*DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor, therapist, or health professional of any kind. I’m sharing things that I have been taught that have helped me (or not). This is my experience.

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Friday, November 25, 2011

Alone

It seems that I may be isolating, as I usually do as my symptoms begin to worsen.  It's easier to stay to myself than to explain what's going on.  I'm not sure if that's true.  Perhaps it's facing their reaction that's the difficult part.

I'm not reacting well to stress right now.  Having Generalized Anxiety Disorder is difficult in many ways, but especially in avoiding triggers.  Of course, that is, if you can figure out what they are.  So many times it can seem like it just appears out of nowhere.  It takes time to learn your limitations and, if you're as stubborn as I am, accepting them can take even longer.  But, in my experience, having to avoid certain situations because you know it's best for you can make you feel guilty, especially when others don't understand.  I try not to give in the temptation to call myself weak for not being able to endure and prosper the way others do.  I have been told it takes a stronger person to say no when you know it's best for you.  It sounds like the right answer, but it's hard to talk over those negative thoughts, especially when you expect so much from yourself.

I truly think that people go through a grieving process when they are diagnosed with a serious illness.  I know I have experienced this and am still working toward the "acceptance" part.  I know that accepting my prognosis is something I have and will struggle with for awhile.  Maybe a long while.  I try so hard to be realistic in my expectations of not only what I can do, but what my life will be like.  I always thought I would finish college quickly and move on to further schooling after that.  I was even accepted to the University of Oklahoma as a Pre-Med student.  I have tried an ungodly number of times to go to school since my illness became acute.  I had worked since I was 14 years old and I had planned on working while I was in college as well, something I had done my first year out of high school.  It's difficult to face that work and college are no longer options for me, at least for the foreseeable future.

I've gotten the advice from numerous people, that I should accept what is going on with me and learn to cope in positive ways.  I continually go back and forth between the opinion that what they suggest would be best for me and the idea that I shouldn't give up on my dreams.  I know in my mind that I should learn to readjust my expectations of myself and my life, but it's definitely the hardest thing I'm dealing with right now.

A doctor told me, when I was hospitalized one of the numerous times, that for the rest of my life I will be periodically hospitalized to have my medication adjusted and protect me while I have suicidal ideations.  When I look out at my life, I don't see very far.  What do you aspire to do when you can't work, or go to school, or be reliable for the rest of your life?  It's a great question, I know.

Childhood Memories


As a child, I always felt out of place; in my home, at school, everywhere.  When I started school my teacher had to teach me to tie my shoes.  I didn’t have many social skills.  Friends didn’t come easy to me.  I really didn’t know what to say to people.
               
I can remember one time I came to school late and it was my father dropping me off.  I was probably around nine or ten.  He walked in the school with me.  He asked me to tell him I loved him and give him a kiss.  I felt extremely awkward in that we never did those things.  The halls were empty, there was no one watching.  After what seemed like an hour of silent awkwardness, I whispered, “I love you,” and pushed my cheek to his.  He told me that that was not a kiss, that it was a hug.  I had never kissed my father before in my life.  I hesitated, and then kissed him on the cheek.    
               
Another memory from my childhood is the only time I ever saw my father cry.  I’m guessing I was probably close to ten years old.  I was asleep in my daybed under my frilly pink comforter when I woke to a strange gulping sound.  At first I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, until I decided it was coming from down the stairs.  My heart was pounding in my ears as I slipped out of bed and down the stairs.  I took a few deep breaths before I poked my head around the corner.  On our living room couch was my father.  The sounds I was hearing were the sobs coming from him.  His face was soaked with tears along with streams still flowing.  Shock washed over me and as quietly as possible I hurried back up the stairs.  I wrapped myself in my blanket and laid there awake until the morning.

There was one point, not long before my father started moving out for periods of time, that I found my father putting something in the ceiling of my parents’ bedroom.  When I asked what he put up there he insisted that there was nothing there.  I argued with him jokingly and he got angry.  I dropped the subject. 

