"It's like drowning . Except you can see everyone around you breathing."
~ Anon.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Friday, February 21, 2014
You Wake Up Saying
“It’s
not that you wake up one day, saying, I’m going to kill myself today.
It’s that you wake up every day, saying, I’m going to try not to kill
myself today.”
~ Deborah Treisman
(David Foster Wallace's editor)
~ Deborah Treisman
(David Foster Wallace's editor)
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Change.org Petition to Fund Research to Cure Mental Illness
Change.org Petition
Organizations like change.org can command MUCH more attention and influence than individuals. So please sign this petition (no registration required - just one click) to increase funding for research on mental illness. We need better treatments, and maybe even cures.
http://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/to-the-president-and-congress-fund-research-to-cure-mental-illness
Organizations like change.org can command MUCH more attention and influence than individuals. So please sign this petition (no registration required - just one click) to increase funding for research on mental illness. We need better treatments, and maybe even cures.
http://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/to-the-president-and-congress-fund-research-to-cure-mental-illness
Monday, February 10, 2014
Do You Really Want to Know Your Future?
A discussion is going on among my Facebook page's members about whether bipolar disorder is a "progressive" illness. Does it usually worsen over time despite medications, therapies, lifestyle changes, social support and all the other ways we've been told or believe will help? Is it possible to cut the number, frequency and severity of episodes? And if it is, could this eliminate or ameliorate the damage done to our brains' anatomy, neuronal function and cognitive skills?
Virtually all sources agree that UNTREATED bipolar disorder will worsen over time. And once a brain has had a manic or depressive episode, it becomes many times more likely to have another one. Left untreated, this process ("kindling") accelerates: more and more episodes, worse in severity, oftentimes rapid cycling and mixed states.The brain structure and neuronal function change.
But what about TREATED bipolar disorder? The impression most popular sources give is that if intercepted early and controlled with medication, bipolar does not have to be progressive or degenerative. Things will start looking up, they say.
But, as you know if you have this disorder, even started early the treatment is hit and miss. It works sometimes, others not, and there's a seemingly lifelong pursuit of the right medication cocktail. Does that kind of treatment -- the real world kind, what people actually get -- interrupt or stop the natural progression of the disease?
The literature is not clear. Some say the process can be halted; treatment will give us an outcome close to "normal." Personally, I have my doubts. It's an established fact that people with mental illnesses die an average of 25 years earlier than people without one. More is going on than just lack of treatment or lack of supports (or lack of housing, money and jobs). The 25 year life expectancy gap gets more disturbing the more you look into it, because it turns out that it is true even after controlling for suicide, co-occurring disorders and lack of health care (and those other "lacks" I mentioned). Mental illness itself seems to make you die earlier. You are more likely to die of cardiovascular disease or diabetes if you also have bipolar.Why remains a mystery.
People on my page, called Bipolar Over 30, talk a lot about how our bipolar disorder seems to be getting worse as we get older. Treated early and steadily or not, we still tend to have more and more episodes over time, and/or they are more severe and disabling, and/or we have permanent cognitive deficits and collateral problems that make life very difficult. We find ourselves more and more disabled by it even if we had and continue to get the best treatment. BUT NOT ALL OF US DO. There is wide variation among individuals.
What do you think about this? If you are middle aged, has this happened to you? Do you see a lighter or a darker future ahead for you?
I tend to believe the research that says bipolar worsens over time and so does our ability to function day to day, for "anecdotal" reasons: I see it in myself and others I've talked to. I think popular sources that say otherwise are whitewashing things, being "positive" in hopes of motivating people -- perhaps mercifully but not honestly, and perhaps not very helpfully in the long run.
But how should you handle this information if it's true? Does it rob you of hope and motivation to continue? What does it mean for your outlook, expectations, planning, -- and for your family or caretakers? Does it profit anyone to receive this information, earlier or later in their lives? Would you want to know in advance if your bipolar disorder will probably be a degenerative brain disease just like M.S. or Parkinson's, albeit with the same uncertainty about any individual's outcome?
Personally, I want to know. But, knowing, I will live out the rest of my time on earth as if I didn't.
Virtually all sources agree that UNTREATED bipolar disorder will worsen over time. And once a brain has had a manic or depressive episode, it becomes many times more likely to have another one. Left untreated, this process ("kindling") accelerates: more and more episodes, worse in severity, oftentimes rapid cycling and mixed states.The brain structure and neuronal function change.
But what about TREATED bipolar disorder? The impression most popular sources give is that if intercepted early and controlled with medication, bipolar does not have to be progressive or degenerative. Things will start looking up, they say.
But, as you know if you have this disorder, even started early the treatment is hit and miss. It works sometimes, others not, and there's a seemingly lifelong pursuit of the right medication cocktail. Does that kind of treatment -- the real world kind, what people actually get -- interrupt or stop the natural progression of the disease?
