays from people living with bipolar disorder, and how they are coping, surviving and thriving with it. Out of the 200 essays that were submitted, three winning entries were selected. You can read those essays by clicking the links to the right.

In 2007, the contest was expanded to also include paintings, music, and videos. Full details on the contest can also be found through the links on the right.

Update: We will be posting our 2007 winning entries on this web site in January as part of a whole new look to our site. But in the meantime, please read our last year's winning entries below.

FIRST PLACE ENTRY
Submitted by: Shannon from Kansas
Shannon’s Story: Shannon was born in 1967 and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. She is married to Mark and is a mother of four children.

Having lost her mother to suicide in 1975, Shannon herself has also had her own long battle with mental illness. In 1998 after finally being diagnosed with Bipolar 1 disorder, she gradually began the process of recovery.

She is currently a consumer alternate board member for NAMI Kansas, the secretary on the board for NAMI Johnson County, an In Our Own Voice teacher and speaker for NAMI Kansas and is currently working to develop a structured and active consumer council for her state.

Her goal is to help other consumer’s and family members not only to deal with mental illness but also to work towards recovery. She is in the process of writing her own memoir depicting her struggle with mental illness and her road to recovery.

She feels compelled to share her story with all those who wish to get on the road to recovery from mental illness. She has discovered that this process begins with self-acceptance and wishes to help others find this same peace and happiness.

1st Place Entry: My story is one of pain, loss, fear and guilt, but ultimately a story of hope, and a personal journey of triumph. I have suffered from mental illness for quite some time. There is a genetic component involved and my mother took her life when I was 8 years old.

For a long time, my feelings of depression were amplified by guilt and the belief that I was not worthy of experiencing joy. Clearly this is distorted thinking yet I felt it intensely every day.

My life soon progressed in a downward spiral, which eventually took me to the depths of my own personal purgatory. I was afraid to be alone and fearful of attending school because I felt I could no longer maintain a façade of “normalcy.” I had an immense fear of taking out the garbage. My thoughts felt so uncontrolled that I feared I would suddenly lose all sanity and choose to take my life by putting the bag over my head and suffocating myself.

I began a rapid descent into what I found out later was severe bipolar disorder, and did everything that I could to make my father and my stepmother acknowledge my pain and profound helplessness. Instead I was soon just labeled as a bad seed.

I rebelled and became promiscuous, addicted to abusive relationships, uncontrolled actions, and a need to use drugs and alcohol to circumvent my pain. It was the only coping mechanism that I could find. Because of my parent’s lack of insight, I was left to my own mercy. Somehow it was up to me to find relief from my acute sense of anguish.

Eventually, I began a spiritual journey back into my childhood religion. I felt it was the only alternative I had to put my life in some kind of order. I married a young and inexperienced man and we were married for 14 years, producing two amazing and beautiful daughters. When I had my children I finally felt “defined” as a person and had finally found my true purpose on this earth.

Nevertheless, I began to have many of my darkest days when they were young. I remember those seemingly endless days as if through a fog that would never completely go away. I could see what was happening but not visibly enough to see why or the fact that I could do anything to change it. How often I asked, “Why me?” and “Why now when I have these precious girls to take care of?”

In time, I began to have more severe manic episodes. My husband finally realized the severity in which my illness had progressed and took me to a psychiatrist. At the age of 31 I was finally put on medications specifically for bipolar disorder. But sadly, they created devastating side effects, which seemed to make me even more despondent. Thus began a long period of trial and error with a variety of medications.

My world soon felt shattered and my feelings of depression and isolation took over every aspect of my life. I got a new psychiatrist who gave me a new combination of medications that I finally felt was working. After a few months I was devastated to experience an even greater plunge into bipolar depression. Because of mitigating circumstances, my marriage ended abruptly. I was left in the cold, living in a motel without my beloved daughters.

I soon discovered I was pregnant and was immediately taken off all my medications. This resulted in a hospitalization to find medications that were deemed safe during pregnancy but that would also help me stay stable mentally. Upon my release I called my father, requesting permission to stay with him and my stepmother for a week so that I could find a suitable living arrangement and try to get my daughters back. He told me simply, “Go to a homeless shelter.”

Feeling shattered and completely alone, I was finally able to convince my husband to allow me to live with the girls and he moved out soon after. Having no other support I felt this would relieve my sense of hopelessness and for a time it did.

Once the divorce was finalized, my ex and my best friend of many years were married three months afterwards. In spite of this, I met a wonderful man and was deeply in love when my bipolar depression again struck completely unforeseen and with even greater vengeance. I fell so intensely and so rapidly that my current love left out of fear of what I had become.

After a great deal of bureaucratic red tape I was finally admitted into a psychiatric hospital. However, because of my attempt to find wellness I suffered an even greater loss. My ex again took my two daughters. The man I had come to deeply love left me too. I no longer had friends or family that would even speak to me, let alone support me. I was now shunned from the religion because of the relationship that I started with this man that I dearly loved and had now lost because of my illness.

How would I go on? When I was released from the hospital that cold December day I felt wounded that I did not have one person in my life willing to come and take me home. With only myself to depend on, I called a taxi and went home. I began a rigorous search on the Internet and came in contact with NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) and for the first time I heard the term recovery in relation to mental illness.