Sunday, November 20, 2011

"Normal"

The idea of meeting anyone new, actually the idea of being around anyone, has become unbearable. I am so irritable and easily annoyed.  I know part of it is my headache problem because as soon as I am annoyed my head starts to ache.  My physical problems are worsening along with my psychiatric problems.  I can't help but think that both problems are really physical problems.  I have to think that my psychiatric problems are caused by physiological problems, they just happen to be in the place that controls my view of the world.  How can I think anything else, really?  I'm not saying it's not possible that I'm wrong, I'm saying that if I were to tell myself anything else I don't think I could handle it.  I have struggled with it in the past, like when I finally came to the realization that I was having psychotic symptoms.  Was this a psychiatric problem being caused by problems with my brain, or with my mind?

It's hard to separate the two sometimes, the mind and the brain.  And really, where do you draw the line between personality, the "soul" of a person, and biological traits?  Are you are who you are because you are that person, or are you the result of physiological processes that result in you behaving the way you do?  Of course, I want to believe that we are all some sort of a mixture.  That people can change without their actual physical person changing.  I like to think that the experience of having these psychiatric problems, and witnessing my family struggle with them as well, has shaped me as a person as much as all of the brain chemistry being fiddled with to "fix" me.

I admit that I am not normal and am always either annoyed or amused by people who say the ever-so-popular, "What is normal?"  The word "normal" seems to be such a loaded word for some people (much like crazy).  I will tell you what is normal:  The people who do not suffer from uncommon traits.  Being normal is simply being like the majority, and (as I said) my being in the 1% that suffer from schizophrenia makes me not normal.  While we all wish to be slightly better than normal, I am upset by stories of people being berated because they fall just outside the limits. 

Friday, November 11, 2011

Weight Gain/ECTs

"I know it's your medicine," she said.  "[Your brother] would show me pictures from like high school and I would be like, who is that?  And he'd say, my sister.  And I was like, wow, she used to be so pretty."

I, on this day, weigh more than I have ever weighed.  I never had problems with my weight until I started taking psychiatric medication.  I look at old pictures of myself and my mind doesn't even flinch.  I feel like that's who I am.  But it's not.  I am obese.  I now have a muffin-top and a double chin.  People don't stare at me or ask for my number.  Shopping, which I used to love so much, is worse than a chore.  In a way I am grieving the body I used to have.  I have said many times that I will not date until I lose the weight, even though I'm not sure that could actually happen. I've always wanted a tattoo of a bundle of orchids down my side, but I can't stand to look at my body in the mirror, so what would be the point?

The hardest time in the process of the weight gain, even though I was much lighter than I am now, was after my ECT's (electroconvulsive therapy).  Electroconvulsive therapy is a treatment they use usually as a last result.  They cause seizures using electric current to treat medication resistant depression and sometimes mania.  The patient is under anesthesia the entire time and feels none of it.  There can be many side effects from the ECT's, most immediately headaches.

Before the ECT's I had begun to gain weight as a result of the medications, just as I have been ever since.  The thing about ECT's is that they can effect your memory.  It was like I went to sleep a size three and woke up the next day a size seven.  I suddenly had stretch marks and when I tried to get dressed I always tried to put on things I used to be able to wear, which no longer fit.  I couldn't remember what was going on and once I did, I had a hard time remembering things in the long term as well.  I recognized people's faces but had a range of memories that was individual to the situation.  Some people I recognized their name and could only remember what they looked like once I saw them again.  My mother would talk about family friends and even when I saw them I still had no memory of them.  A lot of the time I didn't know how I was supposed to know people or thought I knew them from the wrong place.  I thought many of the people I knew that were my age I had known from high school.  Even though that's how my brain associated our relationship, it made no sense because it had been years since I graduated and was living hours from the town I went to school.  While I have had some memories come back to me, mostly in bits and pieces, I still have problems with short and long term memory.

