The Diagnosis (Helpful Resources)

The momma and I have decided to make March the month where we talk about the diagnosis. So in the next month I am hoping to share my thoughts on the diagnosis (and more specifically that of bipolar disorder, since that is the one I know most intimately), my thoughts on the pain of having a new label ("bipolar"), and my thoughts on the importance of finding an eventual diagnosis so that you can get the treatment you need.

So, the first thing that I would like to do is to provide resources for information about the main diagnosable mental health conditions. I want to provide this first, rather then share my personal story, because to some, good resources may be more urgent. As I discuss my diagnosis throughout the month you can always go back to this post for further information. Because so many of these sites do such a great job at explaining and addressing these illnesses (though I hate to call them illnesses) I will simply provide links to their explanations and definitions rather than attempting to create my own. I want to provide resources so that you can learn more about these illnesses and their signs and symptoms. All of these resources should be hyperlinked, so just click on the pinky/purply text.

The best place to start when learning about mental illnesses is to check out NAMI’s (National Alliance on Mental Illness) “mental illnesses” links page. Through this page you can access information on illnesses such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression, borderline personality disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and many others. Each page talks about what the illness is, how common it is, what the symptoms are, what medications and treatments are used, and more. You can also visit BringChange2Mind.org and under “Learn the Facts” view a quick list of common signs and symptoms for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Depression, Bipolar, and Schizophrenia. For more detailed information you can visit the National Institute of Mental Health’s (NIMH) Health and Outreach page .

If you are worried that you are suffering from an undiagnosed mental health condition there are several online mental health screenings. You can find some of these at the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) website. At this link you can find confidential online depression, mania, and anxiety screenings, as well as a downloadable child mania rating scale. Of course, if you are not only worried that you are suffering from a mental health condition, but are also having thoughts of suicide please visit the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/) or call 1-800-273-TALK.

The important next step if you think you have a mental health condition is to talk to a professional. It is extremely important to talk to a doctor before you diagnose yourself, but it is also important to go into the appointment with as much information as you can so that they can look at all the facts and get you the help you need. If you do not have your own doctor, and cannot find one in your area resources like BringChange2Mind's contact us page and the Knowledge Exchange Network (KEN)
(1-800-789-2647, 1-800-789-2647 or  1-877-495-0009, 1-877-495-0009
Live operators available 8:30 AM — 5 PM EST to refer you to public mental health clinics near you) may be able to help you.

Once you have an appointment, Healthy Minds has a page devoted to “Choosing a Psychiatrist”, answering questions like “where do I start?” and “what treatments do psychiatrists use?”.

I hope that some of these resources help make it easier to learn about a possible mental health condition and how to move closer to a diagnosis. In my next couple posts I will be discussing my personal diagnosis, and the importance of reaching a diagnosis.

Grieving the diagnosis

(I have no idea who did this art, but if anyone knows please let me know so I can give them the credit they deserve for such an awesome piece of work!)

My it has been a long time since I wrote a post. With school ending, the holidays, and a trip to Chicago I've been a little distracted as of late. However, its back to work, ultimately leading me back to blogland.

As I have somewhat discussed in previous posts, the last few months have been rather difficult for me. As my psychiatrist explained, I am a rather "hard patient" because my "life isn't all that stable" at the moment. But I wonder, now that I have what I believe to be a rather stable life, how is my life not stable? Now, I understand that I am in a strange sort of limbo being a new college grad without a job, (or at least a job that makes enough money to live an "adult life"), and I know that I do a ton of traveling doing speaking engagements, (and as many people explain, jet-lag is hard if you're bipolar), but I feel that I manage my "unstable life" rather well. Or at least most of the time. Until I hit three solid months of depression, having been completely emotionally stable prior to my normal yearly late October relapse, (this yearly relapse is due to a mix between solemn and painful mental health related anniversaries and changes in weather), but this year it just kept going due to a few major added stressors (such as impending graduation and the fear of finding health insurance).

