#of course i have manic depression normally but this is always like a million times worse and i’m like shit did my meds stop working?? | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thursdaybennet · 4 years ago

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Hello. My name is Thursday Bennet, and after many years of thinking about it, wishing I had a good enough idea, and wistfully watching from the sidelines, I just signed up for National Novel Writing Month (or its more clunky abbreviation, NaNoWriMo). Got some mood music going (Sabrina the movie soundtrack by the great John Williams, yes just the one song on repeat, why is that weird?) and I have some ideas I’m excited to play around with that came to me during a recent hospital stay. I’ve heard from various sources my whole life that creative types that struggle with mental health issues have a near magical ability to turn pain into art, even specifically that people with bipolar disorder (looking at you Vincent) have this amazing capability for creativity that they tap into. Never understood it myself, because whenever I was my most creative I was also usually manic with a nice dash of psychosis spread all over like dark chocolate sprinkles.

Psychosis is the ugly cousin down in the basement no one likes to talk about when it comes to discussing mental health issues, at least I know it’s not one I’m dying to discuss. Depression and Anxiety? Come right this way, we have a VIP table waiting for you with your millions of sufferers, and feel free to talk about it openly for the most part now because it has (thankfully) become a lot more acceptable to struggle with either or both. Though the second someone suffering with either of these does something even remotely unseemly, be prepared for the backlash and dismissive attitude that follows. “Well what can you expect, she has mental health issues” they whisper to each other. Or even worse in my opinion, it has gotten to the point where certain personality types use a diagnosis as a crutch, a shield to ward off personal responsibility for themselves and their behavior. “You expect me to get a job and contribute to the household Mom? How dare you, I have mental health issues that I wont discuss with anyone or seek treatment for, but will absolutely use to get out of doing my fair share.” Neither of these scenarios are good, and unfortunately the stereotypes surrounding them harm the ones who really are struggling the most. But as far as stigma goes I feel like we have come such a long way. With people I am getting to know and testing the waters with so to speak, I will absolutely say I have depression and anxiety (which is technically correct) rather than be fully open and say that I have bipolar disorder. Call me a coward if you like, you would also be technically correct.

Segueing back to the ugly cousin down in the basement though, Psychosis. That’s a frightening word no one wants to talk about. At least I know I don’t. To discuss it means admitting that I have at times touch with reality, and it feels like something to be ashamed of. I have during the course of one manic episode and subsequent hospitalization regressed to a childlike mentality and legitimately thought I was Alice lost in Wonderland. I had a nasty temper and threw tantrums when I didn’t get my way (tried to take the entire box of crayons back to my room when they were meant to be shared amongst the other patients) that rivaled the Red Queen herself. When I calmed down and was more myself I was mortified! I would never act like even when I was a child, I’ve always been told tantrums were rare when I was young.

More recently my episode and hospitalization took a darker turn, but also an extremely interesting one. I definitely did not regress, I was 100% a grown woman, but that brought other baggage. I thought that I was Katniss Everdeen, Juliette Ferrars, and Queen Elizabeth I all rolled into one. I thought I was, not exactly Mother Earth, but definitely one of her goddesses walking the earth and appreciating the beauty in life. I saw the geometry and the numbers in creation, the angles and brushstrokes of even just weeds and dandelions. Instead of just ugly browns I saw shades of plum and mauve in the dried up leaves on the ground. I tried to embrace the chaos that is life by rolling random objects in my hands, throwing them like they were dice and then looking for patterns and shapes. Basically....I turned in Tia Dalma from Pirates of the Caribbean but with much better teeth and without the sweet accent.

I’ll admit at this point that I have forgotten what my point to all that was, other than to get it off my chest. It feels good, even though in doing so I feel the uncomfortable tingle of being overly exposed trickling down my spine and the cold shoulder of stigma breathing down my neck. I’m only 32 years old, and my current living situation is one that by most standards would seem fairly unencumbered. I have so much I want to do, and you would think that as a married, childless, currently unemployed woman I should be able to achieve them right? Yet I often feel unfairly weighed down both by the challenges my disorder brings just trying to go about my day, and the often heavier weight of the stigma of the diagnosis itself.

I guess to return to what I said about NaNoWriMo, I’m trying to take some agency back for myself. Yeah I recently had an episode, the first in a fairly stable three years. Yes, along with the mania I also experienced psychosis, meaning I lost pieces of who I was and what was real, but that doesn’t have to define me forever as its already run its course and I’m back in good ol’ reality. And yes, I absolutely can take some power back by turning what I experienced into something beautiful, rather than something ugly and shameful. So stay tuned for snippets of stories and little nuggets of ideas, as I try to bring some order to the chaos once again. I’m not sure yet if I’ll be writing a novel based on my experiences or a completely fictional story plucked from one of many that I found myself experiencing on some level during my brief hospitalization. But either way, its about to get weird so grab some popcorn and buckle in, my little coffee cakes. I’ll try not to shock your delicious crumble topping right off your heads.

By the way, in case you hadn’t read between the lines, this is my first time posting about my disorder. And while it feels as thrilling as it is somewhat dangerous, I don’t want it to define me. I just want to stop pretending to be normal every day, because it is unbelievably exhausting. I would rather just be myself, Thursday, someone who likes to write, loves her family and her dog, and when she’s not chilling playing her favorite video games, likes to create art. That’s me, and that’s what you’ll get if you stick around.

We-ell....the Sabrina theme doesn’t pop up for me when I search for it so enjoy some Lindsey Stirling I accidentally added, the pathos of which really doesn’t match the tone of my post lol. (Unless you listen to it while reading about my hospital stays, in which case it is almost too on the nose.)

Here you go, this should go down a little easier and goes with what I hope was an overall optimistic and hopeful journal entry. Enjoy.

#bipolar disorder #mentalheathawareness #writing #nanowrimo #newbeginnings #whatsnormal #bipolaire #Spotify

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l-l-kristofferson · 7 years ago

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My Depression Struggles

***DISCLAIMER! IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR HELPFUL TIPS OR INSIGHT ABOUT DEPRESSION, PLEASE READ CAREFULLY. BUT IF YOU ARE EASILY DEPRESSED AND SENSITIVE TO THESE TOPICS, STOP READING NOW. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!***

For those that know me personally, they know that I suffer from ADHD and bipolar disorder. Mostly because these are the only two conditions I talk about openly. I also suffer from anxiety disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), gender dysphoria, and depression. My other four disorders carry more stigma than the first two. I'm not as excited to talk about these topics in fear of judgment. That being said, I usually only talk about these things to a therapist or doctor. But with depression becoming more and more common, I feel that it should be talked about.

Here are some basic facts. In the US, about sixteen million (16,000,000) suffer from depression. That is estimated at almost seven percent of our population. It can be and is linked to a lot of disabilities in the world. It effects both men and women, at times effecting children from a young age. Those who are more likely to suffer from depression are girls and women. My mother, at one point in time, suffered from the condition. Worldwide, it effects three hundred and fifty million (350,000,000) people. It can stem from a lot of things such as loss and grief, personal or professional dilemmas, a preexisting medical condition, or all of the above. There are many other causes but everyone has a different experience.

What a lot of people don't know is that depression is just the general term for a lot of subgroups. There is major depression, premenstrual depressive disorder (PMDD), stress depressive disorder, manic depression, and post pardom depression. All have their separate causes and affect different people. Another thing that people don't get is that it can be linked to other conditions over the course of time. So here is my experience.

From a young age, I was always sad in some way. This probably started when my father separated from my mom when I was two years old. From then, he was in and out of my older bother's life as well as mine. Even now, I only interact with my father if I have to due to him leaving my mother and leaving us to struggle. Around seven or eight years old, I started to say to a lot of my adult "friends" at school that I would be better off dead. This caused concern and they brought my mother in about the issue, asking her if there were any changes at home. My mom explained what had happened years earlier and they suggested that I be put in therapy. From what I remember of those sessions with my therapist, Dr. Berman, she would always ask me how I was doing as I played with some toys. I would tell her about my day, about my brother and my mom, and about times I would see my dad. Every time I would go to a session, I would pick out a felt board with characters you can lay on top and make up a story. I would usually pick out a man and dress him in a knights costume, at times accompanied by a maiden or princess. After a while, she asked me why I would always do the same thing when I would visit her. I said that I didn't know. At the time, I had little idea of what it all meant because I didn't really think anything was wrong. I understood (in some sense) that my dad wasn't going to live with us ever again and that I wouldn't really get to see him. But looking at it now, I realize that all I was doing... was wishing someone would protect me like my father used to.

