I am feeling a bit crappy at the moment, and it's largely due to to a change in my daytime schedule as well as my nighttime schedule. A few days ago, I stayed up late watching TV with my family, about 90 minutes past my normal bedtime. I then slept in the next day late. The day after that, I had to get up about 90 minutes earlier than I normally do due to work. Since then, it's been a see-saw of naps and irregular sleep, which is starting to affect my mental health right about now. I once again got in bed late last night after seeing the new Star Wars movie, and although I got a full nine hours of sleep, I can barely keep my eyes open after a mug of hot coffee and 1/3 of the way through an energy drink. It doesn't matter if I get a ton of sleep at an irregular time; I still feel awful.
I have been too tired to go to the gym, which is not good. In my defense, my young daughter is off of school now and and it's harder to find time to go to the gym when she is home. I know I'll able to get back into a good routine once she's back in school next week,
Man, I feel like I've been run over by a freight train, though, just because my sleep schedule is off. Tonight I'm going to bed at my normal time, and getting up at my normal time tomorrow.
Sleep is very important to us Bipolar folks.Everyday Health's article on Bipolar and sleep is here.
Symptoms that I'm experiencing due to a fucked up sleep schedule are:
- increases moodiness
- increased irritability
- more manic symptoms
Being pretty strict about my bedtime is one of the ways I manage my Bipolar disorder. Not having shift work is good, too. I think that was making me ill for many years.
The holidays have been hard too, especially with all the negative news about people like Carrie Fisher and George Michael dying. In my personal life, the holidays this year have been better, although I need to do better about my sleeping.
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Weird Symptoms of Bipolar
As with any mental illness, there are some pretty strange symptoms that crop up. I don't see a whole lot written about them, and I'm not 100% certain I have my symptoms in the right category here. This article is about weird Bipolar symptoms.
These are just a handful of strange Bipolar symptoms I experience regularly. I'd like to hear about yours if you have in below in the comments.
Hypersexuality
Not really discussed a whole lot, because when you are in for a your 3 month psychiatric check up, and your doctor asks, "How are things?" it's kind of weird to say, "Well, I kind of can't get enough sex," or "It's been Masturbation City at my house, how are you?" Hypersexuality is a symptom of an elevated manic stated whether it's hypomania or full on mania. My husband gets a tiny bit of enjoyment out of this side of Bipolar disorder. Whatever, giggle or be shocked. It is what it is.
Exaggerations
When I'm manic, everything is magnified a million percent. I find that I exaggerate even mundane things when I'm manic. For example, if my husband says nicely to me, "Sweeeeetie, could you try to put your curling iron on your side of the sink so I can get to my razor?" I see it as, WHOA NOW, let's de-escalate the YELLING. Another example would be me re-telling a story to someone. I could re-tell Moby Dick to someone who'd never read it, and it'd be INSANE!!!. It's not that I'm dishonest or a liar or trying to be deceptive; things are just super exaggerated in my brain and that's how it's processed and comes out when I'm in a manic or hypomanic state. When I'm not in a manic state, everything's normal.
Feeling Like I am Crawling Out of My Own Skin
This is a very strange symptom I have when I am having a mood shift, and it doesn't matter if it's going into a Depressive state or a Manic state. I feel like my insides are roiling and that my organs themselves are trying to claw out of my body. It's almost physical pain sometimes. I know it's psychiatric related because it accompanies other symptoms of Bipolar, and when those symptoms are under control or in remission, the clawing internal pain goes away. I think it's some type of emotional disregulation that is so severe it causes me to feel it very physically. Very odd experience, and I have a hard time describing it. It almost feels like that scene from 'Alien.'
Mixed States
Bipolar Mixed states are super weird. You are depressed and often suicidal, but you have manic energy and racing thoughts. The combination is often lethal for us Bipolar folks because you are having bad thoughts, and the energy and follow-through to carry them out. Mixed states are pretty awful to be in because you get both moods at the same time, and it's super, super strange. I am not sure I can explain it properly to someone who does not have Bipolar. Imagine going sky-diving out of a plane, and you expect to be falling down towards the Earth, but you are sucked up backwards towards the sun instead. Weird, weird, weird.
Stuttering
In hypomanic/manic states, I s-s-stutter a lot as I speak much more quickly than normal, and I have a lot of GREAT ideas I need to get out of my mouth, and they compete with each other. Sometimes people think I'm a bit slow mentally when I am stuttering when in reality my mind is racing at a quadrillion miles an hour.
Cravings for illegal drugs and alcohol
I have never done any type of illegal drugs, not even pot. I don't drink and I don't smoke cigarettes. When I get manic, I want to try street drugs, drink and smoke so bad, it's so strange. My normal self is not interested in those things. Only my manic self. Inhibitions are lowered. I've never acted out on these impulses because I do not surround myself with people who make those types of decisions, and I have a stable and supportive family. My fahter was an alcoholic, as well as numerous members of my immediate family. Something deep down tells me one glance in this direction and I'm done.
Getting Lost in Familiar Surroundings
It could be that I simply get so disorganized while in Bipolar mania or what not, but I sometimes have a really hard time with getting around, even places that are super familiar to me like the grocery store, or work, or a park we frequent. I won't realize I'm lost until I'm driving around, frowning as to why the store is not *here*. This got really bad a few years ago, but with the increasing frequency of cell phones with GPS it's less of an issue. I still have to use GPS almost wherever I go. I don't know if this is a side effect of Bipolar meds, or a symptom of Bipolar or another one of the illnesses I have. It comes and goes. Sometimes I am super sharp and I can give really ordered, accurate directions and my husband stares at me like, WTF? And other times, I am calling him asking him how it could be that the gas station moved. It's almost like a block in my actual brain that I can feel.
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
My Article for The Mighty!
I am very humbled and grateful for The Mighty for publishing my article:
The 'Un-traditional' Way I Manage My Bipolar Disorder During the Holidays
I hope that by writing about my own experiences, people may realize they have a mental illness and get treated, or that a loved one does.
The 'Un-traditional' Way I Manage My Bipolar Disorder During the Holidays
I hope that by writing about my own experiences, people may realize they have a mental illness and get treated, or that a loved one does.
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Having a Good Relationship with Your Psychiatrist
Having a Good Relationship with Your Psychiatrist
I have underlined the title of this post because this is potentially a life-saving tip for someone with any mental illness, especially for people with Bipolar because we experience such extremes that are not always present when in a doctor's office. I have listed some things below that I have found helpful in having a good relationship with the person who will perhaps be as most involved in what's going on in your cranium as you are.
Step 1: Finding a psychiatrist
It is vitally important that you find a psychiatrist you both like AND trust. If you don't have either of those things, switch and keep looking. Trust me. Having Bipolar Disorder is serious business, and you need a doctor who is going to be on the same page as you. Your relationship with your psychiatrist is kind of weird. They hear your most bizarre symptoms and try to sort it out, prescribing serious medications with serious side effects. Like and trusts are essential components in a good doctor-patient relationship. Once you find a good psychiatrist, it's important for you to stay with them as long as you are able to because it will make your life easier than bouncing around from doctor to doctor.
Step 2: Maintain regular appointments
Once you have found a good psychiatrist (and it can take some time), you need to uphold your end of the doctor-patient bargain by scheduling and showing up to appointments. Doctors will often drop patients if you are a chronic no-show. I understand that sometimes it's difficult to remember or get out of bed. My current psychiatrist almost dropped me a couple of years ago for multiple no-shows. I would forget in bouts of Mania when I become super, disastrously disorganized. I explained my problem to my doctor's office. They now do phone call reminders 24 hours in advance. I also invested in a $1 pocket planner that I keep in my purse to write appointments. When your doctor sees you showing up for appointments, they are going to see that you are honestly trying to be a good patient and recover from your illness. This will help establish a good doctor-patient relationship.
Step 3: Be Compliant with Your Medications
This is very important. It is necessary for you to be compliant with your medications. I know, it's hard to manage all the meds you can be taking for mental illness, especially bipolar disorder. If you are abusing your medications or not taking them as prescribed, your relationship with your doctor will suffer, and your life in general will be more stressful. I can't tell you how much easier my life is as a bipolar patient because I am medication compliant. When I wasn't med compliant several years ago, my refills were not done unless I was in an office visit, I had blood tests, my refills on medications were limited to none or 1, causing more frequent visits. Now, when I feel a mood issue arising, such as severe anxiety or sleep changes, or a stressful life event is occurring, I am trustworthy enough with my medications that my doctor will trust me and call in a needed medication to my pharmacy without a visit. I have heard many stories of people who were not medication compliant, and when they were in an unexpected situation, such as a mood shift, their doctors would not call in a prescription until they were seen in an office, which could mean days or weeks of suffering. I have been there. I am sure there are bad psychiatrists out there, and everyone is different. But I have been med compliant for several years and it has made that aspect of managing my Bipolar disorder easier.
Step 4: Speak Honestly and Be Detailed About Everything
Be honest and descriptive when speaking with your psychiatrist about anything from symptoms to concerns to medication side effects. Don't be vague and general. Be as detailed as you can.
For example:
Patient: "I'm having trouble sleeping."
That could mean anything from having trouble falling asleep, having trouble staying asleep, waking up too early, and so on. A better response would be:
Patient: "I am having trouble falling asleep at night. My heart starts to pound and I have a lot of anxiety as I am trying to fall asleep. It usually takes me several hours to fall asleep if at all. It has affected my work performance and I am too tired to spend time with my family. My life is suffering from this problem and I need help."
This will tell the doctor about your quality of life and that you are distressed by your problem.
Another example:
Patient: "The medication makes me feel tired and I've gained some weight."
That could mean anything from feeling a tad sluggish and gaining 5 pounds to something more serious. I made this mistake over the past years as I piled on the pounds. Finally, I had to speak up and be detailed. My revised response was:
"I can't get out of bed in the morning to take my daughter to school because I am afraid I'll wreck; I am that tired. I can't do anything because the medication makes me too tired. I've gained 20 pounds in the past two months on this medication. I can't go on like this." When I used this response, my doctor lessened the dosage of the medication I am taking, and it made a big difference in the mornings. So you've got to communicate properly with your doctor.
So, you ask, when is it time to move on from your psychiatrist?
This is really a subjective issue. I recommend getting a second opinion from your (non-psychiatrist) therapist/counselor (if you have one) or a trusted family member or friend who is familiar with you and your condition before quitting one psychiatrist to leave for another. We can easily get frustrated with our psychiatrists because our condition is distressing. We can quit one to leave for another one in a bout of mania, or get dropped by one for the same reasons.
Some questions to ask yourself about if you should stay with the same psychiatrist, or move on:
- Do I feel rushed in the appointments, as if I don't have enough time to explain symptoms and concerns?
- Does my psychiatrist seemed genuinely interested in helping me recover or stabilize my Bipolar disorder?
- Do I feel comfortable talking to my psychiatrist about distressing symptoms?
- Have I improved under my psychiatrist's care (assuming you are taking your meds as prescribed and keeping appointments, etc)?
- How easy is it to get appointments (i.e, does it takes months or days to get into see your psychiatrist, or do they have an emergency line if the wait is long for an appointment)?
- Does my psychiatrist seem to take me seriously, or does he/she brush off concerns or symptoms that I deem significant?
If you have struggled with the above questions, you might think about switching to another psychiatrist. There may not be many options in your area (there's not a lot in mine unless I am willing to drive 45 min or more), and therefore you are assigned to the one you've got. In that case, make the best of the situation if you can, or make improvements even if it means inconvenience. For me, the most annoying situation I deal with is the appointment issue. My psychiatrist is overloaded with patients due to being one of the top in the region, so it takes months to get into see him. They have set up a nurse hotline for emergencies, which I use, but sometimes I would like an in person visit and that isn't always possible. Another issue I have struggled with is have I improved under his care over the past 6 years? I think so. I have been able to work (although, not consistently) a fair amount while under his care. So I suppose the correct answer is "yes."
If you have any suggestions for finding and maintaining a good relationship with a psychiatrist, please feel free to leave comments below.
I have underlined the title of this post because this is potentially a life-saving tip for someone with any mental illness, especially for people with Bipolar because we experience such extremes that are not always present when in a doctor's office. I have listed some things below that I have found helpful in having a good relationship with the person who will perhaps be as most involved in what's going on in your cranium as you are.
Step 1: Finding a psychiatrist
It is vitally important that you find a psychiatrist you both like AND trust. If you don't have either of those things, switch and keep looking. Trust me. Having Bipolar Disorder is serious business, and you need a doctor who is going to be on the same page as you. Your relationship with your psychiatrist is kind of weird. They hear your most bizarre symptoms and try to sort it out, prescribing serious medications with serious side effects. Like and trusts are essential components in a good doctor-patient relationship. Once you find a good psychiatrist, it's important for you to stay with them as long as you are able to because it will make your life easier than bouncing around from doctor to doctor.
Step 2: Maintain regular appointments
Once you have found a good psychiatrist (and it can take some time), you need to uphold your end of the doctor-patient bargain by scheduling and showing up to appointments. Doctors will often drop patients if you are a chronic no-show. I understand that sometimes it's difficult to remember or get out of bed. My current psychiatrist almost dropped me a couple of years ago for multiple no-shows. I would forget in bouts of Mania when I become super, disastrously disorganized. I explained my problem to my doctor's office. They now do phone call reminders 24 hours in advance. I also invested in a $1 pocket planner that I keep in my purse to write appointments. When your doctor sees you showing up for appointments, they are going to see that you are honestly trying to be a good patient and recover from your illness. This will help establish a good doctor-patient relationship.
Step 3: Be Compliant with Your Medications
This is very important. It is necessary for you to be compliant with your medications. I know, it's hard to manage all the meds you can be taking for mental illness, especially bipolar disorder. If you are abusing your medications or not taking them as prescribed, your relationship with your doctor will suffer, and your life in general will be more stressful. I can't tell you how much easier my life is as a bipolar patient because I am medication compliant. When I wasn't med compliant several years ago, my refills were not done unless I was in an office visit, I had blood tests, my refills on medications were limited to none or 1, causing more frequent visits. Now, when I feel a mood issue arising, such as severe anxiety or sleep changes, or a stressful life event is occurring, I am trustworthy enough with my medications that my doctor will trust me and call in a needed medication to my pharmacy without a visit. I have heard many stories of people who were not medication compliant, and when they were in an unexpected situation, such as a mood shift, their doctors would not call in a prescription until they were seen in an office, which could mean days or weeks of suffering. I have been there. I am sure there are bad psychiatrists out there, and everyone is different. But I have been med compliant for several years and it has made that aspect of managing my Bipolar disorder easier.
Step 4: Speak Honestly and Be Detailed About Everything
Be honest and descriptive when speaking with your psychiatrist about anything from symptoms to concerns to medication side effects. Don't be vague and general. Be as detailed as you can.
For example:
Patient: "I'm having trouble sleeping."
That could mean anything from having trouble falling asleep, having trouble staying asleep, waking up too early, and so on. A better response would be:
Patient: "I am having trouble falling asleep at night. My heart starts to pound and I have a lot of anxiety as I am trying to fall asleep. It usually takes me several hours to fall asleep if at all. It has affected my work performance and I am too tired to spend time with my family. My life is suffering from this problem and I need help."
This will tell the doctor about your quality of life and that you are distressed by your problem.
Another example:
Patient: "The medication makes me feel tired and I've gained some weight."
That could mean anything from feeling a tad sluggish and gaining 5 pounds to something more serious. I made this mistake over the past years as I piled on the pounds. Finally, I had to speak up and be detailed. My revised response was:
"I can't get out of bed in the morning to take my daughter to school because I am afraid I'll wreck; I am that tired. I can't do anything because the medication makes me too tired. I've gained 20 pounds in the past two months on this medication. I can't go on like this." When I used this response, my doctor lessened the dosage of the medication I am taking, and it made a big difference in the mornings. So you've got to communicate properly with your doctor.
So, you ask, when is it time to move on from your psychiatrist?
