I spent this whole day in the hospital with my mother, who we thought
might have had a stroke. She didn't; she has instead something minor
called Bell's Palsy. My daughter took her to her
more-important-than-the-Second-Coming hair salon appt. this morning, and
because her mouth drooped on one side and "felt funny" I made my
daughter call an ambulance. (Being loaded into an ambulance in the
parking lot of the Hair Cuttery pissed her off more than any stroke ever
could.)
So: all day in the ER, the
first doctor. saying she would be admitted for evaluation, the second
(the neurologist whom I swear modeled herself on Lillith, Frazier's
wife, down to the black hair and scowl) saying it was Bell's Palsy, an
inflammation of a facial nerve that would clear up fairly soon, then
spitting out a string of increasingly detailed and reality-divorced
instructions and contingencies including patching her eye if her eyelid
wouldn't close. (Excuse me, doctor, but the affected eye, is the only
one of just the two she has that actually sees). At the end of her spiel
I asked her if what she had just told me would be given to me in
written form because I would never recall it, and she looked at me as if
a particle of dirt had just spoken, and enigmatically replied "I should
hope so."
So then after shouting myself hoarse repeating the
medical questions and explanations put to her, and answering the same
damn questions and pointless ramblings and random observations
(reiterated practically rhythmically) from HER, we finally took my
mostly deaf, more than half blind mother home, got her Rx, left her in
front of the TV and (in my case) sprinted to the car muttering loudly to
myself, expletives predominating. We drove home, my home.
(No, she doesn't live alone. My sister, no one understands how, lives with her but is away for a few days.)
You just don't know, gentle reader. You just don't know. It's a special
hell reserved for those of us with "difficult" mothers, the kind that
are "funny," "charming," "with-it" "spunky" and what-have-you when
considered in a stranger's gaze for less than 5 minutes -- but morph
into something altogether different, more intolerable and
sanity-challenging when allowed to spend more than say 30 minutes alone
with one of her own children.
Yeah, we're all probably going to hell
for feeling it, thinking it, showing it and saying it -- especially
saying it on a global social media platform! -- but the truth will out.
And damn it, she'll probably join us down there.
If you've got one
of these mothers, god bless you. I hope you will find a quiet
unpopulated wooded area to scream your bloody lungs out unperturbed now
and then.
When I did get home, my CD of the Blind Boys of Alabama
had come in the mail. The last song had me yelling and crying along. Any
day could be the last time, and that's both bitter and sweet.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
I Sleep Funny. Get Over It.
I have bipolar disorder. More and more researchers are coming to understand that bipolar disorder is a circadian rhythm disorder. Anyone who is or knows or has heard about a person with bipolar disorder probably has noticed they sleep funny. Too long, too little. Either all day or all night. Can't get to sleep, can't wake up. Nightmares, sleep paralysis, sleep hangovers.....
So for my whole life since I started elementary school, I have not been able to go to sleep until the wee hours: one, two, three a.m. I'd just lay down and stare at the ceiling and usually get scared, so my Dad (who also was a sleep freak) would let me get up and watch TV with him till it went off the air (yeah, back before cable).
I had to make sure I got to school on time myself as I got older (because my mother was too afraid of me to stay on wake up duty -- I was known to throw a punch, threaten murder -- it was not pleasant), so I forced myself to get out of bed somehow -- there were tricks I can't remember now-- having showered and shampooed the previous night and sometimes dressed for school too. I usually squeezed in the door with a minute or two to spare .... or not. I found a homeroom teacher who often couldn't get there on time either, so we bonded. We lied for each other.
Same deal in college, only worse because there was no set schedule. I flunked Geology AND BOWLING my first semester because they both took place before noon. Had they been later, I would only have flunked bowling.
I won't bore you...When I got a job, I arranged things so that I could work whenever I wanted to. (I had a long deadline but freedom to organize the work however I wanted and work from home almost all the time.) My hours slid later and later and my nervousness and embarrassment got greater and greater because I have "delayed phase sleep disorder" -- the fancy name for falling asleep later and later and waking up up later and later, until eventually you come full circle. My job was forgiving. So forgiving, they sent me copy to index while I was in the psychiatric ward. (Remember the thing at the back of the book that told you where things were? That was an index.) Forgiving or just very dependent on my skill set; as my mother used to say -- to my befuddlement: "same difference."
A big hurdle for my husband and I in deciding whether to have kids was how to come up with work-arounds for my utter and incurable inability to sleep less than 10 hours at a time -- and to go to sleep before midnight. Which meant no mommy getting up to feed, clothe, dress and shove the kids out the door. Praise Jesus and my mate selection for this fact: My husband is a lark. He can not only get up early but survive on drastically less sleep than me for long periods of time, maybe forever. He did all the baby-tending while I was dead to the world. To my abiding shame, I couldn't even make teacher conferences, PTA projects or field days if the sun was still coming from the east.
I mean, I could have said "Yes, well, Mrs. Jones," (next door neighbor with child in one of my children's classes at elementary school) "I have delayed phase sleep disorder" but it would perhaps have made me a bit less welcome at block parties or mommy get-togethers, because it sounds so strange, vaguely scary, and just, well, suspect. I could also have said "I'm bipolar" but then suspicion would have turned to outright fear and thoughts of mass murder and god knows what. "I thought so! She was always strange! I wonder if she even supervises her kids at homel? My Jenny won't be spending time at her house anymore!" And Jenny was my daughter's best friend.
More often than not people who discovered my secret were kind of angry about it, like I was thumbing my nose at them, or claiming an unearned special privilege or just lazy and sticking to it. Everybody would like to sleep late, right? But they don't in order to be normal. I didn't know what to say.
I still don't! I still feel embarrassed if not ashamed when people find out and ask me about it. Some guy is doing drywall repair on our kitchen, and today he came at 9 a.m. and my husband was here to greet him. My husband stayed, working from home (yeah: if he couldn't do that, we'd be fucked) until 3 pm. when I rolled out of bed and came downstairs to the kitchen. I made coffee and pancakes and sat down to read the paper. My husband went to the office. The drywall guy kept giving me sideways glances, then finally sidled up to the subject of my "schedule." Ours sounded as "crazy" as he and his wife's, he said, carefully. Then: "Do you work at night?" "No" I said, feeling that nervousness climbing up my throat. "I'm just on a different schedule. I do work on the Internet overnight," I lamely lied and he knew something was fishy. Now, this lie is somewhat hilarious, as the only "work" I do on the Internet is this blog, and a Facebook page for people with bipolar disorder. Plus lots of shopping, reading news, scrolling through tumblr blogs for cool pictures and photos. No paid labor of any kind. But what else could I say? "I have delayed phase sleep disorder?" "I have a circadian rhythm disorder?" I'm bipolar?" "I'm lazy and think I'm too good to sleep at night and be up in the day like you little people?" "It's none of your business?" "I prefer not to talk about it?" I've tried, let's see, 3 of those. They didn't help. The other 3 probably wouldn't either, I'd venture.
It's a medical problem, sure. (I discovered recently I have sleep apnea on top of this sleep disorder. But using the breathing machine seems to have zero impact on this delayed phase thing.) But nobody else sees it that way, at least not right off the bat, before being enlightened at length with lots of scientific data and diagnostic manuals or better yet, told that Celebrity X has it too! But you know I just really don't feel like educating them, arguing with them, justifying myself (in my own house too! to the drywall guy!) and well, screw celebrities. I'm not 5 anymore getting teased by my half brother and half sister about sleeping funny. But it sure feels like it. Like there's something wrong with me and it's obvious, and it's unacceptable, and it's my fault, and damn it, I have to answer for it.
