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The Power of One

     Never underestimate the power of one. You could be only one that a person confides in about suicidal thoughts. You could be one leader who stands up for people’s rights. You could be one, starting with yourself, and spread hope and wisdom you’ve learned over the years.

     NAMI SWI has enabled me to be “one” and flourish. I’ve been able to share my story to hundreds of college students thanks to the non-profit organization. Through “Tuning Out Stigma,” I try to serve as a stigma fighting role model and perform my original music while talking about my Dark Days, Acceptance, Treatment, Coping Skills and Successes Hopes and Dreams modeled after NAMI’s In Our Own Voice public speaking format.

     I hope my presentation reached the hearts and minds of the audience to realize that yes, one can live a productive life with mental illness. I’ve had lived experience with mental illness for more than 20 years, diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder with OCD and delusions. To this day, I’m on a maximum amount of psyche medications and raising a family of twins as a pastor’s wife in California. Through NAMI SWI, I presented at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville several times, at Greenville University and Lindenwood University-Belleville.

     I was flanked with support as NAMI SWI board members, volunteers and staff fielded questions from the audience after my presentations. I received a standing ovation in 2017 before an audience of 100 at Greenville University. Certainly, with one person, one dream and a vision, redemption in my story can be “won.”

My Brain Makes Me Proud: My Journey Through Schizoaffective Disorder and Anxiety

I am a stigma fighting role model for people with mental illness. During sophomore year at the University of Notre Dame, I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. Twenty some years later, I have become a pastor’s wife to Nick Teller and a mother of twin girls. I am also a musician who performs “Tuning Out Stigma” presentations. I have a memoir called, “My Brain Makes Me Proud: My Journey Through Schizoaffective Disorder and Anxiety.” I hope to share my story to many to encourage those that need help to seek it, and live out their best lives battling their conditions.

Resilience is a Necessity

The idea of resilience brings about mixed feelings to me. There’s the dread of going through adversity. It feels unpleasant to say the least. Yet, this is only part of resilience. According to AI, resilience is “both a process and an outcome. It’s the ability to ‘bounce back’ from difficult experiences and maintain psychological well-being.” Therefore, resilience, inevitably applied to overcome difficulty, results in positive mindset–triumph to say the least. AI lists some characteristics of resilience: “problem-solving skills, strong social connections, survivor mentality, emotional regulation, and self-compassion.”

My life has been a continuous process of resilience with serious mental illness: schizoaffective thoughts disorder with OCD and delusions. I take 17 pills a day from seven psyche meds to treat my mental illness and manage symptoms. I feel it is a lot, but it’s what I must do to avoid tidal waves of anxiety, OCD tendencies, depression, psychosis, mania, mood swings and much more. I have no choice but to be in survivor mentality. There is hope because my condition was way worse during my four hospitalizations since 1999.

My pregnancy with twins on minimal medications was severely difficult, yet the first year especially of their lives was stressful as well. I was having panic/anxiety attacks every other day for 2-3 hours trying to block out their crying. I also had to keep up with mixing the formulas for their milk, cleaning bottle parts, assembling them, sterilizing their bottles and heating them up when ready to be fed and worrying in the process that my husband and I would fall behind and be unprepared.  

Who knew that four years later I would have a 14-day streak without anxiety attacks with the meds I’m on today? Life is much easier and the twin girls are doing well in transitional kindergarten. I try to apply emotional regulation and problem-solving skills by telling myself that worrying does not change the outcome of things. Today, I am able to have self-compassion with myself to know that I have it rough, but cut myself a break where possible.

My strong social connections with friends and church members who understand my illness and empathize for me keep me going. I have a dear friend with severe back issues and we bond and connect about our daily struggles by phone. The people I talk to are safe, good listeners and supportive. Their prayers and my prayer life are helpful as well.

Here’s a quote from a valentine written by a student I recorded down because it was so good: “Everyone wants happiness, no one wants pain, but you can’t have a rainbow without a little rain.” I say, in these circumstances, wear your umbrella of resilience—it is a necessity.