This is really a subjective issue. I recommend getting a second opinion from your (non-psychiatrist) therapist/counselor (if you have one) or a trusted family member or friend who is familiar with you and your condition before quitting one psychiatrist to leave for another. We can easily get frustrated with our psychiatrists because our condition is distressing. We can quit one to leave for another one in a bout of mania, or get dropped by one for the same reasons.
Some questions to ask yourself about if you should stay with the same psychiatrist, or move on:
- Do I feel rushed in the appointments, as if I don't have enough time to explain symptoms and concerns?
- Does my psychiatrist seemed genuinely interested in helping me recover or stabilize my Bipolar disorder?
- Do I feel comfortable talking to my psychiatrist about distressing symptoms?
- Have I improved under my psychiatrist's care (assuming you are taking your meds as prescribed and keeping appointments, etc)?
- How easy is it to get appointments (i.e, does it takes months or days to get into see your psychiatrist, or do they have an emergency line if the wait is long for an appointment)?
- Does my psychiatrist seem to take me seriously, or does he/she brush off concerns or symptoms that I deem significant?
If you have struggled with the above questions, you might think about switching to another psychiatrist. There may not be many options in your area (there's not a lot in mine unless I am willing to drive 45 min or more), and therefore you are assigned to the one you've got. In that case, make the best of the situation if you can, or make improvements even if it means inconvenience. For me, the most annoying situation I deal with is the appointment issue. My psychiatrist is overloaded with patients due to being one of the top in the region, so it takes months to get into see him. They have set up a nurse hotline for emergencies, which I use, but sometimes I would like an in person visit and that isn't always possible. Another issue I have struggled with is have I improved under his care over the past 6 years? I think so. I have been able to work (although, not consistently) a fair amount while under his care. So I suppose the correct answer is "yes."
If you have any suggestions for finding and maintaining a good relationship with a psychiatrist, please feel free to leave comments below.
Sunday, December 18, 2016
Today Could Have Been Bad
As many of you with Bipolar Disorder know, unexpected challenges, stress and frustrations are especially hard to bear. I have been very careful this holiday season to place as little stress on myself as possible, except for the taking of a new part-time job (usually, I wouldn't take a job or quit a job during the holidays, but this one seems really great for my needs). My first real day on the job starts tomorrow. One of the main requirements of having this job is having a newer, updated smartphone. My hours are clocked in and out via a custom app, and since a lot of my job entails driving, the phone must have GPS so the office can see exactly where I am at all times, and how long it is taking me to get from point A to point B. This affects my mileage and gas reimbursement. Therefore, having a nice phone in working order is an essential component of this job.
I woke up an hour late this morning, unusual for me since my cell phone doubles as my alarm. I check my phone. I figured the phone had come unplugged during the night, or somehow disconnected from the outlet. Nope, still plugged in. I tried a different outlet, a different cord...phone still dead.
At this point, I am starting to have mild anxiety because it's Sunday and most business are not open very long. I hop on Google. An hour later, nothing has worked. It's nearing 11am and I am starting to have some mood fluctuations and panic attacks. I can't very well tell my boss tomorrow on my first day of work that I can't work because my phone broke unexpectedly. Sure, I could try to buy a cheap phone that is prepaid, but there is no guarantee that it would be up to the standards my company requires. When I was hired, I had to present my phone and have the model approved. Showing up on my first day with a cheap $40 phone would be unprofessional.
I am tenuously holding onto my sanity at this point. Options are racing through my head.
I go to the wireless store where we have our contracts through. My broken phone is relatively new, and still under warranty. I take a breath. BUT, the associate begins to say.
No, nononononononono. No BUTS!
Panic starts again. It's Sunday, he reminds me, and with the holidays approaching, it could take a few days for the company to get me a replacement phone.
I want to cry and rage and I barely keep myself together.
The nice associate checks inventory. Even though my expensive, broken phone is less than a year old, it is no longer being made. No one has any in stock. He suggests a different model, a step up from my current model. He goes back to check. None of those in inventory, either.
Maybe it was my white-knuckle grip on the table, or maybe my flushed cheeks. It was 4 degrees this morning, and yet I felt like it was 80 in the store. I hugged my faded camo coat to me.
Model to model we go, each time the associate growing a bit more anxious like me. I wipe away a tear when we reach the end of the shiny smartphones. None in stock a week before Christmas.
At this point, I am near tears. I feel a panic attack coming on. I explain to the associate how I am just now well enough to start my new job tomorrow, but I must have a smartphone capable of certain things. He goes back to talk to his manager. They spend a lot of time talking and looking across the store at me, sitting in a stool with my head down.
The associate comes back and in says if I agree to new 2- year contract on a new phone, he can send me home with a nice smartphone with just the sales tax. I ask how that can happen, when they are out of all of the models?
He places a brand-new iPhone 7 Plus on the table in front of me. Only thing they've got in stock, he says to me. His manager approved it. Apparently, all the mid-range cell phones were out of stock, and the highest-end and lowest-end ones were the only ones remaining.
I awkwardly hug the associate, who shifts uncomfortably. Sometimes, I am socially inappropriate without meaning to be so. I call him my younger and cuter Santa Clause, which makes him turn red. He shows me how to work the phone.
I wrote this post because I immediately jumped to the worst conclusions this morning, a result of my anxiety. I felt mood swings because of my Bipolar Disorder.
However, I felt I did a rather nice job of keeping myself ordered the day before a new job, with a potential crisis like this. I took a moment to pause, and considered logical steps, instead of completely freaking out as I am wont to do. Normally, I would be a mess and shut down.
My line of thinking today included:
Step 1: What could I do that might fix the phone? What resources were available to me, such as the Internet, that might help me determine the problem?
Step 2: I cannot fix my phone on my own. Where do I go to get answers? I researched and went to the highest-rated ATT store in my area.
Step 3: I remained calm and polite as I possibly could as I explained my problem at the store. If I had gone in raging, I doubt I would have gotten the results I got today. I repeated back the information I was told in the form of options, so I would understand them.
Step 4: When it seemed that I was out of options, I stepped back and tried not to freak out while the associate consulted with his manager about my situation. The situation was resolved, and I have the nicest phone I have ever owned in my lifetime.
I was pretty proud of myself for thinking logically today, and not letting my anxiety and Bipolar Disorder control this situation.
I woke up an hour late this morning, unusual for me since my cell phone doubles as my alarm. I check my phone. I figured the phone had come unplugged during the night, or somehow disconnected from the outlet. Nope, still plugged in. I tried a different outlet, a different cord...phone still dead.
At this point, I am starting to have mild anxiety because it's Sunday and most business are not open very long. I hop on Google. An hour later, nothing has worked. It's nearing 11am and I am starting to have some mood fluctuations and panic attacks. I can't very well tell my boss tomorrow on my first day of work that I can't work because my phone broke unexpectedly. Sure, I could try to buy a cheap phone that is prepaid, but there is no guarantee that it would be up to the standards my company requires. When I was hired, I had to present my phone and have the model approved. Showing up on my first day with a cheap $40 phone would be unprofessional.
I am tenuously holding onto my sanity at this point. Options are racing through my head.
I go to the wireless store where we have our contracts through. My broken phone is relatively new, and still under warranty. I take a breath. BUT, the associate begins to say.
No, nononononononono. No BUTS!
Panic starts again. It's Sunday, he reminds me, and with the holidays approaching, it could take a few days for the company to get me a replacement phone.
I want to cry and rage and I barely keep myself together.
The nice associate checks inventory. Even though my expensive, broken phone is less than a year old, it is no longer being made. No one has any in stock. He suggests a different model, a step up from my current model. He goes back to check. None of those in inventory, either.
Maybe it was my white-knuckle grip on the table, or maybe my flushed cheeks. It was 4 degrees this morning, and yet I felt like it was 80 in the store. I hugged my faded camo coat to me.
Model to model we go, each time the associate growing a bit more anxious like me. I wipe away a tear when we reach the end of the shiny smartphones. None in stock a week before Christmas.
At this point, I am near tears. I feel a panic attack coming on. I explain to the associate how I am just now well enough to start my new job tomorrow, but I must have a smartphone capable of certain things. He goes back to talk to his manager. They spend a lot of time talking and looking across the store at me, sitting in a stool with my head down.
The associate comes back and in says if I agree to new 2- year contract on a new phone, he can send me home with a nice smartphone with just the sales tax. I ask how that can happen, when they are out of all of the models?
He places a brand-new iPhone 7 Plus on the table in front of me. Only thing they've got in stock, he says to me. His manager approved it. Apparently, all the mid-range cell phones were out of stock, and the highest-end and lowest-end ones were the only ones remaining.
I awkwardly hug the associate, who shifts uncomfortably. Sometimes, I am socially inappropriate without meaning to be so. I call him my younger and cuter Santa Clause, which makes him turn red. He shows me how to work the phone.
I wrote this post because I immediately jumped to the worst conclusions this morning, a result of my anxiety. I felt mood swings because of my Bipolar Disorder.
However, I felt I did a rather nice job of keeping myself ordered the day before a new job, with a potential crisis like this. I took a moment to pause, and considered logical steps, instead of completely freaking out as I am wont to do. Normally, I would be a mess and shut down.
My line of thinking today included:
Step 1: What could I do that might fix the phone? What resources were available to me, such as the Internet, that might help me determine the problem?
Step 2: I cannot fix my phone on my own. Where do I go to get answers? I researched and went to the highest-rated ATT store in my area.
Step 3: I remained calm and polite as I possibly could as I explained my problem at the store. If I had gone in raging, I doubt I would have gotten the results I got today. I repeated back the information I was told in the form of options, so I would understand them.
Step 4: When it seemed that I was out of options, I stepped back and tried not to freak out while the associate consulted with his manager about my situation. The situation was resolved, and I have the nicest phone I have ever owned in my lifetime.
I was pretty proud of myself for thinking logically today, and not letting my anxiety and Bipolar Disorder control this situation.
Friday, December 16, 2016
Panic! Disorder
Panic Disorder!!!!!!!!
Although I mainly cover my diagnosis of Bipolar Type 1 Disorder, I also cover co-morbid conditions I have. According to this Psychiatric Times Journal Article, 95% of Bipolar patients met the criteria for THREE OR MORE co-morbid psychiatric illnesses. NINETY-FIVE percent! Nearly all of us with Bipolar have other psychiatric conditions as well.
Many of you reading this are like me. We have a multitude of illnesses that would be the devil to beat on their own, much less combined into a Death Team in our minds, constantly yelling inaccurate and false information to ourselves in our minds
Today, however, I am going to address Panic Disorder. Panic Disorder ranks #3 in my most distressing disorders (Bipolar and OCD rank 1 and 2, sometimes switching places). Panic disorder means you have panic attacks. You can have them for no reason at all, or for a certain reason. For me, there is no rhyme or reasons for the most part. I have intense attacks when I am doing something relatively low key, like watching Bob Ross paint happy little trees on TV, or on a fun outing at the Zoo with my family. There really is no sense to me of how my attacks happens. It's like watching 'Jaws'. You're on a boat, relaxing, and suddenly a huge ass shark flops on your boat and bites your legs off for no apparent reason.
What is a panic attack?
A panic attack is an intense wave of anxiety or fear that rushes over you. Some people have different symptoms. I get an ice-cold shot of adrenaline (which is the worse of the feelings, in my opinion), my heart begins racing/pounding especially fast and hard, and I feel like I can't breathe normally. I may get a little dizzy or light-headed. My heart continues to pound like I just ran a marathon. I break out in a cold sweat. My breathing may become labored. I feel like I'm having a heart attack, or ready to pass out. The sensations themselves are frightening, and usually last between 5 minutes to 30 minutes, depending on the severity. Xanax helps calm these bad boys down. I try not to become too reliant on Xanax, and I try to distract myself or calm myself down. It works sometimes, and sometimes it doesn't. Panic attacks will always go away eventually. The worse bout of panic I had was about 36 hours of non-stop attacks. At that point, I wasn't taking anything for anxiety, just Bipolar. I was given Xanax to break the cycle, which it did. That has only happened once, where it just seemed non-stop.
Panic attacks can snowball into a fear of panic attacks. If you're like me, you slowly start to become a hermit. You are afraid of going out of your house because you might have a distressing panic attack. This is where you turn into an agoraphobic: someone afraid to leave their house. I have struggled with mild agoraphobia before, which is another post. That is why Panic Disorder is so distressing. The best way I have found for dealing with Panic Disorder (besides benzos) is to acknowledge that I am having a panic attack. They are easy to identify. I just think, "Ok, I am having the beginnings of a panic attack and I will be fine in a few moments."I repeat this to myself over and over, and eventually the panic attack will cease. I have found running away from the situation I am in while having a panic attack makes my panic disorder worse in the long run. The next time I am in that situation, I will get another panic attack, sometimes worse. Therefore, I try not to leave where I am having the panic attack, whether it's a store, someone's house, or my own bedroom. I don't always succeed in staying in place. I have had panic attacks in bed as I'm trying to sleep, and sometimes I felt so suffocated that I moved into the living room and slept on the floor with the ceiling fan on. You just sort of do the best you can. Each panic attack is an opportunity to defeat the disorder a little more. Don't get discouraged if you have setbacks. Except setbacks to happen, especially with a disorder like this.
Panic attacks tend to vary in frequency for me, and tend to accompany Mania. Some days I will log 15-20 panic attacks, then go a month without one. It just depends on the person. If they are too severe, my psychiatrist and I will discuss the risks of a manic episode versus an anti-depressant to help with the attacks. Sometimes I risk it, sometimes I don't.
Panic disorder is hell to live with. You never know when it's going to explode out from inside of you, like that guy in 'Alien.' Just know that you are not alone if you are experiencing these distressing episodes. It's always best to talk to a doctor if you think you are having panic, although a frequent way of being diagnosed is going to an ER for chest pains (happened to me several times). I can encourage you that medication can help tremendously with panic attacks as well as CBT. I have found that a combination of medication and CBT is the most effective. If I had to choose between the two, though, I'd choose medication. Anti-depressants usually resolve panic for me (pre-bipolar dx) after about 6-8 weeks of taking them. My current mood stabilizers seems to slightly help panic. Otherwise, I am using benzos, CBT and rigorous exercise to help. It never completely goes away, but I have had months-long debilitating episodes of panic attacks and months-long without panic attacks.
The best way I cope with them is to accept them and try to move on. Logging them is also helpful I have found, for it can help you see any triggers. I learned from logging my attacks that they are spontaneous for the most part, but have a slightly higher frequency of happening in crowded places such as a busy store or a packed bus. It may be helpful for you to log your symptoms, too. I recommend logging any symptoms associated with mental illness. I strongly believe that tracking and logging symptoms will eventually help you understand how your mind is working (against you, in this case).
Although I mainly cover my diagnosis of Bipolar Type 1 Disorder, I also cover co-morbid conditions I have. According to this Psychiatric Times Journal Article, 95% of Bipolar patients met the criteria for THREE OR MORE co-morbid psychiatric illnesses. NINETY-FIVE percent! Nearly all of us with Bipolar have other psychiatric conditions as well.
Many of you reading this are like me. We have a multitude of illnesses that would be the devil to beat on their own, much less combined into a Death Team in our minds, constantly yelling inaccurate and false information to ourselves in our minds
Today, however, I am going to address Panic Disorder. Panic Disorder ranks #3 in my most distressing disorders (Bipolar and OCD rank 1 and 2, sometimes switching places). Panic disorder means you have panic attacks. You can have them for no reason at all, or for a certain reason. For me, there is no rhyme or reasons for the most part. I have intense attacks when I am doing something relatively low key, like watching Bob Ross paint happy little trees on TV, or on a fun outing at the Zoo with my family. There really is no sense to me of how my attacks happens. It's like watching 'Jaws'. You're on a boat, relaxing, and suddenly a huge ass shark flops on your boat and bites your legs off for no apparent reason.
What is a panic attack?