Maybe I'll go with "I have a sleep disorder" next time. I hope they don't want to get into the nitty-gritty, because chances are it isn't the same one their wife's friend had. The nitty-gritty will involve bipolar disorder which is a mental illness which is always paired with senseless violence which means I'll be an outcast. They'll fear me. Or else they'll just be faintly puzzled, and wander off thinking, well, that lazy woman certainly went to great lengths to excuse her laziness. If she could work that hard on doing that, why didn't she just set her sights on getting up in the morning like everyone else? I mean, explaining like that is exhausting. Not enough to send me to bed early, but still: tiring as hell.
So for my whole life since I started elementary school, I have not been able to go to sleep until the wee hours: one, two, three a.m. I'd just lay down and stare at the ceiling and usually get scared, so my Dad (who also was a sleep freak) would let me get up and watch TV with him till it went off the air (yeah, back before cable).
I had to make sure I got to school on time myself as I got older (because my mother was too afraid of me to stay on wake up duty -- I was known to throw a punch, threaten murder -- it was not pleasant), so I forced myself to get out of bed somehow -- there were tricks I can't remember now-- having showered and shampooed the previous night and sometimes dressed for school too. I usually squeezed in the door with a minute or two to spare .... or not. I found a homeroom teacher who often couldn't get there on time either, so we bonded. We lied for each other.
Same deal in college, only worse because there was no set schedule. I flunked Geology AND BOWLING my first semester because they both took place before noon. Had they been later, I would only have flunked bowling.
I won't bore you...When I got a job, I arranged things so that I could work whenever I wanted to. (I had a long deadline but freedom to organize the work however I wanted and work from home almost all the time.) My hours slid later and later and my nervousness and embarrassment got greater and greater because I have "delayed phase sleep disorder" -- the fancy name for falling asleep later and later and waking up up later and later, until eventually you come full circle. My job was forgiving. So forgiving, they sent me copy to index while I was in the psychiatric ward. (Remember the thing at the back of the book that told you where things were? That was an index.) Forgiving or just very dependent on my skill set; as my mother used to say -- to my befuddlement: "same difference."
A big hurdle for my husband and I in deciding whether to have kids was how to come up with work-arounds for my utter and incurable inability to sleep less than 10 hours at a time -- and to go to sleep before midnight. Which meant no mommy getting up to feed, clothe, dress and shove the kids out the door. Praise Jesus and my mate selection for this fact: My husband is a lark. He can not only get up early but survive on drastically less sleep than me for long periods of time, maybe forever. He did all the baby-tending while I was dead to the world. To my abiding shame, I couldn't even make teacher conferences, PTA projects or field days if the sun was still coming from the east.
I mean, I could have said "Yes, well, Mrs. Jones," (next door neighbor with child in one of my children's classes at elementary school) "I have delayed phase sleep disorder" but it would perhaps have made me a bit less welcome at block parties or mommy get-togethers, because it sounds so strange, vaguely scary, and just, well, suspect. I could also have said "I'm bipolar" but then suspicion would have turned to outright fear and thoughts of mass murder and god knows what. "I thought so! She was always strange! I wonder if she even supervises her kids at homel? My Jenny won't be spending time at her house anymore!" And Jenny was my daughter's best friend.
More often than not people who discovered my secret were kind of angry about it, like I was thumbing my nose at them, or claiming an unearned special privilege or just lazy and sticking to it. Everybody would like to sleep late, right? But they don't in order to be normal. I didn't know what to say.
I still don't! I still feel embarrassed if not ashamed when people find out and ask me about it. Some guy is doing drywall repair on our kitchen, and today he came at 9 a.m. and my husband was here to greet him. My husband stayed, working from home (yeah: if he couldn't do that, we'd be fucked) until 3 pm. when I rolled out of bed and came downstairs to the kitchen. I made coffee and pancakes and sat down to read the paper. My husband went to the office. The drywall guy kept giving me sideways glances, then finally sidled up to the subject of my "schedule." Ours sounded as "crazy" as he and his wife's, he said, carefully. Then: "Do you work at night?" "No" I said, feeling that nervousness climbing up my throat. "I'm just on a different schedule. I do work on the Internet overnight," I lamely lied and he knew something was fishy. Now, this lie is somewhat hilarious, as the only "work" I do on the Internet is this blog, and a Facebook page for people with bipolar disorder. Plus lots of shopping, reading news, scrolling through tumblr blogs for cool pictures and photos. No paid labor of any kind. But what else could I say? "I have delayed phase sleep disorder?" "I have a circadian rhythm disorder?" I'm bipolar?" "I'm lazy and think I'm too good to sleep at night and be up in the day like you little people?" "It's none of your business?" "I prefer not to talk about it?" I've tried, let's see, 3 of those. They didn't help. The other 3 probably wouldn't either, I'd venture.
It's a medical problem, sure. (I discovered recently I have sleep apnea on top of this sleep disorder. But using the breathing machine seems to have zero impact on this delayed phase thing.) But nobody else sees it that way, at least not right off the bat, before being enlightened at length with lots of scientific data and diagnostic manuals or better yet, told that Celebrity X has it too! But you know I just really don't feel like educating them, arguing with them, justifying myself (in my own house too! to the drywall guy!) and well, screw celebrities. I'm not 5 anymore getting teased by my half brother and half sister about sleeping funny. But it sure feels like it. Like there's something wrong with me and it's obvious, and it's unacceptable, and it's my fault, and damn it, I have to answer for it.
Maybe I'll go with "I have a sleep disorder" next time. I hope they don't want to get into the nitty-gritty, because chances are it isn't the same one their wife's friend had. The nitty-gritty will involve bipolar disorder which is a mental illness which is always paired with senseless violence which means I'll be an outcast. They'll fear me. Or else they'll just be faintly puzzled, and wander off thinking, well, that lazy woman certainly went to great lengths to excuse her laziness. If she could work that hard on doing that, why didn't she just set her sights on getting up in the morning like everyone else? I mean, explaining like that is exhausting. Not enough to send me to bed early, but still: tiring as hell.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Lady Macbeth In a Dorm Room
“Macbeth: How does your patient, doctor?
Doctor: Not so sick, my lord, as she is troubled with thick-coming fancies that keep her from rest.
Macbeth: Cure her of that! Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon her heart?
Doctor: Therein the patient must minister to himself.”
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth
I memorized this exchange between Macbeth and the doctor who is supposed to cure his wife, in college during the long months I spent locked in my dorm room, reading for my English classes. I only left to go to class (sometimes) and eat somewhere away from the other girls. (I never learned a single one's name.) My head was heavy and I was stunned. I'd fallen in love with my roommate the year before, and she'd dumped me. I was an experiment; when it was over, she returned to her boyfriend. I cried a lot. In fact I had tears on my face, new or dried, every day and night. I cried myself to sleep and dreamed about crying. I woke up crying. I slept all day and worked all night, crying, receding from the world. I was losing my bearings.
One weekend, I determined to swallow a whole bottle of aspirin. I went to the bathroom after midnight and took about five. Waited, took another five. Waited a longer time, because they were sickening, and took another five. I had to stop there; more would not go down. Then I returned to my room, and nothing happened. I'd envisioned going to sleep and never waking up. But I did, the next day, slightly nauseous, still broken-hearted and teetering on the edge.
And I knew it. But my "counselor" didn't seem to; I trooped over to his office at "Psych Services" every week, where he asked about my thoughts and my grades. I never mentioned the aspirin or the constant tears. Then he sent me back to my dorm. There, I said less and less, but wrote a lot: either hysterical gibberish and screeds to my ex-roommate, or insightful term papers turned in on time. Somehow I managed to keep my academic life viable, but everything else was sinking. I knew it was Depression; I'd been hospitalized for it in sixth grade, and I'd never forget what it felt like. Yet I couldn't do anything about it. I was paralyzed. That's the first rule of Depression: You cannot act to help yourself. And you cannot ask for help. Depression forbids it. I saw my counselor, I read, I wrote. I kept up the pretense of living.
