Everyone wonders, what could be his motive? Why would Adam Lanza kill so many people? Yes, he had Aspergers. But does that explain why he took a gun and killed children? And so many? What went wrong? And how could we as a society prevent future disasters such as this one.?

I'm not Adam Lanza. I can't explain anything for him. But I have a mental illness. Twenty months ago I was diagnosed with bipolar. It's been a long road, but almost 2 years ago, I went through my own crises and I want to tell you about it.

I wasn't sleeping for days. I was up, and my mind was racing. Later I would find out that I was having a manic episode, but at the time I didn't know what was going on. I just kept writing and writing. I thought that I didn't need a lot of sleep, that all of the time when I took such good care of myself I had been overprotective of myself. I was functioning on no sleep and I kept going.

On Wednesday in the middle of the night, I felt like I was having a heart attack. I called 9-1-1 and they sent an ambulance to me. When the ambulance came and they saw me, a thin, young women, they laughed in my face. "You're not having a heart attack," they said. I was terrified. My heart felt hard. I had never experienced anything like that in my life. I started screaming and yelling, trying to get their attention. The next thing I knew it I was handcuffed and put in the ambulance. I wasn't brought to the emergency room like I thought, instead I was brought to the psych ward. Later I would learn that I was having a panic attack.

I knew I didn't belong there. I was normal. My whole life I was normal. I was 27 years old and I had never been told by anyone that I was crazy. I was so normal, almost too normal. I fit in with my peers my whole life, I had friends. My life was so typical. And yet here I was surrounded by "crazy" people. I saw people who were delusional all around me. And I thought that I had all the answers. I knew what their problem was. I could see beyond the reality of what most people could see. I understood life. And I was going to help people.

And yet there I was sitting in the psych ward. The social worker called me in, she looked exhausted. She said she wasn't tired. I tried to explain to her all the realizations that I was having about the world, but she wasn't even listening to me. The next thing I knew it, she was gone. I was brought back into the waiting room.

Finally, they brought me in to one of the rooms in the hospital. If I had been delusional until this point, it was minor. At this point I became completely delusional. I thought that if I killed myself I would redeem the world. All I wanted to do was kill myself. I saw a police officer with a gun not far from me and i just wanted to take that gun and end my life. Luckily, I was in the hospital surrounded by people who knew how to deal with mental illnesses. Fortunately, I was not at home with my husband and children. I shudder when I think about what I could have done because I literally lost my rational mind and became completely manic. It scares me that someone as "normal" as I had been could literally go crazy.

At that point, I was struggling to get away from the nurses that surrounded me. They attached me to the bed so that I could barely move. They injected me with strong medication, and the next thing I knew it I was asleep. I slept for 20 hours, and when I woke up I was calm and more like myself. I stayed in the psych ward over the weekend, refused to take my medication, and was sent home on Monday.

Needless to say, 2 weeks later I became manic again. The second time around my mania lasted longer and didn't "go away overnight". I refused to take medication again because I was convinced that I was fine, but the nurses could see how manic I was and would inject me with medication at night. The medication caused many side effects; eventually I just started taking a normal dose of medication in the hospital. After staying in the hospital for 3 1/2 weeks, they let me leave.

This time I knew I needed medication. For months afterwards, I was on medication and was doing well until I decided to switch medications and go on a really low dose of another medicine. After 6 months, I ended up manic again and ended up in the hospital. The third time around my mania was not so bad and was quickly discovered so it didn't get out of hand.. But even the third time around, I became delusional.

It's been almost a year since my last manic episode. I take my medication daily and function in society just like everyone else. If you didn't know that I have bipolar you would never guess that I went through what I did. But I'm here to tell you that it's time that we became more aware of the symptoms of mental illness.

I don't know if Adam Lanza had a mental illness but I know that I do. I know the feeling of completely losing touch with myself to the point where i could have done something horrible. I understand the devastating effects of mental illness. So it's time that we do something about it. It's time that in addition to talking about gun control, we also test people for mental illnesses. It's time that everyone knows what to look out for in friends and family so tragedies like this can be prevented.

Author's Bio: 

Sarah Smith is a 29 year old woman with bipolar.