After suffering from mental illness for more than two decades — during which she attempted suicide several times and spent years in psychiatric hospitals — Audrey Olsen is earning her college degree.

In psychology.

Olsen, 51, is in the 2009 spring graduating class at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, and will receive her degree during commencement ceremonies Saturday.

“It’s been a long road,” said Olsen, who initially enrolled at Parkside in 1977, before going into a hellish downward spiral of depression and psychotic episodes.

A Kenosha County native whose parents operated a dairy farm, Olsen said she began experiencing severe depression as a child.

“I used to cry all the time,” she said. “When I was in high school (at Central High) I didn’t go on any dates or anything, and I felt crummy about myself.

“That’s when I started abusing myself. I’d punch walls just to see my hand swell up. The physical pain wasn’t as bad as the pain I felt inside. It took my mind off my emotional pain.”

She hid that behavior from her parents, Lawrence and Dorothy Olsen, she said.

Olsen attended Parkside for two years, then left to work in a day-care center.

“I just got tired of studying,” she said. “And I loved working in day care.”

In 1980, her father died of a stroke at age 61. (At the time of his death, he was Brighton town chairman, she said.)

The next year, her mother died of colon cancer at age 51.

The deaths of her parents, particularly in such a short span, devastated Olsen.

“When my mom died, it especially hurt me,” she said. “I was really close to her. It was like losing my best friend. That’s when everything got really bad.”

For the next two decades, Olsen was in and out of mental-health facilities and group homes. She suffered from borderline personality disorder (characterized by intense mood instability and a disturbed perception of one’s self), major depression with suicidal tendencies and psychotic episodes.

“I heard voices,” she said.

Throughout those years, her sister and three brothers did everything they could to help her. But she seemed beyond rescue.

“I tried to commit suicide several times,” she said. “I overdosed. I cut myself. I hung myself once, but somebody found me before I died. The doctors didn’t know if I was going to live, and they didn’t know how long my brain had been without oxygen. They thought I might have severe brain damage. But thank God I didn’t.”

She was repeatedly admitted to hospital psychiatric wards throughout southeastern Wisconsin and was committed for several years to state psychiatric hospitals in Mendota and Winnebago.

“I would be released, and then I would be committed again,” she said.

When not institutionalized, she lived in area group homes for the mentally ill.

Early this decade, she found relief from her illness by joining a local church, responding to the support of her siblings and continuing her intensive psychotherapy as well as taking anti-anxiety and anti-psychotic medication.

She also met her boyfriend, whom she has been with for almost a decade.

Six years ago, she re-enrolled at Parkside, where campus officials agreed to accept the credits she had earned in the 1970s.

“I’ve taken two classes each semester,” she said.

Thus, 30 years after leaving the university, Olsen will earn a bachelor of science degree in psychology with a minor in criminal justice.

Also, she has earned a mental-health certificate, an irony that does not escape her.

She hopes to get a job in which she helps mentally ill people. Ideally, that would be as a psychiatric technician working in a group home, performing tasks such as leading group-therapy sessions and administering medication, she said.

“Instead of living in a group home, I’d work there and help the people there,” she said.

She opted to major in psychology partly out of a desire to learn about her own conditions.

“It has given me insights into myself,” she said. “I learned a lot.”

She signed up for a couple of criminal justice classes and enjoyed them, and decided to minor in that subject.

Being much older than the majority of her classmates was a challenge.

“I was always the oldest one in class and people would wonder, ‘What’s she doing here?’” she said. “But most of the young people were really nice to me. They’d hold the door for me, and they would be friendly to me in class.”

Said Olsen’s sister, Pat Sasaki, of the lengthy period Olsen spent at her lowest depths: “My heart ached for her to be free of this dark mystery, to live a happy life and enjoy the gifts that abound. None of us could really understand the depth of depression, the futility that depression clouds the mind with.”

Sasaki said she prayed constantly for Olsen’s recovery — and called it a miracle when it finally occurred.

“I am certain our parents would be very proud of her,” she said.

Does Olsen have words of advice for people suffering from mental illness?

“Don’t give up, because it does get better,” she said.

And she should know.

“I feel like a new person,” she said. “I feel like I want to live. And I was determined to get that degree. At graduation, I’m gonna get up there and say, ‘I did it!’”