There but for the grace of you go I

It's been hotter than Hades here on the East Coast. Indeed, news reports are saying it's the warmest weather in over 100. Records are being smashed.

All I know, baby it's hot outside. So I stay inside, with a semi working air conditioner that is doing the best job to keep me cool. I can't complain. I have electricity. Parts of the East Coast are still without electricity, and other parts are suffering brown outs because the electric companies cannot keep up with demand.

It's all good.

I daydream a lot that I am in Antarctica. Or the North Pole. Someplace nice and cold. With penguins. And ice.  Can you imagine anything better for a daydream? (Hey folks, this is a G rated blog).

So I found myself at the local supermarket- a ginormous supermarket, getting a few things to eat and various important things like the dreaded toilet paper. Cottage cheese and fruit. It's too hot to eat anything heavy. Some cream for my coffee. Some brown sugar for my tea. A five pound bag of ice to stick in the bathtub and just try to cool off with.

Then I saw her when I was at the salad bar, making dinner for the night.  A woman in her sixties, Immaculately dressed, like she just came out of church, including the requisite church ladies hat in a lovely shade of fuchsia. Thinner than Kate Moss. And with a very strange look in her eye, she yelled at me "Who you staring at bitch"?

I didn't look at her, said a silent prayer that she would just move on. Again, she comes up to me, says a few words which I cannot repeat and spits at me.

I've never seen anyone spit on another human being, other than the now famous VH1 New York/Pumpkin spit episode. I thought it was something done in movies and soap operas, like slapping someone's face, or spilling a drink on someone at a bar.

I don't know what to say, I don't want to look up. The manager comes by. Again, she yells and curses out the manager. A stock clerk who knows this lady, comes over to her, and walks her away, her cursing out a group of people very loudly.

The manager hands me a tissue. Do you want to press charges? The police are on their way. Several other store patrons are pressing charges. I shake my head, no, and hand him my salad. I don't want it now. I don't want any of my groceries. I just want to go home and take a shower. I feel dirty.

"What will happen to her", I finally ask. He replies the cops will take her to the local ER. The ER will evaluate her- make sure she's not drunk or high. He thinks she is on something but doesn't know. "She's a regular", he states. "I've never seen her like this".


On the way out the the door, I see from the corner of my eye, a police car with the woman sitting in the back. I  can hear her cursing as I walk by, despite the windows being up.

Drunk or high. I hope for her case that is all it is. I'm afraid it might be worse- something wrong with her soul. Her eyes scared me when I took my brief glimpse in them. It was like her soul was missing. I've only seen that once before in my life.

I haven't slept since this encounter. It's not due to the heat- it's due to what I am afraid is happening to this woman. I'm hoping she was drunk or high, and released after 12 hours. I'm afraid she was taken to the ER, and is now in a mental hospital. I picture her sitting in a chair, doped up the gills on a drug cocktail like Thorazine,so she's restrained and not spitting. Staring catatonic at a TV screen. Lost in a universe of her own making, imprisoned in her mind.

I know what it's like to be cranky and miserable in this heat. It brings out the worst in me. Add to the mix, hot flashes, and I am beyond cranky. But not at a point where I will spit. Never there. How do I know this woman wasn't just over tired with the heat, hungry and feeling miserable. This might have lead her to a break where one brief moment she made some bad judgements and felt at the end of the rope? Couldn't they just give her a nice cold drink and calm her down.

I need to get dinner for tonight but it's too hot to eat. I'll have an iced tea and a pb and j sandwich. Perhaps tomorrow I will go to the store to get some fruit and since it's a small town, learn about what happened to this poor woman.

On the other hand, maybe I should go a few more miles down the road to the next closest grocery store. I'm afraid I don't want to know what really transpired.

See, how do I know that won't be me some day?

ETA: Big Thanks to Anthony at My Sick Mind for giving me the actual correct quote for the title. Anthony you rock!

Error Code

For some reason, some people, including me, have tried to access this blog today and are receiving an error code from Blogger.

I've notified Blogger and let them know. If this happens to you, keep hitting refresh button until the blog comes up on line. It should take two or three hits.

I am sorry for any problems this may have caused.

Lazy, Hazy, Days of Summer

Confusion. Sometimes my brain is so confused I don't know if I am coming or going. So what else is new?