But I felt like I needed something to get me through: words that spoke to me directly, but from a distance. Comforting words, but also sharp to cut to the heart of the matter like a honed scalpel. They would remind me that somebody else had felt like me, and someone else had understood. They'd throw me a rope in my sea of loneliness and anger, grief and fear.
I think I just went looking for them through the plays and sonnets in my green Norton Anthology of English Literature -- 1000-plus pages in tiny type on crinkle-thin paper. One day I came across this exchange between Macbeth and his wife's doctor, who was called in when Lady Macbeth'guilt had unhinged her. When I lit on it, my heart seized. It leapt off the page and punched me in the gut. Here was a rendering of exactly what was happening to me, 500 years later, in my cinder block room with walls so narrow a bed on one side and a desk on the other left 4 ft in between. It was a tomb.
The words were beautiful and vehement, sorrowful and angry. They were exquisite. So I took to repeating them to myself when I went to sleep, and I wrapped them around me when I returned "home" from whatever foray I had made into the "outside world." They gave me silent comfort, like running your tongue over your teeth. Pretty soon I knew them by heart. I kept them there, urging it to beat.
Macbeth is enraged at the inadequacy of medicine to heal his wife's disordered mind. "Cure her of that!" he yells with all the urgency and outrage families feel when their loved one suffers -- and no one has an answer. He demands some "sweet oblivious antidote" that even he seems to know doesn't exist. Lady Macbeth, is plagued by "perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart" he laments, enraged -- and so was I. So are a lot of people, then and now. There are some drugs for it, but not the right ones; some other treatments that fumble and guess but fall short also. "Therein, the patient must minister to himself," the doctor finally says, throwing in the towel. As if we could. As if we weren't sick, seized by awful images and wanting to die. As if we weren't bound by Depression's first rule: You cannot help yourself. You cannot ask for help.
Not much has changed in 500 years. The outside world has changed tremendously, but the inside worlds of people suffering "thick coming fancies that keep them from rest" are just as they always were. That could be cause for despair, but for me the written evidence of how nothing's changed was comforting. Words of course are not enough to "pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow" -- even furious and beautiful ones. The roots of such sorrows run too deep. But the words did describe me! Somehow they knew me and the "written troubles of my brain," and that was enough. They sustained me, kept me company, and in a strange way gave me hope. They got me through till I could finally leave my room.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
It Only Takes One Remark
It's probably the thing I hate and fear most about having bipolar disorder combined with social anxiety and borderline personality. It upends my life. It pulls the rug out from under me. It hurtles me from place to place, from time to time, from person to person, from one trauma to another without warning. It makes me liable to lash out, to feel mortally wounded or ashamed, to confront, blame or otherwise alienate my loved ones and even myself.
And it lurks behind any corner.
On Sunday, I went to a potluck at the tiny church I'd started going to exactly one week before. My husband and daughter decided to come along. I avoid most social situations, and this was exactly the kind I fear the most: a small group of people who all know each other but not me. It sends my self-consciousness and fear of appearing odd or sick or pitiable skyrocketing. I don't know why I went really. I guess I just felt comfortable enough at the first service I attended to take the chance.
It was going pretty well. All three of us "fit in." I was pleased. I was relieved. I felt like part of the group.
My daughter sat next to me at a big table where everybody was eating. We were talking about their children whom they'd home-schooled together, and about plays they'd been to lately, the kind of ordinary interactions which weren't exactly ordinary for me, but I was handling it, even feeling pretty good.
Then my daughter made the remark.
She asked me (apart from the others, thank God) if I was going to have Thanksgiving at our house again this year. I said maybe, I hadn't thought about it, depended on what others wanted to do, etc.. But she had to pin me down. She insisted.
Considering it more closely, I said "Well, it stressed me out the last time but I got through it."
"No you didn't!" she said, eyebrows raised.
Flustered, I ventured "Oh, it wasn't that bad, was it? No one noticed. I pulled it off."
"You were flipping out!" she said. "It was obvious! You were a mess!"
No I hadn't! Had I? I cooked, I decorated a little, I put the food out, found seats for everyone, kept everyone's glass full. I didn't recall exchanging anything but pleasantries with anyone. People stayed around afterward, seemed comfortable enough. But none of that mattered as soon as she said it.
Because suddenly, I zoomed out. I was looking down at this dinner but also at last Thanksgiving, at other dinners, other occasions; other times I'd had to be with others who weren't my immediate family. I looked down at all the times I had pretended I was not as stressed as I was, not as emotionally vulnerable as I was, not as self-conscious and judgmental of myself as I utterly was. And I looked down too at the times when I was not nervous at all, not stressed at all, times I felt totally "normal."
My brain started churning out poison: Everybody at that potluck dinner, just like last Thanksgiving's dinner and every other dinner or event I'd ever been present at, probably saw me as strange and volatile, even if I felt perfectly fine at the time. They could see through me -- and into me, where the crazy parts were. They felt sorry for me, but didn't want to embarrass me by showing it. Maybe they were afraid of me. In fact, every stranger I'd ever come into contact with probably knew instantly that I was "different."
So every social "success" I thought I had -- like that Thanksgiving dinner I thought I'd pulled off -- was really a failure, a sham. People had just pretended they didn't notice me "flipping out." There was a giant secret all right, but I was not the one keeping it from them. They were keeping a secret from me: that they all knew I was "crazy."
I felt sick to my stomach, "punched in the gut" where all that poison was churning. I tried not to cry. I looked at my daughter.
"Really? Wow. I didn't know. That's embarrassing. Now I feel like shit."
Her face turned red. I said so.
"I'm embarrassed," she admitted. She knew she had hurt me. She didn't mean to.
Actually, I was worried I'd gone beyond being hurt to maybe losing control. I was afraid I just might "flip out" again, right there at the potluck dinner with a bunch of strangers whom I really wanted to find fellowship with. Self- hatred washed over me again like a stain, soiling every memory, every lovely moment, every triumph, every relationship I'd ever had. It got out of hand fast and bolted like a wild horse. It always did.
I was angry and disgusted. Angry at her for carelessly "hurting my feelings" when she knew it could derail me, and disgusted at myself for having such hair-trigger emotions. By now, at my age, after going through this since childhood, shouldn't I have "resolved" some of this mess? Shouldn't all the therapy and meds, and the love of my husband and family, have shown me at least a few ways of interrupting this process of self-recrimination, so that sometimes it wouldn't end in things like self-inflicted 3rd degree burns? For God's sake, STILL?
By the time we got home, my mind was rehashing my last hospitalization, a year and a half ago. It only lasted two weeks, but it felt like my whole life. It had all the elements of my worst nightmare, traumatic as traumatic gets, all my flashbacks brought to life.
So who did I lash out at, sitting at home so many months later, with all of it behind me? My husband! He let them admit me! He left me there when I begged him to get me out! He didn't demand they transfer me to another hospital with a doctor I knew and trusted. He even let them set the commitment process in motion, knowing that would be the final nail in the coffin of my self-respect, something I had never let happen in 40 years.
But we'd been over and over this. I'd forgiven him. He'd explained how stressed he was, that he didn't know what to do so he did what they told him to. I understood how sad he was, how powerless he felt. And to reassure me, we'd drawn up a psychiatric advance directive, so that I'd get the right treatment next time. (Please, don't let there be a next time.) Yet here we were again. Here I was opening old wounds that had healed over, reliving my worst memories and forcing my husband to relive them too.
One small innocent remark about a long forgotten dinner had that much power over me.
My mind is deeply grooved with painful memories, awful depressions, intense self-consciousness, loneliness, self-hatred, anger and fear. The grooves for pain are deeper than those for pleasure and love; I don't know why. My mind can't seem to get past its wounds. It can't heal. However much love and happiness grows over them, the old hurts will still open at a touch. My mind can't talk to itself and pull itself back from the brink. Once it's triggered, my mind can run away with me as fast as a bullet and ruin my life.