A panic attack is an intense wave of anxiety or fear that rushes over you. Some people have different symptoms. I get an ice-cold shot of adrenaline (which is the worse of the feelings, in my opinion), my heart begins racing/pounding especially fast and hard, and I feel like I can't breathe normally. I may get a little dizzy or light-headed. My heart continues to pound like I just ran a marathon. I break out in a cold sweat. My breathing may become labored. I feel like I'm having a heart attack, or ready to pass out. The sensations themselves are frightening, and usually last between 5 minutes to 30 minutes, depending on the severity. Xanax helps calm these bad boys down. I try not to become too reliant on Xanax, and I try to distract myself or calm myself down. It works sometimes, and sometimes it doesn't. Panic attacks will always go away eventually. The worse bout of panic I had was about 36 hours of non-stop attacks. At that point, I wasn't taking anything for anxiety, just Bipolar. I was given Xanax to break the cycle, which it did. That has only happened once, where it just seemed non-stop.
Panic attacks can snowball into a fear of panic attacks. If you're like me, you slowly start to become a hermit. You are afraid of going out of your house because you might have a distressing panic attack. This is where you turn into an agoraphobic: someone afraid to leave their house. I have struggled with mild agoraphobia before, which is another post. That is why Panic Disorder is so distressing. The best way I have found for dealing with Panic Disorder (besides benzos) is to acknowledge that I am having a panic attack. They are easy to identify. I just think, "Ok, I am having the beginnings of a panic attack and I will be fine in a few moments."I repeat this to myself over and over, and eventually the panic attack will cease. I have found running away from the situation I am in while having a panic attack makes my panic disorder worse in the long run. The next time I am in that situation, I will get another panic attack, sometimes worse. Therefore, I try not to leave where I am having the panic attack, whether it's a store, someone's house, or my own bedroom. I don't always succeed in staying in place. I have had panic attacks in bed as I'm trying to sleep, and sometimes I felt so suffocated that I moved into the living room and slept on the floor with the ceiling fan on. You just sort of do the best you can. Each panic attack is an opportunity to defeat the disorder a little more. Don't get discouraged if you have setbacks. Except setbacks to happen, especially with a disorder like this.
Panic attacks tend to vary in frequency for me, and tend to accompany Mania. Some days I will log 15-20 panic attacks, then go a month without one. It just depends on the person. If they are too severe, my psychiatrist and I will discuss the risks of a manic episode versus an anti-depressant to help with the attacks. Sometimes I risk it, sometimes I don't.
Panic disorder is hell to live with. You never know when it's going to explode out from inside of you, like that guy in 'Alien.' Just know that you are not alone if you are experiencing these distressing episodes. It's always best to talk to a doctor if you think you are having panic, although a frequent way of being diagnosed is going to an ER for chest pains (happened to me several times). I can encourage you that medication can help tremendously with panic attacks as well as CBT. I have found that a combination of medication and CBT is the most effective. If I had to choose between the two, though, I'd choose medication. Anti-depressants usually resolve panic for me (pre-bipolar dx) after about 6-8 weeks of taking them. My current mood stabilizers seems to slightly help panic. Otherwise, I am using benzos, CBT and rigorous exercise to help. It never completely goes away, but I have had months-long debilitating episodes of panic attacks and months-long without panic attacks.
The best way I cope with them is to accept them and try to move on. Logging them is also helpful I have found, for it can help you see any triggers. I learned from logging my attacks that they are spontaneous for the most part, but have a slightly higher frequency of happening in crowded places such as a busy store or a packed bus. It may be helpful for you to log your symptoms, too. I recommend logging any symptoms associated with mental illness. I strongly believe that tracking and logging symptoms will eventually help you understand how your mind is working (against you, in this case).
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Anxiety
An...xi....ety (This is a loooooong post. Sorry in advance. Anxiety deserves its own descriptive file.)
Anxiety: Also known as one's own deep personal hell. Anxiety is your brain working against you. Anxiety can become a living, breathing dragon, puffing steam over your tense shoulders, whispering fallacies that take root and begin to grow in your mind.
You're not going to be able to do this.
You can't handle this.
This will be a disaster.
You're a failure.
Everyone is laughing at you.
You're too fat.
You're stupid.
They're all judging you.
What if you can't sleep tonight?
What if that cramp in your leg is cancer?
Lies, lies, lies, and more lies.
Yet this is just a teensy bit of internal dialogue that goes on inside the brain of someone diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorders are right up at the top of the list of my Most Distressing Mental Disorders. Bipolar and OCD are competitors for the number 1 spot usually, but sometimes Anxiety reaches up and takes the cake. Typically, I would rank Anxiety in the third spot, sometimes tied for second (it used to be considered in the same group as OCD, but I guess now OCD is its own disease now). Anxiety is a vicious beast. The only way I can manage my severe anxiety is with medication, specifically, Xanax. I have found that anti-depressants help with anxiety, but I cannot take those with Bipolar disorder.
There are so many different forms of anxiety disorders. General Anxiety, Anxiety from PTSD, Social Anxiety, Phobias, Panic Disorder, and so on. No matter that type of anxiety disorder you have, it's a brutal beast to have on your back.
I am not a doctor or a medical professional. All of these experiences are my own or first-hand from other non-medical people. Please consult a medically-qualified person if you believe you have any of the conditions I discuss here on my blog.
All of this material is my own thoughts and opinions from my own experiences with mental illnesses. All sources are attributed when used.
Mild Helpers for Anxiety
As I mentioned above, I don't have any magical cures for anxiety. The best thing I can do for my own anxiety (General/Panic) is to not fight the attack when it comes. I acknowledge it but let it come. If that doesn't help, Xanax does. I use an app at night called "Calm," and it uses guided meditation to help calm you down from a variety of situations where anxiety might be triggered. That helps me fall asleep at night. Exercise seems to help stave off the frequency of panic attacks and the severity of the anxiety.
Sleep Anxiety
Anxiety is also so brutal because it tends to rob the sufferer of sleep. I get so much sleep anxiety, it's ridiculous. It's called hypnophobia. Basically, you have a bad night's sleep, then you start worrying about the next night's sleep, and it turns into this vicious, hellish nightmare of a cycle. Our three-pound noodle goop is weird like that. The only way I can manage my sleep problems is through medication. I will talk more about sleep, Bipolar disorder, and sleeping medication in a different post. Actually, I have decided I will do a whole post on hynophobia and sleep disorders in the future.
Social Anxiety
Social anxiety is wonnnnddeeeerrrfffullll. Or a hellish nightmare; you choose what you want to call it. I do have social anxiety, but not as severely as some others I have met in person or online. With social anxiety, you are afraid of anything involving other people. Some weird aspects of social anxiety that I have encountered are: being anxious of sleeping with anyone else in the room with me (including beloved husband...usually have to go off to the guest room or the couch), being overwhelmed at events or parties, and avoiding human contact in general. I do avoid parties and get-togethers, and large crowds. I don't know if this is necessarily social anxiety so much as I prefer to be in my own company. I do know at least one friend of mine who is incapacitated from social anxiety, only leaving his house to work on a behind-the-scenes tech job with very little people interaction, and ordering all of his supplies online, and having friends and family go to the store for him. He doesn't mind being outside of his house (so it's not agoraphobia), it's that he gets such severe panic attacks around people. People with social anxiety tend to get wound up in panic attacks and knots, always fearing others are watching, judging and laughing at them. It's an isolating condition.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Generalized Anxiety Disorder means that you don't have anxiety tied to one specific area, like a social event or a past trauma. You just have anxiety in general all or most of the time. Everything gives you anxiety. Your anxiety gives you anxiety. You worry constantly about the littlest of things and blow things out of proportion. You struggle with insomnia as your mind will not turn off at night. You ruminate on every thought and comment and discussion. You feel tense and on edge with nothing going on in your life to cause it. GAD looks like this: You take your car into the mechanic for an oil change, and he comes out and asks to talk to you about something. You immediately start wondering how in the world you are going to afford thousands to fix your car, and you may even start to call or text people to start arranging for rides to and from work since your car is broken. It turns out, the mechanic just wanted to tell you your car needed a new air filter for $5 and wanted to double-check that it was ok with you before he changed it. Another example: Walking out of a department store and the sensor alarm goes off, and you break into a cold sweat, stopping dead in your tracks. Your mind whirls, What set off the alarm? Was it my bag? Oh my god, they think I stole something! What am I going to tell the police when they arrive to arrest me? Turns out, an employee waves you through, telling you the sensor has been malfunctioning all day, and to have a pleasant afternoon. That's what GAD is. It blows every little thing in your life way out of proportion. It is an illogical mess in your mind. I have GAD, and I tend to write down my illogical thoughts, which helps me see how silly and outlandish they are.
Panic Disorder & Agoraphobia
Ug. I am already working on a whole, separate post for Panic Disorder. It is very distressing but also one of the most treatable disorders for me in my own personal experience. The next post on my blog after this one goes up will be about Panic Disorder. It will also briefly address Agoraphobia which is basically a crippling condition where you avoid any situations that cause you panic, and your anxiety levels keep increasing, therefore your world keeps shrinking.
Phobias
Here is a link to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America's article on specific phobias. The only phobia I've had an experience with is hynophobia, the fear of sleep. I am currently working on that in therapy. Other than that, I don't have really specific phobias, so I can't write a ton on other types of phobias. If you have different types of clinically diagnosed phobias, I'd love to hear about them in the comments section.
What's You, and What's Your Anxiety?
Sometimes, my anxiety is so bad that I will be left crying it out. That's when I write down the thoughts in my head on a piece of paper on the left side of the paper. I draw a line down the middle. I write each anxious thought down in the left column, and I counter it with a logical thought on the right side of the paper. But how do you know what is from your anxiety talking, and your own, regular human emotions?
It's difficult to discern what thoughts are your anxiety, and what thoughts are your regular set of reactions. For example: If you have a final exam tomorrow, and you wonder if you are going to get a good grade or not and this is making you anxious, it's probably a normal human reaction. After all, getting good grades on final exams are important. Another example: If you are getting ready to ask the girl of your dreams out on a date, you might be anxious that she'll say no or think ill of you. That's a pretty normal human reaction.
Catastrophic Thinking & Abnormal Anxious Thoughts
An abnormally anxious reaction to the above final exam situation would be: I know that despite studying and doing my best in the class, I'm going to fail the final. I am going to get a C in the class. My professor will think poorly of me. I am so stupid. I may as well drop out of school. I wonder what types of jobs I could get after this term is over. Maybe college isn't for me. *begins looking at Craigslist jobs*
So we went from worrying about doing well on the final (normal), to searching for jobs because we might drop out of school because there is not a possible way to do well on the final (abnormal, catastrophic thinking).
An abnormally anxious reaction to the above ask-out-the-girl situation would be: She is way too pretty and nice for me. Look at me. I'm average height. I don't workout like a lot of guys do, and I don't make very much money. Why put myself through the rejection? Women will never like me. I will spend my whole life alone. A relationship with any woman is hopeless. The rest of my life will be miserable.
So we went from being nervous about asking a pretty girl on a date to determining that we will have a hopeless, lonely life with no meaningful relationships.
This is Anxiety the Devil-Beast talking.
Rational Responses
Who knows? Maybe you ace the Final Exam. Maybe you fail it and get a C in the class, and go on to get better grades in the future. It's just one class, after all. You're not perfect.
Who knows? Maybe that pretty girl says yes, and you have a wonderful relationship that leads to something more. Or, maybe she says no, and you shrug it off, realizing that there are plenty of women out there.
Those are the rational responses. Those of us with Anxious brains don't have those rational responses right away. We always go to the worst situation we can think of.
One personal example I went through recently was a severe ear infection that affected my balance. It caused me vertigo and balance issues, and I was quite sick for several months from the combination of the infection, and the steroids and antibiotics. The specialist told me it could take up to four months to go away completely. After 3 weeks, I convinced myself I was going to permanently disabled and ordered a cane online, and started researching handicap placards for my car. Sure enough, though, my ear infection went away and I am back to my normal, physically-healthy self -- in four months, just like my doctor said.
You're not going to be able to do this.
You can't handle this.
This will be a disaster.
You're a failure.
Everyone is laughing at you.
You're too fat.
You're stupid.
They're all judging you.
What if you can't sleep tonight?
What if that cramp in your leg is cancer?
Lies, lies, lies, and more lies.
Yet this is just a teensy bit of internal dialogue that goes on inside the brain of someone diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorders are right up at the top of the list of my Most Distressing Mental Disorders. Bipolar and OCD are competitors for the number 1 spot usually, but sometimes Anxiety reaches up and takes the cake. Typically, I would rank Anxiety in the third spot, sometimes tied for second (it used to be considered in the same group as OCD, but I guess now OCD is its own disease now). Anxiety is a vicious beast. The only way I can manage my severe anxiety is with medication, specifically, Xanax. I have found that anti-depressants help with anxiety, but I cannot take those with Bipolar disorder.
There are so many different forms of anxiety disorders. General Anxiety, Anxiety from PTSD, Social Anxiety, Phobias, Panic Disorder, and so on. No matter that type of anxiety disorder you have, it's a brutal beast to have on your back.
I am not a doctor or a medical professional. All of these experiences are my own or first-hand from other non-medical people. Please consult a medically-qualified person if you believe you have any of the conditions I discuss here on my blog.
All of this material is my own thoughts and opinions from my own experiences with mental illnesses. All sources are attributed when used.
Mild Helpers for Anxiety
As I mentioned above, I don't have any magical cures for anxiety. The best thing I can do for my own anxiety (General/Panic) is to not fight the attack when it comes. I acknowledge it but let it come. If that doesn't help, Xanax does. I use an app at night called "Calm," and it uses guided meditation to help calm you down from a variety of situations where anxiety might be triggered. That helps me fall asleep at night. Exercise seems to help stave off the frequency of panic attacks and the severity of the anxiety.
Sleep Anxiety
Anxiety is also so brutal because it tends to rob the sufferer of sleep. I get so much sleep anxiety, it's ridiculous. It's called hypnophobia. Basically, you have a bad night's sleep, then you start worrying about the next night's sleep, and it turns into this vicious, hellish nightmare of a cycle. Our three-pound noodle goop is weird like that. The only way I can manage my sleep problems is through medication. I will talk more about sleep, Bipolar disorder, and sleeping medication in a different post. Actually, I have decided I will do a whole post on hynophobia and sleep disorders in the future.
Social Anxiety
Social anxiety is wonnnnddeeeerrrfffullll. Or a hellish nightmare; you choose what you want to call it. I do have social anxiety, but not as severely as some others I have met in person or online. With social anxiety, you are afraid of anything involving other people. Some weird aspects of social anxiety that I have encountered are: being anxious of sleeping with anyone else in the room with me (including beloved husband...usually have to go off to the guest room or the couch), being overwhelmed at events or parties, and avoiding human contact in general. I do avoid parties and get-togethers, and large crowds. I don't know if this is necessarily social anxiety so much as I prefer to be in my own company. I do know at least one friend of mine who is incapacitated from social anxiety, only leaving his house to work on a behind-the-scenes tech job with very little people interaction, and ordering all of his supplies online, and having friends and family go to the store for him. He doesn't mind being outside of his house (so it's not agoraphobia), it's that he gets such severe panic attacks around people. People with social anxiety tend to get wound up in panic attacks and knots, always fearing others are watching, judging and laughing at them. It's an isolating condition.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Generalized Anxiety Disorder means that you don't have anxiety tied to one specific area, like a social event or a past trauma. You just have anxiety in general all or most of the time. Everything gives you anxiety. Your anxiety gives you anxiety. You worry constantly about the littlest of things and blow things out of proportion. You struggle with insomnia as your mind will not turn off at night. You ruminate on every thought and comment and discussion. You feel tense and on edge with nothing going on in your life to cause it. GAD looks like this: You take your car into the mechanic for an oil change, and he comes out and asks to talk to you about something. You immediately start wondering how in the world you are going to afford thousands to fix your car, and you may even start to call or text people to start arranging for rides to and from work since your car is broken. It turns out, the mechanic just wanted to tell you your car needed a new air filter for $5 and wanted to double-check that it was ok with you before he changed it. Another example: Walking out of a department store and the sensor alarm goes off, and you break into a cold sweat, stopping dead in your tracks. Your mind whirls, What set off the alarm? Was it my bag? Oh my god, they think I stole something! What am I going to tell the police when they arrive to arrest me? Turns out, an employee waves you through, telling you the sensor has been malfunctioning all day, and to have a pleasant afternoon. That's what GAD is. It blows every little thing in your life way out of proportion. It is an illogical mess in your mind. I have GAD, and I tend to write down my illogical thoughts, which helps me see how silly and outlandish they are.