People are always surprised when they find out about my ECT treatments.  I think a large part is that people don't think they perform them anymore.  Not to mention that people never think of me as being "that sick".  I am pretty open about the treatments, especially when talking to someone I'm supposed to know, but my compromised memory has erased them.  It may surprise you, but patients joke about such shock treatments when they are in the psychiatric wards quite often.  While I know there are people there getting them there (usually), they don't really speak up.  I always make a comment about having had the procedures and that's it's not something to joke about.  Usually people are more curious than malice when they realize that it's still an active treatment.  I feel that educating those with mental illness or a psychiatric episode is a step in the direction of ending stereotypes and misconceptions about all psychiatric problems.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Death Wishes


When I would get depressed after I first started having psychotic symptoms, I would cry to my mother that I didn't want to sick anymore.  I still feel the same way, of course, but I've stopped complaining that way.  When talking about how I feel about my illness, I explain what I have difficulties dealing with, like relating to other people, the side effects of the medications, and telling people that I'm sick.  Sometimes I talk about how my outlook on what's changed about what I can have in my life.  Or, more accurately, what I can't have.

When I would say those words to my mother, that I didn't want to be sick anymore, she would always seem to have disgust in her voice as she told me she didn't want to hear it.  I learned quickly to keep my agony to myself, if at all possible.  The memories of my father during my childhood and all the information I could get my hands on once my mother so eloquently dropped his diagnosis in my lap, had had me terrified that this would ultimately be my future.  And then it happened.

I have attempted suicide so many times that I can't even think of a guess as to a number.  I've had the thought in my mind that no longer being would be better than living, not only in the pain at the time, but the horrifying image of the future that only an educated imagination can create.  The thing about wanting to die is that people will say you only feel that way when you're not in your right mind.  The thing about being crazy, this crazy, is that I'm not sure if that's true.  In all actuality, I know that sometimes when you want to die you're not in your right mind.  You're depressed and symptomatic, and feel helpless and hopeless.  But, sometimes, when your symptoms are under control and your medications are working and you feel like you have some control, you still wish you would die.  Maybe not right now, this minute, or today, but soon.  Perhaps a case of terminal cancer could come your way.  Are you still not in your right mind simply because you are looking forward to your own mortality?

While I have come to a point of balance between being willing to devastate the people in my life for peace in my own and being willing to suffer so those who care about me do not, I am offended when people act as if the even thought of wanting to die is wrong or weak.  I do believe that, for the most part, dying is easier than living with this illness.  I, however, do not believe in an afterlife.  Coming up with coping skills to make it through each individual day is hard enough, let alone when you do everything that you know is right and it should help and it just doesn't.  Perhaps choosing not to be tormented by something that has taken up shop in your brain before you could even fight it is not weak, but intelligent.  One could argue that making the decision to do something that is easier is the smarter thing to do.

Not measuring up to others' standards, let alone your own, seems to be an intricate part of a lot of mental illness.  Because of my illness, I cannot be the friend I want to be.  One time a friend of mine tried to interact with me but because of my illness I was unable to focus on anything but the symptoms I was struggling with.  Unfortunately because of his own illness he then went to his own apartment and attempted suicide.  Knowing that I'm letting my friends down makes me not only feel guilty, but my self worth as a friend is wounded.

There are people who say you should manage mental illness naturally, without medication.  Then there are those who support the use of prescribed medications as the only way to help.  And there are others who feel you can use any effective ways of treating and coping with your mental illness.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

The Public's View (Cut Short)

The way other people, "normal" people, see us that have a mental illness (or two, or three) can be seen in the media, including social media.  The word crazy is used both flippantly and to purposely hurt people.  It is defined in many ways, depending upon the dictionary you use.  These include insane, demented, flawed, passionate, unusual, and many others.

While I use the word "crazy" to define myself, I do not use it in the context of others.  I am known for saying that the word does not hurt me when it's used to describe me because I am mentally ill, therefore I am crazy.  On a deeper level I feel that I use this word in an effort to keep others from using it against me.  Believe it or not, people don't even have to use that or any other label in order to make things hard for me.

