Stuart woman, once life of the party, battles mental illness, reclaims her life | Opinion

By her own admission, the conversation got a little awkward when Yolande Kneuer went to the Home Depot store in Stuart last spring to return a generator she had purchased only a few days earlier.

She told the clerk there was no problem with the equipment; it seemed to be working just fine. The thing was, Kneuer no longer needed it to try to kill herself.

Kneuer can talk matter-of-factly about her failed suicide attempt now, because she's moved past that low point in her life. In fact, she's willing to share many sad and horrifying details about her past as a way to help people better understand mental illness.

Kneuer, who celebrated her 57th birthday Dec. 13, was diagnosed with manic-depressive disorder while she was in her 20s. It wasn't a huge surprise, since both of her parents had similar issues.

Kneuer has spent her life coping with that and other challenges, including attention deficit disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder.

Rather than trying to hide who she is, she's "bringing it out of the closet" because silence only reinforces the stigma our society holds toward people battling mental illness.

"We can't just brush it under the rug anymore," said Kneuer, who goes by the nickname "Yo." "We have to deal with it."

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Kneuer, a twice-divorced mother of two, has dealt with a lot in her lifetime. The botched attempt with the generator was one of six times she tried to kill herself. She's also been admitted to mental care facilities six times.

Her condition wrecked both of her marriages and cost her a job coaching tennis at Jensen Beach High School. For a while, she lived in the woods as a homeless person. Once, her depression left her bedridden for two-and-a-half years, which took a toll on her physical health.

The holiday season is supposed to be filled with joy, but for some people, the stress of being separated from loved ones or being unable to provide great holiday gifts may trigger depression or suicidal thoughts.

Kneuer understands those demons all too well. Manic-depressive disorder, sometimes called bipolar disorder, affects the neurotransmitters in a person's brain. Sometimes, those neuro-transmitters fire at an abnormally high rate, triggering mania. At other times, they fire at an abnormally low rate, triggering depression.

Over the course of her life, Kneuer has exhibited many kinds of erratic behavior. Some of it, like her strong fascination with palm trees, is relatively innocuous. But other manifestations, like picking obsessively at sores or imperfections on her skin, can be harmful to her. Other symptoms include forgetfulness, dyslexia and mood swings.

She wrote with remarkable candor about her life in a self-published memoir titled "Flourishing From Mental Illness," which is available online through Barnes & Noble and Amazon. It's published under the name Yolande de Gastyne-Fawcett, using the surname from her first marriage.

Kneuer grew up in Virginia and attended George Mason University, where she sang at the school's sporting events. In the book, she describes a pen pal relationship with actor Tom Selleck that grew out of one of those performances. Although she says she never talked to Selleck face-to-face, he did correspond with her several times, offering tips on her singing career.

She worked various sales and marketing jobs, and eventually started "The 'Yo' Show," a business where she served as a singing DJ. During that time, she was quite literally the life of many parties, occasionally rubbing elbows with big-name celebrities.

She sang in other venues as well, including high-profile gigs like a rendition of the National Anthem before an Atlanta Falcons football game.

(If you're reading this column online, I encourage you to watch the video clips from that game as well as her performance, with an assist from her daughter, of "God Bless America" on a cruise ship. If you can get through the latter without having some type of emotional response, you're made of stronger stuff than I.)

At times, her mania made her seem "on the ball," which masked some of the struggles she was facing. Other times, her lack of impulse control resulted in bad decision-making, like when she nearly ended up sleeping with a guy she had just met during a spur-of-the-moment trip to California to be "discovered" or when she joined a group of strangers on an impromptu spring break trip to Florida.

After moving from place to place during the early years of her first marriage, she landed in Stuart 22 years ago when her first husband was transferred there for work. Although the marriage produced a son, Zach, now 26, and a daughter, Sierra, 25, she said her condition created a rift with her husband that eventually led to divorce after 17 years.