Eventually, I stopped going to therapy with Dr. Berman and "got over" what I was going through. I was okay until I was twelve. It started with the death of someone I was really close to... I lost her to suicide. It was the first girl I ever fell in love with and I never got to tell her how I felt. For months, I didn't know what to do. I would cry and cry and cry, not feeling any relief. This was my first glimpse into depression that I was aware of at the time. But soon, it turned into numbness and anger. Why did she leave me? She told me we'd be together forever. She abandoned me. This would coincide with my lesbian identity, something I was unaware of. When that got out in junior high, girls didn't want to come near me, which caused me to feel like an outcast. I was alienated by most of the girls, except a couple who remained friends with me (one I'd known since kindergarten and the one non English speaker who thought I was really nice). The boys thought I was awesome and welcomed me. For the next two years, I was able to make it through. I thought high school would be more accepting. I was so wrong.

When it got out that I was a lesbian nerd, I was constantly picked on by boys and girls. One time, someone said that a girl named Samantha thought I was cute and wanted to get to know me, maybe go on a date. Hearing this, I was so happy. It was awesome. A girl found me worth her time. I had seen her and thought she was pretty. Naturally, I wrote her a loving note and had her read it. Little did I know it was a joke and everyone was laughing at me. I went to the bathroom, cried, and had a fit. I even tossed my journal, bending the metal ring binding. As for the boys, they would toss me down stairs, throw me against walls, push me, physically assault me, hold me in dark closets, and trap me in the guy's room. Between struggling with my identity and being bullied until the age of sixteen, I was constantly depressed. I wouldn't sleep, I'd barely eat, and I wouldn't talk to anyone unless they spoke to me first. I was isolating myself to protect myself from rejection and ridicule. But that worked to my advantage. I kept my head in the books, excelled in class, and kept my GPA high. Friends came later like my best friend Odd, my friends Vachon, his brother Chris, my really good friend (and ex-girlfriend) Natalie, my shop friends Clyde and Erik, and other good friends (you know who you are guys). As I got to graduation, I won a scholarship for college, was in the top ten percent of my class, and surrounded by friends. I wanted to do better. For Jane...

From eighteen to now, it was alright. I kept my head in the books and tried to keep my GPA in the black. But from August to early November of this year, was my lowest point. I was fighting with my mental health facility to get my medication approved and in that fight, had no medication to fall back on. So I spiraled out of control. I couldn't sleep worth a damn, I had little motivation to do much of anything except watch YouTube and forget about it all, I wasn't eating any real food, I shut myself away from the rest of the world, I wouldn't shower for days (sometimes for almost a week), and my anxiety was awful. The only time I seemed to find joy was in the company of other people or on the phone with someone. I didn't feel alone then. But every day was a fight just to get out of bed. I thought of suicide and hurting myself a lot. I would take a lot of painkillers or drink half of a bottle of cough syrup to ease my pain and numb me from thinking. I was grateful for sleep... Because that was the only time I didn't feel any pain. I was mostly at peace. But after five weeks, I started having nightmares, one to three a night. I would be too scared to sleep and sought someone to talk to. Mind you, this was usually between two and four in the morning, when normal people are asleep. But that entire time, I was honest with three people, my best female friend, my therapist, and my regular doctor. Otherwise, no one knew that I was suffering. Not my friends at school, not my coworkers, not my classmates, not my family, not the customers I served. I didn't want them to know. I felt ashamed.

As of the fourteen of November, I have been getting better. It's easier to get out of bed, it's easier to talk to people about my pain, it's easier to eat, it's easier to do my work, it's easier to smile, and I can be more of myself. Some days can still be tough but I keep busy to stay out of those negative thoughts. The one thing I'm glad I did was not give up. I kept going. Through the pain, through the mental bouts and torment, through the anxiety and voices telling me to end it, I stood alive.

Some helpful tips I have are to 1) seek help, 2) be honest, 3) find a positive (and safe) way to deal with your struggles, 4) admit to yourself that you are in need, 5) remind yourself that it gets better, 6) drink tea (I do!), and 7) SMILE!

There are days that I get upset and want to get angry. But I try to keep calm and smile. It can be difficult at times because I'm under a lot of stress as I near the end of my academic career. I am currently doing two internships, a lot of schoolwork, participating in class, volunteering and helping friends, and holding a part time job. How am I alive? A lot of tea (HA HA!). I am grateful for my family, my friends, and those around me. They are one of few reasons I live.

I know it isn't easy for everyone and that there are those suffering much more than me. For those of you who are struggling, keep your head up and smile. If this is rock bottom, there is only one way to go from here: up. I hope that this post was helpful. If you ever need advice or need to talk, my Instagram is lame_dude_20 (my profile picture is of Roxas) and my Kik is Kingsebastianisdead (my profile is a picture of Ventus and the username is The Roxas Joker). I hope I can be the Merlin to your Arthur.

Thank you so much for listening. Write again soon.

#writer #writing #depression #mentalillness #itgetsbetter #hanginthere #don'tgiveup #depressionawareness #imheretohelp #welcometomyworld

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freakishlemon · 7 years ago

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I’ve been thinking a lot about the gendering and socialization of work lately with regards to my growing frustrations with my youngest brother, so I’m throwing words at this screen. Might be interesting to you folks, might not, so I’m putting it behind a cut below.

((Read More should start here, mobile users))

So some basic background, I’m the oldest of 4 kids in my family and we live in a rural town that’s been start-stopping it’s way to suburbia sorta kinda maybe, so our upbringing is pretty squarely centered in this little corner of the world. There me (trans-masc genderqueer) born in ‘88, there’s my sister (woman) born in ‘90, middle brother (man) born in ‘92, and the youngest brother (man) born in ‘96. Myself and the middle brother both still live at home, but we are employed and are paying off loans or looking into continuing education, so we’re doing pretty well. My sister has been moved out with her fella and their co-owned pets and she started her own business last year, in addition to subsidizing her income with part-time bar-tending/restaurant gigs when she needs to. All three of us have completed the middle-class white person requirement of earning a Bachelor’s degree (yay debt :/ ).

My youngest brother has a chronic gut illness and had to have surgery on his intestines last December, which prompted him to really think about his college education (that he was failing) and opt to not finish school. I think that was a surprisingly mature decision for this brother. So he takes the time to recover from the surgery and he’s been back to his normal for a while now, so my parents have been prompting him to start seeking employment since about March-ish.

He’s still unemployed, which does not surprise me based on our location/job market/the incredible hell that is Finding A Job, but I find myself and I see my parents becoming more and more frustrated with him.

Now, my parents’ frustration I understand because they’re in their late 50s/60s and they do all those prior generation stereotype things like tell you to make a million follow up calls and go bother the management and just start asking businesses for jobs, which is what they know. The rest of us sympathize with that portion of my brother’s current position, but... it occurred to me that my youngest brother is doing nothing to alleviate this from my parents because he hasn’t learned how to deflect them.

Because he’s looking for his first job.

His. First. Job.

It hit me this morning that the way our society socializes work for afab folks starts so god damn early. If we define a job as Somewhere You Are Scheduled To Be To Perform Work, I started working at 11 at my local library as a volunteer. I outgrew the summer reading program for the young kids and there was nothing for the older kids. I had to be there for my siblings because I was too young to stay home, so I was shelving books or assisting at the Scholastic book fair. Listen, I worked at this library as a volunteer for so long that the retiring children’s librarian had me run the summer reading program for two years, then she retired and there wasn’t a children’s librarian for a year so I ran the summer reading program, AND THEN I TRAINED THE NEW CHILDREN’S LIBRARIAN ON HOW TO RUN A SUMMER READING PROGRAM. It was her first librarian job and I was sixteen.

My sister started doing the same thing when she aged out of the summer reading program. My brothers didn’t.

