1
During her third year as a student at Stanford University, Shamika Goddard had trouble distinguishing what was real from what was not.
“I thought I was in an alternate universe,” Goddard said. “I thought I was in some part of hell that I stumbled into, and I had to get out. I thought that if I could get out of this area, I can get back to Earth. From my perspective, when I was looking at the sun and the moon, I was looking at Earth.”
A few months into her spring semester in 2006, Goddard experienced her first psychotic episode. The episode was so intense that it required her to take a leave of absence from the university to receive mental health treatment. Though she presented herself as a very happy and friendly person, which she said she generally is, there was also a sadness that came along with her having to leave a school that she loved.
Goddard was diagnosed with a form of mental illness called Bipolar I (1) Disorder in 2007. Since being diagnosed, every aspect of her life has been centered around understanding her disorder and living with it day-by-day. She uses her keen intellect and insatiable curiosity, which helped in her acceptance to Stanford, to learn all she can about the disease she is up against.
Shamika La Shawn Walker Goddard was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. Her mother, Mary Elaine Childs, had Shamika while she was in high school with a man Shamika had only met once in her life.
“The one time I met him,” Shamika said, referring to her biological father, “was when I was 16; I needed his name for my acceptance to Stanford. He gave me $20 and that’s the last time I saw him.”
After her mother graduated high school, she got married and had three more children. Shamika recalled being made to feel inferior by her siblings for having a different father than them, upsetting her to the point where she often felt suicidal. She disliked being at home and became dedicated to her schoolwork and a multitude of extra curricular activities in order to break away from the anxiety-inducing atmosphere.
“I was involved in a whole lot of things,” Goddard said. “That played a large part in me being able to get into Stanford. I was very energetic and able to juggle lots of activities. I was a goody two-shoes.”
While in high school, she excelled in academics and outside of the classroom managed to be the head of a choir for both the school and the church, a member of the drama team, the math team, the spelling team, poetry club, and dedicated herself to the church by teaching Sunday school and leading Bible study.
While she felt targeted by her siblings at home, she also often felt insecure in school despite her many achievements.
“Growing up, I was depressed and pretty sensitive,” Goddard said. “I had low self esteem and got very jealous of prettier girls.”
Goddard, a black woman who has struggled with her weight from a young age, used her vibrant personality and sociability to counteract the low self-confidence she had concerning her appearance.
“I was a social chameleon,” Goddard said. “I was able to hang out with the black kids, and then I was able to go and hang out with the white kids. I wanted to be the nicest person that everyone knew. But I found that when you’re too nice like that, it’s hard to find someone to depend on when you need something.”
Dating and parties were out of the question for Goddard. Her mother enforced rules to ensure that her daughter did not make the same mistake she had made of becoming pregnant while she was in high school. Even though her mother had graduated high school after having a child, Goddard respects her mother for following through with school and knows how hard it must have been for her.
“But the one party that my mom did let me go to,” Goddard said, “I was really scared. She made sure that I had a chaperone, but I felt like I didn’t know what to do there. I wasn’t drinking and I really just wanted to go home.”
Goddard’s insecurities played a part in her getting married to her husband during her second year at Stanford. She said that many were upset with her for marrying him, telling her she could have done much better.
“I figured that I was able to find someone who wanted me,” Goddard said, “and I didn’t want to risk losing that. I know that my family doesn’t care much for him, and I’m beginning to realize that I maybe should have listened to them originally.”
At the beginning of her second year at Stanford in 2007, Shamika and Stephen Lloyd Goddard married in San Antonio, where they both grew up together. The two later moved into an apartment together on campus. In February, Shamika's first symptoms of mania became apparent.
“Basically the months prior to being diagnosed (with Bipolar I),” Goddard said, “I was sleeping less, working more, and at the same time, had a lot of energy and was bouncing off the walls.”
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM IV), the manual used by psychiatric professionals to diagnose mental disorders, distinguishes Bipolar I Disorder within a person if they had experienced one or more manic episodes. The National Institute of Mental Health describes the illness as, “a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks. Symptoms of bipolar disorder are severe. They are different from the normal ups and downs that everyone goes through from time to time. Bipolar disorder symptoms can result in damaged relationships, poor job or school performance, and even suicide.”
Shamika and Stephen's schedules were opposite to one another. While he worked at night, she was at home, and vice versa. They were seeing very little of each other during their first few months as newlyweds.
“I didn’t want to go to bed by myself at night,“ Goddard said. “We moved into our first apartment in March. By April, after a month of sleeping less and less, that is what triggered the psychotic aspect. Over the course of the weekend after Easter, I ended up being committed when I thought the apocalypse was going on.”
As a devout Christian, Shamika’s psychotic episode was incredibly spiritual. She was convinced that God was explaining to her how to get into heaven and what she must do through the characters of her favorite television shows.
Mary Elain Childs, Shamika’s mother, remembered her daughter being home from college when her first psychotic episode occurred. Childs recalled receiving frantic phone calls from her daughter telling her that she had to get home because the apocalypse was coming.
On several occasions, Child’s younger children would come to her and say that their older sister had been telling them scary things about the end of the world. After several days of Shamika doing “strange things,” as Childs referred to her actions, she felt she had no choice but to bring her in to the hospital to get evaluated by a doctor. Childs wanted to take Shamika in to get a CAT Scan to see if maybe there was a tumor of some kind that would be affecting her in such a way.
Mary Childs said she had no knowledge of whether there were any other cases of mental illness within her family. She worried about her daughter and just wanted to get her the help she needed. It was Shamika's situation with working too many hours, the absence of her husband and the amount of schoolwork that led to her breakdown, said Childs.
