After Bipolar Diagnosis, French Became Her ‘Asylum From The Madness’
Soon after she started her sophomore year of high school, Abby Garver was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
“It was just like everything kind of went to hell all at once,” Garver said.
She started taking several medications, stopped sleeping regularly and fell behind in school.
One thing that helped her through it all was French. Garver had taken a few classes in high school and liked it.
“Some of it was just, it gave me that feedback I wanted, some positive feedback of being good, and that mattered,” Garver said.
But she found it also helped slow down her racing thoughts.
“For whatever reason, it was like thinking and expressing myself in French were different.”
She continued to study the language at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
College was not easy. Garver initially took one or two classes per semester and at one point withdrew due to stress. But she excelled in her French courses and was named one of the department’s most outstanding students.
Earlier this year, Garver used the language to document her story. She wrote about being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and finding solace in French. The essay, titled “Mon Asile De La Folie” (“My Asylum From The Madness”) placed third in a national competition and will soon be published by the American Journal of French Studies.
Charly Verstraet, one of Garver’s professors at UAB, said her journey speaks to the power of language.
“It is one of these moments where what we studied in class and the language meaning something sort of transcended the classroom, and transcended the reason why we learn,” he said.
In recent years, Garver has started seeing a new psychiatrist. She’s relying less on medication and more on behavior therapy, a combination she said works better for her. After more than 10 years, she graduated this summer with a double major in French and Spanish.
** UAB holds WBHM’s broadcasting license, but our news and business departments operate separately.
Birmingham is 3rd worst in the Southeast for ozone pollution, new report says
The American Lung Association's "State of the Air" report shows some metro areas in the Gulf States continue to have poor air quality.
Why haven’t Kansas and Alabama — among other holdouts — expanded access to Medicaid?
Only 10 states have not joined the federal program that expands Medicaid to people who are still in the "coverage gap" for health care
Once praised, settlement to help sickened BP oil spill workers leaves most with nearly nothing
Thousands of ordinary people who helped clean up after the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico say they got sick. A court settlement was supposed to help compensate them, but it hasn’t turned out as expected.
Q&A: How harm reduction can help mitigate the opioid crisis
Maia Szalavitz discusses harm reduction's effectiveness against drug addiction, how punitive policies can hurt people who need pain medication and more.
The Gulf States Newsroom is hiring a Community Engagement Producer
The Gulf States Newsroom is seeking a curious, creative and collaborative professional to work with our regional team to build up engaged journalism efforts.
Gambling bills face uncertain future in the Alabama legislature
This year looked to be different for lottery and gambling legislation, which has fallen short for years in the Alabama legislature. But this week, with only a handful of meeting days left, competing House and Senate proposals were sent to a conference committee to work out differences.
