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katsterI turn six today. It's been six years since my diagnosis of manic depression. This entry gets rather disjoint, but please, read all the way through.
It started rather quietly. In my youth, I became an avid reader of Reader's Digest, mainly because it was the most interesting thing to read at my grandparents house, and I was quite an avid reader. I don't recall the exact day, but I was caught up in my "totalitarian governments are just waiting to take over the US!" (brought on by the effects of 1984 on a young, somewhat impressionable mind, who still didn't quite have a hang on the idea of allegory and metaphor that an adult would), and wandered across an article on Prozac. I don't remember what exactly the article said, but I was not going to take psychiatric drugs. I wasn't going to allow anybody to fuck with my mind, no sirree.
It's funny what happens in a life.
I'm going to talk about what was the second most important day of my life after being born. It might move to third when I get married, but right now, it remains. Because it was on Wednesday, November 19th, 1997 at about 10:30 in the morning, that I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. And every single day since then has remained a struggle to fight against my own head.
For those of you not in the know, bipolar affective disorder is better known as manic-depression. I *am* manic-depressive, it is as much a part of me as any other part of me, I'd guess. And yet, it's not-me at the same time. It's a complex thing to explain, and an even more complex thing to feel. It batters at my relationships with people, and eats away at all that is important to me. And it comes with a horribly tainted stigma. There are people on my friends list who are going to read this and say "Mental illnesses don't exist! You're just being dramatic!"
It is those people whom, at times, I wish I could toss a crippling load of depression on and let them try to work their way through it, while *I* got to laugh that mental illness doesn't exist, and that if they would just 'think happy thoughts, it'll go away!' I want to watch them look at everything through black coloured glasses; I want them to wrestle with the existential questions and the never-quite-leaving thoughts of suicide. I want them to watch in horror as everything they once loved to do becomes a struggle, and I want them to realize that there are days when getting oneself out of bed is an accomplishment to be praised as much as climbing Everest.
Most of all, I want them to understand.
I want those people who are living in the closet with their friendly mental illness to be able to say to the world that they have that illness, and that there is *no* shame there. For having a mental illness is much like being gay or transsexual, and coming out of the closet changes what people see. But just as a gay person dreams of the day when his orientation isn't going to matter, I dream of a day where the state of my biochemical transmitters doesn't matter, that the condition is just as treatable and normal as insulin-dependent diabetes or any other chronic but manageable condition. And I want people who are having problems to seek help without the fear of forever being branded insane or crazy. I want a stay in the mental ward of a hospital to be just like any other hospital stay.
(That last paragraph is kinda funny knowing two things, a) that being gay was considered a mental illness in the '70s and b) that one needs a 'technical' diagnosis of some DSM category to be eligible for sex-change hormones and surgery. But the point remains. We're all friends in this closet.)
But that's just a dream. And dreams have an awful way of not being reality. And the anti-psychiatriy movement gains followers, and I don't understand, it seems to me that, like Ward Connerly's latest ballot initiave, it would mask the problem and not solve it. Psychiatrists are no more evil than any other group of people, honestly. Yeah, there's some bad apples, but it's made up for by folks like the doctor that coordinates the campus bipolar group, which I regret not being able to go to this semester because it's a safe place.
Life has a way of being ironic, because in order to be even somewhat productive and stable, and a plesant girlfriend for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zibblsnrt, who gets the worst of my depression phases because he's the one that's dealing with it, I have to take those psychiatric drugs I was so scared of. And while I know if I'm on my meds or not, 'cause I'm the one that has to feed myself the damn things, he can tell by simple moodstate, and what I'm saying and doing. And he says there's a noticiable difference in me when I'm on my pills as opposed to when I'm not. I'm trying to get him to write about what it's like to date somebody with a major mental illness, because he knows so much about it from dealing with me. That and I think it would be generally enlightening for everybody. He's better at seeing what it looks like from the outside, whereas I'm sitting here trying to remember what I was feeling a week ago. I know I was horribly depressed, but I couldn't tell you the particulars.
