When I finish the book I will make sure you have access to a copy. Let me know if you think you would read a book like this and pass it on to others that you think might be interested. I hope also that this book will show people that just because mental illness is present in someone that doesn’t mean they don’t have something to offer others. I hope you will read these practical tips that will help you be a more compassionate, productive, and aware member of society. You don’t have to have a mental illness to be able to benefit from the wisdom I gained from these experiences. From the daily routine to making sure I took my medicine to the game room, the simple things I learned were profound and would make a lasting difference in my life. It was not until this point that I realized how valuable the lessons I had learned from these experiences were. Four years later, after three more hospitalizations and two outpatient stints at behavioral care facilities, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. My husband was beside himself with worry and wondered if these delusions would be permanent. I had no sort of history with mental illness and there I was in the hospital with a “bunch of crazy people.” I would go from lethargic and not being able to get out of bed to fighting with the nurses when they would try to give me my medicine because I thought they were trying to hurt or kill me. I was placed in the schizophrenic group because of my delusions.

Of course, this was another delusion which landed me in the psych ward in Galveston, Texas. I was unable to communicate and I thought that I had made this whole story up to come back early from the mission trip. When I returned to the United States, the medicine the doctors gave me to calm me down put me in a catatonic state. An allergic reaction to an anti-malarial medication gave me extreme delusions. Why were they plotting against us this way? Turns out that none of this was true. We didn’t have everything we needed to survive and we would never see our families again. They of all people should know that there wasn’t adequate healthcare here. I was terrified! The doctors that were on the trip with me were chasing me with a long needle! Why would they do this to me or would they? I was SO confused! I was absolutely convinced that these doctors wanted to stay in Honduras and that they had sold our plane tickets back to the States. I was in Honduras on a medical mission trip and all of a sudden something wasn’t right.

Medical mission trips