by Rohan Sharma
If you have never reached rock bottom, you have never attended the school of greatness.
― Matshona Dhliwayo
Spending time in what is known as the “suicide wing” (back in the jail next door known as DC) was an altogether different experience. They only opened the door for five minutes every morning to converse with the psychiatrist, to deliver food three times a day, and once in the evening for medication. What kept me going was the fear of what awaited me when I returned to PICC. Would the inmate still be there in the receiving room? Did he really know people on my block? Was there a way for him to come on to A block? I paced around my bed feverishly. No soap was provided in these “suicide cells,” and all clothes had to be removed. We were only given a green smock to cover our bodies, and it grew very cold at times. I couldn’t speak to my mom over the phone as long as I remained in the suicide cell, and my mind raced with anxious thoughts. What if she had a heart attack? What if there was a car accident? Here, I had no cellie, and with my newfound privacy, I cried for the first time since I arrived.
Then one night during my stay there, a heavy rainstorm hit our area. The rain came pattering down against my small window, heavier than I could recall in quite some time. Outside I saw a spider’s web, with a giant spider braving the rain. The wind tossed and turned the web furiously, but still the spider continued to hold on.
True, I was in a tough situation, I thought. But if I can just hang on like that spider, maybe I, too, can weather the storm.
Finally I reached my wit’s end. I realized there was only a certain amount of fear I could tolerate before something in me changed. If that inmate was going to stab me, then there was nothing I could do about it, but I wouldn’t continue to stay in that cell a day longer and torture myself with fear. With that realization, I started working out to ease my anxiety by doing tricep dips, using the bed for support, as well as doing incline pushups. The next morning I told the doctor I was no longer suicidal, and I signed some paperwork to get me off that dreadful block and into a nice, hot shower.
Editor’s Note: This piece will appear in the upcoming memoir A Very Thin Line, from Rhythm & Bones Press. Many thanks to Rohan and the Rhythm & Bones team for allowing us to showcase it here.
About the Book: One in five people living with bipolar die by suicide. Forty percent of people with bipolar have a run in with the law at some point in their lives. This is a story not often talked about but necessary to be told. In A Very Thin Line, Rohan Sharma takes the reader on a confessional and genuine journey through his bipolar episode that left him incarcerated and serving time in jail. He does not shy away from the darkness that exists in this reality and encourages others living with mental illness to seek the help they need so they, too, do not end up in unfathomable situations such as he found himself in. Despite the darkness he faces, he finds a way to focus on the light and the positive, and while incarcerated makes the biggest discovery of all: his self and who he wants to be.
Rohan Sharma is a national speaker and rapper who goes by the stage name “Rx Mundi”. He became an avid mental health advocate subsequent to serving a twenty-three month jail sentence after pleading guilty to an armed robbery that took place in the fall of 2011. At the time, Rohan was a medical student at Drexel University. However, due to his mental illness being misdiagnosed, he was given the wrong medication which induced a psychotic episode.
He mainly speaks at high schools and college campuses as part of NAMI’s “Ending the Silence” program, demonstrating the power of positive thinking to students as well as how he was able to create order in his life. His story has been featured by “This Is My Brave” ― an organization dedicated to telling the stories of those afflicted with mental illness. In addition to this, he is being showcased in an upcoming documentary by academy award winning director Ken Burns. Follow him online @RxMundiWorld.