So that's what I hate and fear most about bipolar disorder combined with social anxiety and borderline personality disorder. At any moment, in any place, for any reason and sometimes for no reason, some unexpected tiny blip on the radar could be the missile that explodes in my face and sends me to hell. I know hell: I'd rather be dead than there.
Suicidal because my daughter said I'd seemed stressed a year ago? Welcome to my world.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Happy Halloween From "The Dangerous Mentally Ill"!
Well, hello there! I am a member of that infamous tribe, "the dangerous
mentally ill." The one politicians have been beating the drums about so often and so menacingly lately, leading up to the election. My heart skips a beat too when it booms out of my television. I'm a
little scared, just like you. They sound pretty fucking alarming, "the
dangerous mentally ill."
Apparently they are buying guns in bulk, which they will use to kill senselessly, but that other politician has done nothing to stop them! He wouldn't even vote for criminal background checks to disqualify "the dangerous mentally ill" (who aren't technically criminals but hey, might as well be, right?) from owning guns! (And yes, there are so many guns in this country, it'd be easy for those mentally ill to get their dangerous little hands on them anyway. But, don't interrupt! We're trying to terrify the electorate here.)
The phrase doesn't refer to a subgroup of "the mentally ill" anymore -- to that small group who are "dangerous" despite, um, never having posed a danger to anyone. (Let's see...They're dangerous because in hindsight, some killer or other was probably mentally ill, and someone should have noticed he was dangerous before he ever became dangerous, so that he wouldn't become dangerous....Wait, is that logical? .... Oh, logic doesn't matter? All rightey then.) Now it means everybody: All "the mentally ill" are "the dangerous mentally ill." They've all morphed into monsters overnight! That's how sneaky and insidious they are! Round them up: anyone you see going to a psychiatrist's office, or filling a prescription for one of those drugs they take, or talking to himself in public (but be sure he's not wearing earphones first). They're all coming to get us. We must be vigilant!
But [SPOILER ALERT] guess what? They're just bogeymen. And like all good bogeymen, they're trotted out to scare and distract people -- so that politicians can do what they've always done: get themselves elected no matter what, by demonizing no matter who, so they can do nothing whatsoever about the things that are truly dangerous: unemployment, poverty, hunger, the disappearance of the middle class, climate disaster, lack of health care, women losing their rights to their own bodies...and, well, we could go on for quite a while. But it's easier to throw a sheet over thousands of human beings and yell BOO!! They're "the dangerous mentally ill!" Scared yet?
Apparently they are buying guns in bulk, which they will use to kill senselessly, but that other politician has done nothing to stop them! He wouldn't even vote for criminal background checks to disqualify "the dangerous mentally ill" (who aren't technically criminals but hey, might as well be, right?) from owning guns! (And yes, there are so many guns in this country, it'd be easy for those mentally ill to get their dangerous little hands on them anyway. But, don't interrupt! We're trying to terrify the electorate here.)
The phrase doesn't refer to a subgroup of "the mentally ill" anymore -- to that small group who are "dangerous" despite, um, never having posed a danger to anyone. (Let's see...They're dangerous because in hindsight, some killer or other was probably mentally ill, and someone should have noticed he was dangerous before he ever became dangerous, so that he wouldn't become dangerous....Wait, is that logical? .... Oh, logic doesn't matter? All rightey then.) Now it means everybody: All "the mentally ill" are "the dangerous mentally ill." They've all morphed into monsters overnight! That's how sneaky and insidious they are! Round them up: anyone you see going to a psychiatrist's office, or filling a prescription for one of those drugs they take, or talking to himself in public (but be sure he's not wearing earphones first). They're all coming to get us. We must be vigilant!
But [SPOILER ALERT] guess what? They're just bogeymen. And like all good bogeymen, they're trotted out to scare and distract people -- so that politicians can do what they've always done: get themselves elected no matter what, by demonizing no matter who, so they can do nothing whatsoever about the things that are truly dangerous: unemployment, poverty, hunger, the disappearance of the middle class, climate disaster, lack of health care, women losing their rights to their own bodies...and, well, we could go on for quite a while. But it's easier to throw a sheet over thousands of human beings and yell BOO!! They're "the dangerous mentally ill!" Scared yet?
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Bones: An Elegy
When you get to this age, it’s all about bones. They begin to thin like hair, or they grate against each other and the sound is large in your head but only a crinkling someone can hear if he puts his ear to your knee on the stairs — merely a crinkling, but he cringes and clenches his teeth. Bones go bad like bananas, lose their arc and soften, go limp. They go from staves to Easter eggs. They breathe and hold in air. Or they spurt out spurs, angry jabs at nerves along their roots, or even spit at the royal cord that rules the spine — or thicken around it in stenosis, tapping that long fibrous party line for neurochemical murmurings and screams….
I lie in bed in the mornings and as I swim to the surface of my mind from such deep dreams, I slightly, centimetricallly, tilt my pelvis in at the lower spine — until it clicks, two vertebrae engaging each other with no soft shield between, definitive but shy, and I cry. It hurts, and I know what that click means, but, still, it’s delicate and slight, pure like a sexual yearn so I tilt it back till it clicks again and keep clicking because you don't often hear your bones, do you?
All the cushions of bone, round or fluid, smoothed at the socket or elastic — they are drying, slipping, destroying themselves. Which leaves friction. Bone on bone. They’re following my headlong childhood, my strength that urged a baby into the light, some of the people I loved, into the past -- vanishing like a syllable on a breeze. Cartilege is in the process of leaving my bones to themselves. And my bones discover what they truly are is lace, jagged lace.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Bipolar Parents
Don't forget that all other parents fail their children in some ways, many without even considering it or feeling guilty for it. We will fail ours in some ways too. But having this disorder can make us better parents, not worse.
We know we'll make mistakes -- we have a mental illness! That's always on our minds (pun intended). In fact, we're so aware of it and so afraid of doing harm that we do everything in our power to avoid making mistakes, to minimize them, correct them, compensate for them, and give our children a normal life -- which means an imperfect one, touched by sorrow and loss and confusion like everyone else's life.
But we love hard. We love abundantly. We are devoted, knowing how lucky we are to have those children, given our brokenness. Like a knotty bent-limbed tree, we grow around the breaks and reach high. Our brokenness is only more obvious than other people's, not more dangerous.
If our children grow into adults with bipolar disorder, as some will, the same will be true of them. They will know how important simple, vigilant love is, because it protected them and allowed them to grow into the complicated people they are. They will know that all parents are flawed but the good ones just love hard. They'll do their best. Just like us.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Spiral Out, Keep Going
(image from wasteofsociety tumblr blog)
I loved this image on sight.
Bipolar disorder is a circular disease. In one of the earliest clinical descriptions of it, French doctor Jean Pierre Falret published an article in 1851 on a condition he called "la folie circulaire" -- circular insanity.
The description rings true: endless cycles -- regular or irregular -- and the helpless sensation of "going in circles," carried along on a senseless merry-go-round. But what speaks to me about the image of a nautilus shell's spiral whorls is that it suggests the possibility of a direction for all this centrifugal motion. It recasts the circle as a spiral.
The small letters (I had to look twice to even notice them) snaking around the chambered shell spell out the words "spiral out, keep going." They urge me to just keep walking, hope in hand. I can't see it yet from inside the tight coil, but the circles get wider and wider, and they lead to a better place. One day I'll emerge from all the circling and cycling, the scary and confusing whirl of bipolar disorder, and find I've been climbing a spiral staircase, not spinning meaninglessly. I've gotten somewhere. There's air to breathe.
I like it so much I've taken to repeating it to myself -- usually when anxiety starts whispering in my ear. I resist it by reminding myself to "spiral out, keep going." When I'm losing hope, it's a gentle reminder not to. The rhythm of the words, repeated over and over, is like a work song or a martial cadence, a line of poetry or a prayer.