Shamika was taken to the hospital by her mother to find out what was wrong with her. While in the waiting room, the school shootings at Virginia Tech were being shown on the television, and she began to panic.
“Clearly this proves that the apocalypse is going down,” Shamika explained as her thought process at the time. “The enemy is seeking to whom he will devour.”
Outside, she remembered the rain falling to the ground.
“It was drizzling, but my eyes were being veiled from what was really going on in the world,” Shamika said. “I thought the rain was really fire that was protecting me, and that my mom and sister were demons and weren’t going to get into heaven with me because they weren’t saved.”
In her panic she blacked out, she said. A part of her memory didn't remember what had happened first, but the next thing she recalled was being on the floor, surrounded by police officers, blood covering her hands. Her mother said that she had scratched her face when she was trying to restrain her, but did not care to mention it to Shamika.
Following her second psychotic episode, which occurred March of 2008, Shamika's husband, Stephen, left her. She said that they had talked about reconciling, but at the time of this interview, Stephen had been unresponsive to her efforts to contact him.
“What kind of man does that to his wife,” Childs questioned. “A husband doesn’t leave his wife if she gets sick. He should be there no matter what. While they were married, he would always be out with his friends instead of being with his wife. It’s just not right.”
Shamika had come to Champaign in November 2008 to help get her life back on track. After being separated from her husband, not being at the school she loves, and suffering from mental distress, Shamika felt she needed time to sort things out and stabilize herself.
“I’ve had a temporary living situation since 2003 when I first started college,” Shamika said. “Here I’ve been stabilized. I’m stationary, and I’ll be here for awhile until I raise enough money to get back to Stanford. I can lay roots a little bit.”
Childs understands why she wouldn’t want to be living in San Antonio at present. But, she believes that her daughter will be able to meet her goal of going off to finish her degree at Stanford eventually. She has much respect for all of the achievements she has accomplished and sees her daughter’s mental illness as just another project for her to undertake and achieve in.
But the road to recover is a long one. Shamika must still take hold of her disorder and better her financial standing before she can do anything else. A friend from Stanford had offered to let her stay there for six months while she raised money to send to Stanford. Shamika must pay off an outstanding $9,000 housing bill before she is able to reenroll. Keeping a job and saving money has been hard for her, but she feels that she’s blessed with the people that have come in to her life who have helped in her struggle.
“I have a great therapist who I greatly enjoy working with whose very affordable,” Shamika said. “He's a psychiatrist who is able to ask a lot of questions and answer my questions as well. I have the bipolar support group. I think those three key elements are a really great foundation so far. I feel safe in the space I am in. I feel blessed. The people who God has put in my path have really made a difference in my life.”
Shamika still experiences symptoms of mania and feels that it has to do with the cyclic nature of the disorder.
“I expected this Easter to be the time where I became psychotic again,” Shamika said. “I’ve found that the same chain of events tends to happen every year. But I was able to catch it early on this time before it got too out of hand.”
A week before being interviewed, Shamika had a manic episode which she feared would lead to psychotic symptoms. When she felt herself losing all control of her actions, she called the crisis line run by the Mental Health Center of Champaign County who helped in stabilizing her.
Kristin Monahan, crisis supervisor for the crisis line, said that many people call in who have similar experiences to Shamika's.
"Since we operate our line 24/7 365 days a year," Monahan said, "we receive all different types of people who call in for different reasons. We provide supportive counseling. We're here if someone just needs someone to listen to them, or if they are suffering from depression or anxiety, we can make referrals for them to get further assistance."
Hospitalization was something that she and her mother both expected to happen, but by taking note of her disorder and situation, Shamika was able to win a small battle in a long and drawn out war with the disease.
Her symptoms will never disappear completely. The methods used to treat Bipolar I Disorder are by using different medications and attending to psychotherapy. She had been treated with a medication in the past that had made her gain weight, only adding to her insecurities with her body image. Shamika is currently on a medication that she is hesitant to take because of the potentially dangerous side effects.
“My psychiatrist recently prescribed me to this one medicine,” Shamika explained, “that he said would treat my psychotic symptoms. But one of the possible side effects is diabetes. I know that I need something to help stabilize me, but I’d rather not risk possibly getting diabetes.”
Psychiatrist Dr. David R. Kopacz explained that since Bipolar Disorder is difficult to diagnose, different medications are tested out on the person to see what really works the best. He said that diagnoses can be given out differently from one doctor to another, and this can elongate the time that it takes to treat the illness.
By questioning whether or not she should start up with this new medication, she is doing the right thing, said Kopacz. Only the patient can be their primary advocate, and the must speak up when they are worried about their treatment, Kopacz continued.
Shamika hopes that she’ll be able to reenroll at Stanford for the Fall 2010 semester. She has a job working in the gift shop at Cracker Barrel in Champaign. She said she enjoys the work even though it is hard on her feet because she is standing all day. As long as she keeps on managing her disorder well, she said, she thinks that going back to school is an attainable goal. Though managing her disorder, she said, is a job on its own.
“Yesterday, I had a very manic episode when I went shopping for clothes,” Shamika said. “I literally spent three hours at Dots going through every single article of clothing in the store. When I finally got to the cash register, they rang up how much it was going to be and I knew I would not be able to pay that much. I felt bad, they had to put everything away. I’m afraid to go back there,” she half-joked.
When she got home from shopping at Dots and realized she had had a manic episode, she was able to reflect on it, and how she was able to control herself from actually buying all the clothes with money she did not have.
“I’m not depressed with my situation,” Shamika said. “The only thing I’m upset about is my relationship with my husband. I have faith that I’ll pull through in other areas of my life.”