She met her second husband, who had been the victim of a brutal home invasion, when she volunteered her DJing services for a fundraiser to cover some of his medical expenses. They divorced after seven years of marriage because of her mental illness.

Kneuer also has been politically active, hula-hooping at a campaign event for former presidential candidate Ben Carson and working for one of U.S. Rep. Allen West's campaigns.

The suicide attempt with the generator proved to be a turning point in Kneuer's life. She was ready to end it all after spending two and a half years in isolation.

"I couldn't take one more day," she said. "I'd had enough."

She paid $664.53 for the equipment, then lied to a friend about why she needed the generator to get help hauling it into her apartment. She dragged it into her bedroom and stuffed towels under the cracks in the door so the toxic fumes would not escape. After running the generator for four hours, she figured there would be enough carbon monoxide trapped inside the room to finish her off.

When she awoke the next morning, she said: "I guess, Lord, you're not done with me yet."

She was transported to the emergency room at Cleveland Clinic, then transferred to Coral Shores Behavioral Health, where she finally got the right cocktail of medication ― Cymbalta and Latuda ― to keep her symptoms under control.

Bryan Irvine, crisis intervention coordinator at the Martin County Sheriff's Office, said the change in Kneuer under the new medication regimen has been noticeable.

"I watched her spiral down," said Irvine, who has known Kneuer for several years. "I didn't know the extent of her mental illness until she ended up homeless. She was basically able to pick herself up and start over again."

As long as she stays on her meds, Irvine believes Kneuer is capable of handling whatever life throws at her.

"I have no doubt with her work ethic and drive, as long as she remains under a doctor's care, there's no reason why she can't be a productive member of society," he said.

Kneuer said she's in a good place now. She's decided she's too old to keep lugging around DJ equipment, so in July, she started a new singing telegram and balloon and flower delivery service called "A Hug and a Smile."

She has largely positive relationships with her siblings, her children, and her mother. (Her father is deceased.)

She's trying her luck with online dating, although finding a partner understanding of her situation has been tough. "When I bring up the bipolar part of my history, it's pretty much a deal-breaker," she lamented.

And she's working on a second memoir that will cover the portion of her life since the first book's publication in 2008.

Best of all, she's got a "bucket list" of plans for the future.

She wants to start playing tennis again, take drum lessons, and work with a vocal coach to regain her singing voice. She would like to take a trip to Paris to see one of her sisters. She would like to meet Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis, who's been a mental health advocate.

She hopes to one day be a contestant on "Survivor," one of her favorite TV shows.

She even hopes to have a movie made about her life. Her working title? "Yonique." (She thinks either Jennifer Lawrence or Shailene Woodley could pull off the role.)

For those facing mental health challenges, she offers the following advice: "Get the right psychiatric help, in tandem with a therapist. Have a social, non-toxic circle of friends and family. Using coping mechanisms (bicycling, cooking, and reading, in her case) when you feel depressed."

I'm not naive enough to think her struggles are over. Like most of us, she'll remain a work-in-progress for the rest of her life.

But after meeting her and getting to know her for a short while, I'll never look at a homeless person or a person who's acting erratically in public the same way again.

That person may well be a talented singer, an ambitious entrepreneur, an accomplished tennis player, or anything, really. Knowing Yo is going to help me look past the mental illness to see the person inside.

And that was a pretty nice Christmas gift to get.

If you need assistance locating long-term mental health resources, talking through a problem, or exploring mental health treatment options, call 211 to speak with a live person who can help.

(NOTE: Kneuer has a GoFundMe account to help her with some of the bills she's accumulated as a result of her condition. The link is https://www.gofundme.com/f/yo-kneuer-reach-her-financial-bills-goal. To contact her about "A Hug and A Smile," call 772-486-1185 or email yokneuer13@gmail.com.)

This column reflects the opinion of Blake Fontenay. Contact him via email at blake.fontenay@tcpalm.com or at 772-232-5424.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Stuart woman puts human face on fight against mental illness | Opinion