Panic Disorder & Agoraphobia
Ug. I am already working on a whole, separate post for Panic Disorder. It is very distressing but also one of the most treatable disorders for me in my own personal experience. The next post on my blog after this one goes up will be about Panic Disorder. It will also briefly address Agoraphobia which is basically a crippling condition where you avoid any situations that cause you panic, and your anxiety levels keep increasing, therefore your world keeps shrinking.
Phobias
Here is a link to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America's article on specific phobias. The only phobia I've had an experience with is hynophobia, the fear of sleep. I am currently working on that in therapy. Other than that, I don't have really specific phobias, so I can't write a ton on other types of phobias. If you have different types of clinically diagnosed phobias, I'd love to hear about them in the comments section.
What's You, and What's Your Anxiety?
Sometimes, my anxiety is so bad that I will be left crying it out. That's when I write down the thoughts in my head on a piece of paper on the left side of the paper. I draw a line down the middle. I write each anxious thought down in the left column, and I counter it with a logical thought on the right side of the paper. But how do you know what is from your anxiety talking, and your own, regular human emotions?
It's difficult to discern what thoughts are your anxiety, and what thoughts are your regular set of reactions. For example: If you have a final exam tomorrow, and you wonder if you are going to get a good grade or not and this is making you anxious, it's probably a normal human reaction. After all, getting good grades on final exams are important. Another example: If you are getting ready to ask the girl of your dreams out on a date, you might be anxious that she'll say no or think ill of you. That's a pretty normal human reaction.
Catastrophic Thinking & Abnormal Anxious Thoughts
An abnormally anxious reaction to the above final exam situation would be: I know that despite studying and doing my best in the class, I'm going to fail the final. I am going to get a C in the class. My professor will think poorly of me. I am so stupid. I may as well drop out of school. I wonder what types of jobs I could get after this term is over. Maybe college isn't for me. *begins looking at Craigslist jobs*
So we went from worrying about doing well on the final (normal), to searching for jobs because we might drop out of school because there is not a possible way to do well on the final (abnormal, catastrophic thinking).
An abnormally anxious reaction to the above ask-out-the-girl situation would be: She is way too pretty and nice for me. Look at me. I'm average height. I don't workout like a lot of guys do, and I don't make very much money. Why put myself through the rejection? Women will never like me. I will spend my whole life alone. A relationship with any woman is hopeless. The rest of my life will be miserable.
So we went from being nervous about asking a pretty girl on a date to determining that we will have a hopeless, lonely life with no meaningful relationships.
This is Anxiety the Devil-Beast talking.
Rational Responses
Who knows? Maybe you ace the Final Exam. Maybe you fail it and get a C in the class, and go on to get better grades in the future. It's just one class, after all. You're not perfect.
Who knows? Maybe that pretty girl says yes, and you have a wonderful relationship that leads to something more. Or, maybe she says no, and you shrug it off, realizing that there are plenty of women out there.
Those are the rational responses. Those of us with Anxious brains don't have those rational responses right away. We always go to the worst situation we can think of.
One personal example I went through recently was a severe ear infection that affected my balance. It caused me vertigo and balance issues, and I was quite sick for several months from the combination of the infection, and the steroids and antibiotics. The specialist told me it could take up to four months to go away completely. After 3 weeks, I convinced myself I was going to permanently disabled and ordered a cane online, and started researching handicap placards for my car. Sure enough, though, my ear infection went away and I am back to my normal, physically-healthy self -- in four months, just like my doctor said.
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Suicide: My Experiences
This post can be triggering if discussion about suicide is a difficult topic for you to read about. If you are sensitive to this issue, please use this time to close the browser window or go to a different website.
Ah, so here we are: Bipolar and Suicide.
According to this Psychiatric Times Journal Article, approximately 50% of Bipolar people have attempted suicide. That number is staggering. One in two of us will attempt suicide in our lifetime. If that doesn't indicate the pain people with Bipolar Disorder go through, I don't know what will.
Have I attempted suicide?
Vaguely. Let me just state now that my encounters with suicide are nowhere near the severity of others who suffer with Bipolar, but this is a blog about my experiences, not theirs, so...
When I was 7 years old, I was having intrusive thoughts due to OCD (undiagnosed at that time, you can read that post here). I wanted the thoughts to stop. The only way I knew how to do that in my 7 year old brain was to stab myself in the general area of my torso, like on a movie I had seen (I would sneak out into the hallway and watch TV while my mom sat on the couch...got all the good scary shows in then).
One day, I went to the kitchen and picked out the sharpest kitchen knife I could find. I pulled my shirt up over my 7 year-old pot belly, and put my hand over my chest, determining which side my heart was in. Of course, not being an anatomical expert at 7, I placed the knife more in my stomach area, below my sternum. I was alone at the time. My mom was at work. My dad was on one of his disappearances. I stood there in the kitchen, and slowly pressed the tip of the knife into my skin. It hurt way more than I expected, and I stopped. I looked down. I had barely even drawn blood. That made me frustrated. I tried again and again, getting slightly more blood, getting the knife tip a little more in. But it was too painful. I put the knife away and looked at my stomach. Stabbing myself through was not going to work. I didn't have any other ideas, so I went to finish my math homework.
As time passed, I still hadn't come up with any ways of really killing myself. The knife was out. I didn't know about pills, hanging, guns or what not. But the thought was all-consuming and with me throughout my childhood.
When I was about 19, I was still uneducated about drugs and pills and what not, being in a very religious and sheltered household. I swallowed as many vitamins, tylenol, laxatives and supplements I could get my hands on, thinking the interactions would kill me or something. It was an impulsive decision, one born out of hate for myself. I ended up shooting those things out of both ends of my body, and slept for 24 hours. After that, I was fine. I was also discouraged. I started googling how to kill myself with pills. I felt like an idiot. The 40 or so pills I had taken were not good for my body, but they were nowhere near what was needed to kill myself. I debated going to the store and buying tons of benadryl, but there was no guarantee that the same type of thing wouldn't happen again. I put suicide off again.
Those are really the only two "attempts" or "encounters with suicide" I have made. They weren't very serious attempts compared to a lot of Bipolar people out there. But they were very real attempts to me based on my limited knowledge of killing myself at the time.
Now, I still have suicidal thoughts, and they are a regular part of me. They are nothing new. They come in, and stick around. Sometimes I write suicide thoughts down as a cathartic experience, other times I just ignore them. There have been times more recently where I have seriously considered suicide, but after doing a lot of research, determined that the ways would be too uncomfortable, too messy for people to clean up after, or have no guarantee of succeeding. The last thing I would want to do is decide to punch my ticket off this ball of dirt, and wake up with brain damage or some other chronic problem due to a failed attempt.
When the thoughts come now, I contact my psychiatrist, and we usually make a medication adjustment. Having a family helps me as well. I think about suicide, and what it would do to my daughter. I couldn't do that to her. It would scar her for life, and she would always be under the umbrella of my own selfish, morbid decision. She is so bright, sweet and well-adjusted and I see a wonderful future ahead for her. I couldn't dim her light from my own desires to put myself out of my own misery.
Mood tracking helps as well, for it gives you a bit of a scientific, objective look into your mental illness. I use an app called Mood Tracker (it has four yellow faces on it, one with a thunderstorm, one with a lightning bolt, and so on). It's free. I've used it for a couple of years. If you track your moods diligently, you can start to see patterns. You log your sleep, your meds, your mood, and any misc. notes you want to add. You can also email the file to yourself or your doctor or therapist. It's pretty easy to use and when I get suicidal thoughts, I can usually go on there and see a decline in mood over the period of a few days, even if I don't realize the decline at the time. As I said in a previous post, depression hits me hard and it's hard for me to recognize the signs of it.
I wonder if my suicidal thoughts were worse as a young person. They seem to get better as I get older, although I am currently on medication so that could definitely be lessening the seriousness of the those thoughts. I was not on medication as a young person, although I definitely needed to be. As I have mentioned before in this blog, the only time I have been hospitalized was when I was feeling majorly suicidal, just as I was receiving my Bipolar diagnosis and getting put on correct medication.
When I have the thoughts of wanting to die, which still do occur, I delay any further decision for 24 hours. I keep delaying my decision of whether or not to kill myself by hours or days. Usually by that time, I can get past the thoughts. As I mentioned above, writing my own suicide letters sometimes helps me get the thoughts down on paper and gets some of the stress out.
Ah, so here we are: Bipolar and Suicide.
According to this Psychiatric Times Journal Article, approximately 50% of Bipolar people have attempted suicide. That number is staggering. One in two of us will attempt suicide in our lifetime. If that doesn't indicate the pain people with Bipolar Disorder go through, I don't know what will.
Have I attempted suicide?
Vaguely. Let me just state now that my encounters with suicide are nowhere near the severity of others who suffer with Bipolar, but this is a blog about my experiences, not theirs, so...
When I was 7 years old, I was having intrusive thoughts due to OCD (undiagnosed at that time, you can read that post here). I wanted the thoughts to stop. The only way I knew how to do that in my 7 year old brain was to stab myself in the general area of my torso, like on a movie I had seen (I would sneak out into the hallway and watch TV while my mom sat on the couch...got all the good scary shows in then).
One day, I went to the kitchen and picked out the sharpest kitchen knife I could find. I pulled my shirt up over my 7 year-old pot belly, and put my hand over my chest, determining which side my heart was in. Of course, not being an anatomical expert at 7, I placed the knife more in my stomach area, below my sternum. I was alone at the time. My mom was at work. My dad was on one of his disappearances. I stood there in the kitchen, and slowly pressed the tip of the knife into my skin. It hurt way more than I expected, and I stopped. I looked down. I had barely even drawn blood. That made me frustrated. I tried again and again, getting slightly more blood, getting the knife tip a little more in. But it was too painful. I put the knife away and looked at my stomach. Stabbing myself through was not going to work. I didn't have any other ideas, so I went to finish my math homework.
As time passed, I still hadn't come up with any ways of really killing myself. The knife was out. I didn't know about pills, hanging, guns or what not. But the thought was all-consuming and with me throughout my childhood.
When I was about 19, I was still uneducated about drugs and pills and what not, being in a very religious and sheltered household. I swallowed as many vitamins, tylenol, laxatives and supplements I could get my hands on, thinking the interactions would kill me or something. It was an impulsive decision, one born out of hate for myself. I ended up shooting those things out of both ends of my body, and slept for 24 hours. After that, I was fine. I was also discouraged. I started googling how to kill myself with pills. I felt like an idiot. The 40 or so pills I had taken were not good for my body, but they were nowhere near what was needed to kill myself. I debated going to the store and buying tons of benadryl, but there was no guarantee that the same type of thing wouldn't happen again. I put suicide off again.
Those are really the only two "attempts" or "encounters with suicide" I have made. They weren't very serious attempts compared to a lot of Bipolar people out there. But they were very real attempts to me based on my limited knowledge of killing myself at the time.
Now, I still have suicidal thoughts, and they are a regular part of me. They are nothing new. They come in, and stick around. Sometimes I write suicide thoughts down as a cathartic experience, other times I just ignore them. There have been times more recently where I have seriously considered suicide, but after doing a lot of research, determined that the ways would be too uncomfortable, too messy for people to clean up after, or have no guarantee of succeeding. The last thing I would want to do is decide to punch my ticket off this ball of dirt, and wake up with brain damage or some other chronic problem due to a failed attempt.
When the thoughts come now, I contact my psychiatrist, and we usually make a medication adjustment. Having a family helps me as well. I think about suicide, and what it would do to my daughter. I couldn't do that to her. It would scar her for life, and she would always be under the umbrella of my own selfish, morbid decision. She is so bright, sweet and well-adjusted and I see a wonderful future ahead for her. I couldn't dim her light from my own desires to put myself out of my own misery.
Mood tracking helps as well, for it gives you a bit of a scientific, objective look into your mental illness. I use an app called Mood Tracker (it has four yellow faces on it, one with a thunderstorm, one with a lightning bolt, and so on). It's free. I've used it for a couple of years. If you track your moods diligently, you can start to see patterns. You log your sleep, your meds, your mood, and any misc. notes you want to add. You can also email the file to yourself or your doctor or therapist. It's pretty easy to use and when I get suicidal thoughts, I can usually go on there and see a decline in mood over the period of a few days, even if I don't realize the decline at the time. As I said in a previous post, depression hits me hard and it's hard for me to recognize the signs of it.
I wonder if my suicidal thoughts were worse as a young person. They seem to get better as I get older, although I am currently on medication so that could definitely be lessening the seriousness of the those thoughts. I was not on medication as a young person, although I definitely needed to be. As I have mentioned before in this blog, the only time I have been hospitalized was when I was feeling majorly suicidal, just as I was receiving my Bipolar diagnosis and getting put on correct medication.
When I have the thoughts of wanting to die, which still do occur, I delay any further decision for 24 hours. I keep delaying my decision of whether or not to kill myself by hours or days. Usually by that time, I can get past the thoughts. As I mentioned above, writing my own suicide letters sometimes helps me get the thoughts down on paper and gets some of the stress out.
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
Managing Finances When You're Bipolar
Spending sprees are a hallmark of mania. Trust me, I know this. I am intimately familiar with this. When I am manic, consequences go away. Can I afford $400 in clothes? No, but we have overdraft protection on our bank accounts, so it'll just go negative balance and charge $100 in fees to pay next time around. My Bipolar mind shrugs it off and thrills in watching each article of clothing pass over the scanner at the check out. Beep. Beep. Beep.
My spending sprees are not always on myself, mind you. Bipolar people in mania are frequently quite generous in their spending sprees, buying things for people around them. It's almost like a gambling high, spending when you're manic. You become almost frenzied in watching the cashier pack the plastic bags full of goodies.
So, can you manage finances when you're bipolar?
Yes.
It's tricky, but it can be done.
The first thing you need to do is have someone else around in your life that can help you with your finances. This can be someone at your bank, a friend, a relative, a spouse/partner...anyone that can objectively view your finances and tell you when you're careening off into unwise territory.
Here are some detailed steps on how I manage finances while Bipolar (I currently manage my family's finances, and do well with the following steps):
1. Enlist the support of your bank. This may not be possible as some banks are rude are don't give a shit about their customers. Skip this step if this is you. My bank is super helpful and friendly (they've gotten tons of overdraft fees from us when I've been on manic spending binges...keeping them in their Mercedes I guess). I told them I have Bipolar disorder and tend to go to on wild shopping sprees, which they said they had noticed on my account. I asked that large purchases be phoned into my husband before they go through. It's embarrassing at the check out line for me if a purchase is placed on hold or denied, but it keeps me from spending hundreds of dollars.
2. When you're feeling Mania come on, even hypomania, turn in all credit and debit cards and checkbooks to your safe person. My safe person is my husband. When I am feeling spendy, or he notices I am spending more than usual on random things, I turn over my access to our bank accounts. My husband will dispense cash to me as I need it for necessary items like food, gas, etc. You can also do this using the envelope system by having your safe person withdraw X amount of dollars to put in an envelope for you to use that week. Once the money is out, it's out. When you're past the manic phase and feeling more normal, you receive back your cards and checkbooks and continue on. You can also use a prepaid card in much the same way. Once X amount of dollars is loaded on the card, that's what you've got for the rest of the week.
3. Avoiding big sale events in your favorite stores. Even if I am not feeling manic at the moment, big sale events at my favorite stores like Target can trigger a manic state in me. Bright lights, cheerful music, and tons and tons of wonderful things all laid out like a spending feast. I can enter feeling relatively calm, but the atmosphere makes me excitable and reckless. Even thought I love sales and getting a good bargain, I typically stay away from big sales. They trigger something in me that quickly becomes overwhelming.
4. Take a safe person with you if you feel manic but need to do some shopping. I will typically take my husband. He is low-key, but will speak up if I am getting too caught up in the moment.