"Spiral out, keep going," and the image within the words, serves me as mantra, metaphor and incantation: a bipolar prayer.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Strange Things Psychiatrists Say
Question: What is the strangest thing a psychiatrist or therapist ever said or did to you?
I posed this question on a Facebook page I run for people with bipolar disorder.
These are some of the responses.
(If you’d like to add your story in the comments, please do!)
ONE
Psychiatrist: (he did this to everyone) would give a series of three words to repeat back to him, then discuss other things for 5 minutes before asking us to repeat the words back again. The three words were ALWAYS apple, chair, umbrella. I confirmed this with other patients in the hospital (the only place I really saw other patients) and as I recall we were developing an Apple, Chair Umbrella poem/performance art.
Therapist: I saw her for group and individual sessions for a while. After a solo session about my issues with my looks due to the fact that my mother was an exceptional beauty and she often corrected my looks, posture, carriage, etc., at the next group session, she, out of the blue, looked at me and said, "I just like looking at you, Amy. Is that okay?" And she invited others in the group to look at me and comment -- the group included men with sexual addiction! I still wonder what theory that rose from.
Comment: that's just frickin' creepy.
Response to comment: it was not long thereafter I declared myself cured. Which was not quite the right solution. But I left that particular practice and went to the community mental health clinic, which was actually better.
TWO
TWO
My first appointment with an actual psychiatrist went horribly. Even though I was self-harming and numbing myself with pills and was completely out of control he told me that I "just had a little depression" (whatever the hell that means) and to go to this particular pharmacy that I don't frequent (because it's so far from my home) and pick up this med I hadn't even heard of. Didn't discuss whether I wanted to be on it or not, just called the pharmacy and told the guy i'd be in.
I never went to pick it up (obviously) and a couple weeks later I was hospitalized where I was properly diagnosed Bipolar and put on proper meds.
I still want to smack that guy in the head.
Comment: do you remember what the drug was? Maybe we all missed out on a miracle cure. :)
THREE
THREE
This one is embarrassing: told me to buy some sex toys. She also asked me where I got my lipstick, hair clips and shoes. And talked at great length about what was so amazing about Interview With the Vampire and Dexter. A real piece of work, that one.
FOUR
FIVE
Asked me if I was sure I was bipolar.
SIX
I have another one: A psychologist I saw about 5 times after I had to leave college (because of suicide attempt) stood up to hug me at my last session (weird enough), then kissed me (with tongue), then while still "hugging" me asked me to lay down on a bed he had in the office (!). I declined in terror. He said he just wanted to "comfort" me because I looked so sad. I didn't know if I'd get out of there without being raped. I managed to hide my terror and edge toward the door. Got away. I was 18, he was about 50-60.
Comment: Geez. I'm traumatized for you just reading that. What goes through their heads? I'm glad you got away.
Reply to comment: What went through his head was what went through his other head. LOL (Pardon me, I'm crude.) There was a showdown afterwards when I told my parents and the teacher who'd referred me and he denied everything. Then he conceded he'd given me a "grandfatherly" kiss. (Because doesn't your grandfather stick his tongue in your mouth?) Then he said I'd better stop spreading this story because it was hurting his professional reputation. Good. What a pervert.
SEVEN
Told me to change jobs and gave me employment advice. Moron.
EIGHT
Fell asleep.
NINE
Told me I needed to stay medicated like a zombie because I was a threat to society....I have never harmed myself nor anyone else, I have never been hospitalized, I am manic and become invincible in a very happy way, if anything more sexual, but I was a threat? Btw this was 20 yrs. ago: no kids at the time and fresh out of high school, graduated! Dude was an asshole!
TEN
That he wasn't "impressed" with my story, this was at our first meeting.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Mass Murder and the Mentally Ill: 60 Minutes Gets it Wrong
This psychcentral commentary summarizes my own opinion and perspective on gun violence and the mentally ill, an opinion shared by many professionals as well as people with a mental illness themselves, and ordinary people who want the truth. It does so by stating the facts as we know them, not speculations or lazy assumptions. The comment comes in response to a recent 60 Minutes piece which relied on loose correlations, unfounded assumptions and untested conclusions to call for some ill-advised measures to contain and "prevent" this kind of violence.
Ill-advised because based on little to no data. Ill-advised because no one can foresee the future. Ill-advised because they isolate and target a group of people who need and seek treatment -- making them more likely to forgo any treatment.
Suggesting we initiate mental health screening and vastly increase treatment access is all well and good -- but how would they be funded and carried out? There is no screening tool that can foresee the future of any individual -- how will we develop one? Increasing treatment is a sound goal, a desperately needed goal, but it would cost a fortune. Are we ready to pay for it?
60 Minutes, ignoring these hard questions, accomplished little more than demonizing the mentally ill, relying on "experts" like by Dr. E. Fuller Torey and his Treatment Advocacy Center, who has been pushing for forced treatment of schizophrenics for years, claiming they pose a unique threat to society but failing to back it up with any scientific data.
And that's what we need. Scientific data and research on gun violence, mental illness, schizophrenia, and if it is possible to prevent horrible crimes before they are even conceived of. Scientific research, furthermore, on better treatments that would actually work and be more tolerable so that people would stay on them. As it is now, our first-line treatment -- drugs -- often carries with it such unpleasant and even debilitating side effects that it's little wonder so many give up on them.
But we won't get it, because it seems that when it comes to mental illness and gun violence, data is irrelevant. We go with the easy conclusion, out of fear of threats to our safety and well-being, however ill-founded and misdirected. We focus on identifying the very tiny needle that is the "dangerous mentally ill" in the vast haystack that is our population -- and that is ridiculous.
Targeting everyone with a severe mental illness, in particular schizophrenia, may make the public feel better, but it is a straw man that needs to be knocked down.
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/09/30/60-minutes-connecting-mental-illness-to-violence-with-little-data-facts/
Read viewer comments here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8601-500251_162-50155990.html?assetTypeId=58
Ill-advised because based on little to no data. Ill-advised because no one can foresee the future. Ill-advised because they isolate and target a group of people who need and seek treatment -- making them more likely to forgo any treatment.
Suggesting we initiate mental health screening and vastly increase treatment access is all well and good -- but how would they be funded and carried out? There is no screening tool that can foresee the future of any individual -- how will we develop one? Increasing treatment is a sound goal, a desperately needed goal, but it would cost a fortune. Are we ready to pay for it?
60 Minutes, ignoring these hard questions, accomplished little more than demonizing the mentally ill, relying on "experts" like by Dr. E. Fuller Torey and his Treatment Advocacy Center, who has been pushing for forced treatment of schizophrenics for years, claiming they pose a unique threat to society but failing to back it up with any scientific data.
And that's what we need. Scientific data and research on gun violence, mental illness, schizophrenia, and if it is possible to prevent horrible crimes before they are even conceived of. Scientific research, furthermore, on better treatments that would actually work and be more tolerable so that people would stay on them. As it is now, our first-line treatment -- drugs -- often carries with it such unpleasant and even debilitating side effects that it's little wonder so many give up on them.
But we won't get it, because it seems that when it comes to mental illness and gun violence, data is irrelevant. We go with the easy conclusion, out of fear of threats to our safety and well-being, however ill-founded and misdirected. We focus on identifying the very tiny needle that is the "dangerous mentally ill" in the vast haystack that is our population -- and that is ridiculous.
Targeting everyone with a severe mental illness, in particular schizophrenia, may make the public feel better, but it is a straw man that needs to be knocked down.
