As one of six children, Ruby’s world was always full of people. Throughout her childhood, Ruby loved to do anything involving art. Her talent in ballet was soon discovered, which led her to study ballet with the New York City Ballet in 2001.
Life immediately after high school was spent abroad in Belgium and full of new adventures, fond memories of trying to conquer speaking French and seeing the world as her oyster. Unfortunately, she was sent home from Belgium six months early as she suffered the onset of one of the most severe cases of bipolar disorder that a person can have.
From then on, everything about Ruby’s life focused on all-things bipolar: medications, mood swings, psychosis and doctor’s appointments. She spent thirteen years fighting for her life. In 2019 everything changed completely when she met a new person who redeemed everything that she had lost. Since then, Ruby has worked hard to become a successful person again after only knowing failure for thirteen years. Her family has been proud of all that she has overcome and Ruby tries to keep her life and illness in perspective each day.
In July of 2019, Ruby was thrilled to reach her goal of losing 100 pounds as she danced in Zumba classes at the gym and took walks around her parents’ peaceful, beautiful neighborhood. She continues to lead an active lifestyle.
This past March, Ruby published her first book, her memoir, entitled “I Will Fly: My Journey with Bipolar Disorder.” Ruby was floored by the response that her book has received in the short while that it has been on the market. The entire writing experience was an honor for Ruby as she was able to speak out on behalf of other people suffering from mental illness. Her voice will never lose its power or momentum.
Aside from writing, Ruby loves to stitch together shawls, come up with all sorts of creations in her kitchen and take her niece to the park. From here, she has no idea where her life will take her but she’s more than happy to go along for the ride.
Ruby has understood what trauma is since the day that she broke from reality for the first time. Traumas kept piling up as she soared through her second psychotic episode and beyond. Being faced with all this, with no one by her side, Ruby was desperate to stop swimming in the sea of helplessness. Although, to some small degree, she will carry her traumas with her always, she has found an incredible amount of healing as she tames these beasts and minimizes their power. Learn how she has chosen to seek help and find answers.
Ruby remembered all of the feelings that accompanied the onset of her illness. Desperation floated to the top. She was desperate to stay inside of reality each day, to know how to make friends, to think about anybody other than herself, to be accepted by others in the condition that she was in, to be able to focus on anything while battling the constant sedation of medication. She was desperate to have her mind back. Somewhere in there, thirteen years into the battle, she found ways to feed her hunger and heal her heart. Ruby has traded her life of desperation into one of fulfillment.
Ruby could talk about her medications for days. It was one of the first slaps in the face that accompanied her diagnosis, and it was a big one. Being expected to navigate a litany of psychiatric medications seemed like a joke. She wasn’t a doctor. She was simply an ill person fighting to make it through her day. Everything was a mess: side effects galore, landing on the right medication in the midst of seemingly twenty different problems, the frustration of not sleeping enough vs sleeping too much, endless blood work to be done, and constantly trying to figure out the dosages of nine medications that wouldn’t stay put. As quoted in her book: “I felt like my meds bullied me.” Over time, amazingly, Ruby’s resolve turned her bully into one of her closest friends. Thankfully, Ruby’s childlike frustrations gave way to maturity as she partnered with her doctor to overcome her illness, one medication at a time.
For any normal person looking into the unfamiliar world of mental illness, it seems like people with bipolar disorder just lose their minds. Ruby knows better than that. After being plunged deep into manic depression and then rocketed out into psychosis, Ruby suffered loss after loss. The most obvious losses were a sense of reality, the inability to get anything resembling decent sleep, and the strength to manage a disorderly life. Flip the coin over, though, and take a closer look. In so doing, a person will find that Ruby lost more than two decades of her life, her confidence, her self-worth, her talents, her drive, her autonomy, and her potential. In her own words, Ruby felt like “she had lost her own spirit.”
After years of suffering, Ruby’s life was thrown upside down when she discovered the source of love that heals all wounds. Today, Ruby feels compelled to share the good news.
Ruby remembers the days of bad medical treatment. At a certain point, it almost cost her her life. From being in facilities that would only give her minimal scraps of meds to being treated by a nurse practitioner who ultimately told her to stop taking all of her meds, Ruby needed an overhaul. She started shopping for a doctor and it wasn’t easy at a time when people were not aware of mental health issues. After intense searching, Ruby eventually found a doctor whose expertise, over time, stabilized her and gave her much of her life back. Ruby’s advice for others is to persevere in the battle of finding the right doctor- it pays off in more ways than one.
Each time that Ruby has been in an alternate reality, she was clearly there all alone. How could anyone join her in her journey through delusions and beyond? It’s been two decades since her first episode and ten years since she has been able to stabilize, but that loneliness has still stuck. It seemed like everyone just walked away from her, but that was not true. They were simply moving on with their lives. To this day, Ruby has no one to share her wounded life with and she considers it to be the hardest part of living with mental illness.