My Mental Breakdown

As I mentioned in my previous article, I was staying down in San Diego during the week and then on my days off I would come home to see my wife and kids. This was also another stressful trigger to my body, to just see them on the weekends.

There were a lot of other things going on, as well, plus I did not know at the time but I had an illness that was passed on from some of my relatives on my Grandma Tobler's side of the family. My Grandma was diagnosed with a mental illness of some sort, at what age I am not sure, but I do remember my parents telling me at some point in the 1950's that they did a lobotomy on her. I guess they didn't have the medications they have today and the only way, they felt, to calm her down was to do surgery on her brain. However, whatever they did do, didn't really work because I remember her from a very young age doing some very strange things and had some very destructive tendencies in her. I remember one time just before she died, I was about 5, she came over to our house asking my Mom for a hammer. She said she was going to go back to her house and tear it apart. Of course Mom refused to give it to her and that made her even madder.That was such a traumatic experience that even my younger brother,who was two at the time, remembers this happening.

They say that my great-great grandfather may have had some problems as well, but back when strange things happened to a person it was called possession from an evil spirit, not a mental illness. He was a good friend of the prophet Joseph Smith (first prophet of the Mormon church) and Joseph was visiting with him when he had an episode of some sort. Joseph had to cast the evil spirit out of him as it had been done in the days of Christ. I do not know if my great-great grandfather had any more problems after that or not but my belief is that was the only way they had to cure a person that was having problems with mental problems. It is still debatable in my mind whether the two are the same thing or not. Is it possession or is it mental illness? They both have the same symptoms and as explain later on, I thought I was possessed.

I don't remember what the particular incident was at work but one night after I came back to the place I was staying at, (another Mormon family) I could feel I was stressing again and I could still picture in my mind the dead inmate. This was in mid September and I had been working at the men's prison in San Diego for a little over a month.

I sat done and started to read my scriptures in my room thinking that this would help take my mind off of some of these things that I had been dealing with in the last month. It seemed to help for awhile but then all of a sudden it seemed like I got scared and felt an evil force of some sort surrounding me. I kept hearing things outside and it was such a weird sensation that I thought it was Satin trying to get to me. It was like he was trying to take possession of my body. At the same time I had a feeling that there was something wrong with my wife and I wanted to call her, but it was in the day when we didn't have cell phones and I didn't want to use their phone, because it would be long distance. After awhile, the stress was so much and was so fearful of being overcome by an evil force I darted into the room of the couple I was staying at and woke them up. I told the brother and sister (terminology used amongst the members of our church) that I thought there was something extremely wrong with my wife and that we needed to get a hold of her right away. I don't remember if the brother called home for me or not, but what I do remember is that he talked to me all night and tried to keep me calm. I don't remember what he said, nor do I remember what I said to him.

The next morning I insisted on going home and don't remember if I called in sick or was AWOL (absent with out leave) for that day or not. I think my wife must have called in for me because I never was fired for not showing up.

On the way home that morning it was very foggy there in San Diego county and as I was driving back I got lost and ended up at the gate of a military base in Miramar, Ca. I had to ask the guard at the shack how to get back to the freeway and even though he gave me directions I was still lost and took me several hours to get back home.

When I did finally make it home I really must have been out of it because my wife told me later that I was not myself and that I was seeing things that were not there. I told her that someone was walking back and forth in front of our house and that he was going to come in and kill us. I also did something else that was a bit strange. There was another guy that was homeless, or at least my wife said he looked homeless, who I made made friends with and invited him to our home. By that point my wife was not sure what was going on so she called the Bishop of our church to see what she should do. The Bishop and one of the counselors who was a cop came over and they insisted they take me to the hospital.

At the hospital, I was told that I became very belligerent and very, very angry. I was yelling and screaming at the top of my lungs, scaring all of the other patients. I guess they tried to put me in a room to myself, but even then my wife says that she thinks everyone else could hear me. Since Kaiser Hospital, the hospital I was at did not have there own psych ward as such, they contracted out to other hospitals in the area. After discussing the possibilities with my wife I was taken to a neighboring hospital in Upland, California.

At their psych ward they put me in the lock up unit (most secure) of all of their units and for a few hours I was free to roam around by myself. However, after I tried to hit one of the psych techs and started to run around in the facility, I was put in four point restraint on a bed with my head facing down. I was still yelling and screaming so they came in to my room and gave me some kind of shot that was supposed to calm me down. The shot didn't work obviously and it made me even madder. I don't know what or how I was thinking this, but it seemed like I said to myself, "OK, Newell Knight (my great-great grandfather) I've had enough of this and I want to join you in heaven." With that and the trickery of Houdini I slipped out of all of the restraints except my left foot and started lounging head first at the window next to the bed. My intent was to cut myself up with the glass and hopefully bleed to death.

After I threw myself against the window three or four times and noticed that the glass was not not breaking, I gave up. I did however, cut myself on the frame of the window pane and was bleeding quite a bit from that. As I was laying there on the ground with one foot still attached to a restraint on the bed, I looked over to the little window on the door and could see a psych tech looking in. That is when I started yelling, "Please help me! Call 911!" Now that I think about it, that was a little bit of crazy thing to say since I was already in a hospital, but I was just a little bit off of my rocker anyway, so I think God has forgiven me of that one (the off the wall saying and the attempted suicide, as well.)

Now I don't know how long it was before they came in to rush me to ER or even if my memory is accurate about this, since I was kind of out of it, but it seems like the security officers came in first and put me in handcuffs. I guess they had to do this so I wouldn't hurt myself anymore or any one else.

They say after a complete test of my brain and skull area I was fine but they say from the blow to my head, so traumatic, I inherited a white spot on the back of head. Now that could be just coincidental or for real, but whatever happened, that is when my spot on the back of head showed up.I had a couple of stitches from the cut from the window pane and other than that and a white spot I didn't have too much damage. All in in all, I feel the Lord blessed me and I am glad I did not kill myself that day. Whether I would have gone to hell that day for doing it I don't know for sure, but I do know that God loves me enough that it did not happen that day and hopefully that situation won't happen again.

After I was in the psych ward for another 4-5 weeks I was released and eventually I was allowed to go back to work in January of 1988 (3 months after my breakdown.) I was diagnosed as Manic depressive (bi-polar disorder) and went on medication for it thereafter. I found out several years later I need to stay on it or problems would happen again.I am so glad they have medication today, unlike in my Grandmother's day, and that they have laws now they didn't fire me from my job because of my disability (even though I don't call it disability but a blessing.)