5. Make a list and stick to it, no matter what. If you don't have a safe person to help you with your finances and you are feeling manic, make a list. Make it very specific. For example, if you need to buy socks, don't just write "socks." Write "1 package of ten-count white socks." If you need laundry detergent, write "1 bottle of Tide laundry detergent." Write all over your list "DO NOT BUY ANYTHING BUT THESE THINGS." Avoid sections where you do not need to go. Do not browse. Go directly to the things on your list. Takes cash with you to cover expenses so you are less likely to buy extra things.
These five steps have helped me reduce my manic spending sprees and lessen the financial impact on my family. I am currently in charge of my family's finances and am in charge of paying bills, making sure money is in the correct accounts, doing the grocery shopping, etc. I have bumps along the road. I spent way to much on makeup this month, which we did not need to do. I am currently in a hypomanic state, but I have some safeguards in place which include taking cash for groceries and leaving my debit card at home, or using my safe person (husband). But, all in all, I have been successfully managing my family's finances for about 6 months, and we have done well. So managing finances while you're Bipolar is definitely possible. You just need to have a plan set in place for different possibilities,
My spending sprees are not always on myself, mind you. Bipolar people in mania are frequently quite generous in their spending sprees, buying things for people around them. It's almost like a gambling high, spending when you're manic. You become almost frenzied in watching the cashier pack the plastic bags full of goodies.
So, can you manage finances when you're bipolar?
Yes.
It's tricky, but it can be done.
The first thing you need to do is have someone else around in your life that can help you with your finances. This can be someone at your bank, a friend, a relative, a spouse/partner...anyone that can objectively view your finances and tell you when you're careening off into unwise territory.
Here are some detailed steps on how I manage finances while Bipolar (I currently manage my family's finances, and do well with the following steps):
1. Enlist the support of your bank. This may not be possible as some banks are rude are don't give a shit about their customers. Skip this step if this is you. My bank is super helpful and friendly (they've gotten tons of overdraft fees from us when I've been on manic spending binges...keeping them in their Mercedes I guess). I told them I have Bipolar disorder and tend to go to on wild shopping sprees, which they said they had noticed on my account. I asked that large purchases be phoned into my husband before they go through. It's embarrassing at the check out line for me if a purchase is placed on hold or denied, but it keeps me from spending hundreds of dollars.
2. When you're feeling Mania come on, even hypomania, turn in all credit and debit cards and checkbooks to your safe person. My safe person is my husband. When I am feeling spendy, or he notices I am spending more than usual on random things, I turn over my access to our bank accounts. My husband will dispense cash to me as I need it for necessary items like food, gas, etc. You can also do this using the envelope system by having your safe person withdraw X amount of dollars to put in an envelope for you to use that week. Once the money is out, it's out. When you're past the manic phase and feeling more normal, you receive back your cards and checkbooks and continue on. You can also use a prepaid card in much the same way. Once X amount of dollars is loaded on the card, that's what you've got for the rest of the week.
3. Avoiding big sale events in your favorite stores. Even if I am not feeling manic at the moment, big sale events at my favorite stores like Target can trigger a manic state in me. Bright lights, cheerful music, and tons and tons of wonderful things all laid out like a spending feast. I can enter feeling relatively calm, but the atmosphere makes me excitable and reckless. Even thought I love sales and getting a good bargain, I typically stay away from big sales. They trigger something in me that quickly becomes overwhelming.
4. Take a safe person with you if you feel manic but need to do some shopping. I will typically take my husband. He is low-key, but will speak up if I am getting too caught up in the moment.
5. Make a list and stick to it, no matter what. If you don't have a safe person to help you with your finances and you are feeling manic, make a list. Make it very specific. For example, if you need to buy socks, don't just write "socks." Write "1 package of ten-count white socks." If you need laundry detergent, write "1 bottle of Tide laundry detergent." Write all over your list "DO NOT BUY ANYTHING BUT THESE THINGS." Avoid sections where you do not need to go. Do not browse. Go directly to the things on your list. Takes cash with you to cover expenses so you are less likely to buy extra things.
These five steps have helped me reduce my manic spending sprees and lessen the financial impact on my family. I am currently in charge of my family's finances and am in charge of paying bills, making sure money is in the correct accounts, doing the grocery shopping, etc. I have bumps along the road. I spent way to much on makeup this month, which we did not need to do. I am currently in a hypomanic state, but I have some safeguards in place which include taking cash for groceries and leaving my debit card at home, or using my safe person (husband). But, all in all, I have been successfully managing my family's finances for about 6 months, and we have done well. So managing finances while you're Bipolar is definitely possible. You just need to have a plan set in place for different possibilities,
Monday, December 12, 2016
Working, Jobs and Bipolar Disorder
I can't hold a normal job.
I spent nearly ten years in retail/restaurant, working shift work. I became ill nearly every single time. I didn't have an education, and therefore a regular 9-5 job was difficult to come by. After my most severe manic episode in 2014 where I lost my well-paying salaried job (but was also shift work), I have stayed at home. I pet sit from time to time for people. It's not a real job. It's a gig a junior-higher would have. But it's all I can manage at this time. My husband works hard to support us.
I decided earlier this year to go back to school and get a degree. Shift work is no longer an option for me (unless "you want to see the ward nurses several times a year", as my psychiatrist put it). Therefore, I need an education of some kind to get a job with normal hours.
I had finished most of my 4 year degree, and I have about one year left after this semester is over next week. Then I get my shiny diploma and...
Then what?
The "then what" terrifies me. My student loans were on hold due to a bankruptcy (I describe my manic episode that led to this here), and they will remain on hold until 6 months after I graduate to give me time to find a job. I am already working on getting my substitute teaching packet together. The way sub teaching works in my state is you are put into a pool of workers, and when they need a fill-in teacher the first one to get back to them gets the job. I can go for jobs I want to work, and ignore ones I don't. I figure I can manage that one day a week right now, and may be gradually work my way up to a few days a week. The pay isn't bad and the flexibility is there.
My next option would be to find a 9-5 office job with my new degree. It would have to be close to my house as I don't like commuting. It makes me very anxious. It would have to be boring and low-stress. There are not many of those jobs where I live, in a mainly suburban area mixed with manufacturing and farming. Not a whole lot of office environments.
My third option is to find something outside of the box. I have written a novel (but haven't submitted it because I think it's shit), and am working on a second one (that I think is a tad less shit). My goal is to have at least one novel submitted to a publisher within the next 6 months. The chances of that working are slim, but this idea would be amazing.
My anxious brain is terrified that neither of these 3 options will work out. I will have to consistently be earning a full-time salary by the time the student loan payments come due. I could always postpone the loan repayments with medical leave, but they accrue nasty interest rates (student loans could be a whole other post). I don't want to postpone my life because of Bipolar disorder anymore. I am a doer, an active person. I take charge of situations and become a leader.
So, I have basically a year and half to get well while I am getting my degree. I will have to accept the fact that there will be times I will have to be off work on medical leave (hopefully few, brief, and far between). The future is pressing in on me, though. It's like I'm watching a bad SciFi movie take place: Functionality vs. Bipolar. The past 5 years have been a huge recovering from my untreated early adulthood. I finally feel at nearly 32 that I've gained some wisdom and perspective on living with Bipolar.
Ah, just to put that wisdom into action.
The first step is making an employment contract with myself, my doctor, and my family. These are things that I agree to do in looking for employment in order to minimize my risk of relapsing.
Contract Agreement #1: No Shift-Work Jobs
I will not take a job that involves shift work. I will not take a job that advertises frequent overtime needed. I will only look at jobs with regular hours (even if the the pay is low).
Contract Agreement #2: Commute
I will only consider jobs within a 15 minute commute from my home. This reduces stress involved in taking daughter to and from after-school care. Commuting makes me stressed out. Must. reduce. stress.
Contract Agreement #3: I must say "No" to my hypothetical bosses.
My family and therapist agree I say "yes" far too often. I crave reassurance and praise. I take on too much work, which makes me ill. I cannot do this in my future job. I will say "No" more often, especially if I am not feeling up to it.
Contract Agreement #4: Taking all medicaitons as prescribed
For some of you, this is #1. I don't have a problem with this. I am very aware of my Bipolar Disorder, and am very aware of the symptoms of when I don't take my medications. Therefore, this is lower on the priority list, but still on it.
Contract Agreement #5: Attending regular CBT (2x/month if finances allow)
I agree to regularly attend CBT. I have a tendency to make it when I can make it. If finances don't allow for it, tough shit. I won't go. But if we can make it work financially (and have so far with my psych and therapist in the same office and flexible with payments plans), then I will go regularly.
Contract Agreement #6: I will not ignore "minor" symptoms.
I have a tendency to think "eh, my sleep is shit, I dyed my hair purple overnight and I've a sudden urge to take acting classes and I can't keep a thought in my brain, but it'll pass." It most definitely does not pass. It turns into spending sprees (I will write a post on managing finances when you have Bipolar like me) and even psychosis if untreated. Alas, I will notify my family and therapist/psych when I have symptoms I see as no big deal.
That's it. That's my grand plan. That and I may start smoking again. I've a terrible urge to smoke. I haven't smoked in over a year. That's a different post as well.
Hope everyone is having as low-stress a holiday as they can.
I spent nearly ten years in retail/restaurant, working shift work. I became ill nearly every single time. I didn't have an education, and therefore a regular 9-5 job was difficult to come by. After my most severe manic episode in 2014 where I lost my well-paying salaried job (but was also shift work), I have stayed at home. I pet sit from time to time for people. It's not a real job. It's a gig a junior-higher would have. But it's all I can manage at this time. My husband works hard to support us.
I decided earlier this year to go back to school and get a degree. Shift work is no longer an option for me (unless "you want to see the ward nurses several times a year", as my psychiatrist put it). Therefore, I need an education of some kind to get a job with normal hours.
I had finished most of my 4 year degree, and I have about one year left after this semester is over next week. Then I get my shiny diploma and...
Then what?
The "then what" terrifies me. My student loans were on hold due to a bankruptcy (I describe my manic episode that led to this here), and they will remain on hold until 6 months after I graduate to give me time to find a job. I am already working on getting my substitute teaching packet together. The way sub teaching works in my state is you are put into a pool of workers, and when they need a fill-in teacher the first one to get back to them gets the job. I can go for jobs I want to work, and ignore ones I don't. I figure I can manage that one day a week right now, and may be gradually work my way up to a few days a week. The pay isn't bad and the flexibility is there.
My next option would be to find a 9-5 office job with my new degree. It would have to be close to my house as I don't like commuting. It makes me very anxious. It would have to be boring and low-stress. There are not many of those jobs where I live, in a mainly suburban area mixed with manufacturing and farming. Not a whole lot of office environments.
My third option is to find something outside of the box. I have written a novel (but haven't submitted it because I think it's shit), and am working on a second one (that I think is a tad less shit). My goal is to have at least one novel submitted to a publisher within the next 6 months. The chances of that working are slim, but this idea would be amazing.
My anxious brain is terrified that neither of these 3 options will work out. I will have to consistently be earning a full-time salary by the time the student loan payments come due. I could always postpone the loan repayments with medical leave, but they accrue nasty interest rates (student loans could be a whole other post). I don't want to postpone my life because of Bipolar disorder anymore. I am a doer, an active person. I take charge of situations and become a leader.
So, I have basically a year and half to get well while I am getting my degree. I will have to accept the fact that there will be times I will have to be off work on medical leave (hopefully few, brief, and far between). The future is pressing in on me, though. It's like I'm watching a bad SciFi movie take place: Functionality vs. Bipolar. The past 5 years have been a huge recovering from my untreated early adulthood. I finally feel at nearly 32 that I've gained some wisdom and perspective on living with Bipolar.
Ah, just to put that wisdom into action.
The first step is making an employment contract with myself, my doctor, and my family. These are things that I agree to do in looking for employment in order to minimize my risk of relapsing.
Contract Agreement #1: No Shift-Work Jobs
I will not take a job that involves shift work. I will not take a job that advertises frequent overtime needed. I will only look at jobs with regular hours (even if the the pay is low).
Contract Agreement #2: Commute
I will only consider jobs within a 15 minute commute from my home. This reduces stress involved in taking daughter to and from after-school care. Commuting makes me stressed out. Must. reduce. stress.
Contract Agreement #3: I must say "No" to my hypothetical bosses.
My family and therapist agree I say "yes" far too often. I crave reassurance and praise. I take on too much work, which makes me ill. I cannot do this in my future job. I will say "No" more often, especially if I am not feeling up to it.
Contract Agreement #4: Taking all medicaitons as prescribed
For some of you, this is #1. I don't have a problem with this. I am very aware of my Bipolar Disorder, and am very aware of the symptoms of when I don't take my medications. Therefore, this is lower on the priority list, but still on it.
Contract Agreement #5: Attending regular CBT (2x/month if finances allow)
I agree to regularly attend CBT. I have a tendency to make it when I can make it. If finances don't allow for it, tough shit. I won't go. But if we can make it work financially (and have so far with my psych and therapist in the same office and flexible with payments plans), then I will go regularly.
Contract Agreement #6: I will not ignore "minor" symptoms.
I have a tendency to think "eh, my sleep is shit, I dyed my hair purple overnight and I've a sudden urge to take acting classes and I can't keep a thought in my brain, but it'll pass." It most definitely does not pass. It turns into spending sprees (I will write a post on managing finances when you have Bipolar like me) and even psychosis if untreated. Alas, I will notify my family and therapist/psych when I have symptoms I see as no big deal.
That's it. That's my grand plan. That and I may start smoking again. I've a terrible urge to smoke. I haven't smoked in over a year. That's a different post as well.
Hope everyone is having as low-stress a holiday as they can.
What's It Like Having Bipolar Disorder?
I've been asked this question a lot by non-bipolar people, namely at the last job I had where I disclosed my mental illness as I went on extended medical leave.
The most concise way I have found to explain it is to relate it metaphorically to something else. I used the rollercoaster analogy (creative, I know). You're on a rollercoaster, which is supposed to be a normal, fun activity that people do. People can get off once the ride is done and go about their normal lives.
Not us. We afflicted with Bipolar have the seat restraint permanently clamped down; we cannot disembark no matter how hard we try. The roller coaster starts again, and we get frustrated or angry. Sometimes the coaster speeds up terrifyingly fast and it's over and we are sick with the frenzied motion. Other times, it goes the pace of snail, and we get suck upside down and our faces turn purple. Over time, we might recognize cues that show us how the ride is going to be, and we can prepare for it. Sometimes there is no warning. It's uncomfortable a lot of the time, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes exhausting. Screaming does nothing, fighting it does nothing, you are just stuck there over and over and over.
Perhaps that is why suicide is so prevalent among people with bipolar. There is no way off the coaster. We are stuck and cannot get out on this earthly plane. The best we can do is take advantage of medicine, live as healthily as we can, and go on, day by day.
The most concise way I have found to explain it is to relate it metaphorically to something else. I used the rollercoaster analogy (creative, I know). You're on a rollercoaster, which is supposed to be a normal, fun activity that people do. People can get off once the ride is done and go about their normal lives.
Not us. We afflicted with Bipolar have the seat restraint permanently clamped down; we cannot disembark no matter how hard we try. The roller coaster starts again, and we get frustrated or angry. Sometimes the coaster speeds up terrifyingly fast and it's over and we are sick with the frenzied motion. Other times, it goes the pace of snail, and we get suck upside down and our faces turn purple. Over time, we might recognize cues that show us how the ride is going to be, and we can prepare for it. Sometimes there is no warning. It's uncomfortable a lot of the time, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes exhausting. Screaming does nothing, fighting it does nothing, you are just stuck there over and over and over.
Perhaps that is why suicide is so prevalent among people with bipolar. There is no way off the coaster. We are stuck and cannot get out on this earthly plane. The best we can do is take advantage of medicine, live as healthily as we can, and go on, day by day.
Sunday, December 11, 2016
Bipolar and Relationships
Can you have healthy, quality relationships when you have bipolar disorder?
The short answer is yes.
The long answer goes into the variables than can affect whether or not you have (or even want) relationships with other people.