That hope is what helped me persevere through the days ahead; my children gave me resilience to keep going even though they now lived with their father. The love a mother has for a child can be one of the most powerful motivators to a person in despair. I took advantage of my loss and pain and began to feed on it for strength and power over my life.

In time, the love of my life became educated in my illness and eventually asked me to marry him. For once in my life I am in a healthy and loving relationship where I am able to give of myself and not only be a taker.

My story has a happy ending. I am married to my soul mate, I continue to be close to my daughter’s event though they do not live with me, and my husband and I are busy raising our young son. I am now a speaker and board member of my local NAMI affiliate. For once, my children see me as a woman who is strong, happy, and a mother that chose to use her experience of loss and pain to become the person I am today: healthy, confident, loving, nurturing, and finally happy. I give them the resilience a person needs when facing adversity and I spread my voice to anyone that will hear.

SECOND PLACE ENTRY
Submitted by: Douglas from Pennsylvania.

2nd Place Entry: Imagine yourself in a dimly lit ballroom, only torchlight to guide your way. Mysteriously darkly clad figures gather on the edges of the dance floor. Salvador Dali paintings line the walls. An odd waltz in minor keys begins to play.

Now I see myself in just such a place, surrounded by voices and figures from my own painful and ancient past. Jeering, mocking and taunting me as I am met in the middle of the dance floor by a mysterious stranger draped in black with burning eyes as bright as the desert sun. He extends his hand and invites me to the dance. I want to refuse, I resist with every fiber of my being, but I cannot. His eyes compel me to obey.

We begin to dance in three quarter time, the room and the voices begin to blur. We while about the room; the paintings on the wall begin to melt into pools of somber hues on the floor. Suddenly the walls crumble to dust and we dance to the precipices of a very tall building. The clock in the hall strikes midnight. We continue the dance as I gaze into the stranger’s captivating eyes.

Without hesitation the music suddenly stops. He tells me to look down. We are suspended over the vast city. Houses and church spires sparkle in the snow below. He smiles wickedly and offers me a pistol and a choice. In a familiar voice he says, “Die by your own hand or die by mine, the choice is yours but either way tonight you die.” He suddenly reveals his face to me, the face I see staring back is my own and with a hellish laugh, he releases his grip and lets me fall.

As I am falling, I hear the laughter and the taunting. The shattered pieces of my life whirl around me in the cold, winter wind. Just as I am about to strike the ground I am whisked away back to the ballroom and the nightmare begins anew.

But this is not a nighttime dream. These are real thoughts, real images and real feelings that haunt me; this is the heart of my bipolar illness. It is the heart of the Bête Noir, the “Black Beast.” It is the terror that comes in the night. It is the hunger that never dies.

Like childhood nightmares of being chased, my illness haunts me. I am once again being pursued by unseen terrors and no matter how quickly I run from it, I gain no ground.

When I was diagnosed, I felt a great sense of relief. The black beast had a name and I thought, “I know who you are, I know your name and I have power over you.” I was wrong. An endless parade of psychiatrists and therapists suggested and prescribed and endless stream of medications, but nothing seemed to stabilize me or relieve me of my symptoms.

My manic-depressive carousel ride continued on for many years. Up, down and around. The great majority of the time I really wondered if I had lost my sanity. I felt as if I was walking on a high wire, blindfolded, without a net. Life truly is a circus and my family and friends have suffered in silence. They didn’t understand what I was going through. How could they? My mother blamed herself, my father blamed me, and I had little comprehension of the progression of my illness. All I knew is that I was getting sicker.

I now see in a mirror dimly what was very clear in my past. I remember my inappropriate behavior and I will not repeat it now. Bipolar disorder can be a blessing or it can be a curse, depending on how we choose to see it. I have learned one thing from my illness: I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to be a victor. I have chosen to be a victor. It is my hope that all who suffer with bipolar disorder can find some good in that illness and live as full and productive of a life as I do now.

I have never truly exorcised the terrible demon stranger.

I live with these waking dreams every day of my life. It is a continuing uphill battle to keep from killing myself. Every day, several times a day, I dance with the stranger in the cold moonlight, pushing the gun away and nearly falling to my doom.

But there is hope! I have my friends, my mental health care workers and my family to sustain me in those dark hours. I can call upon them when the candle sputters out in the darkness of nights and they will always be there with words of comfort and encouragement that will guide me through to the light of a greater day.

THIRD PLACE ENTRY
Submitted by: Michelle from New Mexico.
Michelle’s Story: Michelle graduated from New Mexico State University (NMSU) in 1996 with a marketing degree. Upon graduation she worked in advertising for five years. She currently resides in New Mexico with her parents and her dog Tigger. For the past four years she’s been self-employed as a freelance graphic designer. She also enjoys writing and is currently completing her memoir, due to be published in 2007. Her involvement in the mental health community includes working as a Peer Coordinator for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). She arranges presentations in the community for her team of presenters. Her role includes getting the NAMI In Our Own Voice name out into the community. In addition to being the Peer Coordinator, she is also a presenter for the program. She’s given presentations in the community for the past three years. This free 90 minute presentation focuses on hope and recovery from mental illnesses.