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/09/30/60-minutes-connecting-mental-illness-to-violence-with-little-data-facts/
Read viewer comments here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8601-500251_162-50155990.html?assetTypeId=58
Me and My Shadow
Me and My Shadow
(Judy Garland song)
Shades of night are falling and I'm lonely
Standing on the corner feeling blue
Sweethearts out for fun
Pass me one by one
Guess I'll wind up like I always do
With only
Me and my shadow
Strolling down the avenue
Me and my shadow
Not a soul to tell our troubles to
But when it's twelve a clock
We climb the stair
We never knock
'Cause nobody's there
Just me and my shadow
All alone and feeling blue
And when it's twelve a clock
We climb the stair
We never knock
'Cause nobody's there
Just me and my shadow
All alone and feeling blue
Writer(s): Al Jolson, Billy Rose, Dave Dreyer
Copyright: Larry Spier Music LLC
Below: Van Gogh, Road to Tarascon
Friday, September 27, 2013
Mass Murder and the Mentally Ill -- Comments
COMMENTS
I apologize. I accidentally deleted my response to Laura Leigh's thoughtful comment on this original post. It appears to be almost impossible to retrieve a deleted post from one's blog, so I am just reproducing my comment here. I hope it's "visible" to those interested in the discussion.
Reply to Comment by Laura Leigh:
Thank you for your thoughtful remarks. You have made me think more deeply on the issues and my opinions, and I'd like to offer these comments.
First, I'm not sure the research you refer to leads to the solid conclusions you draw. I quote from a Huff Post blog by Michael Friedman, L.M.S.W., Adjunct Prof., Columbia Univ. Schools of Social Work and Public Health:
".....People with mental illness are not likely to be violent. ..... and mass murders include acts of terrorism, mob and gang violence, and acts of revenge. Yes, some mass murders are committed by people with serious mental illness, but it is likely that most are committed by people who are not. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of research about multiple or single murders of strangers by people with psychotic conditions in the United States, but research elsewhere suggests that such events take place at a rate of 1 per 14 million population. In contrast, stranger homicide in the United States takes place at a rate of 140 per 14 million population. Obviously, stranger homicide by people with psychotic conditions is both rare and a small proportion of all such murders."
You on the other hand are looking at shooters AFTER the fact and generalizing from their mental health conditions to the mental health conditions of future shooters BEFORE the fact. (And also omitting instances that don't fit the picture, like Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter, who, while eccentric, did not and probably does not now have a diagnosable mental illness.) Applying what amount to catch-and-control policies as advocated would indeed require a large-scale surveillance or social-control apparatus that would waste of a lot of money for very little benefit and would probably make a large incursion on people's civil rights -- all people, for all are POTENTIAL criminals, but on those with already diagnosed mental illnesses. (Perhaps we could simply use the data the NSA has already collected?)
Further, requiring mental health providers to immediately report anyone with psychotic/paranoid/antisocial thoughts and who mentions violence would probably keep them from visiting those providers, and/or inhibiting them from reporting those symptoms.
A key consideration here is also that the likelihood of people with mental illnesses carrying out mass violence is hugely magnified when there is co-occurring substance abuse. (As it is also for everyone, with or without a mental illness.) Perhaps that is where we should be focusing our mental health care attention and funding if we want to reduce violent crime.
I am not one of those "who care only about the stigma, and not the suffering and loss of life." Of course I do. Of course I do.I am not "on the side" of mass shooters, mentally ill or not. I am on the side that takes a cold look at the facts as we know them, and crafts public policy that is most likely to reduce mass violence. Guns and their unbelievable accessibility to anyone and everyone in this country seem to me to be a much more fruitful focus than trying to foretell the future and prevent mentally ill people from committing crimes that only a tiny percentage ever commit anyway. Leaving gun control out of the discussion is like leaving the blueberries out of the blueberry pie. The pie doesn't happen without them.
By the way, I am not opposed to involuntary treatment. Under certain clearly defined and faithfully carried out criteria, it is necessary for the protection of the person being evaluated and his/her immediate circle and larger community. But we should be very careful to spell out those circumstances and be sure there is no violation of civil liberties. We must balance protection of the many with the rights of the individual.
I speak from the perspective of individuals with mental illness because I am one and we have no real voice in this debate. We lack a place at the table. But that does not mean that I place our rights above the rights of the community. I place our rights on a par with the rights of all other individuals, as is only right.
Thank you for such thought-provoking remarks.
I apologize. I accidentally deleted my response to Laura Leigh's thoughtful comment on this original post. It appears to be almost impossible to retrieve a deleted post from one's blog, so I am just reproducing my comment here. I hope it's "visible" to those interested in the discussion.
Reply to Comment by Laura Leigh:
Thank you for your thoughtful remarks. You have made me think more deeply on the issues and my opinions, and I'd like to offer these comments.
First, I'm not sure the research you refer to leads to the solid conclusions you draw. I quote from a Huff Post blog by Michael Friedman, L.M.S.W., Adjunct Prof., Columbia Univ. Schools of Social Work and Public Health:
".....People with mental illness are not likely to be violent. ..... and mass murders include acts of terrorism, mob and gang violence, and acts of revenge. Yes, some mass murders are committed by people with serious mental illness, but it is likely that most are committed by people who are not. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of research about multiple or single murders of strangers by people with psychotic conditions in the United States, but research elsewhere suggests that such events take place at a rate of 1 per 14 million population. In contrast, stranger homicide in the United States takes place at a rate of 140 per 14 million population. Obviously, stranger homicide by people with psychotic conditions is both rare and a small proportion of all such murders."
You on the other hand are looking at shooters AFTER the fact and generalizing from their mental health conditions to the mental health conditions of future shooters BEFORE the fact. (And also omitting instances that don't fit the picture, like Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter, who, while eccentric, did not and probably does not now have a diagnosable mental illness.) Applying what amount to catch-and-control policies as advocated would indeed require a large-scale surveillance or social-control apparatus that would waste of a lot of money for very little benefit and would probably make a large incursion on people's civil rights -- all people, for all are POTENTIAL criminals, but on those with already diagnosed mental illnesses. (Perhaps we could simply use the data the NSA has already collected?)
Further, requiring mental health providers to immediately report anyone with psychotic/paranoid/antisocial thoughts and who mentions violence would probably keep them from visiting those providers, and/or inhibiting them from reporting those symptoms.
A key consideration here is also that the likelihood of people with mental illnesses carrying out mass violence is hugely magnified when there is co-occurring substance abuse. (As it is also for everyone, with or without a mental illness.) Perhaps that is where we should be focusing our mental health care attention and funding if we want to reduce violent crime.
I am not one of those "who care only about the stigma, and not the suffering and loss of life." Of course I do. Of course I do.I am not "on the side" of mass shooters, mentally ill or not. I am on the side that takes a cold look at the facts as we know them, and crafts public policy that is most likely to reduce mass violence. Guns and their unbelievable accessibility to anyone and everyone in this country seem to me to be a much more fruitful focus than trying to foretell the future and prevent mentally ill people from committing crimes that only a tiny percentage ever commit anyway. Leaving gun control out of the discussion is like leaving the blueberries out of the blueberry pie. The pie doesn't happen without them.
By the way, I am not opposed to involuntary treatment. Under certain clearly defined and faithfully carried out criteria, it is necessary for the protection of the person being evaluated and his/her immediate circle and larger community. But we should be very careful to spell out those circumstances and be sure there is no violation of civil liberties. We must balance protection of the many with the rights of the individual.
I speak from the perspective of individuals with mental illness because I am one and we have no real voice in this debate. We lack a place at the table. But that does not mean that I place our rights above the rights of the community. I place our rights on a par with the rights of all other individuals, as is only right.
Thank you for such thought-provoking remarks.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
A Class of My Peers, Part 2
Bipolar Memoirs
Taking a Class with Those Mentally Ill People
Part 2: What I'm Really Afraid Of
So I went to the first Peer-to-Peer class. I described in an earlier post my reluctance to take this class due to my expectations that the other people would be unlike me -- sicker, less functional, or something like that. Of course those expectations were completely unfounded. Everybody's just themselves, three-dimensional. Duh.
