Download Article
in Word format
in PDF format

From Patient to Advocate

Healing was a personal journey for activist for people with mental illness

By David Cornwell
Special to the Citizen-Times
Published Nov. 20, 2007

As an advocate for individuals with mental illness, Tracy Mixson knows her subject well, at times painfully so.

Diagnosed with bipolar disorder, post traumatic stress disorder and social phobia, the life experiences of the 42-year-old in many ways mirror those of others with a mental illness, hers a life peppered with suicide attempts and bouncing from diagnosis to diagnosis, treatment to treatment, medication to medication and from hope to despair and back again.

Now, as coordinator of the “In Our Own Voice: Living with Mental Illness” program of the Western Carolina affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Mixson is in a unique position to help the public better understand illnesses they know little of and dispel some of the stigma in which these illnesses have been shrouded.

It’s a stigma Mixson herself once didn’t comprehend. “I was ignorant of it until it happened to me. It’s an ‘it can’t happen to me type of thing.’ But it can happen to anyone at any time.”

Mixson, who will lead the In Our Own Voice presentation at Tuesday’s NAMI Western Carolina meeting, tells of a childhood with glimpses of normalcy as the family followed her serviceman father around the country.

Although a correct diagnosis wasn’t made until the mid-90s, Mixson, like many adults diagnosed with an illness, says that looking back now, “it’s pretty evident something was wrong.”

 “Maybe all kids think they’re different, but wanting to not exist didn’t seem like something other kids were thinking,” says Mixson, who remembers being suicidal since age 9 and first attempting it at age 13. Her family had become accustomed to her withdrawn behavior and occasional rages. “And by the time someone (teachers or classmates) may have seen something other than this moody child, we moved.”

High school brought some stability as her dad retired from the Air Force. She excelled in athletics and academics. “But at home, my Mom asked if I did this stuff (the rages and emotional meltdowns) at school. My Mom didn’t get it, and I couldn’t explain what was going on.”

After a suicide attempt her freshman year in college, Mixson finally sought help. But counseling and medications were inconsistent, and she never received a diagnosis. Seeking help was optional, she says, and at that point in her life she had no compelling reason or energy to get better.

Still, with a strong circle of friends for support and summer school to make up work missed because of dropped classes and suicide attempts, Mixson made it through college and graduated.

Then life became stable. “I really thought it had all been a phase in my life, and now it was over,” she said. “Boy, was I wrong.”

She moved to Asheville, and “with my work, my life had a purpose and the thoughts of suicide abated. Life was good,” she says. After several years of employment and stability, however, the stress that often triggers episodes of chronic illnesses led to the return of deep depression and suicidal thinking.

Her world came crashing in. “Instead of thinking it was a good day to live, I would think it was a good day to die.” At a depression screening in 1994, she was advised to see a doctor immediately and was quickly admitted to the hospital.

It was only when she heard the locks on the thick door of the hospital’s psychiatric unit clicking shut that “I was suddenly confronted with the truth, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m mentally ill.’”

Diagnosed with depression, Mixson was hospitalized 14 times over the next 17 months, received shock treatment more than 20 times and “was being loaded with every medication you can get along with the side effects. Nothing was working.”

During one hospitalization, a nurse looked at her and said Mixson appeared to have bipolar disorder – a different type of mood disorder marked by intense mood swings between depression and mania. “The nurse literally saw it, but the doctor didn’t.”

Even after the proper diagnosis was confirmed, the search for the right medication cocktail continued and life was far from sweet. But a new doctor told her to never give up, “and I started working on trying to get well.”

“It wasn’t an overnight thing. Recovery takes effort; it takes work and it doesn’t stop. Even now, though I work as a peer specialist and recovery coach, it doesn’t mean I’m a finished product.”

 “People think I’m crazy when I say I’m thankful for my illness. It is horrible, it hurts, it’s painful and it’s painful when I see others going through it as well. And I want to help.” And Mixson, honored earlier this year by the Coalition for Persons Disabled by Mental Illness with a statewide “Heroes in the Fight” award for her work in the community, knows she can.

“It’s an illness that has made me weak, but it has also given me strength I wouldn’t have had otherwise,” a strength Mixson now passes along to others.

Mixson believes divine intervention played a part in her “being so bad” at suicide that she failed despite the strongest intentions. And she believes the reason her life was spared was to use her own experiences to help others empower themselves, to begin taking control of their lives again and to begin restoring their lost dignity.

“It’s funny – I had to leave my old job because I became sick. I got my new job because I had become sick,” she says or her present employment with people working on mental health recovery. People with mental illnesses are no different than anyone else – we want a fulfilling life, to be productive, to be a part of our community, to recover. When you think about it, everyone is recovering from something.”

“In Our Own Voice: Living with Mental Illness” presentations include video, personal testimony and discussion and are available free to groups and organizations. For more information on Tuesday’s presentation or others, Mixson can be reached at 232-0438.