When I first began to have psychotic symptoms, before I even was admitting to myself that it was actually happening, I drunkenly spewed the fact of my father's illness and how I beginning to show signs of the same thing to a guy I had just started dating and the man who I now claim as my best friend.  Apparently I also tried to get into a car that was not my own and shattered my cell phone on the cement.  When I woke up the next day and I was told about what happened, I was embarrassed and shocked that I would say such a thing, and even more shocked about how truthful the things I had said were.

Relationships

"You don't get points for pity fucking the sick girl."  - Love, and Other Drugs

Relationships are complicated for everyone.  Everyone has baggage.  But people have a hard time accepting what they don't understand.  It's easy for people to understand that you are having a hard time getting over your ex or that you were abused as a child or maybe that you had a drinking problem.  Hell, some people even understand that you suffer from depression now and then.  But when you have to tell someone that you see, hear, feel, and believe things that aren't real and that it will never go away, just go in remission when your medications are working, it's not just hard:  It's excruciatingly embarrassing.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Suicide and Death Wish

Wanting to die is a strange thing.  When your psychiatrist talks to you about death they have you make a distinction between wanting to die and wanting to kill yourself.  Between a death wish and suicidal ideation.  I've been on both ends of the spectrum and everywhere in between.  I have even wished to have just enough of a physical illness as to that people would allow me to be depressed.

My definition?

Schizophrenia has become who I am.  If I'm not currently having symptoms, I'm thinking about when they will return.  I'm constantly managing my emotions and medications.

I don't want people to pity me because of my illness, but at the same time I want them to see that this is the farthest from easy.  I don't want them to expect more from me than I can give them.  I want to say I live life with no expectations, especially of others, and that they should have no expectations of me.  But life is full of expectation.  People have ideas on what should happen and who people should be, myself included.  I have heard the quote, "Don't should on yourself," but it makes me wonder if, perhaps, we should add, "or others,"  to that.

I have always done well in school.  I was average in spelling, but in pretty much all other areas I excelled above the crowd.  I had an expectation that I would prosper in high school and go on to get at least a master's degree in an out-of-state college.  With the issues in my life amplified by my budding mental illness, I did not meet all of my own expectations.  I did graduate early from high school with a 3.56 GPA, but a few C's, D's, and a single F showed up on my transcript.  I did go to college, several colleges actually.  They were always community colleges, even though I was accepted to several universities (even pre-med at the University of Oklahoma).  As my illness blossomed, it became necessary for me to withdraw from several semesters, and a few times I had a poor grade to reflect it.

I also had great expectations for myself in the workplace, which I entered at fourteen as a hostess.  I would always strive to do my best (with an exception of a fast food job, which was more like a high school dance than work).  I took my position at each job seriously, even when waiting tables, and had almost a perfectionist attitude.  I wanted to be the best.  At most companies I excelled quickly and learned several different positions in each.  I spent my time, sometimes interchangeably and most times simultaneously, trying to exceed others' and meet my expectations in with school and work.   As I was forced to call in sick more and more often as a result of my mental illness, my symptoms were amplified by the depression created by the disappointment in myself.  It became clear in my early twenties, at first that I couldn't work and go to school at the same time, followed by the slow realization that I couldn't even do one or the other.

I've been through a ton of therapy; individual, group, CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy), partial hospitalization, relaxation, etc.  In these settings people seem to you want to come to the conclusion that you haven't failed to meet your expectations, that you just need to adjust them.  They want you simply ignore the fact that you can't meet everyone else's expectations.  And it's not because you're not skilled or qualified, but because you have an invisible illness that won't allow you to.  People are so afraid of failure (especially those of us who are perfectionists) that they think it's easier if we don't think of it as "failure", but in all truth that's what it is.  I think in order to move into making appropriate decisions based on our capabilities, we need to accept our failures.