The Legendary Leading Example of Simone Biles

As a former high school gymnast who is now coping with mental illness many years later, I cannot express how highly I think of Simone Biles and how grateful I am for her example. Dropping out of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics competition due to the “twisties,” (a condition where she could not distinguish her movements mid-air) she claimed to have mental illness. As 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. experience mental illness each year, I must applaud her for joining the ranks publicly with people who struggle with their brain and face the stigma associated with it. Mental illness has become a far more open discussion in the news since my diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder in 1999 at the University of Notre Dame as a sophomore. I had no role models and simply followed my clinician’s protocols. Now, I am writing a book called “My Brain Makes Me Proud,” to give people hope and insight into my 25 years of experience coping with mental illness.

Simone’s scenario certainly created a lot of buzz as she is regarded as the G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All Time) of gymnastics. Many stepped up to defend her as she faced much criticism for dropping out. I remember reading that someone in politics whom I didn’t recognize called her a “loser” on social media. She responded with who is so and so? I’m asking for everyone, not just me. Simone even declared her decision to drop out of the Tokyo competition a winning one. Who knows? With twisties, she could have seriously been injured performing highly dangerous and difficult gymnastics moves.

Despite her struggles, she did not give up. She eventually went back into the gym and underwent counseling, became the oldest gymnast to win the national title at age 27, won the world championships, and claimed three gold medals and a silver at the 2024 Paris Olympics. To say the least, I was ecstatic to see her performing flips and routines that were unprecedented and more difficult than ever.

Simone, you made gymnastics greater than it could have ever been without you. You have written your story which is among the greatest in sports history. Bravo for taking care of yourself and working hard to win your championships in a splendid comeback no one could have accomplished but you.

Simone mentioned the morning of the individual all-around competition in Paris, which she won, that she talked with her counselor. For anybody facing difficulty, there is no shame in talking to a counselor. I’ve learned the value of counseling over the years as a lifetime commitment coping with my illness. I see counseling on a regular basis, and I do call in to my clinicians when I have to trouble-shoot a difficult situation or call in sick to my part-time work due to my occasional debilitating illness; and just like Simone in 2021, I have to call off from my duties and take care of myself.

www.mybrainmakesmeproud.com

End in Sight: How having Covid and facing down my mental illness demons saved my life

     Friday, May 14, I tested positive for COVID. With cold symptoms, anxiety attacks and suicidal thoughts, I came to a turning point that would save my life and completely improve my mental illness condition. Isolation for 10 days enabled the discovery. I have had chronic anxiety for more than 20 years every other day. My thoughts get disrupted with catastrophic thinking that are beyond hellish, and with OCD, my memory bank cycles with my catastrophic membrane in my brain with episodes lasting for hours. Not any more! Here’s the story.

     My husband was to pick up anti-viral meds for my worsening symptoms. I went down the laundry list freaking out in worry over things that could go wrong due to my mental illness. When they were out of supply at the nearby pharmacy, he traveled 45 minutes out to another in traffic. When he got there, it would take an hour to fill my prescription. I worried if he might call me with, “Honey I have some bad news. I got in a car accident.” Or “Honey bad news, the 2009 Cobalt broke down.” Also, my crazy fears for my children were thinking, the number of cries I hear my 2-year-old daughters, Lora and Mary, cry in one year is the number of cries I hear a baby starve to death. When it was past 4 p.m. and the girls were hungry and crying not yet having lunch, and Nick wasn’t home yet, I was going nuts in my head.

     For the next four days, I had hellish anxiety attacks, sweating in the heat of my room and getting stir crazy. I felt overwhelmed imagining irrationally that if I were in Nick’s shoes taking care of the girls alone, I would be screwed to handle all his duties. It’s difficult to function when I’m having an episode, feeling scared, helpless and useless.

     The fifth day, I realized I couldn’t continue this way, and figured out, if I simply do not go “there–” all the worrying– I can cut off the catastrophic thinking patterns. Telling myself the mantra: “Numb yourself of your worrying” worked. I literally numbed my brain of my irrational fears and would not give them hardly a second or two to entertain them. I was literally numbing my thoughts from worrying, and it felt different and simplified for me mentally.

     With the new coping mechanism, my brain felt solidified during the last three days of my isolation. It was valuable time to really contemplate what works and transform and grow myself mentally and spiritually.

     I’m free of the Covid virus now, but not just a victim of the virus, but also a beneficiary to a miracle! Here’s to the “end in sight” to my 20-year battle with debilitating anxiety.

     Since then, with a little troubleshooting, my numbing method is working realizing that worrying about things does not change the outcome.  As of today, I’ve gone for 18 days without an anxiety attack!  I notice I am happier and less anxious. Praise God for putting my Covid experience to amazing purpose!

