The Wrecking Ball That Is Mental Illness

Yeah, okay, I,too, am not entirely comfortable with the term ‘mental illness’ due to the fact that it does come with some many negative connotations and stigma. I am also LOATHE to jump on this “behavioral health” bandwagon as the name itself invalidates legitimate mental health disorders and calls them behavioral issues. For the sake of this post, I am going to go with mental health issues as a term as it is fitting, DSM and political correctness be damned. But seriously, instead of a kinder, gentler world with more understand of mental health issues, the campaign to de-stigmatize has recently taken some blows-by the very people in charge who are supposed to be setting an example of the tolerance, understanding, and compassion.

Not to mention as of recent years any time someone goes on a shooting spree, the powers-that-be toss around “it’s just the mentally ill people doing this”. Which, FYI, is a fucking joke, considering the alleged background checks are supposed to track down psych hospitalizations and such, so if anything, the only guns the ‘mentally ill’ are easily getting are on the street and gee, whose fault might that be that illegal arms dealers don’t do background checks? Not to mention, most of the shootings have stemmed from militant hate filled people whose sanity, by legal definition, is pretty sound, or how else would they function highly and use guns as opposed, to say, going bonkers and grabbing a kitchen knife or an axe or some other readily available weapon ‘crazy’ people use?

Most of us who battle mental health issues are not violent or delusional. We have highs, lows, unexplained sadness, rampant anxiety. It is a wrecking ball to our ability to function normally. Not to say many don’t find the right drug cocktail and therapist and go on their merry way. It’s just not like that for many of us. And while we are battling all of this, we are surrounded by people who scoff and just want us to get over it and quit being such downers. If depression worked that way, well, big pharma would wither and die and hey, if we were all ‘in our right minds’, well, then who will be blamed for the mass violence next? People who eat chocolate obsessively? Coffee drinkers amped up on caffeine and sugar?

My mental health issues impact EVERY aspect of my life. My ability to be a good mom, to keep house, to pay bills on time, to feed the cats, make sure my kid and I are bathed and wearing clean clothes…It impacts my ability to forge bonds with others because I have tried and everyone gets sick of the ups and downs and the times I go down the depressive rabbit hole and become a paranoid anxiety ridden trainwreck. So I self isolate to protect not just myself from rejection, but to protect others because I know this shit show called my mental health could devour people with less strength, and it has. It’s just a giant wrecking ball that robs me of focus, robs me of sleep, robs me of joy, even in these I love. I try to rebuild, but before I can, I am having another bout, or stick stuck in one because my psych care is so lackluster.

My family says I am just making excuses not to try harder. They seem to think I enjoy being anxious and depressed and popping pills. I do NOT. One of the happiest times of my life-even though I was depressed and anxious as hell- was when I was pregnant and the ONLY pill I had to take every day was a prenatal vitamin. Opening the cabinet and seeing only one bottle as opposed to 4 or 5…it felt damned good. And I tried to do without meds, repeatedly. It always ends the same way. Me falling apart and things getting worse. So while my current meds aren;t doing a damn thing…I keep clinging to that wrecking ball, swinging back and forth, hoping when it stops…I can start trying to rebuild my sanity, my zest for life, my shattered self esteem and the feelings of rejection and isolation…

Make no mistake about it. Much like a wrecking ball used in building demolition, mental health disorders are every bit as destructive, stripping you down until you barely feel human. Until you feel like nothing you do will ever rebuild the wreckage left in the wake of manic episodes or depressive bouts.

The last thing we need are our supposed leaders labeling all mentally people as potential mass shooters. We’re traumatized enough daily by the stigma and the disorders themselves. Stop blaming the mentally ill for abhorrent acts of hatred and violence. Reap what you have sown, society, by accepting a culture filled with such hatred and so much division that these horrible acts occur. Get it through your head that because those of us who battle mental health disorders, we are more likely to throw ourselves in front of a bullet to save someone’s life as opposed to taking a life. That isn’t crazy or mentally ill. It’s called being a compassionate human being.

Something that is sorely missing in the UNited States these days,

If Facebook Takes Away The Like Button, How Will The World Cope?

