Following My Bliss in a Bipolar Life
by Joanne P. Kolodzik

When attending a workshop titled "The Gift in the Wound," I was charged to tell my story of success in my life with bipolar illness, maintaining a forty-hour-a-week career, and volunteering for my favorite causes. So, I'll give you some insight into my spiritual journey of the past fifty-three years. I could not have succeeded without the help of my mother, a true bibliotherapist, who would say when I had a problem, "Here, read this book." Blessings have come through my family, friends, and colleagues, especially the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity of Manitowoc, Wisconsin. They taught me many spiritual lessons in my grade school, convent academy, and college years.

I am especially blessed by my chemistry teacher at Holy Family Academy, Sister Loretta, who worked as a nuclear medical technologist and later taught at UC-Berkeley and worked on the Space Program for NASA. Sister Victoria, herself a wonderful artist, was also an excellent mentor for me in my artistic growth. My spirituality was expressed in one incidence in the novitiate by my creating a red-clay crucifix fastened to a piece of bark. Sister Victoria encouraged me to take the clay from the opening in the convent kitchen floor where renovations were occurring, strain it through curtain material, and fashion the diminutive crucifix.

At fourteen years old, I decided to enter the Franciscan convent and stayed for eleven years. I thought I had a vocation to become a nun, but as I found out through psychological tests and through the counseling of the sisters, it was not to be. The convent did teach me to pray using the bible, for which I am indebted, and still use every day. When the sisters told me, in effect, to find my bliss by leaving convent community life, I was quite distressed. I fell into a deep depression, hypomania for about a month, and following that, a manic state with psychotic features.

My mother had brought me home from the convent when I was twenty-five years old, but was puzzled by the nonstop talking which I exhibited. It did not make any sense at all. Then I started writing my disparate thoughts into a notebook. They did not make any sense either. My mom encouraged me to listen to "Make a Joyful Noise" with Kathleen Dunn on early morning radio, but I just thought those spiritual messages were meant especially for me.

Finally, my mother took me back to the convent where Sister Mariella, my silkscreen teacher and friend, told her she knew a psychiatrist who could help me. The wonderful psychiatrist, Dr. Eliazar Kadile, correctly diagnosed me as manic depressive, as they called it in 1976, hospitalized me for about a month, and gave me lithium carbonate to mellow out my manic mood. Throughout my life I have stayed close to God, even through my ups and downs of bipolar illness.

After spending August in the hospital, I attended UW-Manitowoc in a one-credit course to find a career. After trying banking and doing a research paper on privacy in banking, I realized that that was not my passion. I was still searching where the gifts that God gave me could be utilized.

Inspired by Sister Loretta, I thought I might go into medical technology, spent twelve months at Marian College in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, but was not satisfied with that choice either. I participated in religious practice, although I decided to give up the breviary which had been used in the convent where we prayed the psalms twice a day. Yet, I was still searching for that "perfect joy," as St. Francis would say. I tested for the military, scored high, but was denied admission due to my previous "nervous breakdown." So, I started taking Wisconsin Civil Service exams.

The result of this was that I started an entry level job at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Library in Reserve and Circulation. I used my talents for the Campus Ministry by making banners for the worship service. I was so involved in the campus life that I had three more manic episodes while living in Whitewater. Always, my mother, boss, Sherry Hofer, or my chaplain, Fr. Dick, got me to the hospital, not without some embarrassment, while I came to work manic.

About the time I left Whitewater for a promotion at UW-Milwaukee in Government Documents, I experienced a brief depressive episode which required hospitalization. I believe that these trials have made me stronger and more empathetic with others with bipolar illness. I have been a peer facilitator at the Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association, now called Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance. I served as librarian for the group and also got featured speakers in the early years at the UW-M campus where our meetings were held.

Twice I shared my faith as a sponsor of women who were being confirmed in the Catholic Church. I also co-presented "What Makes Your Library Special-The Ins and Outs of Marketing Your Library," with Bev Etzelmueller of St. Matthew's Lutheran Church, at the Church and Synagogue Annual Conference in Indianapolis. My sister Nancy assisted us in distributing handouts and in reading the six scriptures which I had selected to enrich my speech. We had a wonderful reception, according to the evaluations of the fifty-five participants.

All in all, I have had many opportunities for volunteer service, including reading textbooks on tape for blind and visually impaired university students, lectoring and serving as parish librarian at Saints Peter and Paul Parish, Milwaukee, and visiting the homebound at nearby nursing homes. I have volunteered at the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Urban Ecology Center. These and other volunteer experiences, as well as non-credit classes at the UW-M School of Continuing Education, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee Public Museum, The Tai Chi Center, and tours with Historic Milwaukee Incorporated, I have participated in the life of this society.

After almost twenty-one years since my last hospitalization, with the good care of Dinshah Gagrat, M.D., my current psychiatrist, and Maureen Schulz, R.N., M.S.N., AP.N.P., my psychotherapist, as I take four psychotropic medications per day, I continue to thrive. My love of beauty in art and photography, my reaching out to the elderly, mentally ill, and visually impaired bring me much joy now, and plot my path for future endeavors as I continue to contribute to the lives of those whom I touch. Everyone deserves the opportunity to have good mental health.

Story edited by John Veierstahler and published by HopeToHealing.com
with permission of Joanne P. Kolodzik.
© 2004 Joanne P. Kolodzik