Blog for Mental Health 2013

January 27, 2013 By

blogformentalhealth20131

So today on 01/27/13 I am taking a pledge at the age of 27 (complete coincidence) to blog for mental health. I am well aware that I mention how I treat my Bipolar disorder as a redheaded stepchild in my ‘About & Contact’ page, but there is always room for growth and change.

I pledge my commitment to the Blog For Mental Health 2013 Project.  I will blog about mental health topics not only for myself, but for others.  By displaying this badge, I show my pride, dedication, and acceptance for mental health.  I use this to promote mental health education in the struggle to erase stigma. * I do feel like a real scout now *

Having the feelings I do about support groups and therapy not being a great fit for me, this is taking a big step. I have handled my diagnosis in a manner similar to, “Here kid, take your Lith and go to bed. Disorders are not to be seen or heard, so shut the hell up and leave me alone. You’re bugging me.” This is fucked, but to put it into perspective, I get the same feeling thinking about my diagnosis as I do attempting to read The Bible. No, I still haven’t got past Adam and Eve in the First Testament and I only like the most famous part of Corinthians in the Second. What is that feeling? Assuming you’re not a pedophile, it’s like walking into a room and seeing an adult inappropriately touching a child.

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That one on the bottom… yeah. That’s freaking disgusting. Also the reason my goal is to get my degree in social work.

Back to me. I live in denial. It’s very nice here. I hang out with seemingly un-certifiably crazy people and pretend those 2 psych medications I am on are candy. OK that’s a lie, I don’t even like candy unless it’s chocolate and unfortunately they do not look, smell or taste like chocolate.

My first diagnosis of Bipolar disorder was back in April(ish) of 2007 or 2008, I seriously don’t know. Anyway. I was in the middle of a complete psychosis. I don’t remember much other than the belief that the pharmacists I worked with were part of this big Oxycodone ring. I also believed everything was bugged; my car, my bedroom stereo, my cellphone and all these people could hear what I was doing and were reporting to each other their observations. I believed everyone knew I was crazy and that stranger on the street walking his dog was keeping tabs on me to see if they needed to admit me to the hospital. My sister found the psychiatrist I am with now. He diagnosed me with Bipolar I Disorder and put me on a cocktail of Lithium, Abilify and Lamictal. My eyes were glassy, it was coming to an end on my 3 month leave of absence and I could not go back to work looking like I was doped up. Hence, the manipulative side of Sarah…

I was seeing a psychologist at the time also. I told him this was bullshit and there was no way I was Bipolar. I told him all the drugs I was doing in recreation before the psychosis and he believed what I had experienced was a drug induced psychosis. It was true though. For 4 months before my break I was a heavy user of Cocaine, Adderall, Pot and sometimes Ecstasy. Against my psychiatrist’s treatment and belief, I weened myself off the medications. He flipped out and said if I was serious then he’d have to fire me so he wouldn’t be liable if I committed suicide. He then told me of the patient he had let go because they refused treatment. He told me that he ran into that patient’s father about a year later and asked how the patient was and there he was informed that the patient had killed himself just 3 weeks prior to my psychiatrist running into the man.

I’m still alive. I went on fine until June of 2011. In fall of 2010 I was becoming severely depressed and I have always had issues with mental health. When I was an adolescent I was a self mutilator and in and out of crisis centers. I was put on Zoloft and little was I aware that the social butterfly I had become was thanks to hypomania. I neglected my significant other to go party with my girlfriends and by June I was full-blown manic. I had all these brilliant ideas. If I didn’t stay up until 4 AM I woke up exactly at 4 AM. I loved cleaning and organizing (I hate cleaning and organizing) and then BOOM! Psychosis is back and I am taken to an adult psychiatric hospital. I lost my job as a pharmacy technician because I quit. A pharmacist who doesn’t even work at my store reported inappropriate behavior which I tried to deny and she had actually picked out of the garbage a piece of paper I had doodled on while I had a break to complete a Continuing Education credit on the computer which is slow as shit. So I told my district supervisor that I wanted to leave and she said I didn’t need to and I said I did.

I then went to work for Walgreen and there I got into a conflict with a pharmacist which caused me to quit after only a couple of months. I called my psychiatrist who didn’t remember me, which was good, and it took a year, but I’m not so manic, not so psychotic, not really all that crazy and just slightly depressed which I can handle.

I want to work again, but I am scared. I am scared of my behavior going off again or being so sensitive that if I do something wrong unintentionally I will quit again. I maintained a perfect record at CVS. I have worked the Photo Lab, Shift Manager, Pharmacy Technician with a Customer Service award that I had to accept in front of people from all over our region and the CEO himself. And a promotion to Lead Technician. Not a single mark on my record for anything. Never had to be talked to for any misdeed. I’ve never seen the inside of a Principal’s office. Any bad behavior I’ve been part of has been on my time and never reflected on anything school or work wise. For some reason I have to be perfect for the outside world. I’ve always felt that way. Even when I was very young. I aim to please and I aim high. Probably why my diagnosis and I aren’t all on the up and up.

That wasn’t very short. Oh well. I’m blogging for mental health now and I think you should, too. If you want.

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We Don’t Want Your Pity

January 26, 2013 By

Something has to trigger me to talk about Bipolar Disorder. I don’t like to discuss it because it makes me feel sick inside — physically ill. I will take my night medications and get a little panicky because I am certain that if I don’t fall asleep shortly after, I am going to vomit them up. The valproic acid alone causes a slight burning sensation down my esophagus as If I swallowed a milliliter of icy/hot.