I first heard about this on the radio a few weeks back, then the other day a snippet was in my email. Since I don’t use any social media sites outside of wordpress blogs, I’m not sure what impact removing the like button would have here. Would it go away entirely as part of the social networking/blogging world? On one hand, likes are about the only input I get on this blog, since people cannot be bothered to comment. And sometimes, it does boost my self esteem to get likes on a post. On the other hand, it is a bit damaging to write what I consider a good post and get 4 likes while someone’s picture of their lunch gets 1000.

When this was announced on the radio, it was under the heading of, “Facebook cares about your mental health and is considering removing or hiding likes so people’s self esteem does not suffer.”

Personally, I think a like button for pictures is a little silly. But I am old school social media, back from chat rooms, IM, and myspace days. Back when if people wanted to communicate with you, they would actually, ya know, write a message on your page or leave a funny or sparkly nice graphic. They’d exchange hellos in a chat room, ask to IM you for personal chat. Since the advent of the like button and social media, or as I like to call it, anti social media because I’ve been in a room full of people I’ve been invited to spend time with, and they are all on their phones, updating their status, texting, doing everything BUT meaningful personal interaction. Like buttons are in a way, a way to avoid direct interaction yet still voice your opinion.

At the same time…I’ve had people tell me, “sorry I didn’t comment, I just didn’t have anything to say/didn’t know what to say so I just clicked like to let you know I read it.” And I understand this all too well, as I have done it myself many times before. I try to comment but sometimes, the words just aren’t there. Hazard of depression. So does the like button do more harm or more good? For me, it’s about my only connection to readers who are too busy or without words to comment. I savor every comment I do get because it means someone cared enough to take the time to at least touch base, commiserate, interact. But then again, if I write a good post and someone’s picture of Barney on a burned piece of toast gets thousands of likes versus my three…

I propose for blog sites a “commiserate and support” button. We’re not blogging to be popular in the mental health realm. And what is nxt? A thumbs down because we’re depressed and it depresses others so they invalidate our writing and feelings?

I can see one way removing the likes count and etc would definitely be better for mental health. Kids on social media. For them it is a popularity contest and having a classmate with a gazillion likes when your posts are lucky to get a couple of your best friends to click the button…That is damaging, whether we realize it or not.

So folks…chime in. What impact would it have on those of you who use sites like Facebook if you were no longer pandering for likes and the feeling of popularity and validation that brings? Would you post less? Give up entirely on the concept of social media? Try harder to cater to the fickle masses and their ADHD news cycle attention span? I am curious. Because my ten year old gets positively shrieky giddy every time she gets a like for a comment on youtube or a new subscriber to her low content channel. She got 100 likes for a comment on some gamer video and I thought her head would implode with joy. For a moment she forgot she wasn’t one of the popular kids at school. But then for weeks, not a single like which brought her down.

Like buttons-helpful, harmful, or both?

So Often There Is No Why When It Comes To Depression and Anxiety

One of the most frustrating aspect of mental illnesses for me is the way the professionals have always insisted there has to be a ‘why’ for feeling anxious or depressed. Proof one can go to school, get a degree, practice psychiatric care, and still be utterly clueless as to how the illness truly works. I don’t dispute that often there are indeed precursors, triggers, and logical explanations to mood swings and negative mental space. If your beloved pet dies, it is reasonable to feel grief, to cry, to cycle through the emotions and moods involved with loss. Your car breaks down and you can’t afford to fix it. This is a bummer and impacts your life in a major negative fashion, so frustration, anger, and depression make sense.

THEN there is bipolar depression and free floating anxiety disorder. If the doctors are flustered by me not having a ‘why’ to explain to them, they should ponder how frustrating it is for me living in this never ending cycle without explanation. If I can explain it, I can try to fix it, change it. If I can’t identify the why because there is no why, I am left just treading water, waiting for the mental space to shift.

I find myself in this place today. Nothing traumatic happened. I actually got two decent nights’ sleep since I stopped the Abilify. But I just feel low. I have no motivation. I don’t want to get up and go. I have physical issues going on that are definitely making an impact on functionality, but nothing I don’t deal with regularly enough to know it will soon pass. Hormones and allergies are pretty miserable so they are contributing factors, for sure. But to wake up, fully rested, and still feel tired and overwhelmed, for no apparent reason, is maddening.