And that's how I got started down this track in the first place, is the way campus mental health works. There's too few psychiatrists for the load of patients (and keep in mind, many mental illnesses are diagnosed in the college years), so the first line is going in and talking to a counselor. This was freshman year, maybe it was just adjustment issues. So I saw him the whole year and left in May with a supposedly clear bill of health. (I remember commenting toameth at the time that I had 'graduated from therapy'.) But when the depression came on with a vengance the next October, I luckily managed to get an intake with the therapist I'd talked to all last year, and he said something profound.
He said, "When you're up, it's like you don't remember that there's a down. And when you're down, it's like there never ever was an up period." And he agreed to make an appointment with the psychiatrist.
My first psychiatrist...well, I suppose he was just doing his job, but he wasn't a very good psychiatrist. I presented as depressed (and I was horribly depressed at the time I saw him, both a combination of biological and situational depressions combining to make a huge mess). My mom had suspected manic-depression, and I brought up the possibility and he said, "Have you ever had thoughts that you could walk out in front of a car and not get hurt even if it hit you?" And I said no, because my manias involve a *different* disconnect from reality. With that one negative, he decided I couldn't be bipolar and gave me the choice between Prozac (which makes you hyper), Paxil (which makes you sleepy) and Zoloft (which is in the middle).
Thinking back on it, having me make a choice like that was stupid, and the sign that he wasn't the greatest of doctors. But it doesn't really matter now. Because when you feed a manic-depressive anti-depressants without a stabilizer, they go through the roof into a very manic state in next to no time flat. Wednesday I took my first pill, by that Saturday, I was being driven to the hospital in an ambulance because I was passing out. (zibblsnrt, ameth, aris_tgd, and anybody else that hung around #tjab in October of 1997 might remember this incident.)
And when I showed up at my doctor's office two weeks later for my next appointment, I was in a 180 moodwise. Which caused him to reevaluate. We decided to give it two weeks to see what happened, which led us to November 19th, 1997, and my official diagnosis as manic-depressive.
And I've rattled on like this to let you know that most manic depressives don't go shooting up schools, or running over people, or having inappropriate sexual relations with their second-grade students. (Inappropriate sexual relations in a manic stage, I can go with, but *second-graders*?) I'm your typical manic-depressive. A bit screwed in the head, yeah, but on the verge of getting a master's degree.
Stigmatize me, but have the guts to say that I'm not ill to my face, please.
four in the morning
crapped out, yawning
longing my life away
I never worry, why should I?
it's all gonna fade
--Paul Simon, "Still Crazy After All These Years"
It started rather quietly. In my youth, I became an avid reader of Reader's Digest, mainly because it was the most interesting thing to read at my grandparents house, and I was quite an avid reader. I don't recall the exact day, but I was caught up in my "totalitarian governments are just waiting to take over the US!" (brought on by the effects of 1984 on a young, somewhat impressionable mind, who still didn't quite have a hang on the idea of allegory and metaphor that an adult would), and wandered across an article on Prozac. I don't remember what exactly the article said, but I was not going to take psychiatric drugs. I wasn't going to allow anybody to fuck with my mind, no sirree.
It's funny what happens in a life.
I'm going to talk about what was the second most important day of my life after being born. It might move to third when I get married, but right now, it remains. Because it was on Wednesday, November 19th, 1997 at about 10:30 in the morning, that I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. And every single day since then has remained a struggle to fight against my own head.
For those of you not in the know, bipolar affective disorder is better known as manic-depression. I *am* manic-depressive, it is as much a part of me as any other part of me, I'd guess. And yet, it's not-me at the same time. It's a complex thing to explain, and an even more complex thing to feel. It batters at my relationships with people, and eats away at all that is important to me. And it comes with a horribly tainted stigma. There are people on my friends list who are going to read this and say "Mental illnesses don't exist! You're just being dramatic!"
It is those people whom, at times, I wish I could toss a crippling load of depression on and let them try to work their way through it, while *I* got to laugh that mental illness doesn't exist, and that if they would just 'think happy thoughts, it'll go away!' I want to watch them look at everything through black coloured glasses; I want them to wrestle with the existential questions and the never-quite-leaving thoughts of suicide. I want them to watch in horror as everything they once loved to do becomes a struggle, and I want them to realize that there are days when getting oneself out of bed is an accomplishment to be praised as much as climbing Everest.