But if we count paid work, my sister and I took our first job together at 14 and 12 when we were offered a pretty sweet babysitting gig. We’d finish middle school, walk over to the elementary school down the street to pick up this first grade girl, and hang out at the library doing homework for an hour and a half until the girl’s mom could come pick her up. Three days a week, paid on Thursday like clock work.

And we both did things like that until we were old enough to be legally hired - babysitting gigs, pet sitting, helping older people with physical tasks (I mean, mostly my grandma just having us doing a day’s worth of chores for pizza and ten bucks, but it’s still work).

And we applied for jobs all through high school and if we didn’t have jobs during the school year, we went for summer jobs. The only time either one of us was without something for at least part of the summer was my summer before senior year of college when I was s c r a m b l i n g for an internship to meet my graduation requirements (the coordinator at my school was no god damn help and I’m still mad about it).

Neither of my brothers was prompted to find paying work until after highschool, except when family friends needed pet sitters and my sister and I were already working. They were only encouraged to do volunteer work during highschool because it was a graduation requirement.

I was unemployed for a few months after graduating college, which is pretty normal, and that’s when I learned to balance out the actual reality of job hunting and my parent’s expectations of it. And you know the easiest way I found to do that? Work around the god damn house. Do all the dishes. Sweep floors. Vacuum. Is there a junk closet mom’s been meaning to go through? Empty it out, clean it, and go through what needs to be done with the stuff, and then do it for her so that she only has to make the decisions without taking her two days off to do it herself. Shit like that. Honestly? Yep. Yeah mom, I put in nine applications today, one of the places I applied to last week should be calling by the end of the week, and look at your sparkling kitchen. Done. I acknowledge my advantage of being a physically healthy person to pull this off and the amazing support of my friend who would call me at six in the morning to wake up my ass to take a walk, talk shit out, and then start the day with a scheduled thing. I know that’s not in the cards for all of us, but even doing a few simple chores like wiping off the flat stove top did a lot to get my parents off my back.

(Once my sister started working for actual paychecks, she’s pretty much always been employed because she rocks at this stuff. When she got her at-time-dream-job-in-her-actual-degree-field at a photo studio for $50k a year, she had three part time restaurant jobs and still managed to have more of a social life than I’ve ever had. And then when she hated that job, she started her own business and is making it work. She’s a rock star. It’s amazing.)

So my middle brother was unemployed for the better part of a year after his retail summer job stopped giving him hours and he was searching for a job in his field-ish. He wasn’t socialized to pick up housework the way my sister and I were, but due to his recently-diagnosed-bipolar-flavoured mental illness (i’m not sure the exact diagnosis, but it’s in the bipolar type family) he would have manic episodes and needed shit to do to manage his brain so it quickly became a thing that mom would leave him a list of shit that had to be done around the house each day/week and he would get it done (less done on depressive days, but still to the point of acceptably done). He built the routine and when he couldn’t get calls back for interviews, he sought out gig jobs from friends and family, which is how he ended up in his current job. And even now after lots of balancing acts and sorting himself out, he’d on a pretty even keel these days, but if he’s got fewer work hours than the rest of us that week and mom leaves him a list, he gets the must-dos done.

My youngest brother was diagnosed with his gut illness at 9, which is a shit hand of cards to be dealt. Flare ups are bad and can lay him out for days. I know that’s a part of his life and is probably affecting how he’s looking for a job and all, but... it’s very frustrating to me that this is his first job hunt (or temporary gig hunt) and he’s 21.

He was prompted to get summer jobs while he was in college and relatively healthy, but it wasn’t enforced by my parents on him the way it was on the middle brother and certainly not the way it was enforced on my sister and I. It’s very frustrating to me that my mom will leave a list for my youngest brother with things like 1) empty dishwasher, 2) do your laundry, and 3) play with the dog outside for 20 minutes, and not a single one of those things has been done by the time my mom or I get home (we have similar work schedules). And my mom’s response is to just roll her eyes and grudgingly do it or ask me/middle brother to do it. She doesn’t make him do it. She’s never assigned him to make a simple dinner for the rest of us, the way she has middle brother and myself. She’s never assigned him big projects (clean the basement, vacuum the whole house, scrub out the refrigerator) the way she has middle brother and myself, even as something to be done over the course of the week instead of that day.

It’s just super frustrating to hear him snap at my parents when they pester him about getting a job because mom, dad, middle brother, and myself are doing full time jobs plus sometimes side jobs (middle brother is running a daily livestream and/or podcast, I’m slowly working fiber work business stuff into my life, mom’s starting a yarn dyeing business) PLUS ALL THE HOUSEWORK and he’s sitting there in his room all day filling out applications for a bit and then playing video games for fourteen hours.

Like... I’d feel less frustrated if I knew or suspected it was the gut illness or something that was kicking him all the time, but I don’t think it is. We learned to recognize that kind of stuff when he was in school because there were times when he could only do a half day or couldn’t go at all. Honestly? I just don’t think he knows how to work. Not the way my sister’s and my gendered upbringing taught us. Not the way my middle brother’s mental illness and brain coping taught him. We ended up as people who need stuff to do during the day. It just looks to us like he’s not trying when the reason he hasn’t emptied the dishwasher in two weeks without my mom standing there making him do it is “I forgot."

Just... ffffguh. Venting.

#real life stuff #frustrated #family things

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valkyriewolf246 · 8 years ago

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Today’s a Good Day!

Just a random status update!

Recently I’ve been going through a series of depression and insomnia. Last night of course was no different with the insomnia. I didn’t get a full night of sleep (for the past two weeks my sleep has been very choppy and broken, leaving me feeling groggy and drowsy) but I did sleep for a long time after dozing off again, leaving me feeling rather refreshed! I even had a good dream for once! Which, compared to the other dream I had two nights ago, was a breath of fresh air.

Today, however, instead of feeling depressed and useless like I usually do I actually feel...like, happy??? I’m happy??? Happiness is such a foreign concept to me! I’m literally not used to feeling happy. It’s weird. I willingly went and ran some errands (without complaint!) for my mama and for some reason the number 13 has been showing up a lot today? I bought lottery tickets. (It’s up to 135 million!!) I feel lucky for once!

I commented as such to my mother and she said maybe I had manic depression (which is now called bipolar) and went on to spout some symptoms. I didn’t bother to tell her that I believe I have mild depression and she is very much aware of my severe anxiety. We actually had a nice talk for once (which, believe me, is a rarity on it’s own without it ending up in a yelling match that I normally always lose) and I think I may have finally gotten some things across to her about my emotions and how my breakdowns work.

I know that this is a very brief high in my depression cycle and soon enough it’ll go back down to the usual depressed lull I’m so used to living in. But, for today, I’m going to relish my coveted good mood. (Anyone who has known me and grown up with me in real life will tell you that I’m almost never in a good mood. Not that I’m always in a bitter or sour mood! I just don’t actively act chipper or perky normally. So when I do show happiness it must be something really serious to make me act this way!)

Also did I mention that my birthday is coming up on the 24th? Yeah. Getting seriously excited for that.

Today’s been pretty perfect for me! ...Now if only I could find a job, THEN everything would be perfect!

#valkyriewolf246 #today's a good day!#mun talk #bipolar #manic depression #anxiety #insomnia #birthday hype #random status update #happy #happiness

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vsplusonline · 5 years ago

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Mental illness goes viral

New Post has been published on https://apzweb.com/mental-illness-goes-viral/

Mental illness goes viral

For four days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a nationwide lockdown on March 24, Preeti Borkar* barely got out of bed. The 46-year-old Mumbai-based English teacher didn’t want to eat or speak. “Ever since I heard that COVID-19 had reached India, I started getting panic attacks. It was getting difficult for me to breathe, and that being a COVID symptom, I thought I had contracted it,” she says. “I kept thinking of what would happen if one of my family members contracted the virus; that we would be dumped in some hospital on a dirty bed and I would be left all alone to die.” Soon enough, she imagined she had fever and a sore throat. Having been in therapy since 2005 for depression, Borkar knew she needed medical intervention. She sought out a psychiatrist who gave her a new prescription which helped alleviate her symptoms.