Being bipolar means that you have episodes of mania or hypomania, and some of the characteristics of being manic/hypomanic is being overly social, inappropriate, overly sexual, flirtatious, outgoing, and so on. Naturally, you are going to attract certain people to you in these states. People may be drawn to your energy, your magnetism and your vibe. You may be the funniest, most outgoing person at the office party, and everyone notices you.
Being bipolar also means you suffer through depressive episodes, where you are the exact opposite of outgoing and bubbly, eccentric and high-energy. You may be unwashed, wear no makeup, and appear unkempt. You may find it difficult to feed yourself, much less make an effort at a reasonable appearance.
I am sure that you have experienced changes in relationships, loss of relationships and all of the things that go along with those.
People do find that drastic change shocking, in my experience. They tend to fall back for the most part when someone changes from one way to another.
I have typically had a tough time keeping friends. I am the life of the party for 2-6 weeks, and then I look like death warmed over for two months.
However, I have a wonderful husband who is perfectly and entirely SANE. When we first started dating, I told him I had something to tell him about myself.
"I'm really messed up," I said, tapping on my temple with my index finger. "I have a lot going on in here."
"Like what?" he asked.
"I'm bipolar." I waited for running and screaming.
"You seem ok to me."
"I won't seem ok at times."
Nearly 7 years later, here we are. He has forcibly wrestled credit cards from me when I was in a manic state, he has picked me up and carried me out of bed to the couch when I was depressed. He has helped me wash my hair in the bathtub when I didn't care enough to do it myself. He has negotiated visits to my psychiatrist with me. He has slept in the hospital parking lot while I was on a 72 hour hold. He has been the primary breadwinner as I get jobs, get ill, and then lose them. He is strong, physically and mentally, and quiet.
Not everyone is like that. I have one failed marriage under my belt, and plenty of failed friendships. You may have experienced never-ending strings of failed relationships, due in partly to your bipolar disorder. But that doesn't mean it's your fault.
It's hard to be married to, a partner to, a family member of, or a friend to someone with bipolar disorder. Our hallmark episodes take them for just as much of a ride as bipolar takes us. People around may feel unwary, confused, shocked, angry or any combination of emotions when they see us switching from state to state.
But that doesn't mean that you are defective. It doesn't mean that you aren't worth it. When you find that person or persons (romantically or in a friend sense) that stick with you through you ups and downs, you will know you've found someone who sees past your illness and sees you.
Categories of Friends/Relationships
It my own limited experience, I have found that a lot of people with Bipolar Disorder are lonely. Their friends in "mania" aren't interested in them when they are depressed. These are the people that you go clubbing with, people that you party with, people that you take risks with. They aren't into "downers." They want the fun, outgoing, impulsive you.
On the opposite ends of the spectrum, bipolar folks have friends who are there in "depression" but aren't interested in them when they are manic. These are the low-key, nurturing friends who may bring you a cup of chicken noodle soup when you're low, or listen to your sobbing phone calls and encourage you. They aren't interested in wild parties and impulsive decisions. You may scare them in your manic states.
Then there are a special breed of people who see both sides of you, and are able to be friends to both. Someone who can have a good time with you, but notice when you're manic and be a stabilizing influence. Someone who sees you depressed, and supports you and listens to you and is not scared away by the darkness following you around.
Those are the types of people you need around you. Not many people I know fit those categories. Most of my "friends" fall into one of the two categories. My husband and one or two other people fall into the third category: seeing both sides of my bipolar disorder and being able to handle both equally.
If you are feeling lonely, I suggest you read blogs of people with bipolar disorder, or join online support groups (ones that are positive in nature, not one where it's always complaining about XYZ). For me, joining Twitter has been enormously helpful as I am able to see all the people like me out there from all over the world, with similar thoughts and feelings.
I hope that each one of you reading this has a friend or loved one who is able to weather the storms of bipolar with you. And if not, I am sure there will be someone at some point in the future.
The short answer is yes.
The long answer goes into the variables than can affect whether or not you have (or even want) relationships with other people.
Being bipolar means that you have episodes of mania or hypomania, and some of the characteristics of being manic/hypomanic is being overly social, inappropriate, overly sexual, flirtatious, outgoing, and so on. Naturally, you are going to attract certain people to you in these states. People may be drawn to your energy, your magnetism and your vibe. You may be the funniest, most outgoing person at the office party, and everyone notices you.
Being bipolar also means you suffer through depressive episodes, where you are the exact opposite of outgoing and bubbly, eccentric and high-energy. You may be unwashed, wear no makeup, and appear unkempt. You may find it difficult to feed yourself, much less make an effort at a reasonable appearance.
I am sure that you have experienced changes in relationships, loss of relationships and all of the things that go along with those.
People do find that drastic change shocking, in my experience. They tend to fall back for the most part when someone changes from one way to another.
I have typically had a tough time keeping friends. I am the life of the party for 2-6 weeks, and then I look like death warmed over for two months.
However, I have a wonderful husband who is perfectly and entirely SANE. When we first started dating, I told him I had something to tell him about myself.
"I'm really messed up," I said, tapping on my temple with my index finger. "I have a lot going on in here."
"Like what?" he asked.
"I'm bipolar." I waited for running and screaming.
"You seem ok to me."
"I won't seem ok at times."
Nearly 7 years later, here we are. He has forcibly wrestled credit cards from me when I was in a manic state, he has picked me up and carried me out of bed to the couch when I was depressed. He has helped me wash my hair in the bathtub when I didn't care enough to do it myself. He has negotiated visits to my psychiatrist with me. He has slept in the hospital parking lot while I was on a 72 hour hold. He has been the primary breadwinner as I get jobs, get ill, and then lose them. He is strong, physically and mentally, and quiet.
Not everyone is like that. I have one failed marriage under my belt, and plenty of failed friendships. You may have experienced never-ending strings of failed relationships, due in partly to your bipolar disorder. But that doesn't mean it's your fault.
It's hard to be married to, a partner to, a family member of, or a friend to someone with bipolar disorder. Our hallmark episodes take them for just as much of a ride as bipolar takes us. People around may feel unwary, confused, shocked, angry or any combination of emotions when they see us switching from state to state.
But that doesn't mean that you are defective. It doesn't mean that you aren't worth it. When you find that person or persons (romantically or in a friend sense) that stick with you through you ups and downs, you will know you've found someone who sees past your illness and sees you.
Categories of Friends/Relationships
It my own limited experience, I have found that a lot of people with Bipolar Disorder are lonely. Their friends in "mania" aren't interested in them when they are depressed. These are the people that you go clubbing with, people that you party with, people that you take risks with. They aren't into "downers." They want the fun, outgoing, impulsive you.
On the opposite ends of the spectrum, bipolar folks have friends who are there in "depression" but aren't interested in them when they are manic. These are the low-key, nurturing friends who may bring you a cup of chicken noodle soup when you're low, or listen to your sobbing phone calls and encourage you. They aren't interested in wild parties and impulsive decisions. You may scare them in your manic states.
Then there are a special breed of people who see both sides of you, and are able to be friends to both. Someone who can have a good time with you, but notice when you're manic and be a stabilizing influence. Someone who sees you depressed, and supports you and listens to you and is not scared away by the darkness following you around.
Those are the types of people you need around you. Not many people I know fit those categories. Most of my "friends" fall into one of the two categories. My husband and one or two other people fall into the third category: seeing both sides of my bipolar disorder and being able to handle both equally.
If you are feeling lonely, I suggest you read blogs of people with bipolar disorder, or join online support groups (ones that are positive in nature, not one where it's always complaining about XYZ). For me, joining Twitter has been enormously helpful as I am able to see all the people like me out there from all over the world, with similar thoughts and feelings.
I hope that each one of you reading this has a friend or loved one who is able to weather the storms of bipolar with you. And if not, I am sure there will be someone at some point in the future.
Tuesday, December 6, 2016
When Your Dad Has Schizophrenia and OCD
This is a hard bit to write. I did not know my dad suffered so severely until after he died, when we got into his apartment where he had been living.
It was horrifying to discover that he was a hoarder. We had no idea.
My mom and dad's marriage was exceptionally brief, of which I was a product. When I was one, my mom took me and we left California and my dad behind and went to stay with my grandmother in Indiana. My mom was terrified of my dad. She said he had started doing drugs because he would talk to people that weren't there, and have breaks with reality. My dad denied doing drugs.
Stalemate.
After about a year in Indiana, my dad promised profusely that he was fine, and my mom seemed to think it was safe to return to California. We did.
They divorced anyways, and visitation was split up. I saw him every other weekend, and then during the week as he picked me up from school. My parents had me late in life, and my dad had already been given an early retirement from his job, which allowed me afternoons with him. He would always take me to an ice cream shop, and he would order mint chip ice cream and chocolate chip ice cream, large, in a cup. I would get the same thing as my dad because my dad was awesome.
As I got older, I sensed that there was something amiss with my dad. He would occasionally blank out, and get fidgety. He would mutter to himself. I was also dealing with my own mental health that I write about here, but I could still tell something was off with him.
My dad was an odd one. He would suddenly disappear for months on end, with no one able to reach him. Then he would phone my mom in the middle of the night, warning her that the government was after him, and that we should be careful. When those things happened, my mom told him to stop picking me up from school, and she started taking off of work to take me home as my private school did not have buses. She figured he was back to drinking and drugs.
Then one day, he would show up on our doorstep, bathed, dressed and completely in his right mind, acting like nothing ever happened. He would help my mom move something here or kill a spider. He would be charming and laugh and tell jokes. He was a funny guy with twinkling green eyes. My mom would allow him to start picking me up from school. The cycle would repeat. Each time, he disappeared for longer and longer periods of time, until I hardly saw him. I didn't really know what to think.
One day, my dad had picked me up from sixth grade. He had just re-appeared in my life again, and I was happy to see him, although he seemed agitated in the car on the way home. I was doing my homework in the kitchen. I heard someone talking. I figured it was the TV.
After a few minutes, the voice rose, and I could clearly tell it was my dad's voice, and not the television. Perhaps he was watching a movie or sports, and was yelling for his team or something.
My dad didn't really like sports.
He was on the phone, then. I went back to finishing my homework. He continued to argue, and I heard profanity coming louder from the living room. I looked at the phone receiver.
We only had one house phone, and it was in the kitchen. The handset was still on the charger, and cell phones were not yet a thing. Only wealthy people had cell phones. That meant that my dad could not be talking on a phone.
Curious, I walked across the kitchen and peered around the wall, where I saw my dad flailing punches towards an unseen enemy, his eyes were glittering and unfocused, and he ducked and dodged and jabbed, right then left. He yelled profanities at someone unseen, and answered questions that only he could hear.
I was glued to the spot. My survival instinct told me not to make a sound, not to intervene in any way. My options were to grab the handset and risk my dad seeing me, or run outside in my bare feet to a neighbor, who I didn't know.
I risked the handset. I waited until my dad had his back turned to me, screaming things like "I'm going to kill you, you motherfucker!" as he would fight and kick and punch the air.
I grabbed it. I didn't know what to do, so I called my mom at work. I told her my dad was yelling at nothing, having a fight with an imaginary person. She told me to hide outside and wait for her.
I slipped out the side door and waited in the front yard, shaking, hearing my dad's deluded screams from inside.
My mom worked just down the road, and she was there within two minutes. I told her what was going on and she took the phone from me. She cautiously went inside, and called my dad's name a few times. The screaming stopped.
She took a few steps inside, calling again. He answered normally, as if nothing had happened. She asked him if he was ok. He said he was fine, why?
She said that a neighbor had called her, hearing shouts coming from inside. He said he didn't know what she was talking about. She told him he could go home now, that she was off work early. He asked why she didn't call, and how I got outside. I fibbed and said I was playing in the front yard. He admonished me not to do that without telling him in the future.
Somehow, at 11, I know there would not be a future time. My mom explained to me later that day that she had left my dad when I was a baby due to episodes like these, and she thought he was on drugs. She asked me if I wanted to see my dad again, and I said no. I had been so terrified that he would hurt me. I know now that he was having some sort of psychotic episode, and I feel guilty for abandoning him.
Two weeks later, my mom applied for and accepted a position across the country. She had a telephone conversation with my dad, telling him he was not well, and that this would be the best thing for me. He signed over his visitation rights, and it was submitted to a judge. 3 weeks later, we packed. The day before we left, my dad brought me flowers and gave me a hug, telling me to listen to my mom and that getting out of the city would probably be a good thing. He fidgeted and then left.
That was the second-to-last in-person interaction I had with my before he died, 16 years later.
I occasionally received the odd birthday card, or a phone call. Sometimes he didn't make sense and he would babble on and on. Other times, I wouldn't hear from him for two or three years. His phone would be disconnected, and move without giving a forwarding address. Then he would pop up. One year, he called me on New Year's eve to warn me that the government was after me, too. I sadly hung up after telling him I loved him.
One day, I got a call from a distant relative in California. They said my dad was in the hospital, and it was not looking good. They said I should talk to the doctors. The doctors told me my dad was admitted to the hospital, ranting and raving and rail thin. His bloodwork was abnormal, and it turned out he had terminal stomach cancer. The doctor couldn't understand why my dad had not sought help, as this cancer is highly treatable and the symptoms severe. The doctor also asked me if my dad had a mental illness, as he had some mental episodes in the hospital. He mentioned schizophrenia.
I told him I didn't know exactly, since I had not been around my dad much, and he tended to disappear for years at a time. I mentioned that he was known to be a drinker, and my mom thought he did drugs. The doctor said his drug and alcohol screen was negative. So his hallucinations weren't from substance abuse.
I bought a plane ticket. My extended relatives in California offered me a room to stay as long as I needed. I made plans to stay for two weeks, to process what was going on and what was going to happen.
The last time I had seen my dad was when I was 11, and he had always been fit. The man I looked at now looked a hundred years old, and weighed about 120 pounds, much too thin for a 6 foot man. He cried when he saw me walk into his hospice room, and held out his thin arms that were peppered with bruises and IV lines.
I cried, because it was sad. He hadn't been a drug addict. He had been mentally ill all those years, with no one to help him. When asked why he didn't go see a doctor when he had started vomiting blood a year earlier, he said he thought the doctors would report his ill health to the government, and that he wouldn't get the spy job he was in line for. That made me cry, too. He was so happy in his delusion. His delusion killed him, although it was technically cancer.
I visited him every day the next 2 weeks, and signed him out from the hospice. He was so weak that he couldn't overpower me if he tried to escape. On the first day, he told me his caregivers at the hospice were spies, and I needed to help him escape. He wanted me to take him to the airport, and give him $20 so he could buy a plane ticket and fly to another country. He congenially offered that I could come with him, if I wanted to. He then wanted me to buy him a plane ticket tomorrow so he could visit me and see how I was living. I quickly realized that trying to tell him he was hallucinating made him agitated and angry, so I changed tactics, acting as if his derangement was plausiable.
I told him I could do those things, but I needed some time to get supplies. He would nod, as if that was an explanation. He would then move onto another topic, talking about how he wasn't really ill, he just had some stomach problems. He would then stare off into space for a long while, and then he would turn his faded green eyes on me and bring up a childhood memory as clear as a bell, laughing and joking with me as if his mind were clear and sharp as ever.
My dad loved Christmas-time, and it was December when I visited. I took him to a mall in Southern California notorious for their over-the-top Santa's village and huge tree. He was entranced by it, and just wanted to sit and watch everything from above. He told me he wanted tea, and I ordered it for him. He then pushed it away, saying it could be poisoned. I told him I had watched the barista make it all the way through, and that it wasn't poisoned. I took a sip. He watched me warily for a few minutes, and decided I must be right. He drank the tea, and asked for another, also making me promise to watch it being made.
The two weeks went by fast. He drifted from sanity to delusional, like a balloon drifting in the wind. It was hard to keep up with him sometimes. He frequently asked me to help him escape to a safe house, where his spy boss would pick him up. I would sit in my rental car after taking him back to the hospice and cry.
My relatives showed me pictures they had taken of my dad's apartment. They had gone there after the hospital had called them about my dad being brought in weeks earlier. His apartment was a hoarding nightmare, with soiled clothes, rotten food and papers stacked up to the ceiling. There were small rabbit trails that led from room to room. He had stopped bathing and packed his shower and bathtub with anything that could fit. I knew from my own OCD diagnosis that hoarding is an OCD illness. I looked at those shocking pictures and learned then that I had inherited it from my father.