By Chris Blackburn

The Bipolar Detective

I have a friend who reads my blog, so after they read this I just might be out that friend. But just as she could be open and honest, this is me being open and honest. My friend is doing a rotation in child psychology. It’s tough on her because she feels she lacks the empathy for it. That is understandable because I lack empathy for drug addicts; we all have our thing. What triggered me though was when we were talking about it and I was suggesting a tip to fake the empathy until she’s out of it, she uses her sister as why she cannot feel for these troubled kids. She loves her sister as much as the average human being loves their family members, but she couldn’t always “handle her crap”.

I regret ever having commented on her post because even though I am not her sister and the fact she’s also telling me she feels nothing towards these kids, that was like a slap to the face. And then deepening the blow by saying that mental health needs people who “really, really care” and have “endless patience”. No, we don’t need mothers, thank you. We need understanding Doctors, Nurses, Health Techs, etc. The counselors and psychotherapists should care, yes. But we need clinical just like any other person on this planet that has a health condition.

Give anyone endless patience and they’ll run all over you. You have to give them boundaries and rules and show them as much as they can get frustrated, so can you. Walking on eggshells is bullshit and people really need to understand that. We are all human, mental disorder or not.

We don’t want your pity, we don’t want to be coddled. We want you to understand that we are human. Fucked up and sick sometimes, we are still humans with real emotions and deserve being treated as well as the next person. We are not our disease.

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The Nature of the Beast

January 4, 2013 By

Blatant discrimination can anger you. You can find watching movies or reading books that are heavy into prejudices on race, sex, sexual preference, so on and so forth to be maddening. It’s been said that discrimination is based on fear – you’re actually afraid of what you cannot understand. It also seems to be based on a heavy dose of ignorance — you don’t understand and you choose not to.

“Prejudice, not being founded on reason, cannot be removed by argument.”
—Samuel Johnson (English Poet, Critic & Writer. 1709-1784)

What happens then when you’re the one being discriminated against? Not just by some random stranger or a group of idiots, but by someone you considered a dear friend for many years? What people fail to realize a lot of the time, even one living with the disorder, is that you cannot blanket it with the title of being mentally ill. How we label mental health is how it becomes so stigmatized. You’re only mentally ill when you’re ill by the disorder — you go off treatment or when the treatment starts working less for you and you fail to notify the proper people who help you manage it. Being on the treatment that works for you brings mental stability and mental wellbeing. You cannot call yourself or let others call you mentally ill. In my book, the mentally ill are ones that are untreatable. The ones who sadly have to live an institutionalized lifestyle. The ones you cannot bring back to reality. The ones who cannot be cared for outside of a controlled environment.

I’m fine, but I’m bipolar. I’m on seven medications, and I  take medication three times a day. This constantly puts me in touch with the  illness I have. I’m never quite allowed to be free of that for a day. It’s like  being a diabetic.
— Carrie Fisher

 

Advocate Against Discrimination

(Photo credit: FreePride Foundation Project)

The nature of the beast. You’re Bipolar, you have to know that you’re going to face discrimination. OK fine, let’s all just get complacent. You’re black, you should just accept a lot of whites will discriminate against you. You’re mexican, get ready to be discriminated against by the blacks. You’re gay, well that’s the lifestyle you chose and you decided to come out of the closet so you should be prepared for the bullying and crude comments; and don’t think your own family won’t participate in that. You’re a woman, be prepared to get your ass smacked. And dare you come out after dark and you are alone, silly you for thinking you could be safe walking to your car. What were you wearing when this supposed incident took place? A miniskirt and some fishnets, you were totally asking for it.

I was told by a friend yesterday that the falling out I had with a mutual friend last year was due to the fact that I have Bipolar disorder and she doesn’t want me around her child. It doesn’t help that the person I had a falling out with was a consistent friend and this mutual friend of ours happens to be more flighty. It also doesn’t help that when I have a falling out that is that negative, unbeknownst to me until yesterday, that I am friends with a friend of theirs. I don’t like the feeling. Especially when Miss Flighty talks a decent amount of smack about Miss Fallout to me. Need I not have to inform you that I don’t bring up Miss Fallout with Miss Flighty because it’s called respect and I don’t want to make Miss Flighty feel uncomfortable about being friends with Miss Fallout and me. Miss Flighty didn’t start hanging out or coming around until Miss Fallout recently (in the last few months) became less available due to a newish relationship.

I don’t trust Miss Flighty. I trust she is being truthful, I don’t trust her loyalties. This stems from the fact that she was the best friend I was with when the Incident happened. Yes, we were 14, but she never backed my story. When we saw one another the following fall when we first started high school, she was cold and just a few weeks ago when we were talking about seeing each other again she told me how this other girl would talk shit about me to Miss Flighty. Why would you feel the need to now tell me that some chick didn’t like me and would talk shit to you about me? Do you think I am ignorant to the fact that if she chose you and you liked her, you weren’t talking shit also?

So I guess it’s don’t shoot the messenger, but what are the messenger’s intentions? After high school she didn’t contact me again until Ivan tried to rape her.

I’m shutting down. I’ll maintain my friendship with her, but only by the way she maintains hers with me. Hang out because you need a friend until you find different ones.

 

 

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