The Road to Hope

They said there was no cure for bipolar affective disorder. True ?manic depressives? like me would always be medicated to deal with the firecracker highs of mania and the deep black lows of depression. In 1993, there were stacks of pill bottles on my fridge- 13 in total- labeled with my name.

They said there was no other way, and I believed them. After all, my grandfather died of a self-inflicted prescription drug overdose, and my mother of deliberate carbon monoxide poisoning. Suicide was a tradition in my family.
Thank heaven my dad didn?t believe them. With God?s help and his steely determination to save me, he found the answer. Who would have guessed that the answer lay in a farmer?s pigpen?

Life with my bipolar mother started in rural southern Alberta. I was the second baby, born only 11 months after my sister. Over 16 years, my mom gave birth to nine kids and adopted a daughter who needed a family. That?s the kind of woman she was- kind and compassionate.

But she was still sick. Mom?s symptoms, masked with excuses that her frequent pregnancies made her moody, slipped through her doctor?s bipolar radar. Her father?s suicide was disguised by family too ashamed to admit mental illness; his wife, daughters and sons all called it a heart attack.
So when I got sick at the age of 13 no one in my family admitted the truth. My grades dropped and moodiness escalated. By Grade 12, I was swinging dramatically between periods of deep depression and grandiose behavior. At 18, I was manic and married to Dana, who, at 22, was kind and unsuspecting. We had dated for only six months and just saw each other on weekends.

It didn?t take long for Dana to discover that I was very sick, but he stayed by me. My symptoms worsened when I got pregnant. After James was born, I became just like my mother; repentant sobs between explosive rages and delusions. My doctor started me on a mixture of medications to control the highs and lows of my illness.
Meanwhile, my mom finally got a proper diagnosis and started medication, but she refused to talk- still silent and ashamed. In 1994, she killed herself. I was too sedated to feel the pain, but my dad?s heart was broken. Seven children still lived at home. Soon my brother Joe was diagnosed with bipolar disease, too. Two generations of suicide made my prognosis clear; my doctor told me I would never be drug-free and must not have another child as long as I was medicated. All my dreams for a good life died with my mom. She was strong and till it killed her. I felt that I couldn?t fight this destiny.

In September 1995, I was hospitalized for a month. New drug combinations made me drowsy, agitated and helpless. Nothing worked for more than a few weeks. I hated the side-effects of medication, but when I tried to stop taking my pills for more than a few days my symptoms turned psychotic. In a manic rage I hit my small son, and when Dana hauled me off to the hospital, I tried to throw myself from our car onto the freeway.

Then my dad met David Hardy, a biology teacher turned pig-feed formulator. David listened to my dad?s tale of the illness that gripped Grandpa, Mom, me and now my brother, and said, ?That behavior sounds like a pig with ear-and-tail-biting syndrome.?
David described a nutritional supplement that seemed to work on pigs, whose digestive systems are similar to humans. Then at his wit?s end with my brother?s worsening condition, my dad felt he had nothing to lose by trying such an approach.
David and my dad created a supplement for my brother that closely mirrored the pig variety- it contained specific ratios of calcium, chromium, selenium, copper, phosphorus, vitamins A, D and E, and relatively are essential trace minerals such as nickel and boron, the results were amazing; Joe?s moods settled and he became rational again.

When I came out of the hospital after another suicidal fit, Dad took me in to help Dana keep me safe. Two days later, in spite of heavy medication, I escalated into a tantrum, rummaging the kitchen for knives. Dad took charge and forced me to to take David?s supplement three times a day while reducing my prescription medications. (at the time, the regimen included several pills and a bitter liquid mineral, but the 36 ingredients have been consolidated into capsules, 15 of which I take every day.) Within a week, my symptoms of panic, rage, even the psychotic gaping hole in my chest where music and voices would haunt me disappeared.

Why does this supplement work? Nobody is entirely sure, but Dad thinks it?s because the supplement supplies my body with the necessary ingredients to produce and synthesize neuropeptides and neurotransmitters- the nuts and bolts of a healthy brain chemistry, psychiatric drugs might mimic these chemicals, but not always in the correct amounts.
Dana took me home, and I started my journey to complete health, in two months, I was medication-free and stable for the first time in years. However, there were habits of my illness I needed to break, such as hiding in closets when I was stressed, ignoring my son and lashing out in public. Counseling helped me learn coping, communication and parenting skills. I read books, took classes in life skills and gave away signs of my mania; a thousand dollars? worth of yarn purchased on a manic shopping spree went to women who knit for sick babies, and a dining-room set I repainted in the middle of an all-night mania went to a needy family.
Finally, I started writing my story. In the pages of my life, all of the physical and emotional clutter of my illness scattered like ashes.

It has been over 11 years since my dad and David discovered the supplement now called EMPowerplus. David found an American company to help produce the all-in-one supplement so that researchers could develop a placebo-controlled study. Word of mouth brought thousands of people looking for help, and so began the participant support program under a company called Truehope Nutritional Support Ltd. As research was published there has been virulent opposition to the nondrug therapy. What started out as a hopeful attempt to save his family has turned into a fight of a lifetime for my dad.
Amid politics and publishing, my normal life has gone on. Dana and I are still happily married. James is now 14 and a big brother to Samantha, Melanie and Meagan. There?s a good chance that my children have inherited the tendency toward mood disorder and, without supplementation, will acquire the illness that killed my mother and grandfather and kept me captive for so long. I encourage all my children to take the supplement regularly.

I have dedicated my newfound life to helping others. Several people have joined in the cause to form Shinah House, an organization that educates and supports healing transitional housing for those recovering from mental illness. My book, A Promise of Hope (HarperCollins), will be available in bookstores this fall. All my profits will go to support Shinah House.