Today is gonna be a long day for me. My kid skipped day camp because I told her no more packing her lunch, I trusted her the other day and the counselors had a conniption over her lack of healthy food. She was ‘scared’ of them making her eat gross food to the extent she opted not to go even though it’s a swimming day. Personally, I think she’s being a drama llama, but then, I often cringe at the thought of eating other people’s cooking, so she comes by it naturally. I will get a respite tonight as she is staying the night with my mom. I still have to cart my catterwallig brother to his job, then wait in town in 90 degree heat with nothing to do for 3 hours til he gets off and bring him home. I don’t think it’s ever occurred to my dad what an imposition this arrangement can be for me. He calls it a ‘job’ but job usually implies payment or barter of some sort. I am getting nothing out of this deal except a fiver tossed in for gas on occasion. 4 more weeks then camp ends and I will have a legit reason for not toting him around. Not that it will likely change their ‘we have plans, can you take him to work.’ Because if I say no, I have plans (even if I generally don’t) this will bring on the lecture about how I don’t work and I am lazy and…sometimes standing up for myself just comes with too many adverse side effects.

I look forward to coming home, getting comfy, and enjoying my quiet time. Maybe get cocky enough to hope for a third night of decent sleep, all the while fearful that it was a fluke from coming off the med. They say live in the now, don’t fret what *may or may not& happen but one thing about trauma is that if it’s happened over and over, you lose your luxury of thinking optimistically. Or at least I do. Optimism has proven to be a nasty Rottweiller chewing on my butt cheek too many times. Better to be prepared, just in case. As long as I don’t let the pessimism completely take over.

But yeah. Sometimes there is no why.

Does anyone else experience this? Let me know, because between the inept doctors and counselors and my critical family, I am starting to feel like some sort of mutant. If there is indeed a why, I could use some ideas on how to ID the why and how to proceed in a way that is beneficial instead of self defeating.

I remain convinced, though, that the very nature of the mood disorders is that 90% of the time…there simply is no why. It is called a disorder for a reason. Logic is absent from disorders and trying to make sense where there is none is the very definition of self defeating behavior. That doctors and counselors perpetuate this only adds to my doubts and trauma. Accept there is no why and focus on riding out the storm. That’s what I do, that is my only advice to others. Stop looking for a why and start looking for coping mechanisms. THAT is the kind of advice I wish my psych professionals would give me. I wish they would but alas…they do not. And I guess that is one more thing where there is no why, they’re just incompetent.

I Reported My Psych Nurse Practitioner to Her Clinic Director Today…PANIC!

(Sorry to flood post, scumbag brain is working doubletime today.)

If you read this blog at all, then you are aware of my months long issues with the noob psych nurse they assigned me. Initially when she saw me with my prior doctor in attendance, I thought it was going to be a good fit. She was putting on an act, apparently, because with each appointment I started to dread going in more and more. It all culminated at my last appointment which you can read about here. A person can only take so much, especially when in a vulnerable state.

I weighed my options, the consequences, the potential benefit. I railed and ranted and drove the topic into the ground in these posts. I don’t do well with confrontation which is why I am so good with writing versus staying calm during emotionally charged verbal exchanges. Except waiting to hear back on my written submission (which I emailed to the main hospital’s address asking it be forwarded to the psych center director, and he replied within 15 minutes and said it had been done.) Rather than feel any relief or even ‘spork of fortitude pride’ for getting outside my comfort zone of anti-confrontation and speaking up for myself…I just felt flooded with panic manifested in physical symptoms. Pounding heart, sweating, shaky legs, churning stomach, and just… an abject sense of terror at ‘what have I done?”

It should be simple enough to express displeasure at the doctor or nurse or therapist being a bad fit, no fault. But I talked to the receptionist twice and was told they had no doctors (well, they have a clinic director so if she was worth a damn, she’d want to see me herself to make up for this horrible breech in quality of care) so speaking up feels like shooting myself in the foot. True, the risk could have a reward but I had a terrible experience on this matter before and it did not end well for me.

