4A
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK KANSAN
MONDAY MAY 5, 2008
MONDAY, MAY 5, 2008
Early on October 10, 2003. Thor Nystrom initiated a fight in the Naismith parking lot that would lead to his lengthy struggle through the mental health system. Years later, when Nystrom would walk from the recreation center to his car after a workout, he would look at Naismith and remember
Rachel Anne Seymour/KANSAN
NYSTROM (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
"My mind was kind of racing. I guess it is just what I felt at the time. It was like a voice inside my head was telling me to say that. Telling me I should die; that I deserved to die; that I should hurt myself."
"Did you want to die?"
Did you want to die? "At that moment, yes."
"At that moment, yes."
"What about right now?"
"You mentioned voices. Do you often hear voices in your head telling you to do stuff?"
"it's hard to explain. I feel like I have two tracks of thought. Like, you know how you see people with an angel and a devil on their shoulder in movies?"
"I guess in a matter of speaking, yes."
"So one of the voices sounds like the devil?"
The young doctor's brow is tw rowed as he scribbles notes.
"What you are describing sounds to me like schizophrenia. Have you heard of it?"
Nod.
"The auditory hallucinations you have been experiencing are symptoms of schizophrenia. This may have changed your sense of reality, and it explains the delusions and suspiciousness. You have a chemical imbalance in your brain, and I can prescribe you medication that will make you better."
There isn't much time to discuss the diagnosis. This on-call psychiatrist had other patients to see. He rises and shakes my hand. I've given him the right answers to get me discharged.
I had no way of knowing then that this doctor's diagnosis would start a year-long journey into the mental health system and the depths of hell. It would feature seven different diagnoses, 13 different mind-altering drugs, more than a dozen psychiatrists and psychologists, hundreds of hours of therapy, drug overdoses, self-mutilation, a suicide attempt, a weight
gain of 140 pounds and being committed by the state of Minnesota for four months into three separate mental institutions.
It will end with one last-ditch attempt at a self-imposed cure.
I return to my room in Naismith Sunday evening with a black eye and a handful of prescription bottles. With the drugs coursing through my body the rest of the semester, I am sluggish and lazy. My mind is cloudy and my thoughts come in fragments. I am profoundly sad. I brood when I have the dorm room to myself and I cry. The anxiety that caused me to be put on Paxil just before I left for college is a distant memory. Now I can't stand being awake, which is a jail inside cloudy and hateful thoughts.
I become despondent over the failure of the new medication. I begin to drink more. Sometimes when my roommate leaves, I turn off the lights, flick on the TV without the volume, sit on the futon and drink beer by myself in the dim gray light.
I go home for Thanksgiving. I am miserable. I am withdrawn and depressed. I don't want to interact with my family. They act like everything is fine, but I'm different, and we all know it. My mom notices that I am constantly twitching. My legs and arms sporadically spasm. My head twitches to each side. My face is expressionless, but I am in a constant state of agitation. Although I often feel tired, I am at the same time restless, and I lie awake in bed staring at the ceiling until exhaustion finally takes me away.
When my mom takes me back to the airport to return to school, I can only talk about Her. I shouldn't have broken up with Her. I should get back with Her. I can't stop thinking about Her. The negative thoughts have found an unlikely resting place, a former girlfriend. It is the last time I remember true happiness, and I latch onto it.
I finish the semester and move back in with my family in Baxter, Minn. My friends are away at college, and I have no one to hang out with. I sleep 15 hours a day, but I have stopped dreaming; I haven't had one in months. I tack a beach towel over my window to block sunlight entering my bedroom.
I have difficulty keeping grasp of my thoughts-my mind is in a perpetual haze. I sign up for classes at the local community college, but I have lost my capacity to think creatively. I hire a friend to write the assigned papers for me; it helps me pass the course.
I don't work out. I inhale junk food, and my medication lives up to its warning label by slowing my metabolism. I'm growing fat. I go outside only when I have to. I hole
up in the basement. I don't care about my appearance. I don't brush my teeth, shower or wear deodorant. I stink.
In March,
Bryce, my best
friend, visits
and drives me
15 miles to
a cabin party. I
drink until I vomit in the snow. I rinse out my mouth and start drinking again.
I ask Bryce to drive me home.
He laughs as he talks. I think he is making fun of me.
I throw punches before I know what I am doing. He hides behind his arms to block the onslaught. I don't stop until I am pulled off him by three guys. I am laughing.
As the son of a pharmacist, it is only natural to accept the diagnosis of medical professionals and believe the prescribed medications will make me better.
At home, I take out the sleeping pills. Half the bottle is left, and I swallow them all. I tell my 18-year-old sister, Quinn, what I have done, and she tells my mom, who helps me to the bathroom. I vomit for the second time that night, heaving out
the small white pills. They float in the toilet bowl.
I lose many friends that night.
I become increasingly testy and combative around the house. One day, my 12-year-old brother, Will, won't clean up after the dog, and I push him into the wall. Sometimes I ignore my stay-at-home mom and pharmacist father. Other times I yell and argue.
The next day, I call Bryce. He refuses my apology. I don't blame him. I hate me, too.
