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<h2><strong>The Third Sunrise: A Memoir of Madness</strong></h2><p>By <a href="/blogs/natalie-jeanne-champagne">Natalie Jeanne Champagne</a></p><p>I am twenty-seven years old as I write these words. I was twelve-years old when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I spent nights in psychiatric concrete rooms; I wrapped the thin blanket around my body until I could breathe. Until my body stopped shaking. I lay on the bare concrete floor, wondering, always wondering, what my family was doing. <em>Were they having dinner? Did they miss me? Did they understand I could not control my moods?</em> <em>My actions?</em></p><p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/Natalie%20Jeanne%20Champagne.jpg" style="cursor: default; margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; float: right; width: 200px; height: 285px; " /></p><div><p>I was very sick for a very long time; in and out of the psychiatric hospital. I was given different medications. Some of them caused weight gain, others an inability to walk, and none of them worked well enough. Most of them did not work at all.</p><p>I struggled with anorexia and bulimia during this time, before the addiction took over my life. My thought process was simple: I could not control my mood, but I could control my body. I slowly disappeared. And then, age fifteen, I become well, as well as I could having lived the life I had lived. I found medication that worked. I made my way into college. I fell in love! I lived in a beautiful condominium with my beautiful partner. And then I remembered the little girl locked away. <em>The little girl that was me.</em></p><h2>
Addiction</h2><p>Then came the addiction−The reaction to the realization. The sickness that was, perhaps, worse than bipolar disorder. As I write these words, framed pictures, my prized record collection, and a bookshelf full of my favorite literature surround me. I chose the color of paint that envelopes the room; a light green. The carpets, fresh and new looking, are a darker green. Sometimes, I light incense and I look around at my new home, <em>my new life</em>, and I sort of smile, sort of grimace.</p><p>It is all very strange. A few years ago I would not have appreciated little things like the curtains I have chosen, no, I would have hung sheets from the windows, dark blankets, so I could continue using cocaine while the rest of the world went to work. To school. To play!</p><p>I would have called the liquor store at exactly 9:00 a.m. when they opened−the phone in my hand ten minutes prior. Shaking. I would order two litres of cheap red wine and a bottle of tequila. I would pace while waiting for it. I would have called my drug dealer the night before and three times further as the night progressed. I would call again at 6 a.m. and...<em>again and again and again.</em> Until I had seizures and my body became inflamed with hives landing me in the emergency room. <em>Again.</em></p><p>Carpets? Well, I hoped they were the softer sort so it hurt less when my legs gave way and I fell. My father tells me now: <em>“Natalie, you had a weak pulse...I found you in the bathtub.” </em>And I woke up in the hospital angry. I craved death and it kept escaping from my hands. I wanted, above all else, to escape from my past. I wrote of this experience in my memoir:</p><h2>
From The Third Sunrise</h2><p><em>“Everything looks hazy when I scratch open my eyes. I am lying on a bed </em><em>of some sort (</em><em>wait...a stretcher?), </em><em>and I have tubes in both arms in various places. </em><em>Something is attached to my lower parts so I do not involuntarily piss myself; I have </em><em>lost complete control of my kidneys. I realize, through the haze of what is the sickening </em><em>yellow of the hospital, the blue of the sheet that separates me from other patients, that </em><em>I am alive. I look to my right and see my father, his </em><em>head is in his hands.</em></p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/Natalie%20Jeanne%20Champagne1.jpg" style="margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; float: left; width: 300px; height: 225px; " /><p><em>Dad! </em><em>Daddy! </em><em>I want to reach out to him, but I cannot talk nor move. The two </em><em>nurses who stand beside me talk closely, in whispers. I watch as my father gets up from </em><em>his small chair, I watch his face, dim and sad, sadder then I have ever seen it. I am sick, </em><em>and he is sad. I almost died they tell him, but they will not tell me how close I got, lest </em><em>I add just a few more pills next time around.</em></p><p><em>He will ask me later, </em><em>“Are you proud of yourself, Natty?” </em><em>and I will smile a sick </em><em>and twisted smile and tell him, </em><em>“No, I failed. I am alive.” </em><em>I will mean these words. I </em><em>am </em><em>these words. He walks away from me, and I keep waiting for him to come back, </em><em>but he does not.</em></p><p><em>Hours pass maybe, though I am not sure. As I slowly regain consciousness, I </em><em>listen as the nurses talk about school and make private jokes that only they understand. </em><em>Ha-ha! </em><em>I muster the energy to turn on my side. I rip off whatever is stuck to my arms. </em><em>I take out the IV, my hands shaking, my body not cooperating. They turn to me. </em><em>Stop, </em><em>we will do it. </em><em>“Screw you!” I slur, and I continue my manual labor, even though my </em><em>body will not cooperate. “Where is my dad? </em><em>Where is my dad?”</em></p><p><em>They tell me he is coming back, but he does not. They tell me to keep still, and I tell them I want my pants back. I am nude under the sheet. Could they not have put me in hospital pants at the very least? They have attached things to my legs, and</em></p><p><em>I rip them off, angry in my confusion. I am alive. </em><em>Why? </em><em>They tell me they will put my </em><em>pants on for me, and I tell them to go screw themselves because I will do it myself. </em><em>After all, if I cannot even die properly, I can at least put on some goddamn pants. The </em><em>nurses will not let me walk to the psychiatric ward and, truth be told, I cannot walk </em><em>anyway. My body does not belong to me anymore; it is littered with handfuls of pills, </em><em>and I am still alive. I am still alive! They drop me off, whispering to the nurse </em><em>at her white station. She glances at me, and I smile for her, Polaroid perfect. This is, </em><em>after all, one of my shining moments.</em></p><h2>
Sober</h2><p>Three years sober, I am no longer the child in the concrete room, nor am I the woman abusing drugs with the blatant intent to die. I am a writer. I write about mental health and addiction. I wrote my memoir <em>The Third Sunrise: A Memoir of Madness </em>two years ago. And now I have books with my picture on them; books that detail the pain and shame and...Sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice. Exposing my life within the chapters. All of the awful bits, but the good parts as well.</p><p>Three years later, having walked a scorching hot road that has slowly cooled, I have a simple life. A life possible only because I am sober and take care of myself. I have a beautiful puppy and the silly green walls I mentioned; I hang pictures on them and my hands do not shake from drug withdrawal anymore, no, they write and they paint and they cook! They are, in essence, <em>recovered.</em></p><p>For better or for worse the book exists and, above all else, I hope it might help someone, anyone, as much as it has helped me to write it.</p><h2>
Buy The Third Sunrise Here:</h2><p><iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?t=uncoveredmaga-21&o=2&p=8&l=as1&asins=1926780167&ref=tf_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0400FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width:120px;height:240px;"></iframe><iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?t=uncoveredmaga-21&o=2&p=8&l=as1&asins=B007KSAVD6&ref=tf_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0400FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width:120px;height:240px;"></iframe></p><p>Natalie Jeanne Champaign blogs for Mental Healthy: <a href="/blogs/natalie-jeanne-champagne">Mental Health Blog</a></p><p>You can learn more about The Third Sunrise: A Memoir of Madness at <a href="http://www.thethirdsunrise.com" target="_blank">www.thethirdsunrise.com</a></p></div><p> </p>