Antioch author recounts lonely journey through despair

By Roni Gehlke

The man who adored her suddenly showed his dark side and changed drastically. For 10 years he was in and out of jail and mental hospitals.

Johnson lived through the nightmare without the support of those she thought would always be there for her. Now 25 years since that dark period of her life started, she is finally able to tell her story, and hopes that in the words of her book people in similar circumstances can find help.

Johnson's book, "From Visions of Grandeur to Depths of Despair: Help! Is Anyone Out There," delves into one woman's journey of living with a husband with bipolar disorder, or as many people know it, manic depressive behavior. She writes the book under a pen name, Norma Lou Johnson, and changes the names of those involved to protect her daughter. Otherwise, all of the experiences are exactly they way they happened, she says.

While in hindsight, Johnson said there were probably clues that her husband was bipolar, she didn't start seeing signs until he was in his 40s. "He had bouts of depression while he was in Bible college, but they didn't seem like much at the time," she said. "It wasn't until 1985 that he started to get real bad. He was arrested and jailed and then moved into mental facilities several times."

At the time, no one really knew what was going on, according to Johnson. She was told that her husband had a chemical imbalance and then he was given heavy medications to try to fix the problems. Worse were the responses from friends and people who should have been more forgiving of her husband's behavior.

"He was a pastor, and his friends were pastors. They all pulled away saying his behavior was evil and God had turned against him," the Antioch resident said. That was why she added the words "Help! Is Anyone Out There" to the title of her book.

In 1996, Johnson's husband died in a mental hospital after a severe psychotic episode, leaving Johnson and her family devastated. Friends suggested that Johnson write a book about what had happened to her and her family during those 10 years of her husband's illness, and at the time she toyed with the idea, writing down her thoughts and ideas.

Then one day she was watching television and a talk-show host was talking about a situation similar to her husband's. The host said she didn't believe a word of the excuses being made for bad behavior and didn't believe there was any such thing as bipolar disorder.
Johnson knew it was time to get serious about writing her story. She didn't want other families to go through what she had and not have the support they needed. She also wanted people to understand that you can separate the person from the disease.

"But above and beyond this, I want the readers to know that God is totally sufficient to comfort, care for and support all the victims of mental disorder," she said.
Johnson shows through the book that while others thought that God had turned his back on her husband, she knew that wasn't the case. In turn, she never turned her back on God.

To make her dark nightmares worse, a few years later she discovered that her two sons were also bipolar, and both died as their father had at age 43. Her sons died within 15 months of each other. She doesn't go into this information in her book, but the emotional impact of what she lived through shows through on the pages within the story.

Johnson moved to Antioch in 2000, the year she married Vern Johnson. The two had first met at age 16. At the time, Vern Johnson had wanted to marry Lois, but it wasn't meant to be until years later. Since marrying, the couple have been active in the community and their church.
Copies of her book are available through Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com and xulonpress.com/bookstore or by calling 866-909-2665. She also will be speaking and signing books at the Antioch Senior Center on Jan. 27.