But all of this I believe has been addressed in past postings, so what I really wanted to talk about is grief. In these past four months I have been trying my damnedest to be healthy and stay well. I made sure that I was not only continuing to take my meds, but I was also maintaining healthy habits such as exercising (yoga and running), meditating, and additional stress relieving activities like my new found hobby: knitting. I have tried to be patient and kind to myself and have worked with my psychiatrist to increase and adjust medications to help me get over this bump. But as I found myself continuing to move deeper or simply stay in the "pits of despair" I found myself moving into the same mind-frame that I experienced when I was first diagnosed with bipolar. I found myself feeling, to put it simply, angsty. I found that I was reverting to the teenage-angst felt when life just doesn't seem fair. When you realize, why me? And why now? I found myself getting angry at whoever or whatever has done this to me. And though I continually feel that my bipolar is part of me, though not all of me, and that I wouldn't want to get rid of it, I simply wanted it to go away, if not for even a little while.

So I suppose my question to the world is, and specifically to anyone suffering from a chronic condition or disease (and I don't really consider bipolar a disease), do you ever get over this grief completely? Do you ever just cope and come to terms with the fact that you may continually have dips in your health, even if they continue to become increasingly easier?

I know that for me they have become easier, this is by far better than my initial diagnosis, but it is still terribly frustrating sometimes to know that I may have this occur again and again. All I know is that I will get through this and it will continue to get better, but somedays, on my most 13-year old angst ridden days, I can only continue to say, this sucks.

why so hard?

So, I had this paper that I was supposed to write. It was a simple paper, four to six pages synthesizing my biggest ideas throughout college and talking about my favorite classes. I was supposed to simply write about the ideas that snowballed in my mind. The ideas that connected with thoughts in other classes and the way they changed the way I understood the world. Normally, this assignment would thrill me. I love thinking about thinking. I love when my ideas connect and snowball ultimately making my world shatter through the realization that everything I thought I knew was actually wrong, or at least completely different than I ever thought. But this time, given that I have a lot of other stressors on my plate, things like a looming college graduation, a non-existent post-grad job, and the fact that the paper came at the anniversary of a very painful past experience, (a near death by overdose), it was nearly impossible to finish. It has actually taken me about a month over the due date to complete. And last night, finally, I turned it in.

So, why was it so hard, I ask myself. Aside from the obvious previously mentioned items, I realized that it forced me to look at a part of my life in a different angle. I found it strange that I can write a memoir about my experiences with bipolar, and travel the country sharing my story, but I couldn't seem to write a simple paper about my college career. The thing that I realized though, is that I have not had your average college career. Throughout my time in college I have been diagnosed with bipolar, been hospitalized two times, came extremely close to losing my life several times, and been through innumerable amount of ups and downs, round abouts, and zigzags through the world of mental illness, self-medication, and that continuous search for stability. It was through all of this that I had one goal: to just finish school. So it was through all of this that my biggest ideas formed. Through all of these things I was attempting to write papers, read, grasp big ideas. In the end my experience with bipolar and my experience as an undergrad became completely intertwined.

In realizing all of this I finally just realized that there was still healing to do. I still had to come to terms with a lot of trauma and pain that I thought I had already coped with. It is through these tasks, seemingly menial papers, that we originally assume to be easy that each of us must realize that there is always another level. There is always a deeper level to which we can explore ourselves and our lives. Always more to the story that we originally thought. Though the paper was extremely difficult and painful I came to realize that I needed to go to that painful level to truly come to terms with my college experiences. I needed sludge through the painful moments in my life one more time so that next time it might be a little easier. Sometimes we find ourselves asking, why is this so hard?! It's because we need to confront it, to push ourselves to the next level, and to realize that everything isn't as it seems.

we should all just walk right in.

Lately I have been thinking about trauma a lot. I have been thinking about how people deal with the terrifying, heart-shattering, un-breathable moments in life. I think it all began with several interesting conversations with the boyfriend about people and tragedy. I have also been reading books that deal with similar topics (Atwood's Alias Grace, Faulkner The Sound and the Fury).