Psychiatrist Dr Harish Shetty of Mumbai’s Dr L.H. Hiranandani Hospital feels the COVID-19 outbreak can be particularly difficult for the likes of Borkar, patients who already suffer a mental health affliction: “There is a sudden sense of shock, fear of death or separation from family.” Weeks into the lockdown, we now even have evidence of otherwise ‘healthy’ people exhibiting signs of anxiety and depression that resemble pathological symptoms. For those with existing diagnoses, COVID is that very kind of stressor doctors often ask them to guard against.

SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM

Bengaluru’s National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) last tried to survey the Indian mental health landscape in 2015-2016. According to its findings, 13.7 per cent of India’s population suffered mental illnesses. And while 30 million Indians had access to the country’s mental health infrastructure, 120 million others had been ignored.

In India, the demand for mental healthcare has always far exceeded its supply. By making impossible access to even the few mental health practitioners in the country, COVID-19 has not just revealed the tragedies of our mental health crisis, but also exacerbated it. A week into the lockdown, the Indian Psychiatry Society estimated our mentally ill population had grown by 20 per cent. If true, we have a second, quieter pandemic to battle.

Psychiatrist Dr Aniruddha Deb points out that in India, “a majority of the service for the psychiatric population is provided by non-government sources”. To try and fill that gap in West Bengal, Dr Deb helps runs Mon (Bengali for mann, or mind), a psychiatric nursing home in Kolkata. Within days of the lockdown, Dr Deb and his colleagues had to close down their in-patient services. “We usually have only nine to 10 patients, but to look after them, we need a staff of about 25. Our food providers were finding it impossible to procure food for all of them,” says Dr Deb. “It is also very difficult to make psychiatric patients understand the importance of physical distancing and hand washing. Very often it is also difficult to manage a patient without close contact.” While Mon’s nine psychiatrists and six psychologists have entrusted families and relatives with the care of their patients, they are running a skeletal emergency service, responding to five to eight calls a day.

ON FEAR AND LOATHING

Tannika Majumdar Batra, 35, a Kolkata-based freelance graphic artist, was diagnosed with bipolarity, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in 2012. She is trying hard not to think of her financial future: “As a freelancer, we have nothing now, and the uncertainty of work affects my anxiety levels.” Though presently not on any medication, she says, “I’m trying to be okay, but the paranoia from my PTSD has been severe.” Batra is afraid of dealing with deliverymen. Days, when her husband takes his mother to the hospital for her dialysis, are particularly difficult. “I fear for my cats, my husband, my brother. I am afraid that, suddenly, something is going to happen to one of them,” says Batra, one of the first mental health advocates to have detailed her mental health history on social media.

The possibility of death and disease is often exaggerated by minds that are already in turbulence. Hypochondriacs, in particular, internalise ideas such as persecution and social vengeance somewhat easily. Knowing this fact well, Sandip Chaudhuri* has tried hard to protect his hypochondriac father from COVID-19 news. “We are not taking newspapers and switch on the TV rarely, but seeing people in masks is enough to make Baba cringe,” he says. Though Chaudhuri and his family wash their hands and dry masks on the terrace, his father has seen enough to develop his theories of conspiracy and biological warfare.

Delusions, a common effect of stress, are also a symptom that often defines the manic highs of bipolar patients. Dr Shetty speaks of a young man whose diagnosis of bipolarity confirmed itself a few days after the COVID-19 outbreak made headlines. “He started imagining that he is responsible for the COVID-19 crisis and that he had special powers to resolve it.” Two other patients of Dr Shetty developed suicidal tendencies, saying that “they would rather kill themselves than die of COVID-19”.

The news can, of course, precipitate delusions and paranoia, but Dr Deb says editorialisation of facts matters, too. “When you blame a particular community for the spread of a disease, specific phobias become active,” he says. Schizophrenics, for instance, are already prone to paranoia, and by implying that a disease is being spread deliberately, “you amplify their fears”. The psychiatrist says he is witnessing an unfortunate resurgence: “People who were well for a couple of years are suddenly going berserk, sure someone will attack them.”

SILVER LININGS SCRAPBOOK

During the lockdown, video-conferencing has proved a boon for many who can now speak to their therapists online, but Dr Vinod Kumar, psychiatrist and head of Mpower Centre in Bengaluru, says “online interactions can be helpful, but not as gratifying as real-life ones.”

On April 3, Mpower, an organisation that works with people with mental health concerns, launched a helpline to help alleviate COVID-related anxiety. Already having seen more than 4,000 people call in, Dr Kumar says, “Any kind of disruption to normal lives—unemployment, relationship troubles, domestic violence—is going to lead to increased stress levels, and this needs to be addressed. But the biggest trauma is perhaps being experienced by those who have either contracted the virus or lost a loved one to it. These experiences can lead to chronic PTSD.”

Other practitioners are trying hard to look at the bright side. Dr Shetty says he saw a clinically depressed patient lose his symptoms after the pandemic broke: “He suddenly showed a lot of resolve and took charge of family responsibilities. His depression suddenly seemed to fade away.” Dr Deb talks about how people’s loneliness might be alleviated by the sudden proximity of family members. “People who are obsessed about washing their hands might find comfort in the fact that everyone else is now washing their hands, too,” he says. Batra, for her part, says, “When I first started recovering in 2015, I began enjoying my solitude. It helped me understand myself. I’ve been taking one day at a time since. I’m happy that everyone else now seems to be doing the same.”

with Aditi Pai and Romita Datta

*names changed on request

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flauntpage · 7 years ago

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Russell Westbrook is Not Important

Writing about Russell Westbrook at this exact moment feels obligatory—not because Oklahoma City is on the verge of a first-round exit, but because he’s a reigning MVP who just averaged a triple-double for the second straight season on one of the most expensive contracts in NBA history...and is on the verge of a first-round exit. Watching Westbrook thrive and fail over the past couple years is an immensely thrilling, deeply depressing flat circle.

To me, this never felt more clear than during one particular play in Game 4, when the Thunder found themselves down 16 late in the third quarter. At that moment, one of the NBA's most regrettable rosters saw its own ambition screech towards a quarry with Westbrook behind the wheel.

It begins when Jae Crowder misses a wide-open three. Westbrook catches a quick outlet pass from Alex Abrines and races towards a steel net of three Utah Jazz defenders. He taps the brakes and quickly sweeps the floor with his eyes, but the raging impatience that ignites every element that makes him so complex takes over. Momentarily idle on the right wing with Donovan Mitchell, a worthy albeit unexpected nemesis in his way, Westbrook throws what's left of his chiseled energy into fifth gear. Two dribbles later he finds himself airborne, drifting towards the opposite block with Derrick Favors and Steven Adams impeding a clean line to the rim.

Off-kilter and desperate, the ball sticks to Westbrook’s right palm as he falls back to Earth on the left side of the basket, crying a breathless “and-1” once he realizes the sequence won’t go according to plan. The shot lacks what muscle is required to lift it above the iron, and after Carmelo Anthony’s forceful put-back also disagrees with the rim, Oklahoma City's last gasp ends before it began.

The Thunder now face elimination sooner than anyone thought possible, going back to the day they gifted their franchise player with Paul George—one of basketball’s premier 1A two-way talents—so that last year’s first-round elimination would not repeat itself.

Westbrook is the core reason why. Outplayed by Mitchell and Ricky Rubio, and shooting 36 percent while averaging 16.1 fewer points than he did during last year's loss against the Houston Rockets, he remains inefficient and manic. Dominant in one moment and disengaged the next. To watch a leading man struggle so transparently defies the very nature of postseason stardom. Strategy is nothing more than a bystander in the face of overwhelming talent, which is ostensibly what Westbrook still has. But as someone posting numbers this far below his career postseason average, in a situation where he couldn't ask for much more help, Westbrook's status has never been less stable.

We haven’t learned anything new about him in this series—an ominous sign from a career that’s momentarily turned static—but right now Westbrook is a net negative in ways that go beyond how critics normally pick him apart. While defenders duck under screens and try to be as loose as possible guarding him in the pick-and-roll, the Thunder have been outscored by 45 points when Westbrook is on the court, a plus/minus that ranks 199th out of 201 players. His decisions have the grace of a cinder block, and he depends on the increasingly predictable diet of pull-up bricks and hopeless summit clashes against Rudy Gobert that go nowhere.