3nd Place Entry:

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned so as to have the life that’s waiting for us.” —Joseph Campbell

Take two! Take two? What happened to take one? The life I had. Where did it go? The life where I was successful and independent. I remember it quite vividly. Did I misplace it? Was it all just a dream? What did I do to deserve this?

The end of my life has arrived. I lose everything--overnight. I pull at my hair trying to make sense of it. This is not happening. This is a really horrible made-for-T.V. movie perhaps, but not my life. My job, my friends, my dignity, my self-esteem, my home--all gone. I’ve never experienced such loss. What about my future? I feel as if I’ve given birth to a nightmare.

What’s mental health? And why am I here at this hospital? I look completely fine on the outside. This is one huge mistake. I’ve merely had a nervous breakdown. It’s just progressed to a breaking point, and ending up at this mental hospital is the result. But honestly, who wouldn’t “crack” with all the stress and work overload these days, coupled with home responsibilities? Please, just tell me God, what did I do to deserve this? Things were going along fairly well. I take good care of myself. I eat right and exercise. My yearly check-ups with my physician always come back positive. What led me to this? Why? What? How? I want my life back!!

My parents pull into the mental health hospital driveway. I’m hyperventilating and sweating profusely. I can’t believe you actually want to admit me to a mental hospital!! No way. This is not happening. I clench the back seat upholstery. I twist and turn, not letting my parents remove my seatbelt. I’m not going in there! This is all wrong. Take me back home and I’ll show you that I’m just fine. I was just kidding. Just having a little fun there with the whole shopping spree, parking illegally and wanting to get married in Hawaii thing. Just a joke, I promise.

No amount of persuasion works. Oh, dear God. Please do something. I dig my feet into the pavement as we inch toward the front door. Run Michelle just run. I looked over my left shoulder and saw that a police officer was following us. Hmm, unlikely chance I’d get very far. Damn security.

Stop staring at me. You’re making me nervous. Yes, I know I’m new here. Leave me alone. You smell bad, like a walking cigarette and you’re blocking the T.V. Move! When are my parents coming for visiting hours? When am I getting out of here? Oh no. Oh no. Please don’t tell me I’m going to have to stay here permanently? My life is over. I’m never going to see the outside world again. I’ve just been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

“Focus on the journey, not the destination.” —Greg Anderson

After about a year, my life begins to unfold in a different way. I join a local support group. The Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA). I am scared to say anything at first. My mom comes with me to the weekly meetings. I’ve never been in a support group. I don’t know what to share with this group of strangers. All eyes are on me, waiting to say something. After a year, I began to speak up and share with the group. I see many of the same people now and feel comfortable sharing my thoughts. It has become a safe environment for me.

One year later I am offered the position of Telephone Outreach Coordinator. I’m able to help callers who are in the beginning phase of acknowledging their bipolar disorder diagnosis. With my experience and extensive reading, I feel honored to be able to help consumers and family members who don’t know where to turn. I’m able to give back to people what wasn’t available for me. This is a wonderful community service and also helps me to heal. I’m proud to be part of DBSA and help the organization grow.

Time passes and I decide to branch out. I have an interest in presenting to people in the community. I am now a member of The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). It gives me opportunities to share my personal story of living with a mental illness with others, whether they’re consumers, family members and/or the general public. In addition to being a presenter, I’m also the Peer Coordinator. I arrange places where we can give presentations. I’m also a regular contributing writer to the quarterly newsletter “The NAMI Challenger.”

“Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” —Walt Whitman

With each year that passes, I change. I continue to grow in knowledge of bipolar disorder and share this with others. One of the biggest revelations for me is that having bipolar disorder is both a curse and a gift. It has given me the opportunity to do things Gods way, not my way. It’s given me a chance to make a difference in the community and more importantly, within myself.

It takes much more than medications to keep me in balance. I look at my recovery process like layers in making an enchilada, which is a popular New Mexican main dish. My “enchilada” layers include: my psychiatric medications, my doctor, parents, journaling, exercising, time with friends and prayer time. On a good day I’m balanced in all areas of my life, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. All of these “layers” help me continue to heal. On most days I’m able to accomplish this balance and am proud of myself. As I continue my recovery process, I’m slowly beginning to reintegrate back into the “real” world, one step at a time.

My other interests include yoga, belonging to a book club and being involved with a children’s writing group. I also enjoy playing golf with my dad, nature photography, and walking my dog. Most recently, I joined a local organization called “Albuquerque Reads” that teaches kindergartners and first graders how to read.

I’ve reached a point in my recovery process where I have one foot in the “mental health” world and the other foot in the “real” world. I’m gradually allowing myself to step into the “real” world. When I do too much, too fast and for too long, I crash and burn and have an “emotional meltdown.” I’m just beginning to learn how to pace myself. Unfortunately, there’s no manual for living with bipolar disorder, but there are people in my life who are encouraging me. As I become confident and more comfortable in public, I continue to reintegrate back into society. I continue to find a healthy life balance.