Blogs
It's been a while since I have told the world about my diagnosis with depression, in fact, the process has been going on for about 15-20 years. But sharing my diagnosis takes on a whole new meaning when I blog about it and speak out about it publicly, outside of my family and friends. While it may be something that feels "normal" to me, it might not always be the most comfortable thing to do for you or your loved one.
It is that time of the season. Many individuals and families are putting their vacation plans together. For some, a vacation consists of running around at full speed with major anxiety and stress. Others may prefer to try a new activity, such as zip-line or scuba diving. Many with bipolar disorder and myself included, prefer the relaxed, slower than normal pace (warm climates help in the slowing down process). Doing the vacation thing with the least amount of anxiety or stress as possible with bipolar disorder does take a little advance planning (When Bipolar Ruins Your Vacation).
One possible symptom of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is substance abuse. When a person has a substance abuse disorder and a psychiatric disorder, they have a dual diagnosis. While help exists for people with mental illness and for people with substance abuse problems, getting help for a dual diagnosis is a lonely, uphill battle. Simply put, neither psychiatric facilities nor rehabilitation facilities have the desire nore ability to treat us.
I have a big speech to give in two days. Fellowship Place in New Haven, CT, whose mission is to “help adults with mental illness lead more meaningful, fulfilling and healthy lives by offering resources, education, and opportunities,” has asked me to be their keynote speaker for their Eighth Annual Dr. Albert Solnit Memorial Lecture.
This is not so much a fundraiser as it is an awareness-raiser, and I want to do justice to that purpose as I prepare my part of the evening, an hour-long “Conversation with the Author of Ben Behind His Voices.”
My problem: how to tell our family’s story, and Ben’s story through our eyes, in a way that will raise awareness? And while I blog often about our current issues as Ben struggles through recovery, for this presentation I need to go back to the early years of his illness to set the stage for the conversation.
The loss of a child is something no one ever imagines experiencing themselves, especially not to suicide. Our guest, Barb Mares, knows first had that it can happen to anyone because it happened to her, not once, but twice. About 8 years ago, Barb lost two of her sons, within a seventh month period of time, to suicide. It's a horror none of us can fathom, but she is coping with her losses and making good from them.
There’s a space of six weeks between my last two posts here at Dissociative Living. Some of that month and a half disappearance has to do with the fact that I’d been trying to do too much for the better part of a year and I reached a kind of critical mass that left me depleted and in desperate need of rest. And some of it has to do with the nature of Dissociative Identity Disorder itself. It’s natural, within the context of DID, to compartmentalize one’s life to such a degree that the various arenas in which we live – work, school, friends, etc. – are separate worlds altogether. And when one or more of those worlds collide, as they inevitably do from time to time, the resulting anxiety triggers a full retreat from one or all of the affected worlds. But I’ve discovered that there’s more to these disappearances than I believed.
People with mental illness have various levels of functioning. Sometimes a good day is when you talk in your group therapy session at the psych ward. Sometimes a good day is getting out of bed. Sometimes a good day is going to the doctor. And sometimes a good day is giving successful presentation to a bunch of executives.
It varies from person to person.
And while anyone can tell you to “take your meds,” that doesn’t really tell you how to get from non-functional to functional. It’s true no one has the exact answer, 33 high-functioning people with bipolar disorder identified six things that keep them moving forward.
Happy is what brings healthy, and viceversa, so it can't be that much of a surprise anxiety and depression have had some pretty rough consequences on my health; High blood pressure at 25, on-and-off flings with anemia, near-constant sleep deprivation.
I may as well have an imp bouncing up and down on my kidneys whilst someone tells my nervous system to pump out all the stress hormones its got, so I can feel normal, or at least prepared. Like a Girl Scout on crack. That's PTSD hypervigilance for you.
It's also that sometimes our bodies express what we are otherwise unwilling, or unable to say.
One day in 2001, I recorded in my journal: "I don't know why I am so angry." Hindsight is 20/20 (or maybe the "hindsight bias" is at play). Either way, by piecing together the evidence from my journals, I was angry because my abuser:
dishonored the goals I set for myself, following only his own
ignored my thoughts or feelings when planning "our" life together
demanded I raise our children by his rules, as if he were their only parent
and on and on...
In short, I was angry because he denied that "I" existed. "I" meant so little to him that he wanted to pretend he was the only person in our "relationship".
I’ve written about what to do when your doctor gives up on you and while I consider this to be unacceptable, it does happen. And you have to deal with it.
But sometimes, you need to give up on them.
Sometimes you need to fire your doctor.
I also have DID. And I know that it is not safe for people or animals to live with me. This is just the facts and it’s devastating. I know that to be ethical and non-harming I have to live alone. To see me, I look kind and sweet. And parts of me are. But not all the parts. I’ve been officially diagnosed and in therapy over two years, and even if we all heal, I don’t think it’s worth the risk that I could hurt or kill somebody. Some risks can be taken, but I don’t think I could say, ‘hey- let’s move in together. By the way I had violent tendencies but I think I have it taken care of. You ok with that?’