I've been tired. Tireder than anything. You know you are tired when you are sleeping more hours a day than a cat. It's not the sleep that comes from depression or boredom it's the kind that comes from being downright tired, worn out, feeling sick but you don't know why everything is hurting. You lie down on the bed and you can feel your insides moving around, you feel them working. There are sharp pains in the kidneys, and the female parts. I've been waking up in the middle of the night with flashes and the only way to feel cool again is to take an ice cold bath and dream I am in Antarctica.

I can't eat, which is not a bad thing. I cannot see well enough to read, so I listen to books on tape. I just stumble out of bed, like after a long ago two day drunk, with wobbly legs and make my way to the toilet. Then it's feed the kitty, water the kitty, change her box, back to bed. Maybe update Facebook or post a lone Tweet, so people know I am alive. Then back to bed. To sleep, perchance to dream. But dreams don't come- or if they do, and I am a very vivid dreamer, - I simply don't recall them.

It's a numbness. My hour of lead, so to speak.

I've been told to see a doctor. I'm scared to. Scared there may be something really truly wrong. Like with my kidneys again, or my white blood count. I know my bladder isn't working at the moment, it's either feast or famine with it.

All you can do is persevere, like Dilsey.

I see my psychiatrist for the last time tomorrow. She is leaving her practice. I have to find a new one. I still have weekly meetings with my state worker, who I think, is nice but I keep her on a short leash. (More about that later). Things with the family are status quo. They don't really ever change. It's like a weird dance where you want to change partners, but you can't. To make matters worse, the band keeps playing the same song. It's worse than Groundhog's Day.

The cat now has hyperthyroid and is on a special diet. She is doing better. I couldn't write about that because she was on pills and doing terribly, and I thought for a few horrible days I would loose her. She is doing much better now, though she's very mad at me she can't have a bit of chicken or some other yummy morsel with her dinner.

When I started this blog four and a half years ago, I never thought I would go a month without blogging. I needed the break. I needed the time off. When I blog, I read psychiatric news stories for hours a day and read all I can to keep my education current. It was getting too much, which I think had a lot to do with my tiredness. My body was tired, my soul is tired.

It still is, but I miss my readers, I miss the process of writing. This is the best therapy I know of- and it doesn't cost anything more than an Internet connection. It calms me down, makes me feel whole. Not many things in life can do that, that aren't illegal, immoral or fattening.

It's no longer a matter of surviving for me. It's a matter of persevering. One step beyond survival.

----------------

For your enjoyment, the latest Holly photo. You can see she's getting a bit older.

Million Dollar Big Pharma (infographic)

Thank you for a friend on Facebook for sending this to me. I think the graphic says it all.

Dead computer among other things

Hi. I just want to assure anyone reading this- I am ok... the reason I have not blogged in two weeks is this. I have been taking care of a sick family member, and the cat, for some reason unknown, actually peed on my computer. She has never gone outside her litter box, and the fact she took my two year Mac as an object...

I should be back in a few days once I can rustle up a computer.

The upside is I  have time now for reading!

Love, Labels and Lies

"Hi. My name is Susan and I have been diagnosed as Bipolar 1, ultra rapid cycler. I've been on over 50 different med cocktails, seen over 30 psychiatrists, and had ECT. On a scale of one to ten, I am feeling about a five tonight. Flat. Sleepy. I'm happy to be here tonight."

So the check in continues in my old support group. Name, diagnosis. Meds you are currently on. How you are feeling, how the meds are making you feel. And so on. Pass the card to the next person. 

First order of business. Make sure no one feels suicidal, makes sure everyone feels safe to share. And then talk of what is going on with our lives. Work issues. Family issues. Medication issues. Sex. Anything or everything.

Sounds good in theory. But here's the rub. As the group went on for years, and people grew comfortable with each other, something happened. A p-doc change because of a new job and a new insurance company. All of a sudden, the gal sitting next to me who has been "Bipolar 2" is now "Bipolar NOS". What is this? The guy who has been labeled "Schizophrenic" is now "Bipolar 1". The college student who was previously labeled "ADD/ADHD" is now "Schizoaffective, and OCD".

What gives?

Two things actually. One thing, the easier one to grasp, is what has happened to me. A medication on your cocktail gave you some funky side effects. You never felt paranoid before, but now you do. Once that medication stops and is out of your body, the paranoia is over. The label remains. In my case, a pharmaceutical made me hear voices. I mentioned this to my doctor and saw my Axis I definition changed from "Bipolar 1" to "Bipolar 1 with Schizoaffective disorder". It went away after I was weaned, but to this day, the permanent side effect is I need my iPod with me 24/7 to concentrate, listening to talk radio or books on tape. If I don't have something in my ears with this type of white noise, my brain will not function.

