Musings for the mentally interesting....

It's the title of my blogspot......today it's also the title for my blog.

It's not often I talk--in-depth, anyway--about life with a mental illness. And that's because.....in some small way, I refuse to acknowledge it: it's there, yes......I take medication for it, yes......but I don't let it be an excuse to slow me down, nor do I use it to garner special treatment. It's taken some time, but I've come to accept it as something I'm going to have to learn to live with.....and I am STILL learning, every day, four years after the diagnosis.

Four years ago, after six months of what my current doctor calls a 'mixed' state (and this is an expression that amuses me......'mixed'. Mixed drinks......mixed nuts. Yeah, that's what I was--mixed nuts. I couldn't figure out if I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry or chicken choke someone.......and I mean, just wring their frigging neck.)....after six months of this, I was diagnosed with type 2 bipolar disorder. For six months and medication changes by the score, I was pretty much FUBAR, and that is a perfectly accurate description. I wasn't able to drive, leave my house alone--I almost couldn't leave my house, period. Three doctors, and diagnoses of everything from major depression with agoraphobia, panic disorder, OCD.....endless. The medications went from Wellbutrin to Lexapro to Prozac to Zoloft to Elavil--and ALL of them caused side effects that ranged from roller coastering emotions (Wellbutrin--I'd go on one minute about how FABULOUS life was, only to be in tears five minutes later and asking what is it all for??) Lexapro actually caused--and I realized this after Abnormal Psychology and studying a DSM-IV--aka the Psych Bible--that when I was taking Lexapro, clinically speaking, I was experiencing mild psychosis. Finally, Bill's Aunt Cindy encouraged me to see her doctor--something I will always be grateful to her for: my current doctor had me straightened out within a month. After listening to my history--moreover, after hearing that my mother had been prescribed Lithium--and taking into consideration my reaction to antidepressants (which, as it turns out, is classic bipolar--antidepressants make you WORSE) her diagnosis was type 2 bipolar disorder. She did something almost unheard of--took me off the Elavil cold turkey--took it AWAY from me, in fact. I was sent home with two mood stabilizers, clonozepam (and ordered to TAKE IT--I had been reluctant to take Xanax because of fear of the addiction factor. The anxiety showed--I had lost a hideous amount of weight, and I narrowly missed hospitalization simply for emaciation).....and appetite stimulants, with orders to put on five pounds before she saw me again in two weeks--or else.

As much as I would love to argue with that diagnosis--I can't. It fits. My mother had it--although I suspect Mom's was worse than mine, for reasons I will not go into here; except to say she was once hospitalized, and the day she got home, she flushed her Lithium. There is a strong biological element to bipolar disorder. Furthermore, her father was at one time in his life an alcoholic, and it's believed that many bipolar patients self-medicate with alcohol. Mom, devoutly religious, did not fall into this habit.......although I have to say, there were times I wish she had.

Although the medication was wreaking havoc emotionally, my body had become dependent on the Elavil, and the cold turkey withdrawl wasn't always pleasant--physically speaking. I was sweaty, cold, nauseous and weak. But.......after the fifth day without it, I began to feel like someone had taken a pipe wrench and loosened something before a pressure valve blew; by the end of seven days, I could eat a full meal and go back for a snack a little later, and by the end of ten days, I was sleeping through the night again and even napping during the day, after all the months of sleep deprivation. I could also concentrate enough to read--very welcome indeed.

For the first few days, however, I found myself angry.....today, I say this not out of anger, I say it out of honesty: I spent alot of time growing up on the receiving end of my Mom's outbursts--very likely triggered by the illness she had. And now.......she'd passed it on to me--some of my very own. It was a bitter pill to swallow (actually, it's four bitter pills to swallow, once a day at bedtime.) I was resentful. And I wanted to fight it, wanted to deny it, wanted to forget about it. NOW I am thankful for the doctor's orders.......because they were that she was to see improvement in two weeks, or in the hospital I went. And improvement she saw.....at the end of a month, encouraged at my progress but still a little concerned at my lack of affect, she suggested adding an antidepressant. (This took some serious convincing. It took another month of visits to even get me to utter the word 'antidepressant'.) After assuring me that the mood stabilizers would keep the antidepressant in its place, I reluctantly agreed. Unlike before, the Effexor she gave me didn't cause a swift, severe (and severely undesirable) reaction--I called her on day five of it and told her I didn't think it was doing shit. "Keep taking it....." her answer. And after about two weeks, I literally woke up one morning, and someone had turned the lights on, and put all the colors back. I sat up in bed and was looking around.....what the look on my face must have been, God only knows, because Bill said, "What? What's wrong?" And I said, "Nothing....for once. I think........I'm better."