I now realize my real difficulty is not with them but with me. I am so afraid of sharing my mental illness with real people that I can't even do it when they have a mental illness themselves! I've become so anxious over so many years of having to hide it, deny it, gloss over it -- or avoid the problem altogether by never leaving my house -- that it feels almost impossible to break the habit and just be myself. No environment has ever felt "safe" enough for me to let down my guard, not even other NAMI programs.
That's a big reason I started the Facebook page (Bipolar Over 30). Like all of us, I need friends I can be myself with, who understand and support me -- and for me the best way to do that is with online friends. We have formed our own community, and that is a life saver for me.
But perhaps it's time for me to dip my toe into the "offline" world and test the waters. So I'm making it my goal for myself in this class to learn to be myself with other people I know are not going to judge me. To relax enough to take off the mask. And perhaps make a friend or two in the process.
Thanks for listening.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
A Class of My Peers
Bipolar Memoirs:
Taking a Class with Those Mentally People
I'm starting a new class on Wednesday, called Peer-to-Peer. It's a NAMI class for people with serious mental illnesses who are working on their "recovery" process. I've signed up for it twice before and bailed both times -- because the location gave me panic attacks when I drove to it, but mostly because at the first class I looked around (at a circle of perfectly normal if weary looking people) and said to myself: I don't belong here! These people have sad narrow little lives shadowed by their huge mental illnesses planted in the middle like an oak tree! They are what stigma says they are! They're not like ME. They don't run Facebook groups, write letters to the editor, blog about their lives, research everything online, have a sense of humor, love someone and are loved in return! If they're taking this class, they've been ground down and reduced to just surviving. They don't already know it all, like me. They don't even try to pretend they're normal. They are essentially and always just "the mentally ill."
But I am different from them. Right? I must be different from them. I absolutely have to be different from them.
But I'm not. I am exactly like them. I am them. Because they are not one-dimensional "mental patients." They are not thoughtless sheep being herded toward "recovery" with no personal resources to draw on. They are not like the people I knew in institutions 35 years ago. They are not like I was 35 years ago, medicated to the point of mindlessness and dumb acceptance. That was a different time. Severe mental illness itself was different. It is not the grim life sentence it was then. It does not rob people of their personalities, possibilities and adventures, their joys and amusements and empathy -- of their futures. It is merely one of their many dimensions. It's normal now to be different.
Yet I cling to the idea that one day I could be "cured." A deus ex machina could descend and wipe out my past. I could be the person I always dreamed of being, moving through the world lightly and gracefully, leaving poetry in her wake, not knowing what she had narrowly escaped. My whole life with a mental illness could be lifted from me and I could walk proudly toward the future with nothing to weigh me down. I would not need this "Peer-to-Peer" class because I would be in "discovery" not "recovery."
But that's all bullshit. It's a dream. And it eats up the time I have left in my life with fear and fantasy. It prevents me from knowing and befriending people who are just like me, just like anyone but with the depth of character this illness bestows -- one of its few gifts.
I want to cling to the fantasy anyway because it's comforting. It lets me sustain my denial. And denial is one of the few sources of peace I know personally I am like my 80 year old mother, outraged by the suggestion that she consider moving to a retirement home. "Those people are all OLD! They look old and they act old! They're going to DIE soon!"
But, you know, she is still old , just like them. And I'm still a person with a serious mental illness, just like my "peers."
And we're all just people, we're all still alive, and there is always hope.
Taking a Class with Those Mentally People
I'm starting a new class on Wednesday, called Peer-to-Peer. It's a NAMI class for people with serious mental illnesses who are working on their "recovery" process. I've signed up for it twice before and bailed both times -- because the location gave me panic attacks when I drove to it, but mostly because at the first class I looked around (at a circle of perfectly normal if weary looking people) and said to myself: I don't belong here! These people have sad narrow little lives shadowed by their huge mental illnesses planted in the middle like an oak tree! They are what stigma says they are! They're not like ME. They don't run Facebook groups, write letters to the editor, blog about their lives, research everything online, have a sense of humor, love someone and are loved in return! If they're taking this class, they've been ground down and reduced to just surviving. They don't already know it all, like me. They don't even try to pretend they're normal. They are essentially and always just "the mentally ill."
But I am different from them. Right? I must be different from them. I absolutely have to be different from them.
But I'm not. I am exactly like them. I am them. Because they are not one-dimensional "mental patients." They are not thoughtless sheep being herded toward "recovery" with no personal resources to draw on. They are not like the people I knew in institutions 35 years ago. They are not like I was 35 years ago, medicated to the point of mindlessness and dumb acceptance. That was a different time. Severe mental illness itself was different. It is not the grim life sentence it was then. It does not rob people of their personalities, possibilities and adventures, their joys and amusements and empathy -- of their futures. It is merely one of their many dimensions. It's normal now to be different.
Yet I cling to the idea that one day I could be "cured." A deus ex machina could descend and wipe out my past. I could be the person I always dreamed of being, moving through the world lightly and gracefully, leaving poetry in her wake, not knowing what she had narrowly escaped. My whole life with a mental illness could be lifted from me and I could walk proudly toward the future with nothing to weigh me down. I would not need this "Peer-to-Peer" class because I would be in "discovery" not "recovery."
But that's all bullshit. It's a dream. And it eats up the time I have left in my life with fear and fantasy. It prevents me from knowing and befriending people who are just like me, just like anyone but with the depth of character this illness bestows -- one of its few gifts.
I want to cling to the fantasy anyway because it's comforting. It lets me sustain my denial. And denial is one of the few sources of peace I know personally I am like my 80 year old mother, outraged by the suggestion that she consider moving to a retirement home. "Those people are all OLD! They look old and they act old! They're going to DIE soon!"
But, you know, she is still old , just like them. And I'm still a person with a serious mental illness, just like my "peers."
And we're all just people, we're all still alive, and there is always hope.
Friday, September 20, 2013
Mass Murder and the Mentally Ill
THE MENTALLY ILL AND MASS MURDER
Here we go again with the mass shootings and the mental health of the shooter. There's talk of finding ways to identify the "dangerous" mentally ill people and get them help before they kill. As if the only reason society should look after the mentally ill is because they pose a deadly threat to the "sane" people. The shooter becomes "the new face of mental illness in this country," as Brian Williams said on NBC not long ago (re Ariel Castro, kidnapper, torture, murderer).
I hate these debates because mentally ill people as a whole are LESS violent than sane people and more likely to be victims than perpetrators.
And because it is not possible to predict who will become violent; no particular traits, behaviors or symptoms correlate with violence.
And because forcing someone into treatment violates civil rights even when it would benefit the person.
And because requiring therapists to "turn in" patients who show signs of future violence as defined by these laws would discourage people from seeking treatment in the first place.
And because all this surveiling, investigating, correlating, identifying, forced treatment, denial of rights, and all the rest would require a huge bureaucracy dedicated to social control, which is scary (and besides, we already have the NSA for that).
And because, seriously, what is the problem here? Preventing a very few people who cannot be identified in advance from committing mass murders? Or the absurd number of guns in this country, almost completely unregulated and unlimited?
Control guns not minds. Guns are controllable; minds are not.
Here we go again with the mass shootings and the mental health of the shooter. There's talk of finding ways to identify the "dangerous" mentally ill people and get them help before they kill. As if the only reason society should look after the mentally ill is because they pose a deadly threat to the "sane" people. The shooter becomes "the new face of mental illness in this country," as Brian Williams said on NBC not long ago (re Ariel Castro, kidnapper, torture, murderer).
I hate these debates because mentally ill people as a whole are LESS violent than sane people and more likely to be victims than perpetrators.
And because it is not possible to predict who will become violent; no particular traits, behaviors or symptoms correlate with violence.