My Brain Makes Me Proud Blog August 2021

Returning to school can be an exciting time for many. For some, it can present its challenges.

As a graduate school student at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), I entered campus in 2013 with a schizoaffective disorder with OCD diagnosis. I had been stable for many years on medications, and didn’t think I needed to register with the university’s Disability Support Services (DSS) at that time, but that changed.

A year later, I weaned off the last bit of medications I was taking aiming to be less lethargic and not have so many side symptoms. Off the medications, I felt alive and well for a while, but things turned for the worse within a few months where I flunked two papers for a public policy personnel course. I became manic, out of touch with reality, and didn’t sleep for days. I needed to postpone taking the final exam because I knew I would flunk it with the way my brain was malfunctioning.

I went to my professor’s office the day of the exam and cried saying I wasn’t in any condition to take the exam. I told her that when I sat at the computer on campus to study, I felt “anguished.” She called in the public policy department chair, and with documents I submitted from my employer that required me to see a doctor before returning to work (because I failed my job for 2 weeks), they agreed to excuse me from taking the exam at that time.

I had to report to DSS to register my status as being disabled and for them to accommodate me. I was soon hospitalized in St. Louis at Mercy hospital for seven days and took medications again. I coordinated with DSS to postpone my exam. Three weeks later out of the hospital, I took my final exam at the DSS center needing to score a 100% to salvage my getting an A in the class.  I was not well, but exerted myself well enough to score the 100%.

DSS’s accommodation was excellent. The center’s staff also matched me with a mentor who played a hugely incredible role in my life. I graduated with a 4.0, I got married, and I’m a mother of twin girls. I continue to express my gratitude for my successes by sharing my story, and NAMI St. Louis has enabled that for me through blog writing, and my public speaking engagements, In Our Own Voice presentations.

I’m writing a book with 3-time Emmy Award winning former reporter Art Holliday called, “My Brain Makes Me Proud: How I Beat Schizoaffective Disorder.” I experienced several higher education scenarios where I needed help, compassion and advocacy. My book especially details my growth and development as a Notre Dame student as well as how I was first diagnosed as a sophomore with mental illness. Higher education has become more accommodating for individuals like me throughout the years, and I hope you or your loved one can tap into these resources and find support likewise.

Theresa San Luis Teller can be reached at tsanluisnd@gmail.com

My Brain Makes Me Proud: How I Beat Schizoaffective Disorder Blog June 2021

By Theresa San Luis “Story” Teller

Unlike a broken arm in a sling or a fresh open wound to the skin, the disrepair of one’s brain with mental illness may not be so visible to others. Many may not believe it exists because it is not so visible; or a person may be unaware that their thought processes are dysfunctional without communicating them; or, the stigma of mental illness blocks a person from seeking help. All are factors that make recovery difficult. With mental illness, life is difficult and stressful.

Persevering through mental illness requires strength beyond the imagination of others who don’t deal with it on a daily basis. Strength may not be apparent or obvious because of those struggles. Mental illness is tough, and I commend those that face it bravely and endure to keep on trucking along on a daily basis. You are not alone.

I felt alone more than 20 years ago as a sophomore at the University of Notre Dame. I saw Dr. Nasr, a psychiatrist, who diagnosed me with schizoaffective disorder which is a   combination of schizophrenia and bipolar symptoms. I later was diagnosed with anxiety with OCD and delusions as well. I still struggle to this day.

I am not alone today. It took years of troubleshooting and finding proper support. I have a husband, and twin daughters. I have a church family as a pastor’s wife. My family is supportive and I’ve maintained valuable relationships along the way.

I want to encourage you to consider that recovery is a real possibility and being diagnosed with mental illness is not a death sentence.  I’ve lived with mental illness and earned two bachelor’s degrees and two master’s degrees. What drives me is to live my best life as a stigma fighting role model. I had no role models at age 20, but hope to share my story of finding hope. I am currently co-authoring a book with 3-time Emmy Award winning reporter Art Holliday about my mental health journey called “My Brain Makes Me Proud: How I Beat Schizoaffective Disorder.” I hope you can join alongside my journey to beat the stigma of mental illness. Our manuscript is in process.

Every day is a new day to work toward a better life and progress. Find your voice, your inner strength and reach out. It just may touch someone.

Theresa can be reached at tsanluisnd@gmail.com