Yes.......I was better. But--bipolar disorder (I refer to mine as Bipolar Lite--most of the fun, most of the guilt, but no five point restraints, no antipsychotics, no little birdies calling me)--bipolar disorder is a chronic illness, and it's likely I will be treated for it for the rest of my life. As I approach middle age, one of two things will happen on the old bipolar pendulum--it'll dwindle and stop (hey, it takes alot of energy to be crazy, and the doctor says there is the possibility that I will quite literally get too old for that shit) or..........there is the chance it will worsen. (I did a semester long project on schizophrenia in Abnormal Psych class. Men usually develop it in their late teens/early twenties. Women are closer to thirty, and the chances of developing it spike again around menopause. Schizophrenia and menopause........that speaks to me, and it says 'justifiable homicide.')

All this being said....as I mentioned, mine is a chronic illness. I have setbacks, and unfortunately, my temperament and 'wiring', for lack of a better word doesn't allow for much to go wrong before I do get a setback. My psychiatrist is wonderful in that she agrees that I should take just what keeps me functional........and happy. For the most part, I am both. But there are still days when 250 mgs a day of Lamictal doesn't keep the edge off. There are days I am volatile; and it is worst when I am under pressure. I can organize, prioritize, put everything in its place and get busy........that doesn't mean I won't give a good tongue lashing (and not one that you'd enjoy) to anyone who gets in my way.

On the flip side of that........there are days when I'm those sad bastards you see in the Cymbalta commercials (God, I hate those commercials......probably because I belong in one.....but the part at the end, "Depression hurts. Cymbalta can help." Is that really supposed to make us feel better? I mean.......yeah, depression hurts. Cymbalta probably CAN help--so can a Drain-O sandwich.) And I can say that because when I was on the Lexapro, I got curious as to the culinary properties of Drain-O. Talk about something that would cleanse the palate.....I can joke about it now, but the truth is, at the time, it was very real, it was very frightening, and the thoughts were very uninvited. And the harder I'd try to make them go away, the worse they got.

And right there--I have one of the answers: I have to just go with it. I'm going to have bad days, and accepting it is much easier than fighting it. Fortunately, sans Lexapro, my bad days no longer include taking into consideration whether I will have my Drain-O en croute or tartare. Ironically, the panic attacks also stopped when--upon feeling one creep up on me--I would STOP fighting it.....and simply say, "Oh, f--- it!! Go ahead then......let's get this over with." Do I want to live with bipolar disorder--no. But I DO want to live, so it looks like we're going to have to be roomies.

I can take the medication, and I can do what the doctor says.......but there are days when you ARE just along for the ride. While I have learned to tell myself--and be accepting in the knowledge--that this too shall pass.....it's not always so easy for those around me to understand. And there are days when I fight it, and fight it hard--the urge to stay in the bed, the urge to get in the refrigerator and eat my way out, the urge to go spend oodles of money on something ridiculous (with me, books and clothes). And this mentally fighting with yourself wears you down, and it makes you tired......and cranky. I'm not always easy to live with when I'm like this--but I'm up, I'm fighting, and I'm accomplishing things. That's what I want. Maybe this will make sense: sometimes the illness wears me down.......and I have to do the same right back. Because after several days of these mental Olympics, I will start to WANT to do things again. I just have to keep reaching for it.

Having addressed all these things, I would like to insert here a few words of advice. For all of you inclined to tell people like myself to 'cowboy up'--please go be a rodeo clown. Because you sound as stupid as they look. While there is--and a good psychiatrist will admit this; mine does--such a thing as mental illness that is self-inflicted via drug and alcohol abuse....that is not always the case. I would give almost anything to be 'normal'--granted, that is a very subjective term. We may be a horrifying pain in the ass to live with sometimes......but I speak for myself, and I'm pretty sure I speak for a few I know who struggle with naturally -acquired mental illness: this is not who we are. We are people who are overly sensitive, are too easily hurt by things, and have so much love for others that it is almost toxic to ourselves and our psyche, if that makes sense at all. We want to be everything to everyone, and we WILL do it--no matter the cost, and the cost is ourselves. In spite of what life has dealt us.......we are more attuned to the little things, and I think, can find beauty in more things than do others. If it IS the bipolar that makes me these things.......I think that it's quite possible that sometimes, in some ways, the good just may outweigh the bad.