My label changed. Not a big deal. It's been changed in the past. Almost every p-doc I have ever seen has changed it.

Here's the truth. You go to a new p-doc. They spend the first meeting or first two meetings asking you a deluge of questions. Based on the way you answer, and the knowledge of the p-doc they give you a label based on your questions.

The first time I was evaluated my p-doc had the DSM III. I was evaluated by an overworked medical student following a suicide attempt in the ER department, right before I was sent inpatient. That label was "Depressed". I was also labeled "Suicidal" and spent two weeks on a 1-1 suicide watch, eventually graduating to a 1-15 and then finally joining the rest of the hospital. When I was deemed well enough to get off that 1-15 and join the rest of the hospital patients, I got a new p-doc. He spent close to three hours with me and gave me a new diagnosis. "Manic Depressive". I stayed with this doctor for six years. By the time I left him because of a new job and insurance, the DSM III-R had come out and my new diagnosis was "Bipolar". He assured me it was the same thing. I understood. I had many psych courses in college, both undergraduate and graduate. I remember Schizophrenia was called "Dementia Praecox" at one time.

That's all well and good, but my old support group was really hung up with labels. One girl came in hysterical one night that she was no longer straight OCD, she was now diagnosed as a Borderline on top of it. As soon as she said it, I saw her friends, who previously liked her, now distanced themselves from her. Indeed, I know a therapist in real life who refuses to see anyone with that label. EVER.

Here's what I think about labels. Unless you are shopping for consumer goods, labels don't matter. A label is something a doctor throws on you, whether it's psychiatric or other so he has a number to submit to the insurance company to get money from your visit. It shouldn't define you.

Here's my labels. Susan. SWF. Forty something. Educated. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Very zaftig. Short,( five feet tall). Flat feet.

Diagnosis- lost my way in the maze of life following a bad relationship, and currently unemployed, I feel lost, adrift. I am searching for something to give my life meaning.

Yes, I am different than most people. I have a creative brain, not a scientific one. I overthink things. I feel things differently because of the creativity. Yet, I am no different than anyone else. Yes, right now I am sorely depressed. Melancholy. What ever you want to call it. I've lost my way.

Those are my labels. I think they help me define me much better than the labels my p-doc has given to me over the years. Bipolar 1, Manic Depressive, Schizoaffective, Schizophrenia. I don't think of them and I don't let them get me upset .Because I won't let the illness define me. I let me define me.

That's the sad part about my former support group. Though it means well, people never got passed the labels, and they let them identify them as people. They shouldn't. Let the doctor and the insurance company sweat them. You are a vibrant, wonderful, unique person. Your label is your name. But owning that, is the first step to achieving wellness.

And that is what everyone wants at the end of the day. To be well again. 

Depression-taking hostages

Holly on the fridge

They say depression can leak out to family members, much like the way it's noticed that female college roomates often synchronize periods.

It makes total sense, if you are around someone who is sad and depressed you try to cheer them up. You do everything you can in your bag of tricks. When nothing works, and your loved one/friend/family member is the same or worse, it wears you down.

Next thing you know you are falling into sadness/depression as well.

It's like a cold. Sneeze on me, and I get the sniffles too.

During the last bought I went through, I noticed something strange. My beloved cat, Holly, stopped eating. I would make myself get out of bed every morning, feed her, change her water bowl, clean her litter box. We would spend days together lying in bed, she being cuddled up against my tummy or my leg and I can hear her purr.

She never stopped purring. But on day two of not eating, I knew something was wrong. Holly is like the infamous Garfield- I have never known her not to pass up a meal. Especially if I can coax her to eat a can of Fancy Feast tuna or other fish flavor.

She wouldn't eat. She continued to drink, but wouldn't eat. And I in my malaise, didn't notice it as much as I should have til about day five. I went to pick her up and she felt lighter. I continued to coax her to eat, a bite here, a bit there. In my sadness, I thought she was OK.

Then came the meows and howls at 3 am. It was the worst case of caterwauling I've ever heard, short of a female cat in heat. I would pick her up, cuddle her, hold her, sing to her. The noise stopped but I noticed she was spending more and more time in bed with me, asleep, and less time doing the cat things that made up her daily routine.

To make a long story short, I finally took her to the vet. After some lengthy tests, it was determined that Holly has a hyperthyroid, and will have to be pilled for the rest of her life.