Most of all, I want them to understand.
I want those people who are living in the closet with their friendly mental illness to be able to say to the world that they have that illness, and that there is *no* shame there. For having a mental illness is much like being gay or transsexual, and coming out of the closet changes what people see. But just as a gay person dreams of the day when his orientation isn't going to matter, I dream of a day where the state of my biochemical transmitters doesn't matter, that the condition is just as treatable and normal as insulin-dependent diabetes or any other chronic but manageable condition. And I want people who are having problems to seek help without the fear of forever being branded insane or crazy. I want a stay in the mental ward of a hospital to be just like any other hospital stay.
(That last paragraph is kinda funny knowing two things, a) that being gay was considered a mental illness in the '70s and b) that one needs a 'technical' diagnosis of some DSM category to be eligible for sex-change hormones and surgery. But the point remains. We're all friends in this closet.)
But that's just a dream. And dreams have an awful way of not being reality. And the anti-psychiatriy movement gains followers, and I don't understand, it seems to me that, like Ward Connerly's latest ballot initiave, it would mask the problem and not solve it. Psychiatrists are no more evil than any other group of people, honestly. Yeah, there's some bad apples, but it's made up for by folks like the doctor that coordinates the campus bipolar group, which I regret not being able to go to this semester because it's a safe place.
Life has a way of being ironic, because in order to be even somewhat productive and stable, and a plesant girlfriend for
zibblsnrt, who gets the worst of my depression phases because he's the one that's dealing with it, I have to take those psychiatric drugs I was so scared of. And while I know if I'm on my meds or not, 'cause I'm the one that has to feed myself the damn things, he can tell by simple moodstate, and what I'm saying and doing. And he says there's a noticiable difference in me when I'm on my pills as opposed to when I'm not. I'm trying to get him to write about what it's like to date somebody with a major mental illness, because he knows so much about it from dealing with me. That and I think it would be generally enlightening for everybody. He's better at seeing what it looks like from the outside, whereas I'm sitting here trying to remember what I was feeling a week ago. I know I was horribly depressed, but I couldn't tell you the particulars.And that's how I got started down this track in the first place, is the way campus mental health works. There's too few psychiatrists for the load of patients (and keep in mind, many mental illnesses are diagnosed in the college years), so the first line is going in and talking to a counselor. This was freshman year, maybe it was just adjustment issues. So I saw him the whole year and left in May with a supposedly clear bill of health. (I remember commenting to
ameth at the time that I had 'graduated from therapy'.) But when the depression came on with a vengance the next October, I luckily managed to get an intake with the therapist I'd talked to all last year, and he said something profound.He said, "When you're up, it's like you don't remember that there's a down. And when you're down, it's like there never ever was an up period." And he agreed to make an appointment with the psychiatrist.
My first psychiatrist...well, I suppose he was just doing his job, but he wasn't a very good psychiatrist. I presented as depressed (and I was horribly depressed at the time I saw him, both a combination of biological and situational depressions combining to make a huge mess). My mom had suspected manic-depression, and I brought up the possibility and he said, "Have you ever had thoughts that you could walk out in front of a car and not get hurt even if it hit you?" And I said no, because my manias involve a *different* disconnect from reality. With that one negative, he decided I couldn't be bipolar and gave me the choice between Prozac (which makes you hyper), Paxil (which makes you sleepy) and Zoloft (which is in the middle).
Thinking back on it, having me make a choice like that was stupid, and the sign that he wasn't the greatest of doctors. But it doesn't really matter now. Because when you feed a manic-depressive anti-depressants without a stabilizer, they go through the roof into a very manic state in next to no time flat. Wednesday I took my first pill, by that Saturday, I was being driven to the hospital in an ambulance because I was passing out. (
zibblsnrt, ameth, aris_tgd, and anybody else that hung around #tjab in October of 1997 might remember this incident.)And when I showed up at my doctor's office two weeks later for my next appointment, I was in a 180 moodwise. Which caused him to reevaluate. We decided to give it two weeks to see what happened, which led us to November 19th, 1997, and my official diagnosis as manic-depressive.