I was seeing a relatively noob female doc (different psych center) who probably had wet ink on her degree and she decided to take all benzos away from all clients and replace it with low dose Seroquel for anxiety. (Fair enough, this was the popular new thinking at the time but has since been debunked ten ways from Sunday and it’s people like me who suffered because of their wishy washy mentality.) I tried to roll with it but every month, I became more strung out, more anxious, more paranoid, more panic ridden. By month 9, I was leaving the house twice a month, too terrified to leave any more often than to pay bills and get groceries. I complained to my therapist, case manager, receptionist, the nurses…I tried talking to this doctor and she would not hear me out, her word was the end of the story. So I reported her to the state professional board.

Week later they dismissed me as a client for their psych services and also deemed I no longer needed counseling or case management. It took 2 years to find a new shrink and even that I didn’t do for myself. I had no home phone or cell and I wasn’t leaving the house due to panic and terror so I begged my sister to make the calls and see if she had any luck. Low and behold, she found me what was one of my shrink’s ever and I flourished both under her med regime as well as how much she supported me in my future wishes to visit a friend in California, meet an on line friend from England, to even one day attempt to become a mother. This is how I know great doctors exist. They are pegacorns but I’ve had two of them so they exist. They just don’t want to work in Satan’s Buttcrack. (Sorry, I heard that on some youtube video and thought it was hilarious and fitting.)

Now I am 2 mg in on Xanax because I was seriously spazzing. I texted Sass and she propped me up and told me good for me and as long as I have proof of the nurse’s med mistake, I should be protected against being called a liar or non compliant. (I do fear retribution because heaven knows what these people type into your chart. Asking for a copy is nixed,too, as it’s ten cents a page and my file is a 15 year span and thick as a collegiate dictionary.) The Xanax is working slowly and I am feeling less rattled and paranoid and fearful but I am sweating buckets in spite of being cold.

I hope I did the right thing speaking up for myself. I suppose I could have been more diplomatic and not mentioned her poor bedside manner and treatment mistakes but I just felt it crucial to let the director know as she is supposed to be overseeing charts, yet she didn’t catch it, either. I meant no malice though the nurse could use some further learning in how not to treat med resistant patients. To be fair, I need to learn how to not become overwhelmed and vicious about things like lowered benzo doses because that may ultimately be the thing to bite me on the ass. “Oh, she’s just mad about our new policy and she can’t get large doses of Xanax now.” I do find it an asinine policy that punishes the responsible people with legit disorders it helps but I was learning to accept it. And I maintain had this nurse or her LPN/RN bothered with a two minute call to give me a head’s up that these changes were being made instead of springing it on me, I’d have had time to process and respond calmly. They seem to consider this basic kindness coddling, though.

Well, it may mean another 2 year hunt for another doctor (closest is 80 miles away) and dozens of “No, we won’t be taking you on as a patient” which is nothing I haven’t heard before. (Being rejected as a patient stings, man.) But in the end even if I get bounced and blacklisted at least I will know I showed courage in speaking up for myself. Feeling this dark and vulnerable, just the act of speaking up on your own behalf is a huge thing.

How Employers Fail The Mentally Ill

For those who think it is easy to obtain disability pay for mental health issues, you are very wrong. It is a grueling process that takes years for many of us fighting to get it. During these years, we keep trying to work at positions that trigger our illnesses and worsen our conditions. We burn bridges with out failures, we lose friendships, relationships, rack up bad references and a reputation for being ‘flaky’. No sooner than we hit a solid patch, we can backslide in a few weeks’ time. This DOES make us seem like less worthy candidates for many jobs.

But unlike laws that protect the physically disabled from discrimination and employers are required to accommodate their disabilities, the mentally ill are protected only in theory. In practice, we are often shunned because of our checkered pasts. Instead of an employer seeing a slew of jobs as you continuing to try to support yourself, they just see someone who can’t keep a job. If you fall into depressions and stop bathing (as I have currently) and your only true joy is sleep…You are perceived as weak and lazy. I am anything but. I have been fighting to raise a small child on my own for 7 years while her father gets away with spotty child support that often leaves us in the lurch. I am bounced around my psych practice to providers varying in competence, few of whom are really invested in my mental health. I am constantly facing unexpected expenses and I try to play to my strengths and seek what I perceive as ‘possibly doable’ jobs. Babysitter, dogwalker, light housekeeping, secret shopper, virtual assistant, proof reader. I WANT TO WORK.