And because forcing someone into treatment violates civil rights even when it would benefit the person.
And because requiring therapists to "turn in" patients who show signs of future violence as defined by these laws would discourage people from seeking treatment in the first place.
And because all this surveiling, investigating, correlating, identifying, forced treatment, denial of rights, and all the rest would require a huge bureaucracy dedicated to social control, which is scary (and besides, we already have the NSA for that).
And because, seriously, what is the problem here? Preventing a very few people who cannot be identified in advance from committing mass murders? Or the absurd number of guns in this country, almost completely unregulated and unlimited?
Control guns not minds. Guns are controllable; minds are not.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Drama
Drama
It makes me laugh when someone accuses me of "drama." Because what is bipolar disorder but drama? I live and breathe drama.
Today is Wednesday. Starting last Friday, I went on a manic tear about a home project I suddenly and out of nowhere realized we had to do and do immediately. It started with paint. I got very excited and very obsessed with what colors to use. But I couldn't decide. I kept adding more and more features to the project as we went, abandoning one thing for another with no rhyme nor reason, redoing what had been done because I changed my mind TWICE about all the paint I had just bought, and had to go get more. Then I insisted in the middle of painting that we drop everything and race over to buy a dresser I saw on Craigslist because now the project had expanded to replacing all furniture. When we got it home it didn't look right. I was anguished about ever finding enough new furniture that matched and fit in the room, wringing my hands, berating myself, wracking my brain for exactly the RIGHT furniture and where to get it. Within a day of going full blast in all directions, I could not make a single decision, like what clothes to put on. So I stayed in pajamas. I couldn't stop talking, or clenching my muscles in intense frustration and rising anger at myself and my family, who weren't being "supportive" enough -- while doing all the work I assigned them to make my dreams come true. (Apparently I am quite persuasive when in a hypomanic state. A few years before, I had talked them into "fostering" 25 dogs for a rescue organization -- and ate least two of them didn't really like dogs.) I couldn't stop telling myself out loud how stupid and disorganized I was, how awful and crazy it was for me to make everyone drop their weekend to work on this ersatz undertaking, getting more and more agitated. I literally beat myself up, punching, pulling, banging my body.
Exactly a day later, calm descended. It didn't seem urgent anymore to complete the whole project right this minute. I made an agreement with myself to pause and regroup, make a plan step by step, logically. I even crossed off one or two of the steps that day. I made sure to stop berating my family for not keeping to my arbitrary schedule. I felt sane again.
That reprieve came yesterday, 4 days after the manic race to nowhere began. Today, one day after that soft landing, I woke up as tired as I have ever been since I had pneumonia years ago. It hurt to lift my eyelids. I was exhausted, and I wanted to lay down and never get up. I got out of bed but I crashed into the walls when I walked because I was sore all over and still half-asleep -- all day long. I had crashed. I wished for death in a foggy, distant way. It was comforting to think of dying, like a blanket drawn around me, a pleasant possibility of relief. And I was pretty sure I just couldn't and wouldn't live much longer anyway, not at that crazy, hypomanic pace. It was too punishing being me.
Do other "normal" people go from zero to 150 in one day, begin to stall and sputter after two more days, bring it down to cruising speed finally, but then hit the wall and spin to a bruising stop, finally just laying there, knocked unconscious? Over a home improvement project?
"Drama." Tell me about it.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Read My Mind
Read My Mind
It must be a feature of my bipolar mind, but I am very bothered, saddened and distressed when my mood shifts to painful or sad or explosive or despairing or even suicidal, and no one notices! What the hell? Not even the dog?! How could they not notice these volcanic emotions, the churning anxiety, the knot in the top of my stomach, the tears verging on falling, the blood that’s about to drip out of my mouth from biting my tongue so hard in order to avoid screaming, my worthlessness, my guilt, my sudden realization of my utter futurelessness?
It’s all beating like heavy metal in my head, like a forge plunging up and down, and it won’t stop. I can’t turn down the volume, and I can’t think: Well, this will pass. It’s owning my mind!. And it has not-passed before, there’s precedent there, and it’s getting really unbearable, so... Why the fuck doesn’t my husband take one look at me or hear one word from me, and KNOW? Why isn’t he scared to death like me? Why doesn’t he take emergency measures? (like…..what?). Shouldn’t he immediately hug me? Shouldn’t he call the police because I’m dangerous? Shouldn’t he fly to the computer and google “wife crazy what to do?”
Why isn’t this visible? Why is a broken leg so different from a broken mind? Why don’t these two “poles” in my broken mind poke out starkly and cringe-inducingly like a broken bone pokes out of a thigh? And why, God, haven’t the people I love, and who love me so much it’s just inexplicable -- why haven’t they learned the warning signs? Why don’t they notice I am quiet? (Because me being quiet is very very noticeable.) Why don’t they grab me when I come home from Target with one shirt in five different colors, $50 in dog treats, a piece of furniture and my 30th pair of shoes -- and say “Lookit! See what’s happening here? Sit down where I can see you, and we’ll call your doctor.”
Why can’t they read me?
I can’t help but be angry they can’t. I don’t want to be, because what can you expect of a fellow human being, even your husband? A Vulcan mind-meld? But I am angry anyway, and also scared. I don’t know what I’ll do or how far I’ll go this time -- and I really don’t want to find out. But by the time they notice, I could be beyond cooperating with the Treatment Regimen as Prescribed. And that’s somewhere none of us want to go.
And why can’t I just tell them: “Um, hey? I’m fucking losing it over here? You know that way I lose it when I cry for a few hours, then yell at you for a few hours, then fall deeply into Internet research on attachment theory (or Civil War photography, or canine cognition, or... )? Yeah, that way. I’m losing it that way.”
Well, I can’t tell them because ……..
It might be brief, and go away on its own.
It’s my fault.
I don’t have the energy to talk.
I can’t possibly take one more pill. (Or three less and two more. Or any new combination really.)
I don’t want to be a burden.
I believe nothing on earth can help me anyway.
Maybe there’s nothing WRONG. Maybe I’m just really really knowledgeable about canine cognition right now.
I am deeply embarrassed.
I am even ashamed.
I think they should just KNOW. If they really love me.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Take it Back! What Are the Worst Things Said to You as a Person with Bipolar?
Many insensitive, cruel, ignorant and/or infuriating things have been said to me over the years about my bipolar disorder and mental illness in general. They hurt. They make me angry. They need to be corrected. And I can't seem to forget them, try as I might. My brain holds onto pain. I want to but I can't seem to "forgive and forget," "move on," be "positive" -- all those things we're advised to do. I thought it would help if we had a place to put them out there where people who've heard them too will understand, empathize, offer support -- and share their own experiences.
So I'm starting a new thread on this blog where people can post the worst things people have said to them in connection with their bipolar or other mental illness (like borderline personality disorder, depression, self-harm, eating disorders, etc.) -- or just mental illness in general. Please only post the things said (with background like who, where, when, context, etc. if you like), but no rants, editorials, extended commentary, etc.. I’m hoping these quotes will stand alone as indictments of people’s ignorance and insensitivity. Nothing but text please, and you can post anonymously or give your name or some name, as you choose.
I hope this will be cathartic, self-affirming, anger-resolving, educational and a strike against stigma.
Get if off your chest and out of your head!
So I'm starting a new thread on this blog where people can post the worst things people have said to them in connection with their bipolar or other mental illness (like borderline personality disorder, depression, self-harm, eating disorders, etc.) -- or just mental illness in general. Please only post the things said (with background like who, where, when, context, etc. if you like), but no rants, editorials, extended commentary, etc.. I’m hoping these quotes will stand alone as indictments of people’s ignorance and insensitivity. Nothing but text please, and you can post anonymously or give your name or some name, as you choose.
I hope this will be cathartic, self-affirming, anger-resolving, educational and a strike against stigma.
Get if off your chest and out of your head!
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