In four games, Oklahoma City's offense is averaging a team-low 93.5 points per 100 possessions with Westbrook on the court. In the 44 minutes he's sat on the bench, that number soars up to 128.2! Some of the disparity is due to unsustainable shot making by George (OKC's made exactly half of its threes sans Westbrook), but it's hard not to detect a bit more fluidity and purpose in their attack, too. The Thunder's pace is 10 possessions per 48 minutes faster when Westbrook is in the game, and according to Synergy Sports his turnover rate as a pick-and-roll ball-handler is higher than his field goal percentage.

Defense has always been problematic, too, but not quite like this. He's reckless, of course. But Westbrook is showing retreat for maybe the first time ever. It's disturbing. After a disappointing Game 3 loss in which he missed 12 shots and turned it over eight times, Westbrook told reporters he'd shut Rubio down. What follows are three plays that apparently illustrate what it means to shut Rubio down (not shown are several nonsensical fouls that didn't let Westbrook play with any physicality down the stretch):

These plays are depressing. Westbrook's relevance adds necessary spice to the NBA's general narrative, and not having him in character as a ruthless fire-breather is frustrating. Instead of analyzing rare physical awesomeness we're forced to ponder an unlit future.

I have a rule that’s tattered with various disclaimers, but it’s still (almost) solid: contract be damned, a player’s ranking can not exceed the draft pick another team would surrender for him in a trade. (For example: Draymond Green should not be considered a top-ten player unless another team is willing to give up a top-ten pick for him.)

Run Westbrook through this exercise and it gets very interesting. Do any teams choosing in the top ten of this year's draft give their pick up for him? Probably, but not without blinking hard several times. Going off trail for a second, the more interesting question is "would the Cleveland Cavaliers?" If the answer is yes, how do the Thunder turn down Kevin Love, Kyle Korver, and the Brooklyn Nets pick for Westbrook?

The reigning MVP can’t be dealt until September 28th, and there are obvious concerns about how he’d fit beside LeBron James (who may have already checked out). But Westbrook can still provide the occassional Grand-Slam swing Cleveland badly needs, and I, for one, would love to watch that tandem on a revenge tour.

Hypotheticals aren't reality, though. The Thunder are still breathing and Westbrook still has at least one more night to remind everyone all over again how valuable and special he is. But as the aging process widens his flaws—and $46.6 million heads into his bank account for the 2022-23 season alone—Westbrook's peak is visibly running out of time.

Barring a miracle, George is almost certainly gone. Carmelo Anthony is almost certainly not leaving. Oklahoma City isn't young, has no obvious savior in its pipeline, and won’t be able to clear significant cap space until the franchise player is 31. The bottom line: if Westbrook can’t make it work with George and Adams by his side, then what about him is even all that interesting in the role he currently fills?

Russell Westbrook is Not Important published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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amtushinfosolutionspage · 7 years ago

Text

Russell Westbrook is Not Important

Writing about Russell Westbrook at this exact moment feels obligatory—not because Oklahoma City is on the verge of a first-round exit, but because he’s a reigning MVP who just averaged a triple-double for the second straight season on one of the most expensive contracts in NBA history…and is on the verge of a first-round exit. Watching Westbrook thrive and fail over the past couple years is an immensely thrilling, deeply depressing flat circle.

To me, this never felt more clear than during one particular play in Game 4, when the Thunder found themselves down 16 late in the third quarter. At that moment, one of the NBA’s most regrettable rosters saw its own ambition screech towards a quarry with Westbrook behind the wheel.

It begins when Jae Crowder misses a wide-open three. Westbrook catches a quick outlet pass from Alex Abrines and races towards a steel net of three Utah Jazz defenders. He taps the brakes and quickly sweeps the floor with his eyes, but the raging impatience that ignites every element that makes him so complex takes over. Momentarily idle on the right wing with Donovan Mitchell, a worthy albeit unexpected nemesis in his way, Westbrook throws what’s left of his chiseled energy into fifth gear. Two dribbles later he finds himself airborne, drifting towards the opposite block with Derrick Favors and Steven Adams impeding a clean line to the rim.

Westbrook is the core reason why. Outplayed by Mitchell and Ricky Rubio, and shooting 36 percent while averaging 16.1 fewer points than he did during last year’s loss against the Houston Rockets, he remains inefficient and manic. Dominant in one moment and disengaged the next. To watch a leading man struggle so transparently defies the very nature of postseason stardom. Strategy is nothing more than a bystander in the face of overwhelming talent, which is ostensibly what Westbrook still has. But as someone posting numbers this far below his career postseason average, in a situation where he couldn’t ask for much more help, Westbrook’s status has never been less stable.

In four games, Oklahoma City’s offense is averaging a team-low 93.5 points per 100 possessions with Westbrook on the court. In the 44 minutes he’s sat on the bench, that number soars up to 128.2! Some of the disparity is due to unsustainable shot making by George (OKC’s made exactly half of its threes sans Westbrook), but it’s hard not to detect a bit more fluidity and purpose in their attack, too. The Thunder’s pace is 10 possessions per 48 minutes faster when Westbrook is in the game, and according to Synergy Sports his turnover rate as a pick-and-roll ball-handler is higher than his field goal percentage.

Defense has always been problematic, too, but not quite like this. He’s reckless, of course. But Westbrook is showing retreat for maybe the first time ever. It’s disturbing. After a disappointing Game 3 loss in which he missed 12 shots and turned it over eight times, Westbrook told reporters he’d shut Rubio down. What follows are three plays that apparently illustrate what it means to shut Rubio down (not shown are several nonsensical fouls that didn’t let Westbrook play with any physicality down the stretch):

These plays are depressing. Westbrook’s relevance adds necessary spice to the NBA’s general narrative, and not having him in character as a ruthless fire-breather is frustrating. Instead of analyzing rare physical awesomeness we’re forced to ponder an unlit future.

Run Westbrook through this exercise and it gets very interesting. Do any teams choosing in the top ten of this year’s draft give their pick up for him? Probably, but not without blinking hard several times. Going off trail for a second, the more interesting question is “would the Cleveland Cavaliers?” If the answer is yes, how do the Thunder turn down Kevin Love, Kyle Korver, and the Brooklyn Nets pick for Westbrook?

Hypotheticals aren’t reality, though. The Thunder are still breathing and Westbrook still has at least one more night to remind everyone all over again how valuable and special he is. But as the aging process widens his flaws—and $46.6 million heads into his bank account for the 2022-23 season alone—Westbrook’s peak is visibly running out of time.

Barring a miracle, George is almost certainly gone. Carmelo Anthony is almost certainly not leaving. Oklahoma City isn’t young, has no obvious savior in its pipeline, and won’t be able to clear significant cap space until the franchise player is 31. The bottom line: if Westbrook can’t make it work with George and Adams by his side, then what about him is even all that interesting in the role he currently fills?

Russell Westbrook is Not Important syndicated from https://australiahoverboards.wordpress.com

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tracedandreplaced-blog · 7 years ago

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Termination of Employment or the Time Lithium Exploded my Brain -bipolar storytime 2

I'd been working in the buying office of one of the largest high end fashion retailers in the country for about six months when everything went to shit, but let's hold off on that for now. It was the best job I'd ever had. It paid very well and exposed me to an exciting industry I'd never been apart of. I felt like I was performing at a high level (which I was at first), and it seemed that I fit in well. My coworkers were ultra high functioning people and fun to be around. They were sharp dressers and I learned to dress well too. Disconnected undercut, check. Skinny tie with tie clip, check. Overly shortened tight slacks exposing brightly colored "statement socks" under monthly shined wing tips, that too. I took the commuter train downtown everyday and read snobbish mid century east coast intellectual literature through dark sunglasses even in the tunnels to complete the look. I boarded buses and strutted, really strutted, down the Seattle sidewalks at a million miles an hour. My confidence was going through the roof, which was important after coming out of my last job, which I didn't exactly fail at, but never really did as well as I hoped.

It took a few months to come out of the "learning period" and really be expected to take on responsibility and perform. I did that at about the right time and for awhile there, my team was impressed. They felt lucky they landed one of the good ones to support them. I handled product set up and clearance promotion execution. It was the lowest rung on the ladder in the buying office, but still a lot of pressure, for if I didn't do my job right, no one else could do theirs. The products had to be in the system, and they had to be right. It was a shit ton of data. I probably got 200 emails a day.