At the same time, I can’t deny my limitations and pretend everything is okay. It is not. I can’t even get a good reference from friends and family because they think I am unreliable and they’re not entirely wrong. But since much of my disability stems from trying to interact with my mental illness in situations that I can’t even manage for basic functioning or enjoyment, I am almost doomed from go to fail. People trigger me. Crowds trigger me. My anxiety makes me twitchy and paranoid and sometimes, my brain convinces me that if I don’t cuss and scream, my brain will claw its way out of my skull. I cease rational thought in these situations and it happens over and over. I’ve put in 30 years of counseling. I have tried every med known to man. I bully myself, I pep talk myself. My disability simply isn’t going to go away nor will I ‘snap out of it.’

I accept this. Others do not.

How wasy it is for them to think me lazy or weak. How common to not be given an opportunity to prove yourself because your past is so unstable and you can’t look someone in the eye and say much has changed. You want to work, to earn your keep, but you’ve grown wise enough to know what simply pushes your boundaries and leads to breakdowns. So where does that leave me?

Working from home by computer, ideally. But most of those jobs are scams or require some sort of degree and familiarity with software I can’t even afford, so again…I pawn off what I can, I have fundraisers, I offer to cook a meal or do someone’s dishes. I am TRYING everything I know to makes ends meet. I can’t even get a call back from a place where all I’d have to do is wear a ridiculous costume, stand in the cold, and wave at people. I don’t think I’d be very good at it because I have a perpetual ‘fuck off and die’ look on my face when ‘out there’, it is all terrifying and frightening so the porcupine quills come out whether I want them to or not. But to not even get a call for an interview, Geesh. I know I brought it on myself, but hey, if I had been granted disability sooner, I wouldn’t have burned every employment bridge in this small area.

You have to be given an opportunity to earn your keep. Until that happens…you’re really at the mercy of fate. And no one cares if your intentions and motivations are pure. I would likely flourish working from home in some capacity but those jobs just aren’t plentiful or realistic, I am told. So I keep trying to live in the ‘stable world’ even though I am far from stable and get nowhere in those pursuits. At this point, I’d do creepy fetish porn if I thought someone was paying for it.

So before you dismiss the mentally disabled, before you deem us lazy or weak or unwilling to work…View us as you’d be required, by law, and morality, and decency, to view someone with a physical disability. Someone with a cane is obviously not going to be able to wait tables and move quickly and carry trays of heavy food but they might make a good greeter or sorter or even dishwasher. You just have to be willing to find a position that their disability and limitations don’t exclude.

For me, anything outside my safe space is at the moment beyond my capabilities and still, I am making the effort to try and get one of those jobs. Yet if someone would give me the opportunity to do some sort of work from my safe space, at my own pace…I’d probably excel and flourish instead of languish or crash and burn.

I just need a chance.

Employers need to stop, intentionally or unintentionally, counting out the mentally ill when in fact, we’re capable of quite a bit if you play to our strengths instead of expecting us to suddenly overcome lifelong limitations.

Finding a way to support yourself that does not drive you to a breakdown shouldn’t be a luxury or lottery winning. It should be common sense. And there should be far more employers out there offering this type of work for the mentally disabled.

You want to preach about teaching men to fish as opposed to just giving them a fish, but you don’t want to give lessons. That is illogical to a degree even I can discern.

No Withdrawal From Cold Turkeying Prozac,my ass

Forgive me, those who come here for written posts. I can’t make my fingers land on the proper keys due to brain zaps from coming off Prozac abruptly-and my psych nurse told me there would be no withdrawal as long as I started taking the Celexa immediately. LIES!!!! I am impaired to the degree I may as well be drunk. So bear with me and watch my vlog, it’s under 15 minutes, NSFW cos I swear a lot, and if you think my writing is fucked up…

You ain’t seen nothing yet, withdrawal from Xanax isn’t this bad. Though the abrupt halving on the dose certainly has left me climbing walls along with the brain zapping stumbling shamble. Ass trash.