And I've rattled on like this to let you know that most manic depressives don't go shooting up schools, or running over people, or having inappropriate sexual relations with their second-grade students. (Inappropriate sexual relations in a manic stage, I can go with, but *second-graders*?) I'm your typical manic-depressive. A bit screwed in the head, yeah, but on the verge of getting a master's degree.
Stigmatize me, but have the guts to say that I'm not ill to my face, please.
four in the morning
crapped out, yawning
longing my life away
I never worry, why should I?
it's all gonna fade
--Paul Simon, "Still Crazy After All These Years"
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no subject
Date: 2003-11-27 02:13 am (UTC)Y'say the last time I looked like I had it all together was Nova Scotia in July 2002, and I'd probably say that's a fair assessment. And I have been having some trouble dealing with things, that's fair too. But it might be wise to look at what's going on in my life and what's changed since July 2002.
And there was a heck of a doozy of a change in August 2002. Graduate school. I'd postulate that's the source of most of what you've seen, not Zibb or Zibb enabling me. In fact, to be utterly frank, if it hadn't been for Zibb, I'd either have dropped out or killed myself, and I'm dead serious when I say both those, and not trying to be melodramatic. I don't expect you to believe me, 'cause right now it really honestly looks like you're seeing only what you want to see, and maybe this is just more proof that I've been "regressing".
But it doesn't really matter, as you said. I was curious as to what kind of answer you'd give Zibb to his question, because I have sorta been feeling like I've been the real reason for your avoidance of IRC and stuff, and it has been an ache and a worry as to what you really thought. I've seriously wondered if there was some horrible faux pas I've done to make you not want to be my friend anymore.
So, I guess the fairest thing to do right now is to let you find yourself, and you can find me when you're at a point where you feel you can pick the friendship back up. I'll be here waiting. 'Cause I, honestly, the last few weeks, thought the worst was over and you were starting to pick back up, and then this thread happened and I'm really not sure anymore. 'Cause the Ari that was my friend would have mentioned this a while back and told me quite frankly I was being a mophead if I was getting as out of line as you say I was.
So, your call. You know how to get in touch with me, and my email's always open, and I think you know my phone numbers (I'm going to be pretty busy the next few weeks, it's finals time, but I can take a bit to talk to you and I'll leave the numbers where I'll be at this weekend in a locked entry in LJ).
But whether you like it or not, you've had an influence on the tracks of my life, and it's always going to be that way no matter what you decide. If you decide never to talk to me again, well, I can probably deal with that.
And I'm *not* trying to guilt trip you. I really like seeing you around, and talking to you, and all that. And so I figure it's best to be as honest as I can.
On the other hand, I've taken this pretty well, so I'm not always in crisis mode as of late, and I'm sorry that I burdened you.
But then again, it doesn't matter, does it?
-kat
no subject
Date: 2003-11-27 07:14 am (UTC)I think the thing that did it, allowed me to put a name to it, so to speak, was when you posted about turning six.
You are not 6, you're 25. You found the name for what was screwing you up 6 years ago, and yes, it affects your life and ability to live, but it isn't your life, it's an extra on the side. It's something you work around while living your life, not something you revolve your life around.
I really want to mop the floor with you some times. You know you should sleep, you know you should take your meds, you know you need a sane schedule, but you don't allow yourself these things. Even when it's a good chance the depression would stay under better control if you did this.
I'm mad because it feels like you're letting yourself slide to the bottom of the well when the ladder is only a few inches to the left. You're not taking care of yourself and not giving yourself a fair chance.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-27 10:28 pm (UTC)y'see, the part about *me* being six was sorta a tongue in cheek joke about the point where my life got turned topsy turvy. The ninteenth of November is always going to have that signifigance to me, and I'll prolly always joke about "me" turning whatever year it happens to have been since 1997. 'Cause humour is one of the best ways I've had of dealing with this.