My dad's mental health story haunts me to this day. If my dad had mental health intervention and care, he would still be alive today. I may have had a better relationship with him. He could have been less delusional, and sought help. He might be around to hold his granddaughter.
In the end, the hospice doctor and nurses agreed it was likely schizophrenia that caused the delusions. His hoarding was due to OCD.
He never got help, and it killed him, although cancer was the agent.
They divorced anyways, and visitation was split up. I saw him every other weekend, and then during the week as he picked me up from school. My parents had me late in life, and my dad had already been given an early retirement from his job, which allowed me afternoons with him. He would always take me to an ice cream shop, and he would order mint chip ice cream and chocolate chip ice cream, large, in a cup. I would get the same thing as my dad because my dad was awesome.
As I got older, I sensed that there was something amiss with my dad. He would occasionally blank out, and get fidgety. He would mutter to himself. I was also dealing with my own mental health that I write about here, but I could still tell something was off with him.
My dad was an odd one. He would suddenly disappear for months on end, with no one able to reach him. Then he would phone my mom in the middle of the night, warning her that the government was after him, and that we should be careful. When those things happened, my mom told him to stop picking me up from school, and she started taking off of work to take me home as my private school did not have buses. She figured he was back to drinking and drugs.
Then one day, he would show up on our doorstep, bathed, dressed and completely in his right mind, acting like nothing ever happened. He would help my mom move something here or kill a spider. He would be charming and laugh and tell jokes. He was a funny guy with twinkling green eyes. My mom would allow him to start picking me up from school. The cycle would repeat. Each time, he disappeared for longer and longer periods of time, until I hardly saw him. I didn't really know what to think.
One day, my dad had picked me up from sixth grade. He had just re-appeared in my life again, and I was happy to see him, although he seemed agitated in the car on the way home. I was doing my homework in the kitchen. I heard someone talking. I figured it was the TV.
After a few minutes, the voice rose, and I could clearly tell it was my dad's voice, and not the television. Perhaps he was watching a movie or sports, and was yelling for his team or something.
My dad didn't really like sports.
He was on the phone, then. I went back to finishing my homework. He continued to argue, and I heard profanity coming louder from the living room. I looked at the phone receiver.
We only had one house phone, and it was in the kitchen. The handset was still on the charger, and cell phones were not yet a thing. Only wealthy people had cell phones. That meant that my dad could not be talking on a phone.
Curious, I walked across the kitchen and peered around the wall, where I saw my dad flailing punches towards an unseen enemy, his eyes were glittering and unfocused, and he ducked and dodged and jabbed, right then left. He yelled profanities at someone unseen, and answered questions that only he could hear.
I was glued to the spot. My survival instinct told me not to make a sound, not to intervene in any way. My options were to grab the handset and risk my dad seeing me, or run outside in my bare feet to a neighbor, who I didn't know.
I risked the handset. I waited until my dad had his back turned to me, screaming things like "I'm going to kill you, you motherfucker!" as he would fight and kick and punch the air.
I grabbed it. I didn't know what to do, so I called my mom at work. I told her my dad was yelling at nothing, having a fight with an imaginary person. She told me to hide outside and wait for her.
I slipped out the side door and waited in the front yard, shaking, hearing my dad's deluded screams from inside.
My mom worked just down the road, and she was there within two minutes. I told her what was going on and she took the phone from me. She cautiously went inside, and called my dad's name a few times. The screaming stopped.
She took a few steps inside, calling again. He answered normally, as if nothing had happened. She asked him if he was ok. He said he was fine, why?
She said that a neighbor had called her, hearing shouts coming from inside. He said he didn't know what she was talking about. She told him he could go home now, that she was off work early. He asked why she didn't call, and how I got outside. I fibbed and said I was playing in the front yard. He admonished me not to do that without telling him in the future.
Somehow, at 11, I know there would not be a future time. My mom explained to me later that day that she had left my dad when I was a baby due to episodes like these, and she thought he was on drugs. She asked me if I wanted to see my dad again, and I said no. I had been so terrified that he would hurt me. I know now that he was having some sort of psychotic episode, and I feel guilty for abandoning him.
Two weeks later, my mom applied for and accepted a position across the country. She had a telephone conversation with my dad, telling him he was not well, and that this would be the best thing for me. He signed over his visitation rights, and it was submitted to a judge. 3 weeks later, we packed. The day before we left, my dad brought me flowers and gave me a hug, telling me to listen to my mom and that getting out of the city would probably be a good thing. He fidgeted and then left.
That was the second-to-last in-person interaction I had with my before he died, 16 years later.
I occasionally received the odd birthday card, or a phone call. Sometimes he didn't make sense and he would babble on and on. Other times, I wouldn't hear from him for two or three years. His phone would be disconnected, and move without giving a forwarding address. Then he would pop up. One year, he called me on New Year's eve to warn me that the government was after me, too. I sadly hung up after telling him I loved him.
One day, I got a call from a distant relative in California. They said my dad was in the hospital, and it was not looking good. They said I should talk to the doctors. The doctors told me my dad was admitted to the hospital, ranting and raving and rail thin. His bloodwork was abnormal, and it turned out he had terminal stomach cancer. The doctor couldn't understand why my dad had not sought help, as this cancer is highly treatable and the symptoms severe. The doctor also asked me if my dad had a mental illness, as he had some mental episodes in the hospital. He mentioned schizophrenia.
I told him I didn't know exactly, since I had not been around my dad much, and he tended to disappear for years at a time. I mentioned that he was known to be a drinker, and my mom thought he did drugs. The doctor said his drug and alcohol screen was negative. So his hallucinations weren't from substance abuse.
I bought a plane ticket. My extended relatives in California offered me a room to stay as long as I needed. I made plans to stay for two weeks, to process what was going on and what was going to happen.
The last time I had seen my dad was when I was 11, and he had always been fit. The man I looked at now looked a hundred years old, and weighed about 120 pounds, much too thin for a 6 foot man. He cried when he saw me walk into his hospice room, and held out his thin arms that were peppered with bruises and IV lines.
I cried, because it was sad. He hadn't been a drug addict. He had been mentally ill all those years, with no one to help him. When asked why he didn't go see a doctor when he had started vomiting blood a year earlier, he said he thought the doctors would report his ill health to the government, and that he wouldn't get the spy job he was in line for. That made me cry, too. He was so happy in his delusion. His delusion killed him, although it was technically cancer.
I visited him every day the next 2 weeks, and signed him out from the hospice. He was so weak that he couldn't overpower me if he tried to escape. On the first day, he told me his caregivers at the hospice were spies, and I needed to help him escape. He wanted me to take him to the airport, and give him $20 so he could buy a plane ticket and fly to another country. He congenially offered that I could come with him, if I wanted to. He then wanted me to buy him a plane ticket tomorrow so he could visit me and see how I was living. I quickly realized that trying to tell him he was hallucinating made him agitated and angry, so I changed tactics, acting as if his derangement was plausiable.
I told him I could do those things, but I needed some time to get supplies. He would nod, as if that was an explanation. He would then move onto another topic, talking about how he wasn't really ill, he just had some stomach problems. He would then stare off into space for a long while, and then he would turn his faded green eyes on me and bring up a childhood memory as clear as a bell, laughing and joking with me as if his mind were clear and sharp as ever.
My dad loved Christmas-time, and it was December when I visited. I took him to a mall in Southern California notorious for their over-the-top Santa's village and huge tree. He was entranced by it, and just wanted to sit and watch everything from above. He told me he wanted tea, and I ordered it for him. He then pushed it away, saying it could be poisoned. I told him I had watched the barista make it all the way through, and that it wasn't poisoned. I took a sip. He watched me warily for a few minutes, and decided I must be right. He drank the tea, and asked for another, also making me promise to watch it being made.
The two weeks went by fast. He drifted from sanity to delusional, like a balloon drifting in the wind. It was hard to keep up with him sometimes. He frequently asked me to help him escape to a safe house, where his spy boss would pick him up. I would sit in my rental car after taking him back to the hospice and cry.
My relatives showed me pictures they had taken of my dad's apartment. They had gone there after the hospital had called them about my dad being brought in weeks earlier. His apartment was a hoarding nightmare, with soiled clothes, rotten food and papers stacked up to the ceiling. There were small rabbit trails that led from room to room. He had stopped bathing and packed his shower and bathtub with anything that could fit. I knew from my own OCD diagnosis that hoarding is an OCD illness. I looked at those shocking pictures and learned then that I had inherited it from my father.
My dad's mental health story haunts me to this day. If my dad had mental health intervention and care, he would still be alive today. I may have had a better relationship with him. He could have been less delusional, and sought help. He might be around to hold his granddaughter.
In the end, the hospice doctor and nurses agreed it was likely schizophrenia that caused the delusions. His hoarding was due to OCD.
He never got help, and it killed him, although cancer was the agent.
Saturday, December 3, 2016
On OCD
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
While this blog mainly chronicles my challenges with Bipolar Disorder, I will sometimes write on other co-morbid mental conditions I have. OCD is a mental illness that is heavily misunderstood. I can't tell you how many times I've heard statements like, "The Christmas ornaments aren't level, I'm so OCD" or "I need to have my roots done at the salon, I'm so OCD."
No, no you're not.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is very distressing to the sufferer. It combines obsessive, sometimes intrusive thoughts and in order to relieve the distress, the sufferer starts doing some type of ritual activity to relieve their distress. I will use myself as an example.
The earliest battle with mental illness that I had was with OCD. I remember being about age 8. Obviously, I didn't know I had OCD at 8 years of age. All I knew was that I had really scary thoughts that I didn't want to think about, and it caused me shame and anxiety. I thought that by performing certain tasks, I could make up for the bad thoughts.
So, for example, if my dad said, "I love you," I would say, "I love you, too." But then the scary thoughts popped into my head. What if I didn't really love my dad? That means that I just said a lie. God hates liars. Therefore, I have to confess to my dad that I sinned, or else I would go to hell. So then, I would whisper under my breath, "I might not really love you," and then I would whisper a prayer to God for forgiveness. My dad would looked at me weirdly, and ask, "What did you just say?" I would say, "nothing," and then the process would repeat.
Another example would be if my mom asked me if I did all of my homework. I would automatically say "yes" if I had done it, because I knew I had finished it. But the scary thoughts popped into my head. What if I had missed a question on the back page of my homework? That means I had just lied to my mom. So I would go double-check my homework, and confess to my mom that I had to "make sure." Now, my mom was not a particularly understanding mother (more on that later), and would get angry when I did these things, compounding my distress. I started picking at my skin.
Around this time, I was about 9, and I began having very scary, intrusive thoughts about killing myself, or about harming my mom or other people. This was traumatic to me, and when I told my mom of these things, she freaked out and told me I had a demon possessing me. Note that this is absolutely the wrong approach if your child reaches out to your for mental help. I was terrified, and my OCD worsened.
I began checking rooms compulsively for intruders. I was convinced there would be a burglar or something waiting for me at our house when I got home from school. I would spend 30 minutes checking closets, windows, door locks, etc. I would pick at my skin until I started bleeding, mostly on my face. I started checking for appliances being plugged in, lights left on that could catch fire, and so on.
My OCD would worsen at times, and sometimes it would get better. I didn't have it as much in junior high school because I was too invested in homework and trying not to feel like an outcast.
In high school, though, my OCD came back with a vengeance. I would get up three hours early for school to get through my rituals. I would shower and wash my hair in a certain way, and if it wasn't done correctly, I had to re-do it, otherwise, something bad might happen. I would then dress and spend thirty minutes checking and re-checking my backpack and homework assignments to make sure they were all there. I would then go to my car (at this point, I was 16). I would have to go inside three times to make sure I had turned off all the faucets in the bathroom, and turned off the lights in my bedroom. I would have to make sure my computer was off so it wouldn't catch fire. Then I would check under my bed and around my room to ensure nothing was left behind.
Once I got in my car, I would lock the front door (mother having already left for work earlier). I would then have to re-check it, sometimes driving home from school between classes to check. Once I made it in my car, I had to say a prayer a certain way three times, are something awful would happen.
Then I would spend the next sixty minutes driving a half-mile to school. Yes, you read that right: It would take me an hour to drive 0.5 miles to school (I had to drive, there were no sidewalks to walk on and the bus did not come to our neighborhood due to a weird restriction, and we have bad weather 5 months out of the year which made walking impossible). I would drive to school, and I would become convinced that I had run over an animal or a child, and I would have to go back and re-check to make sure that I had not hurt something by accident.
Once I made it to school, about an hour before it started, I would begin again compulsively checking my backpack to make sure I wasn't missing anything. I would make sure every pencil was sharpened just so. I would go the restroom and check and double-check that my appearance was OK. I would become convinced that I had sat in something that would leave a mark on my pants on my rear-end, and that I would be mocked for it. So I would spend the next thirty minutes checking and re-checking myself in the girls' bathroom to make sure my clothing was ok.
Once I made it to class, I would set everything out and begin re-checking my backpack for things I may have missed.
And so on.
I began restricting the types of shows I watched on TV. Anything violent was a no-go, because I could go crazy at any moment and hurt someone, somehow driven by the show. This lasted into my early twenties. I remember watching a TV police-themed show, and I turned it off because I was scared I would commit the crimes on the show.
Around this point in time, I had begun seeing a psychiatrist for anxiety and depression. The anti-depressants helped a lot, and I began to see my OCD symptoms go into remission. As I dealt with my next diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder, OCD took a backseat.
Currently, all of the psychiatric medications I take dulls the urge to perform the rituals. OCD is still there; I still pick at myself which drives my family crazy, and I still check things sometimes. But I know that there is a cause of the intrusive thoughts. I cried when I was diagnosed with OCD and read the symptoms. It was like someone looked inside my head and wrote about it. The intrusive thoughts weren't because I was crazy or evil, the urge to check things was explainable in a medical fashion.
I want other people to read about people suffering with misunderstood illnesses. If my mother had gotten me to a doctor, my life may have turned out differently. Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference since I ended up with Bipolar Disorder. But OCD is such a weird, strange phenomenon. It caused me so much distress during my childhood, I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
Treatment is possible for OCD. Anti-depressants and CBT are used. I have found Self-help books enormously helpful since I can't take anti-depressants due to Bipolar Disorder. The best book I have read is Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder by Dr. Jonathan Grayson. A lot of books just give you surveys and rating scales for whatever disorder you are reading about. This book, however, really shows an understanding of OCD. He calls OCD the "Doubting Disease," and says that OCD sufferers may even doubt their diagnosis. (I have no affiliation with the author or the book).
Here is site with some generic facts about OCD and symptoms.
Each disease is different for everybody. I don't compulsively wash my hands, but I know a lot of OCD sufferers do, and it really fucks up their hands. I do compulsively skin pick to this day, but not as severely as some of the cases I have read about.
OCD is so very weird and disturbing that I think people don't seek treatment for it. After all, who wants to walk into a psychiatrist's office and say, "Hullo. I have gruesome images of stabbing my family to death, and have had my spouse hide knives from me so I don't do it," or "Sorry I'm late, I thought I had run over three dogs on the way over and had to be sure I didn't. It's hard to tell disturbing thoughts to someone.
Here is the link to the International OCD Foundation.
I write these posts with personal details in the effort that someone reading them will realize they are not beyond help and that lots of other people deal with these types of disorders. I think that our government needs a department focused on mental health and be screening teenagers for these disorders so as to prevent unnecessary suffering.
While this blog mainly chronicles my challenges with Bipolar Disorder, I will sometimes write on other co-morbid mental conditions I have. OCD is a mental illness that is heavily misunderstood. I can't tell you how many times I've heard statements like, "The Christmas ornaments aren't level, I'm so OCD" or "I need to have my roots done at the salon, I'm so OCD."
No, no you're not.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is very distressing to the sufferer. It combines obsessive, sometimes intrusive thoughts and in order to relieve the distress, the sufferer starts doing some type of ritual activity to relieve their distress. I will use myself as an example.