Fresh Hell, Served Stale

I did not have a good night. My kid started in on me, being uncooperative and I stewed over the ‘mandated Xanax dose lowering’ because part of my routine is 2 mg at bedtime…Now I don’t even get that for the entire damn day. And I feel bad cos M. is just a practitioner and she can’t control what this Dr. Dictator hands down as practice wide edicts. At the same time, I don’t feel connected to this nurse and I don’t dislike her, but she does not give me good signs on being supportive of my limitations. You know when you’ve got a pro that is all “Team you!” M, perhaps newness to the job or area, she’s not unpleasant but…I also don’t think she’d go to bat for me in a review on my disability claim. Not that unsupportive psychs have ever stopped me from fighting for myself.

I took 12 mg melatonin, 200 mg antihistamine, and 0.5 mg Xanax around 7 p.m.

I figured I would zonk out while watching the ABC special on the final days of JFK Jr (and I don’t even know why I watched that other than promos hyping it up, that whole Kennedy thing was my mom’s spiel but I guess repeats get old and new is new). Ten p.m came around and I still wasn’t sleepy. I was agitated, tossing and turning, unable to get comfortable, in severe menstrual pain. The cats were fighting and the neighbors had an ambulance in the drive and visitors parked on my lot, engines running, til almost midnight. It was nerve wracking, and while I tried to be empathatic more than nosey or irate about whatever they had going on…

I could not even get my number counting bedtime routine down, my heartbeat was as deafening as the beep beep beep of the ambulance backing into their drive and the slam of all the visitor’s car doors. I got through Perry Mason (yeah, the old black and white ones, I like a good mystery) and then an episode of Hitchcock Presents (sooo need a digital antenna that pulls stations in from more than 30 miles away) and another episode of Chicago P.D. but I was getting more agitated and finally said fuck it and took a 1mg Xanax. I still have some left from before Dr Dictator’s edict but now they are precious precious little things to be treasured and hoarded. The stress of having this limitation slapped on me, without them even calling to explain it to me, and it coming from a doctor who has not once ever seen me…I was livid, furious, depressed, stressed.

Maybe it’s rebellious me having a knee jerk reaction to being told ‘you can’t do X anymore, you have to do Y.” But arbitrary rebellion tantrums were over in my thirties, I realized it is great to rebel as long as you do it for the right reasons and it doesn’t hurt yourself or others more than the principle is worth.

It was after 3 a.m. last I knew when finally I started getting sleepy (and another 3 mg melatonin) and I was in pain and knowing that soon the alarm would go off, with the fear that getting too sleep so late and getting so little sleep could cause me to sleep through the alarm…Dr. Dictator and her nurse minion really put me into a fresh hell, only they served it stale because I’ve been battling idget professionals like that my whole life. They don’t care who you are as an individual, it’s one size fits all medicine and it’s borderline malpractice to not at least taper me down dose wise. I’m super salty toward them now and it’s suckage cos I thought, hey, finally they got a staff member to stay more than a month, she’s seemingly competent and I don’t dislike her…I should have known the other shoe would drop and it’d be made of concrete and land on my damn head.

So I guess I got about 4 hours of sleep, off and on, cos I can’t get physically comfortable even with painkillers and my brain is rioting. I took my first Celexa this morning, by itself, because I want to see if it alone makes me sleepy or hyper or sick, before I take it with the Wellbutrin. I got my kid off to school, and now I am watching the morning Perry Mason, super pissed cos I can’t even do videos on my phone due to the failed micro sd card so it just feels like nothing is going right so why shouldn’t I be depressed and give in to all the dark thoughts? NOt like my providers really give a fuck.

Three more months of winter and maybe just maybe the horizon will look less like a mushroom cloud. UNtil then…this is what I am stuck with and I do not like it one bit. I feel betrayed by Dr Dictator, unsupported by nurse M, and surrounded by nothing but fucking suckage.

Everyone says depression doesn’t kill. People just ‘take the easy way out’ and commit suicide.

They’re full of shit, there’s nothing easy about coming to the point where you feel there’s no wiggle room, ever.

Depression kills, they just don’t have a nice little ‘murdered by mental illness’ box to check on their death forms.

Happy fucking new year.