I felt like I had just been kicked in my stomach, and had the air knocked out of me. Did I cause her to get sick?

I know I didn't but I feel like I am responsible. If only I hadn't suffered from melancholy, I wouldn't have a sick kitty.

For those who have had the fortune to have an animal in their lives, these miracles on paws really creep into your heart. They become a member of your family. You love them more than some of your family members. They are your best friend. When they are feeling under the weather, you ache because you can't talk to them and ask them what is going on.

I've seen countless studies how owning a dog or a cat removes stress, creates happiness. Watching a tail thump is pure happiness. Having someone to come home to, especially if you live by yourself, is a wonderful thing. You don't feel lonely. And so on.

I know that pets sometimes take on their owners personalities. By this last depression, I created a depressed cat. I didn't mean to. I had to work extra hard to get out of that dark place, if not for myself, for the cat. I owed her that much when I adopted her and promised her a good life.

Wouldn't you do that for your best friend?

Occupy the APA- May 5, 2012

Occupy APA by Amy Smith

On Saturday, May 5, 2012, as thousands of psychiatrists congregate in Philadelphia for the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Annual Meeting, individuals with psychiatric labels and other supporters will converge in a global campaign to oppose the APA's proposed new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), scheduled for publication in May 2013. Occupy the APA will include distinguished speakers from 10 a.m. to noon at Friends Center (1515 Cherry Street, Philadelphia). A march at 1 p.m. from Friends Center will lead to the Pennsylvania Convention Center (12th and Arch Streets), where the group will protest beginning at 1:30 while the APA meets inside.

"This peaceful protest exposes the fact that the DSM-5 pushes the mental health industry to medicalize problems that aren't medical, inevitably leading to over-prescription of psychiatric drugs - including for people experiencing natural human emotions, such as grief and shyness," said David Oaks, founder and director of MindFreedom International (MFI), which has worked for 26 years as an independent voice of survivors of psychiatric human rights violations. "We call for better ways to help individuals in extreme emotional distress."

Other speakers criticizing the revised manual, considered the psychiatric industry's bible, include Brent Robbins, Ph.D., Secretary of the Society for Humanistic Psychology, which has gathered more than 8,000 signatures from mental health professionals calling for "developing an alternative approach" to the DSM.

Jim Gottstein, Esq., founder and president of the Alaska-based Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights), will cross the country to speak. "The public mental health system is creating a huge class of chronic mental patients through forcing them to take ineffective yet extremely harmful drugs. As the APA gets ready to do even more harm with its proposed expansion of what constitutes mental illness, I want to be there in person to participate in the protest."

Occupy the APA will begin at 10 a.m. at Friends Center (1515 Cherry Street, Philadelphia), where the speakers will also include Dr. Paula Caplan, a psychologist, playwright and activist from California; Dr. Al Galves, director of the International Society for Ethical Psychology & Psychiatry (ISEPP); Joseph Rogers, chief advocacy officer of the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania (MHASP); and Dr. Stefan P. Kruszewski, a whistleblower who was fired by the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare after he reported the abuse and deaths of Pennsylvania children as a result of systemic physical and psychiatric malfeasance. His subsequent federal lawsuit was successfully settled in 2007.

The rally will be followed by a march to the Pennsylvania Convention Center at 12th and Arch Streets, where participants will hold a protest at 1:30 p.m.

"We will promote humane alternatives to the traditional mental health system, such as peer support, which evidence proves is effective in helping individuals recover from severe emotional distress," Oaks said. "Our protest is about choice, and everyone is welcome."

Contact: David Oaks, MFI, 541-345-9106, boycott@mindfreedom.org

SOURCE Mind Freedom International

Fear and loathing

 

I've been remiss in blogging for a bit. This bothers me, concerns me. It's not like me.

I can say things have gotten hectic in the Casa de Susan, but that's not entirely true. The truth - the whole truth and nothing but the truth- I'm not only too depressed to write-I am afraid to write.

I've been writing in my private journal, a nice leather bound book I've had for several years. But to write here- on line where the entire world can see- this scares me.

Here's the back story. Back in January I was assigned another social worker from the state. The old one, the one I really liked isn't working there anymore.  At about the same time I received a knock on my door, and two of my town's finest came by to make sure I was ok. and did I need to be escorted to the hospital?