The earliest battle with mental illness that I had was with OCD. I remember being about age 8. Obviously, I didn't know I had OCD at 8 years of age. All I knew was that I had really scary thoughts that I didn't want to think about, and it caused me shame and anxiety. I thought that by performing certain tasks, I could make up for the bad thoughts.
So, for example, if my dad said, "I love you," I would say, "I love you, too." But then the scary thoughts popped into my head. What if I didn't really love my dad? That means that I just said a lie. God hates liars. Therefore, I have to confess to my dad that I sinned, or else I would go to hell. So then, I would whisper under my breath, "I might not really love you," and then I would whisper a prayer to God for forgiveness. My dad would looked at me weirdly, and ask, "What did you just say?" I would say, "nothing," and then the process would repeat.
Another example would be if my mom asked me if I did all of my homework. I would automatically say "yes" if I had done it, because I knew I had finished it. But the scary thoughts popped into my head. What if I had missed a question on the back page of my homework? That means I had just lied to my mom. So I would go double-check my homework, and confess to my mom that I had to "make sure." Now, my mom was not a particularly understanding mother (more on that later), and would get angry when I did these things, compounding my distress. I started picking at my skin.
Around this time, I was about 9, and I began having very scary, intrusive thoughts about killing myself, or about harming my mom or other people. This was traumatic to me, and when I told my mom of these things, she freaked out and told me I had a demon possessing me. Note that this is absolutely the wrong approach if your child reaches out to your for mental help. I was terrified, and my OCD worsened.
I began checking rooms compulsively for intruders. I was convinced there would be a burglar or something waiting for me at our house when I got home from school. I would spend 30 minutes checking closets, windows, door locks, etc. I would pick at my skin until I started bleeding, mostly on my face. I started checking for appliances being plugged in, lights left on that could catch fire, and so on.
My OCD would worsen at times, and sometimes it would get better. I didn't have it as much in junior high school because I was too invested in homework and trying not to feel like an outcast.
In high school, though, my OCD came back with a vengeance. I would get up three hours early for school to get through my rituals. I would shower and wash my hair in a certain way, and if it wasn't done correctly, I had to re-do it, otherwise, something bad might happen. I would then dress and spend thirty minutes checking and re-checking my backpack and homework assignments to make sure they were all there. I would then go to my car (at this point, I was 16). I would have to go inside three times to make sure I had turned off all the faucets in the bathroom, and turned off the lights in my bedroom. I would have to make sure my computer was off so it wouldn't catch fire. Then I would check under my bed and around my room to ensure nothing was left behind.
Once I got in my car, I would lock the front door (mother having already left for work earlier). I would then have to re-check it, sometimes driving home from school between classes to check. Once I made it in my car, I had to say a prayer a certain way three times, are something awful would happen.
Then I would spend the next sixty minutes driving a half-mile to school. Yes, you read that right: It would take me an hour to drive 0.5 miles to school (I had to drive, there were no sidewalks to walk on and the bus did not come to our neighborhood due to a weird restriction, and we have bad weather 5 months out of the year which made walking impossible). I would drive to school, and I would become convinced that I had run over an animal or a child, and I would have to go back and re-check to make sure that I had not hurt something by accident.
Once I made it to school, about an hour before it started, I would begin again compulsively checking my backpack to make sure I wasn't missing anything. I would make sure every pencil was sharpened just so. I would go the restroom and check and double-check that my appearance was OK. I would become convinced that I had sat in something that would leave a mark on my pants on my rear-end, and that I would be mocked for it. So I would spend the next thirty minutes checking and re-checking myself in the girls' bathroom to make sure my clothing was ok.
Once I made it to class, I would set everything out and begin re-checking my backpack for things I may have missed.
And so on.
I began restricting the types of shows I watched on TV. Anything violent was a no-go, because I could go crazy at any moment and hurt someone, somehow driven by the show. This lasted into my early twenties. I remember watching a TV police-themed show, and I turned it off because I was scared I would commit the crimes on the show.
Around this point in time, I had begun seeing a psychiatrist for anxiety and depression. The anti-depressants helped a lot, and I began to see my OCD symptoms go into remission. As I dealt with my next diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder, OCD took a backseat.
Currently, all of the psychiatric medications I take dulls the urge to perform the rituals. OCD is still there; I still pick at myself which drives my family crazy, and I still check things sometimes. But I know that there is a cause of the intrusive thoughts. I cried when I was diagnosed with OCD and read the symptoms. It was like someone looked inside my head and wrote about it. The intrusive thoughts weren't because I was crazy or evil, the urge to check things was explainable in a medical fashion.
I want other people to read about people suffering with misunderstood illnesses. If my mother had gotten me to a doctor, my life may have turned out differently. Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference since I ended up with Bipolar Disorder. But OCD is such a weird, strange phenomenon. It caused me so much distress during my childhood, I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
Treatment is possible for OCD. Anti-depressants and CBT are used. I have found Self-help books enormously helpful since I can't take anti-depressants due to Bipolar Disorder. The best book I have read is Freedom from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder by Dr. Jonathan Grayson. A lot of books just give you surveys and rating scales for whatever disorder you are reading about. This book, however, really shows an understanding of OCD. He calls OCD the "Doubting Disease," and says that OCD sufferers may even doubt their diagnosis. (I have no affiliation with the author or the book).
Here is site with some generic facts about OCD and symptoms.
Each disease is different for everybody. I don't compulsively wash my hands, but I know a lot of OCD sufferers do, and it really fucks up their hands. I do compulsively skin pick to this day, but not as severely as some of the cases I have read about.
OCD is so very weird and disturbing that I think people don't seek treatment for it. After all, who wants to walk into a psychiatrist's office and say, "Hullo. I have gruesome images of stabbing my family to death, and have had my spouse hide knives from me so I don't do it," or "Sorry I'm late, I thought I had run over three dogs on the way over and had to be sure I didn't. It's hard to tell disturbing thoughts to someone.
Here is the link to the International OCD Foundation.
I write these posts with personal details in the effort that someone reading them will realize they are not beyond help and that lots of other people deal with these types of disorders. I think that our government needs a department focused on mental health and be screening teenagers for these disorders so as to prevent unnecessary suffering.
Friday, December 2, 2016
Depressive Episodes Part 1
Depression Part 1 (if you are sensitive to suicide, please don't read)
Unless you've experienced the big D, it's pretty difficult to describe it. There are plenty of trite descriptions of Depression on medical websites. It's not just words on a screen to me; it's a living, breathing animal.
To me, Depression is the penultimate struggle of wills: your evolutionary will to survive vs. your desire to lessen your suffering. Sometimes, you'll be watching a movie with friends where someone dies a gruesome, slow death. You think, Man, I'd never want to die like that. I'd rather just go immediately, like from a heart attack, in my sleep, or in a car accident. Never ever in a slow, painful way where you're acutely aware of your own suffering.
That's more like what Depression is like.
Depressive Episodes
With my Bipolar 1 diagnosis, unlike Mania which I have previously written about, I usually cannot tell when I am about to enter a Depressive phase. It tends to sneak up on me quickly, and hit me hard.
The only time I have been hospitalized was for a depressive episode in 2011, which I wrote about here.
While I can clearly see Manic episodes in my life, I really can't see Depression as clearly without consulting my past journals for suicide letters. I tend to get a cathartic experience from writing suicide letters. I can never get them just right, and sometimes in a Depressive state, that is nearly all that keeps me from taking my own life. I write it out, sometimes sobbing, sometimes stone motionless, like a robot. I explain in my letter to my various family members why I did what I did and that I'm very sorry. I usually end up scribbling things out and re-writing it, and then just giving up because I can't articulate my own suicide very well.
I give up, and file it away for a later date. I am not sure why I save them; if anyone were to discover them, I am not sure how I'd explain my morbid little collection. I view them dispassionately, sometimes I throw them away.
You can browse lots of various blogs and sites and you'll see common things about Depression, such as sleep changes, weight changes, disinterest in life, etc. Those descriptions, while true, are so sterile to describe something than can rage like a frozen ice storm through your veins.
People hear "depression," and they think you're sad, or maybe bored and lazy. It's a stereotype that must change. True depression is an anaconda, slowly squeezing you the harder you fight.
Treatment for Depression
The bright side of it is that it is totally treatable. It may be a long while with trying different medications, but Depression is something that can be beat back with proper medical care. I don't recommend trying to beat chronic Depression on your own without any support or medicine. (I am not a doctor or any medical professional, so please consult someone qualified if you think you have Depression).
For me, Depressive phases come and go. Autumn is usually hard as the days get shorter. Other than that, I can't really discern triggers for Depression like I can with Mania. When I am sobby and weepy, I contact my psychiatrist and/or counselor. I have to try and avoid antidepressants because they tend to slingshot me into mania. If the depressive episode is severe, we risk the mania and go with low doses of antidepressants combined with heavier mood stabilizers and anti-psychotics. In the instances where I have taken anti-depressants, my depression as lifted after a few weeks on the meds. Medication (in general), for me, as been a life-changer.
When Depression is Not Taken Seriously by Others
If you have been diagnosed with Depression, you've probably heard a smattering of stale advice from counselors and doctors such as: get more sunlight, each healthier, exercise, get sleep, practice being grateful, take hot baths, etc. I know I have, and it's incredibly frustrating. While these are all helpful components of any lifestyle, they can make the Depressed patient feel as if no one will understand them and the severity of their situation. If Depression were as easy to cure as 15 minutes in the sunlight, or a lavender-scented bath, we wouldn't have the national crises on Depression that we have right now. Suicide rates are climbing in the United States, becoming the 10th leading cause of death.
When someone is at the point of seeking medical treatment for Depression, they are probably feeling at their wit's end. Being there in the doctor's office, ready to spill the ugly thoughts in your head, and being told they can be helped by getting eight hours' rest each night is just about enough to make the most patient person cry.
It is going to be up to you to find a doctor that takes you seriously, or insist on more thorough treatments. You are your best advocate. You must communicate the seriousness of your Depression to your doctor, and not let them write you off.
Family members may not take Depression seriously, either. Our parents' generations didn't talk at all about mental illness. Older generations may think you are ungrateful, lazy, selfish, etc. This is completely untrue and dangerous. If you are a young person and have reached out to your family about your Depression, and they are not taking it seriously, go to a hospital. Call one of the Suicide help lines (some are listed below at the end of this post). Tell a minister or a family friend that you are struggling with your Depression. Don't give up.
Friends are tricky. Some of your friends may be compassionate, and stick with you through your illness. Others will leave immediately. Some may stay at first, but then drift away. It's normal; it's happened to me. You must not take it personally. I have lost most of my friends because when I am depressed, I don't really talk to anyone. They take this as I don't care. That's not true; I am just so overwhelmed with caring for myself that I don't have any leftover energy for others. And you know what? That's ok.
When you're depressed, you feel alone and worthless, and like things will never get better. The best advice I can give you is that depression is a phase. It will get better. You'll have ups and downs. The condition itself is highly treatable. It's just part of your brain lying to you. That three pound mass in your head is a weird being. It sometimes takes on a life of its own, it seems. Depression is one of those instances. Get treated for it, and realize things will improve.
In the US, if you are depressed and considering suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can even chat with them online.
Links to Suicide Help in the UK.
Unless you've experienced the big D, it's pretty difficult to describe it. There are plenty of trite descriptions of Depression on medical websites. It's not just words on a screen to me; it's a living, breathing animal.
To me, Depression is the penultimate struggle of wills: your evolutionary will to survive vs. your desire to lessen your suffering. Sometimes, you'll be watching a movie with friends where someone dies a gruesome, slow death. You think, Man, I'd never want to die like that. I'd rather just go immediately, like from a heart attack, in my sleep, or in a car accident. Never ever in a slow, painful way where you're acutely aware of your own suffering.
That's more like what Depression is like.
Depressive Episodes
With my Bipolar 1 diagnosis, unlike Mania which I have previously written about, I usually cannot tell when I am about to enter a Depressive phase. It tends to sneak up on me quickly, and hit me hard.
The only time I have been hospitalized was for a depressive episode in 2011, which I wrote about here.
While I can clearly see Manic episodes in my life, I really can't see Depression as clearly without consulting my past journals for suicide letters. I tend to get a cathartic experience from writing suicide letters. I can never get them just right, and sometimes in a Depressive state, that is nearly all that keeps me from taking my own life. I write it out, sometimes sobbing, sometimes stone motionless, like a robot. I explain in my letter to my various family members why I did what I did and that I'm very sorry. I usually end up scribbling things out and re-writing it, and then just giving up because I can't articulate my own suicide very well.
I give up, and file it away for a later date. I am not sure why I save them; if anyone were to discover them, I am not sure how I'd explain my morbid little collection. I view them dispassionately, sometimes I throw them away.
You can browse lots of various blogs and sites and you'll see common things about Depression, such as sleep changes, weight changes, disinterest in life, etc. Those descriptions, while true, are so sterile to describe something than can rage like a frozen ice storm through your veins.
People hear "depression," and they think you're sad, or maybe bored and lazy. It's a stereotype that must change. True depression is an anaconda, slowly squeezing you the harder you fight.
Treatment for Depression
The bright side of it is that it is totally treatable. It may be a long while with trying different medications, but Depression is something that can be beat back with proper medical care. I don't recommend trying to beat chronic Depression on your own without any support or medicine. (I am not a doctor or any medical professional, so please consult someone qualified if you think you have Depression).
For me, Depressive phases come and go. Autumn is usually hard as the days get shorter. Other than that, I can't really discern triggers for Depression like I can with Mania. When I am sobby and weepy, I contact my psychiatrist and/or counselor. I have to try and avoid antidepressants because they tend to slingshot me into mania. If the depressive episode is severe, we risk the mania and go with low doses of antidepressants combined with heavier mood stabilizers and anti-psychotics. In the instances where I have taken anti-depressants, my depression as lifted after a few weeks on the meds. Medication (in general), for me, as been a life-changer.
When Depression is Not Taken Seriously by Others
If you have been diagnosed with Depression, you've probably heard a smattering of stale advice from counselors and doctors such as: get more sunlight, each healthier, exercise, get sleep, practice being grateful, take hot baths, etc. I know I have, and it's incredibly frustrating. While these are all helpful components of any lifestyle, they can make the Depressed patient feel as if no one will understand them and the severity of their situation. If Depression were as easy to cure as 15 minutes in the sunlight, or a lavender-scented bath, we wouldn't have the national crises on Depression that we have right now. Suicide rates are climbing in the United States, becoming the 10th leading cause of death.
When someone is at the point of seeking medical treatment for Depression, they are probably feeling at their wit's end. Being there in the doctor's office, ready to spill the ugly thoughts in your head, and being told they can be helped by getting eight hours' rest each night is just about enough to make the most patient person cry.
It is going to be up to you to find a doctor that takes you seriously, or insist on more thorough treatments. You are your best advocate. You must communicate the seriousness of your Depression to your doctor, and not let them write you off.
Family members may not take Depression seriously, either. Our parents' generations didn't talk at all about mental illness. Older generations may think you are ungrateful, lazy, selfish, etc. This is completely untrue and dangerous. If you are a young person and have reached out to your family about your Depression, and they are not taking it seriously, go to a hospital. Call one of the Suicide help lines (some are listed below at the end of this post). Tell a minister or a family friend that you are struggling with your Depression. Don't give up.
Friends are tricky. Some of your friends may be compassionate, and stick with you through your illness. Others will leave immediately. Some may stay at first, but then drift away. It's normal; it's happened to me. You must not take it personally. I have lost most of my friends because when I am depressed, I don't really talk to anyone. They take this as I don't care. That's not true; I am just so overwhelmed with caring for myself that I don't have any leftover energy for others. And you know what? That's ok.
When you're depressed, you feel alone and worthless, and like things will never get better. The best advice I can give you is that depression is a phase. It will get better. You'll have ups and downs. The condition itself is highly treatable. It's just part of your brain lying to you. That three pound mass in your head is a weird being. It sometimes takes on a life of its own, it seems. Depression is one of those instances. Get treated for it, and realize things will improve.
In the US, if you are depressed and considering suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can even chat with them online.
Links to Suicide Help in the UK.
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