My Story

(I’m Still Standing)

By Trish Guterez

     In 1973, I left U.C.S.B. as a young art student to battle schizophrenia in over eleven mental hospitals.  I was so disabled that I didn’t understand the confusion and complexity of my illness.  I heard voices, hallucinated, and received every medication possible to help lessen the symptoms.  I remember entering the psych ward of Glendale Adventist Hospital at age 21 in Glendale, CA and receiving a shot of Thorazine, which was a drug that made my hallucinations worse and numbed me to any stimulus surrounding my spirit.  The nurse, Susan, said to me as she drew up the shot, “Confused?” “Help me God,” is all I could say.  I was more than confused.  I was in hell.   I drooled, shuffled down the corridors of the hospital, and wondered what a hell it was to battle mental illness.  I was too sick to even cry.  I would scratch the words “help” into my plate with plastic forks etc. and pray that God would take my life.  But God knew I could handle the pain.  Not only did I make it through the roughest period of my life, but also I went on to speak for the many mentally ill patients who could not speak for themselves when faced with the same situation I was.  I spoke in high schools about the importance of taking medications, and fighting the negative stigma attached to receiving a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.   Schizophrenia, as I later learned, was a serious mental illness that plagued over 1 million Americans and resulted from an over-abundance of serotonin in the brain.  I was on every drug under the sun:  Navane, haldol, thorazine, tegretol, lithium, (which made me gain over 80 pounds!) depakote (which made my hair fall out and come in super curly…) seroquel, etc. and many more which I can’t remember. At one time, I was on over twelve medications, some anti-psychotics, some mood stabilizers-many that I don’t even remember  (That, too, is a side effect of some of the anti-psychotic drugs, memory loss.) I can remember flopping around the floor of the hospital like a goldfish out of water because I went into convulsions.  The first fifteen years of my recovery are a blur to me because I was so very sick and I felt like an overmedicated zombie, a guinea pig, in a scientific laboratory.  But I remembered a line my grandfather told me which was, “When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”  That is, in fact, what I did.  Cogentin was then added to my list of medications which helped the horrible tardive dyskonesia which caused rigid muscle contractions in my legs.

Time is a great healer, they say, and I guess just waiting it out and flowing with the grain proved to be the answer to my prayer.  In the eighties, I was well enough to start a career in music and I played in almost every club in Bakersfield with my Yamaha electric grand piano and a six piece fiddle playing country band.  I enjoyed every minute of it and was self sufficient but only until the night grind proved to be too much for my aging body.  I collapsed one night, after breathing tons of cigarette smoke and fighting a severe cold which I couldn’t get over.  I was later diagnosed with walking pneumonia and I later hung up my microphone for good.

I was asked in 1990 to be a part of the “Recovery Vision” team in Bakersfield, CA which met in the Commonwealth building on Oak St. and Truxtun Ave.  Nick King was the main facilitator and he did a superb job gathering all who could implement a plan for the mentally ill to recover.  I flew to San Diego for seminars which gave me self esteem and helped me feel like I was part of the world again.  I even won the big basket of wine, cheese and crackers which I gave away to the case managers because medications and alcohol were off limits.  I flew on comuter flights from L.A. to San Diego and San Mateo to be involved with recovery programs.  I pursued every opportunity there was to understand the illness that tried to claim my life….several times. 

I am so indebted to my case aides, and case managers at College Community Services for all the help and confidence I gained throughout their support during the time I was so ill.  I remember having a hard time making it through the day on a shoestring budget and wondering if I was ever going to make it through life in general.  I started going to the Family Learning Center in March of 2007 and quickly became a workshop leader in Art, painting in various mediums.  I fell in love with what I was doing with other clients from CCS.  It seems I found my nitch in life, and quickly became interested in helping Shannon with the monthly calendar.  I continued my computer classes at night and learned to dedicate myself to helping others.

My family is responsible for much of my recovery too.  My father spent over half of his retirement trying to find a cure for my illness.  But a cure was never meant to be.  All I could do is master the coping skills I learned from my jobs, my case managers and Schizophrenic’s Anonymous.  I have longed admired Joanna Verbanic for here heroic endeavors and starting S.A. group.  I later read a book about a girl who suffered my disease, Lori Schiller, from “The Quiet Room.”  She is the only other person I know who suffered the long term effects of this disease, but I know there were many more here in the United States.  My mother, Phyllis Phillips, drove me from doctor’s office to doctor’s office and we spent many hours at Pacific Automated Lab on H St. to make sure my lithium levels were accurate and on target. I felt like a pin cushion.  All these anti-psychotic drugs were dangerous to take and needed regulation.  When doctor’s wanted to perform electroshock therapy, I declined.  I had a grandfather, Ernest Crozier Phillips who died shortly after his ECT and I never wanted to experience the trauma.  I was going through enough as it was, and felt I didn’t need the questionable and experimental therapy.  Never did I give up or feel sorry for myself.  I looked to the peak of the mountain and told myself, “One day I’ll be at the top!”

Today, I am employed with College Community Services helping at the Family Learning Center with mentally disabled adults who exhibit great talents and offer much input to the community by volunteerism and displaying their creations in Art Shows.  I am proud to know all who come here and give their best each day.  They are no quitters.  They are heroes in my mind because they never give up.  Try living on $660.00 per month for thirty years from 1973 to 2007 with few cost of living increases. Don’t think I’m not grateful for living in the United States of America. I know I have lived a blessed life here. But this was my life and I only existed.  I wasn’t living. Sometimes I experienced such severe depression, I would curl up in a ball in the bathroom of the mental hospital and vegetate.  But I knew medications were improving all the time and I just had to hang on. 

 The difference today, is that I’m living a success story and loving my life in every way.  I love creating paintings, making jewelry, writing short stories and meeting the challenges that life offers.  I know that God was right.  He knew He couldn’t give me more pain than I could handle.  I not only made it “through the rain,” I’m not just “existing,” I’m learning to live, really live.