To be honest, most of the time I know the seperation, it's the depression beast, after all, which implies some measure of not-me in the simple phrasing. But on the other hand, I wonder at times how much of me is me, if that makes any crazy sense. And I've been in that sort of place where I've wondered over the last six months. Not an excuse, just an explanation, perhaps.
I did get all my supports knocked out on me last year, and the meds didn't seem to be doing any good, and if anything, they made me feel like I was mired in a depression at points, and it'd be nice to get back to that grooving hypomanic high as opposed to that dullard feeling. It's dumb, but...it's some of the not-rational and seductive thoughts of this illness. And while I ought to know better, I'm still at times vulnerable, especially when I'm already in a situation of high stress.
As for sleep and a more sane schedule, part of me feels I need to live up to the demands made on me as a graduate student. If I'd had it to do all over again, I think I'd back down to eight units/semester (as opposed to the twelve I've been doing) and just take three years to go through the program as opposed to the two. But I made the mistake of perhaps being too overconfident going into it, and I paid dearly for that mistake. More dearly than even I could have predicted, if this conversation with you doesn't work out.
And it might be a surprise, but Zibb's been the biggest person chewing me out for all those transgressions you note. He just does it in the quiet spaces, where nobody would notice if either of us never said anything.
Although, I really wished I'd had both my support pillars handy -- 'cause you've got a place there too. It's really odd reaching out for the familiar connection and finding it not there anymore. And if you need the time apart, I can understand. But I *want* to know what's going on with you, even if I may not be able to help much at all. And I've been trying my absolute best not to burden you and it's just not feeling like I'm doing enough.
Because something's changed here, and I don't think it's just my inability to manage the illness as of late. (Although that's getting better. Not perfect, but I'm trying to learn to realize that the perfect is the enemy of the good--but side point.)
I've missed you. But i can understand if you need to take the time to find yourself, but I hope you've missed me as well.
And since I think we're trying to be honest, do you have something against Zibb and the relationship I'm in with him? I promise to keep my claws and fangs in the safe deposit box if you answer honestly for me. And while I may disagree, which I believe is my prerogative, 'cause in the end, like you have to fix yourself, I need to make my own decisions, but I'll hear you out.
Especially since I seem to have found the lightswitch down here and I'm climbing out.
-kat
no subject
Date: 2003-11-28 08:03 pm (UTC)When you explain, I can make sense of it and I really don't see a problem with it either. But at the same time, it helped me to put a name on what's been bugging me for a while now. I just couldn't bring it up if I wasn't sure what my mind was alarming about. And it's really just what I see and feel. I don't expect you to agree or anything like that. But I feel obligated to say something if it might be something you need pointed out.
I haven't been around much, not to talk live. But I've always checked in and scanned scroll when I have time. I read lj maybe twice a week these days, so sometimes I don't get around to commenting as much as I probably should.
I know your first semester of Grad school was a big bomb, I was around a heck of a lot more then. It's just that looking back since then, it seems like you never fully snapped back and it concerns me. It concerns me because I know you weren't taking your meds reliably, I know you weren't sleeping enough and you've just had a bad year in general. You've scared me to the point that a while back, I considered calling your mom to come check on you.
You're an adult and you have to make your own decisions. I'll never interfere with that unless it becomes life or death. But I've been worried about you and it didn't and still doesn't help that I'm dealing with my own problems now. I can never stay angry with you for very long, and to be honest, I was angry for all of a day. It's just frustrating to watch someone you care about not seem to care about themselves as much as you do. If that makes any sense.
You are a strong person to me and you always will be, regardless of whether or not you can believe that of yourself. And I don't need time apart from you, I need time apart from everything and everyone. I don't plan on going anywhere, I just can't be relied on to stay sane and helpful for the time being. Not while the panic attacks are here. I feel too off-balance to trust myself right now. You don't need my insanity, you've got enough of your own.
For the record, I have, and still do, miss you.
I do not have a problem with Zib and I very much encourage your relationship. I think part of me was upset because he's not been seeming to mop the floor with you the way I would be if I wasn't so insane. If that makes any sense at all. It's a sort of, "Dammit, you're supposed to make her behave the way I would!" thing and trust me, I'll get over it. ;)