But after I'd been really pulling my weight for a couple months, the headaches started. They didn't seem normal. They weren't I drank too much headaches, they weren't pop a few ibuprofens and carry on with your day headaches, they were ice picks driving into my skull and then being lit on fire headaches. Anytime they'd hit, usually in the afternoon, I'd be sidelined for the rest of the day. I'd stay at work and pretend to be okay, but I was really just sitting at my computer clicking back and forth to random emails and spreadsheets, doing absolutely nothing. I saw a doctor and she said they were cluster headaches. Migraines that came in cycles and caused extreme pressure and stabbing pains. I tried heavy duty anti inflammatories, steroids, and even oxygen therapy, but nothing worked. Until Lithium.

For some reason, explained the doctor, Lithium was able to usually break the cycles of these particular types of headaches and patients could cease taking it after a month or so without the headaches returning. They didn't really know why, but there you go.

My headaches went away about a month after starting the Lithium. It was a miracle. I assumed I would get right back on the horse after this minor bump in the road and fix what ever few mistakes I'd made during said bumps. Then I'd keep kicking ass. What I didn't foresee however, was that the undiagnosed and completely unknown to me bipolar disorder would erupt like Mount St. Fucking Helens when I quit the Lithium. It was a nightmare.

The first things everyone learns when getting to know manic depression is of course the mania and the depression. These cause the scariest and most damaging consequences of the illness. But what most people massively underestimate is the impairment in cognitive functioning. Inability to focus, loss of short and long term memory, decreased pattern recognition, terrible organizational skills, inability to multi task, poor follow through, disruption of routines, and no sense of prioritization. Simply put, I started fucking everything up. My product set up information was consistently wrong, if even done at all. I would forget or mess up live dates on essential promotions that went out to all stores and online. A dozen or so unanswered emails consistently filled my inbox for months. They were action items for me and always caused major fallout. For some reason, I always felt like they'd just resolve themselves if ignored.

I would take extra long lunch breaks almost every day and maniacally speed walk all around the city, headphones in and hopping buses back and forth in the train tunnels or wandering through shop after shop in Pike's Place Market. I became obsessed with music I would never have listened to previously, but like the snooty academic literature, it enhanced and defined this new identity I had adopted. I used it to induce near trance like states while working or commuting to and from. I would catch other commuters staring when I came to and opened my eyes, slack faced with my gaping maw practically drooling through incessant head bobs.

I was losing the company money. A lot of money. When you're in a position that essentially starts the process of getting goods from suppliers and vendors to customers, you can miss out on hundreds if not thousands of dollars with one keystroke. If the product isn't live, it cant sell. This happened over and over. My bosses boss became aware. HR became aware. I was given a horrendous review and put on a performance plan. The beginning of the end was when I simply forgot to tell my boss that I'd be taking two weeks paternity leave for the birth of my second son, not one like previously discussed. I told him a couple days before I was supposed to come back by text. That doesn't fly.

When it was obvious I was going down in flames and probably weeks away from getting fired, my wife suggested I try and get some help. There was definitely something going on here. I was a smart person, she kept saying, but something was causing it all to breakdown. I needed to go to a psychologist.

After a few visits, he diagnosed me with bipolar disorder. That's a story for another time, but I can at least say that I now had hope for the situation. I thought it wasn't too late to save my job, all I had to do was get on some drugs and go see a shrink. But it was too late. Ironically, I wan't able to get my Lamictal prescription filled for the first time until the day I was officially terminated. Initially I thought they wouldn't be able to fire me at all. Like that would be some sort of discrimination. I mean, I was disabled now, right? But in fact they have no legal obligation to continue employment if I am unable to do the job effectively, illness or not. I discussed welfare, disability, and leave of absence with HR when the first rumblings of action were taking place. I had a family to support. But HR couldn't help me with any of that. I hadn't worked there long enough and my situation didn't fit the specific requirements. I left and got a part time job in retail that didn't cover half of daycare costs.

During my very first appointment with my Psychiatrist, which was weeks after the first Psychologist appointment due to a patient intake administrative error, the doctor confirmed that my brief relationship with Lithium probably did in fact trigger a downward spiral of manic depressive cycling. It was because of this that my cognitive functioning went to hell. It also didn't help that I'd been on anti depressants for the last 15 years, ever since high school. That most likely caused many of the manic episodes, which I was having much more than depressive ones. She and my Psychologist estimated the illness had manifested in my mid twenties based on the past behaviors I described, especially the drinking.

My confidence was shattered after the firing. I questioned if I'd even be able to handle part time retail, let alone get a "real job" ever again. The schedule that had me working evenings and weekends in a completely random fashion put an incredible strain on my wife, having to handle child care alone and never connecting with me outside of stressed and resentful late night conversations after the kids went to bed.

We found a solution a few months later, thank God. I became a stay at home dad, which I still am today. It's the greatest and hardest thing I've ever done. She makes just enough money to keep us comfortably afloat, and since there are no daycare costs, we're not losing money for me to go to work anymore. I'm improving everyday with medication and therapy, and I think I can say my cognitive functioning is back where it belongs, but I definitely have a whole new set of fears. What if this illness gets worse, a lot worse, and I can't effectively care for them day in and day out? What if we have to send them back to daycare and I can't find a job? What if I get a job and fail miserably because of it? What if I can't do anything at all and have to go on disability? Or can't get disability? There probably is a good chance, a great chance, that none of these things will happen, but that doesn't mean I don't sit up at night playing the situations over and over in my head.

Maybe in reality getting fired was the best thing that could've happened to me. After all, it led to my diagnosis and has put me on the path to better mental health. Most days are pretty damn great and I now have the tools to work through the days that aren't. I definitely miss being a part of something so exciting, staying at home with the kids can of course get a little repetitive, but I know it wasn't the right fit for me. I remember my psychologist saying once that simply put, I can't do that type of job. A high stress, high performing office job where hundreds of emails with multiple tasks to juggle at once coming through daily will quite literally drive me insane. Even if it didn't, my brain is just not wired that way, and it is very likely I wouldn't succeed.

I have no idea what sort of work I'll do once the boys are in school, but I've got a few years to figure it out. I'm probably more suited to doing something with my hands, but have no training in any trades. Who knows, I might just stay home, cook and clean. My wife will probably be making even more then and we'll be just as comfortable money wise. Or I suppose I could just sit around and write stories no one will ever read about manic depression. It'll be like that Jimi Hendrix song, but with more trips to the doctor and less guitar solos. Thanks for reading.

#bipolar #mental health #long reads #nonfiction #prose #essay #writers

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rheasunshine · 7 years ago

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Greetings fellow travelers,

I hope that wherever you’re reading this from, you are safe.

I haven’t been safe in awhile.

Yes, I have a roof over my head. (A new, expensive one at that; first year home-ownership can be stressful).

Yes, I have food and water. (Well, sometimes there’s food – usually the fridge is empty-ish and even when it’s not, I’m not really into eating it.) This fact alone makes me safer than millions and millions of people.

I am – generally speaking – not in danger.

Except last week. Last week, I was in a lot of danger. And it wasn’t the first time.

It comes as no surprise to anyone following my story that as a “Professional Patient” I spend most of my days balancing doctors appointments and symptom-tracking and medications. To be honest (and you should always be honest, right Justin?), I’ve been doing a truly shitty job managing my illnesses. It starts simply enough – one bad day. That bad day leads to two, and by then I’ve decided nothing I could do matters and I let go of the controls. Sounds healthy, right?

So a couple of weeks ago, as I was juggling my annual OBGYN visit, IUD discussions, a urology referral, a visit to UNC to discuss my constant nausea and further testing, a mammogram, vision testing for new glasses and contacts (and WAY more money than we have), my therapy visits and then 3 or 4 “normal” appointments, I kind of lost my mind.

The thing is, it wasn’t even beyond the scope of normal; that’s a pretty average week in my life. Where things started to go sideways was in the creeping, slinking, insidious feeling that an MS relapse – or something worse – was coming on. I’ve described this enough times that I feel we are all comfortable with what this looks like, so I’ll just summarize by saying that at this point in the story I was no longer in control of my motions, thoughts, words or feelings.