I have more free time than I have ever had. I have no job, and I don't do my schoolwork. The time I spend awake I think about the past. I think of Her. Obsessively. Blonde and smiling. She is still in town, a year younger than me, going to high school. I want Her to save me. I call Her. She's dating someone else, and she doesn't want to talk. It infuriates me. I become enraged when she hangs up. I throw my phone and smash my fist into the wall.
I have lost faith in the therapy, which
I suffer through twice weekly. They remain convinced that I have schizophrenia. I am convinced. I say I have many voices in my head, including Satan's. I descend further into darkness when they increase the doses of my medication. I no longer remember the person I was just six months ago, going off to Kansas. I am a miserable schizophrenic, and I am convinced I do not deserve to live.
Every night I pray: "God, take me tonight."
I will find out later that one side effect of the Geodon I'm now taking is "depression, suicidal thoughts." In the not-yet-developed mind of a teenager, especially one who has
become an abuser of alcohol, these side effects are exacerbated.
One day my psychiatrist changes the diagnoses. Now I have Bipolar Disorder. I am put on Risperdal and the antidepressant Prozac. I will find out later that Prozac has a warning stating: "Before using this medication tell your doctor or pharmacist of any prescription drug (such as Risperdal) that is specially removed from your body by certain liver enzymes." The psychiatrist doesn't heed this warning. There is only so much the liver can handle, and the excess goes back into the bloodstream, effectively multiplying the stated dose. I am also on Trazodone, an antidepressant used to induce sleep.
I don't understand the clinical jargon, but I take every medication they prescribe and go to every therapy session they require. How could I not? As the son of a pharmacist, it is only natural to accept the diagnosis of medical professionals and believe the prescribed medications will make me better.
My behavior becomes increasingly irrational. I start shoplifting. It gives me a much-needed thrill. I steal sports trading cards from Target and Wal-Mart. One day, at a Target in St. Cloud, I carry two boxes past the security guard into the bathroom. I lock a stall and put the seat down. I open the packages and drop the cards onto the floor.
The security guard comes in, and the cops are called. I am arrested.
- * * * *
Late May arrives, the night of my sister's high school graduation and just when I should be finishing up my freshman year at KU. I tell my mom goodnight, but not goodbye. She will tell me later through tears that this hurt her deeply.
As she walks down the hallway to her bedroom, she has no idea that her oldest son is about to ingest 10 times the maximum recommended dose of prescription sleeping pills. She has no idea that he decided earlier in the evening that things would never get better. She has no idea that a suicide note has been typed onto a downstairs laptop. It begins and ends "I'm sorry."
Left: Nystrom got a new driver's license in May 2005. His appearance had changed so much that casino officials had rejected his ID.
Above: The picture for Nystrom's KUID was taken at the beginning of his freshman year in August 2003, before his weight gain.
I walk to the garage and place the rags in the exhaust pipe of the Jeep. I seal it with layers of duct tape.
I start the Jeep then walk back around to check that the tape has held.
I lie alone on the cool grey leather in the dark garage. I shut my eyes tightly. I concentrate on my slowing heart beat. thump... thump... thump... thump...
I climb into the back, curl into a ball on the leather seat and pull the hood of my sweatshirt over my head.
I am content. I've made a decision for myself, and I find it hard
not to respect that.
Quinn, my sister, finds me in the garage at 5:15 a.m., groggy but alive, the car still running. The high school held a Grad Blast for all seniors, and they were released at five. Sometimes during the night the tape broke. The rags dislodged.
Quinn remains convinced that her presence in the garage that morning was a miracle from God.
An emergency session is scheduled with the psychiatrist. It takes an odd twist when she turns on my parents. She is outraged they didn't call an ambulance and have me hospitalized. She threatens to report them to social services if it happens again. She offers me two choices: be hospitalized or attend an out-patient program for depression at a hospital in St. Cloud, four days a week. She insists on an extensive neuropsychological evaluation.
The neuropsychological testing also takes place in St. Cloud. I am administered an extensive two-day battery of tests. They give me a questionnaire. It has hundreds of yes/no questions. I resent it, but I am honest.
Yes.
I am depressed
I blame my problems on others
No.
I hate myself.
Yes.
I think others are out to get me. No.
I have frequent suicidal ideations.
Yes.
I feel like I am alone.
After I am done, the middle-aged doctor talks to me. He speaks very slowly. I show him the cuts on my wrist. I show him the scab on my left hand from where I recently put out a lit cigarette. I tell him I am returning to the University of Kansas in the fall.
The doctor shares his results with my parents and me one week later.
Yes.
"Thor will look very much like a social introvert, have high levels of anxiety, and probably has a social anxiety or social phobia. His scores on the MCMI-III would strongly suggest a borderline personality disorder with tendencies to be dependent, avoidant, depressed and self-centered."
I am smirking. I won the "Class Clown" award in high school.
"I recommend that Thor not return to a highly competitive university, which will overwhelm him emotionally and subsequently affect his ability to function cognitively. He will tend to lose touch with reality when placed under periods of stress. My results show that Thor's academic skills were generally average, but he has a slowed processing speed."
Now I am livid.
My mom looks puzzled. I was
.
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