What Severe Mental Illness Stole From Me—and What Treatment Gave Back

Let me begin by mentioning that I was in and out of hospitals over 20 times over a period of 16 years, from 2005 to 2021.

My first hospitalization occurred when I was 16 years old while I was in high school. To be honest, I mostly believed that what I was going through was normal. After all, the abuse and neglect I was dealing with for most of my childhood and teen years was all I knew. It was really until I was about 16 that I realized it was not normal, when a trusted adult told me it was not normal.

I feel like that is the first thing that SMI robbed me of --- a normal adolescence.

When I was 17, I lost my oldest brother to suicide, and my family became homeless. However, I worked extremely hard in high school. I was waitlisted from Columbia University and Johns Hopkins University and deferred from MIT. I was accepted to 9 universities, and I chose Syracuse University to study Bioengineering.

I was getting straight A’s for the first two years of college, with a GPA of 3.986. However, I struggled tremendously while in a summer internship. The beginning of severe mental illness was starting to really get bad, added to the PTSD of the trauma I experienced throughout my life.

When I was in my third year at Syracuse University, I jumped off a building. I continue to thank God that I did not suffer a spinal cord injury.

I was forced to take 10 months off of college. During that time, I attended an Intensive Outpatient Program in order to work through everything that I had and continued to deal with, especially the trauma.

This suicidal attempt robbed me of a few things. First, someone close to me did not ever want to talk to me again and to this day, I have not talked to them. Second, when I went back to Syracuse University, I knew that most of the students knew about what happened. I remember distinctly on my first day back, I heard a few people whisper, “That’s her!” My attempt was very public and I have had to deal with that.

I ended up graduating from Syracuse University with honors in the Honors Program. I received a full ride to University of Florida to get a PhD in Biomedical Engineering. While I was at University of Florida, my psychosis and paranoia worsened and kept worsening. I was hospitalized quite a few times in the year and a half I was there. I was unable to complete the PhD program but I received a Masters degree.

After graduating, I went home to New Jersey. My mental health was not done worsening. I continued to be in and out of hospitals. I attended a few outpatient programs in Morris County and Sussex County. I ended up being hospitalized for 2 years in a state mental institution.

I tried at least 15 antipsychotics, 3 long acting injections, multiple antidepressants and multiple mood stabilizers. Nothing worked until in 2020, when I was FINALLY placed on Clozapine.

About a month after being placed on Clozapine and my dosages were properly titrated up, I noticed that a few very strong delusions that I had held for years were going away. I was finally questioning the validity of those delusions. Not only did the delusions and the hallucinations lessen dramatically but they kept lessening. My suicidal ideation slowly lessened too, until they completely went away.

It’s difficult for me, because I want to be angry that my doctors did not try Clozapine earlier but at the same time, I believe that God may have a reason that it happened the way it did. However, I feel like a lot of time was stolen from me, especially all the time I was stuck in the hospitals. I feel that, if I had been placed on the correct medications earlier, I may have received a PhD.
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Now what I want to talk about is what I have gained by living with severe mental illness.

I have gained a lot of friendships with people who I may never have met. My struggles in life have given me a unique perspective and helped me to be empathetic towards everyone. I feel like I am a much stronger person than I would have been if I had not dealt with severe mental illness. I have had multiple opportunities to tell my story all across the country. I have been invited to conferences to speak as well. I currently also volunteer as a peer specialist and a recovery coach. I have facilitated hundreds of groups for people with mental illnesses and substance use disorders.

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Chelsea’s story is a powerful reminder of why Treatment Saves. Neglect Costs. is more than a campaign—it is a call to action. Chelsea lost years of her life to severe mental illness, repeated hospitalizations, and treatment that did not adequately control her symptoms. Yet when she finally received a treatment that worked, her life began to change. Her story forces us to ask how much more might have been possible if effective treatment had come sooner. We cannot give Chelsea those years back, but we can learn from her experience. People living with severe mental illness deserve timely access to effective, evidence-based treatment and the opportunity to reclaim their lives—not years spent cycling through hospitals and systems that fail to meet their needs.

This essay is the original work of the author with no outside edits.