Mental Health Meme

Posted on December 10, 2005 in Memes Stigma

OK, OK. I know I promised to write this meme two months ago. It’s International Human Rights Day and the WHO’s focus is on the Rights of the Mentally Ill. So I’m joining a special day of blogging, in part, by posting my responses.

What is your diagnosis?

I suffer from Bipolar I Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

When were you diagnosed?

Though I sought help from talk therapists for years, only one ever suggested that I seek additional psychiatric help. In late 1993, I presented myself at the Kaiser Hospital in Redwood City. Early in 1994 I was diagnosed with major depression. In 2005, that diagnosis was changed to Bipolar I.

How long do you believe you have suffered from mental illness?

I guess since the second grade.

What medications are you taking for your disorder?

Lithium, Lamictal, Effexor, and Xanax. The low blood pressure medication that I am on, Cardizem, also functions as a mood stabilizer. I have felt fewer depressions since going on Lamictal and they are much shallower. The lithium appears to be managing my manias though I still have problems detecting when they start to arise.

Tell us about an episode.

This is the tough one. When I was in college, I lapsed into a psychotic state during a break between semesters. I wasn’t eating very well, but the symptoms went beyond mere hypoglycemia.

I believed that I could predict what people were saying. The thought would run through my head “she’s going to say this” and, lo! They did. There’s a perfectly good physiological reason for this — part of my brain was lagging behind another so that I was hearing things before I fully registered them. My mind, however, became convinced that the world was entirely of my own invention, that I was the only person in existence.

A counselor “diagnosed” me and told me that this would all go away when I started eating better. It did. But the paranoia that the world was all my own invention stayed with me for months afterwards. When I am in a deep depression and isolating, it rises like a ghost out of a Chinese takeout box to gnaw at me.

Do you feel ashamed about suffering from a brain disorder?

That all depends who I am with. Members of my nuclear family do not want to believe that I have this disease despite a history of alcoholism and suicide within the lines. When I need support to continue my struggles, I find I must turn to my wife and her family, close friends, and members of my support group. Overall, I don’t see any reason to be ashamed for taking the psychotropics any more than I am ashamed for having asthma or diabetes or a heart condition. I do what I can within my physical limitations and I am a survivor, rather than a victim, of all these syndromes and the way people treated me.

What advice do you have for other sufferers?

First, do take your meds and keep a record of all side effects and mood changes that you feel so that your psychiatrist can make appropriate adjustments.

Second, learn to be your own advocate. Follow the advice I gave in the first step. Go beyond this by educating yourself about the disease so you understand what is happening to you and be able to voice your concerns to others.

Third, beware of “quick fixes” like herbal formulas or “mind control” methods or “antipsychiatry” or certain religions. I have personally witnessed stable people lose it and end up in psych wards or jails because they weren’t managing their illness in consultation with genuine experts.

Fourth, avoid those people who tell you that you are just imagining things or that you are the thrall of drug companies, etc. Many of them have a stake in seeing you stay sick.

Fifth, enjoy life. Kay Jamison — a Harvard psychologist who herself suffers from bipolar disorder — makes a distinction between exuberance and mania. Learn what the distinction means and spend as much of your life in the former state as possible. Guard against the latter.

Sixth, don’t drink or use nonprescribed drugs.

Seventh, think of yourself as a survivor rather than as a victim.

This article answers many questions people have about the illness. I recommend it for sufferers, their families, and all who want to understand.

What advice do you have for those who don’t suffer from your condition?

You say that this is all in my head. You’re absolutely right.

Well, that’s not entirely true. My pancreas, my thyroid, and my adrenals like to get involved, too.

See my advice to Tom Cruise.

Is there anything you want to say to Tom Cruise?

Don’t get between me and my psychiatrist. He knows how my brain operates.

Your religion keeps people sick. It practices magickal thinking. Studies of Scientology “mind-control” methodology going back to the 1950s show that it has little or no effect on true mental illness. Some people escape when they realize the truth. Others have died following the advice of church elders not only about mental illness, but on more routine issues such as cancer.

Even your founder used anti-psychotics.

You refuse to learn.

For the list of questions — including many for the unafflicted — click here.