When Thommy and I went on our annual wedding anniversary trip in early October, we spent most of our time playing the previously referred to “ER or nah??” game. I didn’t want to go to an ER out of state (we were in Tennessee) so we just assumed the worst was yet to come and tried to enjoy what we could of the Smokey Mountains. BUT, because my brain wasn’t working properly, I forgot to pack both my cane AND my handicap placard, so we weren’t able to do much sightseeing or exploring. In fact, we barely left the condo. Since we’ve been married for 9 years, and together for 13, we don’t need a lot of special attractions to enjoy a trip; just being in each others’ presence is special enough.

At the Tennessee Welcome Center

So let’s catch up: we got home, the symptoms got way worse, and on Friday, October 27th, I went again to see my primary care doctor. He took an X-Ray of my neck first to see if that could explain some of the symptoms. Luckily, it did a little – I now have 3 herniated discs and something wrong with the curvature of my spine – and had we not had more pressing issues he said we would be discussing physical therapy, cortisone shots and possibly surgery – but since I couldn’t feel my leg or finish a complete sentence, we had bigger problems.

He sent me over to the hospital as a direct admit. He assured me they would give me sedatives before the MRI of my brain, thoracic and cervical spine (a 2 hour procedure), but the hospital was experiencing a severe shortage of IV Valium so they gave me Ativan instead, and it did nothing, except possibly make me MORE agitated. Over the course of my stay they tried 7 IVs. 2 blew. One nurse cried and I did everything I could to convince her it was me, not her.

It is now Sunday, November 5th and it hurts just to type this. But what I want to say is important; I was diagnosed as having another MS flare.

After 3 MS medications THIS YEAR ALONE.

After the hell of Ocrevus JUST TWO MONTHS AGO.

The reason MS patients put up with all the bullshit is to STAY OUT of relapses. I tortured myself all year just to end up here anyway. And that’s JUST the MS – never mind everything else in my body hatching plans against me.

So. They prescribe 3 days of IV steroids (WHY, GOD, WHY?), fluids and pain management. Fine. I’m pissed but I can do this. What’s 3 more days in the hospital? I am safe.

Except.

Except…

I can’t do it. I am not safe.

A psychiatrist comes to talk to me on the day of discharge. “Are you safe at home?”

(Mental checklist: roof, food, check.)

“Yes.”

“OK,” she says, “do you have thoughts of hurting yourself or others?”

Let’s do the easy one first. Do I want to hurt others? Like this guy – this guy here who SLEPT IN A CHAIR FOR 3 DAYS AND BARELY LEFT MY SIDE AND DECKED OUT OUR ROOM IN PENN STATE STUFF FOR THE GAME DESPITE THE FACT THAT I KEEP YELLING AT HIM AND CRY INCOHERENTLY?? No. No, I do not want to hurt him.

(Well, I didn’t. But now that I’m at home, in pain, miserable and riding steroid rage, ummmm…..)

But do I want to hurt myself?

Yes. I want to find a way to trump the pain I’m in every day, I want to be the one doing the hurting, actively, so I’m no longer passively being injured, I want it to be quiet, I want it to stop, I want it to end. Please. Make it all stop.

“Would you allow yourself to be voluntarily committed to our behavior health unit?”

What’s left to hide from? What’s left to be scared of? I’ve seen the worst, I’ve felt the worst, I’ve been in the dark for a long time.

What it feels like she’s asking is, “Do you want to save what’s left of you?”

“Yes.”

And that’s where another story starts and ends. The only other time I’ve been hospitalized for mental health issues since Renfrew, and this time it was only 3 days because on the chaotic and teary night of admission I signed my 72 hour release form. (They really should make you wait until morning to do that, but what do I know…)

So basically I asked to leave before I had even fully been processed.

But that’s OK because 3 days in a psych unit is a powerful time. Every single person you meet changes you forever. And I want to do justice to that story so we’ll save it for another day.

But what I want you to know now is that on Monday, November 6th, I will start a 6 week intensive partial hospitalization; that means from 9am to 1pm I’ll be in intensive therapy, both group and individual and I’ll meet each week with a psychiatric nurse to continue to adjust my medications and with a psychiatrist to keep this journey moving. In addition, I can still see my normal therapist once a week, who I’ve been seeing for two years, and who has been remarkable.

There are three other things I want you to know, and they are so important to me, that I’m asking you to really hear the words in your head – and I’m asking you to remember.

1.) I would be dead right now if it wasn’t for Thommy, my mom, a handful of the best friends I actually don’t deserve, and a tribe of “Rhea Team” warriors who pray for me and send me their positive energy and their love and their notes and their gifts and who keep showing up despite the tedious repetition of my illnesses and shortcomings. I know that I am blessed. I do not take it for granted. Please keep reminding me of the good things – please keep your words of love and light coming; it’s my way out of the darkness.

2.) You need to vote better. Sorry if that’s whiplash but it’s true. You and me both. I am getting the most amazing, thorough and continued treatment because of insurance. There was a time I didn’t have that. And there were people I met in the hospital who were released before they were stable because of insurance. Cuts to mental health services, Medicare, Medicaid, etc, literally, literally, literally KILL PEOPLE. I might be one of them. Vote in every election you can for leaders who will protect those services. I can’t believe this country works that way but here we are.

3.) Mental health stigma needs to end. And it can start with you. Stop using the word “crazy” a dozen times a day when it’s not necessary. That’s the easy one – challenge yourself today and see what happens. Don’t use diagnoses as adjectives. OCD, bipolar, schizophrenia, manic/mania, depressed, anorexic/bulimic, PTSD, cutting/cutters/self-harmers … all those things are real life. They can be nightmares that people may never wake up from. Some of us will get help and regulate it but we ALL need to stop carrying around the shame of it. It is not a punchline to your shitty joke. If someone trusts you enough to share their story with you: listen without judgement. You don’t have to fix them. You don’t have to feel their pain to help them through it. You can hold space with love and respect and allow them to process their emotions freely. Not everyone is ready to accept help – it is not your job to lecture them. Memorize the number to the suicide hotline (1-800-273-8255) so that you can provide a resource to someone is crisis. (Obviously, if it’s an emergency, call 911). But from experience, I can say that I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve had a meltdown on the phone with someone while I told them I couldn’t make it one more day – and the act of simply being heard has kept me here one more day.

One more day.

That’s what’s left.

Or, like we talked about in the hospital, one more minute. It’s 7:31am right now. Can I make it until 7:32am? What can bridge those 60 seconds? Breathing? Medication? A phone call?

I know I said I needed you to know 3 things, but I lied, there’s one more:

I am not ashamed. As someone with complex mental illnesses AND complex physical illnesses, stuffing that all inside and hiding it from the world is what usually gets me into the darkest recesses of my mind and keeps me buried. As someone with mental illness, I *DO* feel guilty, all the time, for hundreds of things, real and imaginary; but, what I don’t feel guilty about, is sharing this with you. There is a level of self-loathing I experience that I didn’t even have words for until I was on the psych unit, but my head will not hang one inch lower after posting this and sharing it. I hope if you read this and you want to talk, you reach out. I hope if you read this, and you are so inclined, you share it with your circle because there might be someone who needs to read it and know help is out there and they don’t have to feel alone or ashamed.

I’m redefining myself with the pieces of what’s left; and with each new illness and test and hospitalization and med change, etc., I do feel like I lose some of the person I wanted to be. Or at least the person I thought I was. But there is so much power in realizing you can create someone new. And know this: if you’ve had to do this (I mean, REALLY, do this): you are a fucking superhero. Suit up. Here’s your cape…

xoxo

Rhea

What’s Left. Greetings fellow travelers, I hope that wherever you're reading this from, you are safe. I haven't been safe in awhile.

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stars-forever-dwell-blog1 · 8 years ago

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The Questions of Procreation and Continual Self-Creation

When I was seventeen and I thought about my future, I always would breezily reply to the question of children that yes, I definitely wanted them one day. I considered myself a very nurturing person, and I was at the time. The trouble was, I didn’t know how to channel my nurturing instincts in healthy ways, so instead I drew in a string of lost boys looking for their Wendy, and I was only too happy to play the part. Until, of course, true to their natures, they cast me aside with nary a backwards glance when I proved to be less magical, less perfect, than they initially imagined. “And thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.” And I, being a self proclaimed Wendy, a total Manic Pixie Dream Girl, couldn’t admit how much it hurt, or how draining it was. Until I couldn’t handle it anymore, and was forced to actually think about my own health and balance. And believe me, I refused to for as long as I could hold out. Because one of the gifts of womanhood is mothering, and mothers are selfless, yet are powerful and filled with joy and love at the same time. Uh huh. So me being me, I ran with this idea until I ran myself into the ground. I really had no idea what being a mother actually meant in the first place.

