Woman offers hope to those with mental illness

Many times in the past 10 years, Angela Oakes climbed into her car with the notion of killing herself.

She would press her foot on the accelerator, reaching 100 mph.

But every time, before her car left the road, Oakes would see her sons, Travis and Gavin, and imagine them calling to her: Mom. No. Just hang on.

It's love for her boys, now 16 and 13, that has kept her going despite years of struggle with major depression, bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder.

Those psychiatric illnesses have sent Oakes to the hospital eight times since 1998. She has been on 20 different prescription drugs.

But since her last and worst breakdown three years ago, she has rebounded.

With the right doctors and medicines and a regimen of exercise, nutrition and sleep, she is feeling hope instead of despair.

"I have become the person I always knew I could be," said Oakes, now 41.

She is again working full time.

And she's back in an apartment, living on her own, and sharing custody of her sons with her ex-husband.

A big part of her new life is devoted to raising awareness about mental illness. Oakes gives speeches about her struggle, trying to offer hope to those who face similar demons.

She wants people to understand that being mentally ill doesn't mean that you're weak or crazy or violent. It means that there's a medical problem that can be treated with prescription drugs, just as you would treat diabetes or high blood pressure.

Through the Mental Health Association of Central Carolinas, Oakes volunteers as a mentor for a younger woman who has been found to have bipolar disorder and schizo-affective disorder, similar to schizophrenia. The 33-year-old UNC Charlotte graduate has asked to remain anonymous.

The two women get together once a month to talk, take walks or watch movies. Between visits, they touch base by phone.

"I know what you have to do to stay healthy," Oakes said. "I try to keep her on track. I try to listen and support her. I keep reminding her of all the good things in life."

The younger woman, who works part time and lives on her own, feels less sure of herself and still vulnerable to the symptoms of her illnesses. She appreciates Oakes' support.

"She's very positive and very goal-oriented," the woman said. "She has gone through some of the same things I have. She's just there to listen, and I'm there to listen to her."

Oakes' problems began when she was 6. She said she was molested several times by a 16-year-old male baby sitter. From a young age, she said she "always felt like something was wrong with me. I was not good enough."

In her 20s, she began taking a prescribed antidepressant to treat severe premenstrual syndrome. By the time she was 27 and married with two small children, she was found to have severe depression. She spent a lot of time sleeping and found it hard to get out of bed. She was hospitalized for the first time at 30.

Travis was 5, and Gavin was 2, and Oakes felt overwhelmed. She alternated between sleeping too much or not sleeping at all. She barely ate, and when she did, she felt like throwing up. When she began talking about suicide, her therapist referred her to a psychiatric hospital in Charlotte.

Oakes spent a week there, but when she returned home, she still didn't feel right. She moved to Virginia to live with her mother. It was traumatic to leave her children, but, "I needed my mom."

Oakes and her husband divorced, and their two sons went to live with him at his parents' home. "I knew they were better off with him," she said.

In the next few years, Oakes was hospitalized several times and given a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.

Concentration was difficult. At her job as an administrative assistant at a Charlotte bank, "I couldn't finish anything," she said. Fortunately, her supervisor, Julie Huffman, was willing to help. Oakes had confided to her about her illness, and they worked out strategies, such as writing lists, to make the work more manageable.

But new symptoms appeared. Oakes talked constantly and couldn't sleep. She had endless energy, and her thoughts raced. One week, she stayed up four nights in a row, finishing three oil paintings. At work, she literally could not sit at her desk.

She called her psychiatrist. This time, she was found to have bipolar disorder, also called manic-depression. It's characterized by wild mood swings -- from mania, including high energy and insomnia, to depression, such as crying, sleeping too much and ignoring responsibilities.

After a week in the hospital and a three-month leave of absence, Oakes returned to work. But six months later, despite taking her prescribed medicines, she was having trouble again.

On one particularly bad day, she resigned from her job. After another week in the hospital, she was unable to pay her rent and was evicted from her apartment. She lived off and on with people she barely knew.

Then, in fall 2006, when she had been out of work for another three months, Oakes got a call from Huffman, her old boss, who said she knew someone at the bank who needed an administrative assistant.

Oakes got the interview and the job.

Travis and Gavin are proud of their mom. They remember days when they rode together in the car and "you couldn't even tell she was there," said Travis, a sophomore at Weddington High School.

"It was almost like she was ignoring us. She wasn't trying to. We knew something was up with her... We would hug her and say ‘It's OK'.... She's come a long way. She's at a really good point in her life."

When Oakes spoke at a recent Mental Health Association dinner, her voice broke when she talked about her sons. "I kept going because they need me."

After all those years of darkness, she seems amazed at what she can do, for herself and for others. She'll continue to volunteer and speak out about mental illness.

"This struggle is my calling."