The literature is not clear. Some say the process can be halted; treatment will give us an outcome close to "normal." Personally, I have my doubts. It's an established fact that people with mental illnesses die an average of 25 years earlier than people without one. More is going on than just lack of treatment or lack of supports (or lack of housing, money and jobs). The 25 year life expectancy gap gets more disturbing the more you look into it, because it turns out that it is true even after controlling for suicide, co-occurring disorders and lack of health care (and those other "lacks" I mentioned). Mental illness itself seems to make you die earlier. You are more likely to die of cardiovascular disease or diabetes if you also have bipolar.Why remains a mystery.
People on my page, called Bipolar Over 30, talk a lot about how our bipolar disorder seems to be getting worse as we get older. Treated early and steadily or not, we still tend to have more and more episodes over time, and/or they are more severe and disabling, and/or we have permanent cognitive deficits and collateral problems that make life very difficult. We find ourselves more and more disabled by it even if we had and continue to get the best treatment. BUT NOT ALL OF US DO. There is wide variation among individuals.
What do you think about this? If you are middle aged, has this happened to you? Do you see a lighter or a darker future ahead for you?
I tend to believe the research that says bipolar worsens over time and so does our ability to function day to day, for "anecdotal" reasons: I see it in myself and others I've talked to. I think popular sources that say otherwise are whitewashing things, being "positive" in hopes of motivating people -- perhaps mercifully but not honestly, and perhaps not very helpfully in the long run.
But how should you handle this information if it's true? Does it rob you of hope and motivation to continue? What does it mean for your outlook, expectations, planning, -- and for your family or caretakers? Does it profit anyone to receive this information, earlier or later in their lives? Would you want to know in advance if your bipolar disorder will probably be a degenerative brain disease just like M.S. or Parkinson's, albeit with the same uncertainty about any individual's outcome?
Personally, I want to know. But, knowing, I will live out the rest of my time on earth as if I didn't.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
A Stash
I did something today that was strange and unsettling, but I'm not going to undo
it. I there are others who understand why, and even some who've done the same.
Three days ago, I suddenly tripped and fell into a reeling depression. An incident among my family in which I played a key role - a bad role - devastated me. In just those few days I've gotten increasingly suicidal; in fact on the day of the incident I took a small overdose (small because I took them one by one and after seven I blacked out). My husband came home to find me passed out and barely responsive so he confiscated my supply of that drug.
Today I woke up still feeling desperate and full of dread, so immediately, frantically, I searched my mind for sources of more of that drug. No ideas. But I made myself come downstairs, fed my dogs, ate breakfast, read the paper, went on the Internet and began to feel better. I even thought maybe that awful incident wasn't as momentous as it seemed. Maybe I hadn't caused a major irreparable rift. It could be just a bump in the road. But when I went to get coffee in the afternoon, I saw a bottle of leftover pain medication next to the coffee machine, enough to kill me.
So, without feeling suicidal or even depressed anymore, I STILL HID THE PAIN PILLS WHERE NO ONE BUT ME COULD FIND THEM. And it was such a relief. Even though my mood had just changed from really bad to okay, and I knew that happened all the time, and probably would continue to do so - I still wanted a suicide tool in reserve. Just in case one time it didn't and I stayed in hell.
In the end, all that matters to me is that I'm not trapped at the bottom of that pit with my suffocating hopelessness, flaming pain in every cell of my body, and screaming in my head that never pauses even for a minute and will never end. So I stashed the pills.
Does that make me brave or a coward?
Three days ago, I suddenly tripped and fell into a reeling depression. An incident among my family in which I played a key role - a bad role - devastated me. In just those few days I've gotten increasingly suicidal; in fact on the day of the incident I took a small overdose (small because I took them one by one and after seven I blacked out). My husband came home to find me passed out and barely responsive so he confiscated my supply of that drug.
Today I woke up still feeling desperate and full of dread, so immediately, frantically, I searched my mind for sources of more of that drug. No ideas. But I made myself come downstairs, fed my dogs, ate breakfast, read the paper, went on the Internet and began to feel better. I even thought maybe that awful incident wasn't as momentous as it seemed. Maybe I hadn't caused a major irreparable rift. It could be just a bump in the road. But when I went to get coffee in the afternoon, I saw a bottle of leftover pain medication next to the coffee machine, enough to kill me.
So, without feeling suicidal or even depressed anymore, I STILL HID THE PAIN PILLS WHERE NO ONE BUT ME COULD FIND THEM. And it was such a relief. Even though my mood had just changed from really bad to okay, and I knew that happened all the time, and probably would continue to do so - I still wanted a suicide tool in reserve. Just in case one time it didn't and I stayed in hell.
In the end, all that matters to me is that I'm not trapped at the bottom of that pit with my suffocating hopelessness, flaming pain in every cell of my body, and screaming in my head that never pauses even for a minute and will never end. So I stashed the pills.
Does that make me brave or a coward?
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