So after this highly dramatic and nauseating stage of my life, when I was around twenty two, I decided on just a grandiose scale that I did not, in fact, ever want kids. And that was that.

I’m thirty two now, and this subject has been on my mind a lot lately. My boyfriend (as of recently fiance) wants “kids.” Not necessarily multiple tiny humans, but the idea of kids. Most likely one.

And my sister has twin boys who are two and a half, and they have definitely made me question my decision a lot. Namely because I adore them to the moon and beyond.

Now, I am not a “baby person.” When I’m at the grocery store and some kid is screaming because they want whatever crappy toy is all bright and shiny and conveniently located so as to illicit the very reaction they’re so loudly displaying, I get annoyed and go to a different aisle. When I see a kid with a snotty nose and sticky crap all over him or herself, all I feel is a mildly insane urge to giggle, because it’s not my problem. And when I see a woman walking around with a self satisfied sense of entitlement because she’s a mother and I’m not, or if she’s clearly expecting me to gush over how supposedly cute her baby, well. . .I think she need to get over herself. (I’m totally not saying that all women do this, but I’ve seen some who do). Being a woman isn’t defined by our choice to have children or not. It’s so much more than that, and my choice is just as valid as hers.

And yet, somehow, when my nephew Lumen is lying face down on the living room floor screaming at the top of his very admirable lungs because there are no more muffins for his snack, or his brother Cypress is squatting in the snow wailing because he’s cold and tired of walking because he’s getting over the flu (even though he was just wailing two minutes ago because he was tired of sitting in his stroller and wanted to walk, dammit), and my feet feel like they are slowly turning into blocks of ice, somehow my heart still manages to become, and remain, a very squishy pile of auntie-goo. Or it’s storytime / bedtime at the end of my fiance’s and my first day visiting for Christmas, and we haven’t had a chance to even look at each other all day because of Christmas and toddler insanity, and I’m about to quietly leave the nursery to go spend a few minutes talking with him before he passes out, when Lumen looks up from the book that my sister is reading to him and his brother and says, “Auntie, stay,” I am literally powerless to do anything else. Or on the last morning of our visit when I tiptoe into the nursery to peek in on Lu and Cy before we leave, assuming they’re still asleep, and I discover that Cy is lying in his crib, just waking up and repeating my name over and over. And when he sees me all bundled up ready to leave, he demands, “Jacket off!” because he wants me to stay. . .well, I can’t even describe what this does to my heart. Like the Grinch, it grows three sizes.

So all this love and squishiness has really got me thinking. If I feel this way about my nephews. . .how would I feel about a baby of my own? And if I really, truly don’t want kids, then why is it that if you were to ask me how I would celebrate Christmas, Easter, Hallowe’en, teach my kid about spirituality and religion, what kind of schooling options I would want for them, what kind of care I would want during my pregnancy and afterward, what kind of diapers I would use, and if I would make my fiance wear one of those fake boob thingies so he could experience breastfeeding as closely as possible. . .would I have a very well thought out and researched answer for you?

Shit.

So, maybe I want a kid after all. The thought of it excites and terrifies me. Is this normal?

The terrified part is normal. I know. But maybe not for the reasons that I’m experiencing it.

I’m terrified for all the normal reasons, like wanting a safe world for my kid, but also because I just kind of always had it in the back of my head that my kid would view me the way I viewed my parents. Not good. We always had horrible relationships, and the only reason my mother and I get along now (relatively) is because I’ve chosen to just let go of waiting around for an apology, because I know I’m never going to get one. I’ve chosen to forgive her; not because what all she did is cool with me, but because walking around angry and bitter all the time was hurting me. And still, she doesn’t understand. And my dad’s passed away, so that’s somewhat irrelevant, at least for now.

So what if my kid became a teenager and just stopped respecting me, stopped giving a shit about anything I said, much in the same way I did with my parents? I guess it’s always a possibility. But there are things you can do to build a strong relationship based on trust and respect, can’t you? I think so. I never trusted my parents. They weren’t trustworthy. They didn’t really ever listen to me or understand me. They never sought to understand depression. Despite my total lack of regard for their so-called wisdom and authority, I still managed to stay in school, not have sex till I was 19, and never touch hard drugs – something that I feel very strongly about never doing. And yet somehow, my father – a trained, educated counselor – accused me once in my early twenties of being a drug addict. Because I was moody, unhappy, jumping from job to job, and “always broke.” I love how that was the conclusion he came to. I can think of ten different reasons for a twenty one year old to be experiencing all those things.

But I digress. I just would never want to be that kind of parent. So ridiculously out of touch and ignorant to what the fuck is going on with my kid. But I don’t think I would have to be. You don’t have to get old in your mind. You can stay awake, stay aware, ask questions, be humble. My parents read a million “child psychology” books before my sister and I were born, and figured they had all the answers.

Another thing this questioning as of late as thrown into perspective for me is my ridiculously cynical world-view. I realized that I basically have no hope for the human race.

I just look around and see all the bad shit going on in the world – the lack of care and respect for the earth, the animals, each other. The murders, the torture, the rape, the insanity. How people like David Suzuki have been patiently repeating themselves for decades, to no avail. And I ask myself, when will it all stop? When will people wake up? What is it going to take? How far gone does the earth have to be, how many species have to go extinct, how much war and pain does there have to be for the people “in power” to stop and say, “There has to be a better way than this.”

And so I don’t want to bring a child of mine into a world like this.

But I guess, maybe by raising children who are Good People is the way to change things? But I don’t believe in bringing a child into the world with my own agenda attached to him or her. I think parents need to let their kids be who they are – not try to mold them into whatever they want them to be. All I’ve wanted since I was two years old is to work with horses. I have a picture of myself in my aunt and uncle’s barn when I was a toddler, an oversize riding helmet on, sweeping the floor. It’s awesome. But my parents decided that “there’s no future in horses!” so they put my in piano lessons, swimming lessons, gymnastics, tap, ballet, jazz, and pretty much anything else you can think of. Like there’s a ton of money to be made in any of those professions? Not likely. So for my whole life I’ve had this burning inside me, this rock-solid determination that one day my horse dreams will come true! I don’t care if I’m fifty years old, it’s going to happen. Some people have told me it’s already too late, which seriously sucked. But I chose to ignore them and keep going. Because it’s all I’ve ever wanted. Nothing is going to stop me. (Not even a baby?)

But I digress again. Another fear is of losing myself. Because having a child is the most selfless thing you can do. As my sister says, “You’re never Number One again.” Because of my depression and sensitivity, I am high maintenance for myself. I have to spend a lot of energy every day making sure I am okay, in balance. I have to check in, have tea parties, sometimes lie down and spoon myself until I feel safe again.

And I write. Writing is what I do – even when I’m totally not doing it as much as I should be. Even when I’m playing hooky from writing, writing is what I do, who I am. And a big part of my process as a writer is sitting quietly and listening to what the stories have to tell me. If I don’t listen, if I try and force my own ideas onto the developing tapestry of the story, it doesn’t flow like it should, because it’s not true. Much like forcing a kid into ballet when they would rather be doing dressage. It doesn’t flow with the music of their soul. And if I lose my focus, my quiet time, my ability to listen. . .will I still be me?

I think some women are okay with losing themselves for their children. Or maybe they see having children and raising them as themselves. Much like I feel about riding and writing, it’s their calling, their homecoming. But I’m just not willing to give up the pieces of myself that I have worked fucking hard to have. My depression has made a lot of my life up until now suck. I have missed out on so many opportunities. I am in my early thirties and am just now starting to ride and fulfill my equestrian goals. I should be so much further than I am. But I’m not.

So. How do I balance it all, juggle it all? Is it even possible? To be a good mother and a good rider, a good writer? A happy person? A healthy person? A woman?

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