So I thought about what happened to me in the past, specifically to do with suicide, and I thought about my distance from it today. I am not sure whether I am just so used to talking about it at conferences, or so used to writing and rewriting papers and a book about it, but somehow I feel quite distanced from those traumatic places in my past. A stranger perhaps rather than the person that truly experienced them. So I talked to my counselor about it and realized that though it seems easier to continue on as a stranger with minor "unconnected" sadnesses, I need to reconnect and fully deal with my fears and pain. I have become so distanced that at times I almost feel like a liar going out and speaking about my emotional understanding of suicide. Do I understand it? Can anyone ever say that? Or am I too numb to truly remember or know what I feel.

But anyways, here is the point, and this is one I had to be told in order to believe: I have experienced it. It did happen. And though many people with horrible trauma find themselves feeling like liars or fakes, or feel as if they simply made it up,  it is something to confront. (I believe.) It is something to acknowledge and rediscover in order to truly let it go. It sucks going through memories of those horrible moments in your life, but I truly feel that it is so much better to confront things before they boil up some other way. I don't have anywhere close to as bad of trauma as many people, but I personally need to remind myself that I was there, and I did feel it. I need to remind myself that I am not lying to people by telling them I understand suicide and the pain of feeling like you don't have any more strength to survive. I just need to remind myself that ignorance is not bliss, not for me, because if I keep trying to forget I will only feel worse. Perpetually.

(And for all those of you who will wonder if I'm "okay," (dad, Jennifer,) or if I am okay doing all the work I am doing with presentations and what not, I only have to say that I am more than okay. I feel like this is important and even more meaningful when it comes to sharing my story with people. We all need to be okay with the confrontation of our selves, our demons, our fears. It is a continual process, and one that I hope my heros are constantly doing too. You go Reverend Tutu!)

to sleep is to dream

(Image by Chris Applehands)

I have been thinking a lot about rest lately, (if you haven't already figured that out by my last rant about doing too many things.) But I have been thinking about it even more because I haven't been getting very much of it in the last few months. I'm not quite sure what has gotten into me, maybe it is my medication, (lamictal and trileptal,) or maybe it is a small case of PTSD and my fear of something going horribly wrong, again, but I have been having horrible dreams, and horrible anxiety when it comes to falling asleep in the first place.

My dreams are almost amusingly obvious when it comes to symbolism, they have to do with me protecting an innocent child, (probably myself,) or me being attacked or gunned down, or murdered. It is amazing that my body, (though it was me in the past that was close to murdering myself,) remembers and almost prepares itself for some reoccurring trauma. When I think about how I am doing today I don't think about any fears regarding any sudden feelings of wanting to harm myself, but when my sleeping mind thinks about how I am doing it always seems to think otherwise.

Again, I think it is just my continuous process of recovering from the horrible things that I did, and wanted to do, to myself in the past. As for now, however I am keeping a look out for any new symbols or feelings in my frantic dreaming. I am also aware of the increasing pace of my thoughts and the increasing number of dreams, so being aware of past patterns I am also keeping an eye out for any increasing signs of manic behavior.

There is one form of comfort in all of this however, I know what to look for. And I'm not afraid! It's really quite amazing to be comfortable enough in myself and my ability to know my symptoms that I am not in the least bit afraid of mania. In the past I would have made myself manic just by stressing over becoming manic.

a found lost

i found a rather eerie picture of myself at 19. it appeared through an email from a past internet self.

i feel that the look in my eyes can only truly be described through part of Jane Kenyon's "Having it out with melancholy:"

 8  CREDO   

Pharmaceutical wonders are at work  

but I believe only in this moment  

of well-being. Unholy ghost, 

you are certain to come again.   

Coarse, mean, you'll put your feet  

on the coffee table, lean back,  

and turn me into someone who can't  

take the trouble to speak; someone  

who can't sleep, or who does nothing  

but sleep; can't read, or call  

for an appointment for help.   

There is nothing I can do  

against your coming.  

When I awake, I am still with thee.

today i remember that look, i remember that feeling, and even though it has been years since my last major bout of depression, i still find myself fearing the worst. i was always watching, waiting, and almost welcoming it back like an old friend. today however, i have come to realize that if it does return, i can handle it. i can get through it just like every other time. in the past i used to get paralyzed by my fear of its return and it wasn't until i began to trust the ebb and flow of life that i finally allowed myself to breathe.

beach and snow

two weeks ago...

one year ago...