Everyone’s mental illness story is different. Here’s what Bonnie went through and how she began the journey to recovery.
(DESCRIPTION)
Bonnie Pedota, Psychotherapist and mom.
(SPEECH)
I was in France, the last night of this fabulous holiday, and all of a sudden I couldn't breathe. Just out of the blue, I couldn't breathe. Never happened to me before in my life. So, I panicked and thought I was dying, literally, and the front of my body all got tingly, my arms, my legs got all tingly. And they rushed me to emergency and checked all my vital signs, and everything was fine- and I'm like trying to remember how to talk French and everything. And then they said, "You're fine, you're probably dehydrated. It was a really hot day, go home, have a liter of water, and just go to sleep." So they thought it was dehydration. So that was the beginning of everything- was boom that out of the blue panic attack. And like I said, I did not know that was a panic attack. I just thought it was this attack of something.
And after that panic attack, basically, for two months I was housebound, and I couldn't leave my house, because every time I tried to leave my house, and even within my house, I felt that shortness of breath again, I felt dizziness, and like severely debilitating. That was the beginning of it all and it was really scary because I had no diagnosis, didn't know what it was, was guessing, was running around to all kinds of doctors, and healers and just trying to get feel like I had some control over it, which I really didn't for a good two months. This was completely out of my control, scariest thing that ever happened to me.
I would have to say the most important person in my recovery, was me. I was not OK with not feeling OK. I Was not OK with initially not being able to leave my house. I was not OK with struggling through workdays. I was not OK with taking more absences, more sick than I had. And so it was just sort of in my nature, to be relentless about searching for the thing that would work. And I just kept looking, and it didn't mean I anything get frustrated, and didn't mean I didn't cry about it, and it didn't mean that I didn't have those really awful like this is going to last for everyday. Of course I did, and that's part of the recovery.
I needed to know that even though it felt like this was my forever, horrible place, that it wasn't forever and it was just a moment in time. If I knew, in five years and 10 years, my life would be better than I even imagined it to be, that I'd have children that I'd have a private practice to be a therapist and really feel fulfilled, more fulfilled than I ever imagined, then I think the recovery probably would have gone a little bit a lot smoother.