I asked them what they were doing here and they replied words to the effect someone saw something I posted on line and contacted them.  Ok. I have a FB account, a Twitter feed. On FB i have it set so no one can see what I write. Twitter- I don't hardly use that account. So that leaves this blog, or Facebook. (Susan's note- I found in March who it was that called the police- it was neither from this blog or FB/Twitter).

I'm scared to write. I know about involuntary hospitalizations, I've never experienced one. Every time I've been hospitalized it's voluntary.

I met my new social worker a few days later, at the local Starbucks. I scrounged around the car and the sofa and found enough change to buy a plain cup of coffee, (1.85 with tax) and tip for the Barrista ( 50 cents). I've been a Barrista at my last bookstore job. Everyone is cross trained to run and make coffee when they get in the weeds if you aren't on the register. The tips are really nice but you pool them so it's not a lot of money.

She's a young woman, straight out of Graduate school with a MSW. She's thin, dark and exotic looking too me. Gorgeous thick black hair, and black eyes. An accent that does not sound like a NJ/NY accent. I smile. She sits down with me and starts to talk.

From here it goes downhill. I understand where she's coming from. She's brand spanking new, having been at the job for a fortnight. She's totally playing by the book. I've been there, with every job I had. It's only after you've been there long enough to get tenure, or pass your 3 month eval, can you relax and smile. I got that.

But she's twisting my words, trying to psychoanalyze everything. I'm not playing, not baiting her. I try to correct her, to tell her my education is as good if not better than hers. I've had the psych classes she has. I KNOW what she is trying to do. What she wants me to say. And she's not listening. She's already prejudiced towards me and refuses to listen.

I'm in trouble. Deep deep trouble. She asks me how old I was when I was first diagnosed. "23" I tell her without hesitation. I tell her the first doctor used the DSM III, the second doctor a week later had the DSM III R. How my diagnosis changed a few years later with the DSM IV, and why I think labels are ridiculous. How I've seen over 30 docs in my lifetime, I have all the Axis diagnoses in my head.

She mentions meds. I tell her I am not on meds, I have not been on any psych medication since November 2010 when my kidneys failed. She thinks I should be on them. I tell her I love my kidneys and don't want any drugs that can cause them to fail. I tell her my brain is starting to work again. I don't want to be on any psychiatric drugs.

Then why are you depressed?

I want to laugh. If I was to put myself on the couch, my depression is situational. It's hormonal. You deal with perimenopause and hot flashes and see how you feel! You see how you feel as your reproductive life is starting to end, how you are grieving for it. Making final closure how you will never feel life inside you for nine months. Getting your period twice in one month with such bad cramps you can't stand up, and then waiting ten weeks before it comes again, and the only good thing about it is you aren't sexually active anymore. All your weight goes to your tummy and your breasts are sagging and you look like the Venus of Willendorf. Like that will get you a boyfriend.

How would you like if you are getting mail and invites to your college/university reunion and you are afraid to go because everyone who knew you admired you? When I was an undergraduate I was on the school newspaper staff, editor of the literary magazine for two years, on the board of the SGA and SFB, worked in the writing lab, and was honored in my Junior and Senior years as an outstanding student, getting my photo in the local paper with the Governor. My weight was never more than 105 pounds, I was really really cute.

Look at me now. We all get old. We all are going to age, but some people do it better than other people, and I am not talking about those rich enough to get extra help from a plastic surgeon. I'm not aging well, I don't think. I'm scared of aging. My parents are aging and it's like they are no longer my mom and dad; they have evolved to my grandparents. They don't take care of me, I have to take care of them. I know it's the circle of life, but it feels strange knowing your mom isn't going to make things better, you have to help her be better.

I don't have anyone to make me better. Yes, I have the cat, but it's not the same. I have to depend solely on me. It gets lonely. In the last few years I have been collecting stuffed animals, I place them in bed with me like I did when I was four. I hold them as I go to sleep, it helps. But it's not another human being to hold. It's empty. It sucks.

I want to be able to work. I want to be well enough so I can l be around people for more than an hour or two at a time without being physically ill. I want to go back to the girl I was in my early twenties where I would grab life with both hands, never let it go. I miss that girl. I don't like the woman she became.

Oh hell. I'm stuck in a prison of my mind, or a prison with my body. I don't know what is worse. After writing this and letting it sit for a few weeks, I am pressing the "publish" button. I think a physical prison of my body can't be worse than a prison of my mind. I just want to get out of prison one way or another.

Present and accounted for

Has it been really almost two months since I blogged last? I'm so sorry. It was not my intention. Here's the scoop. After I posted my last piece, I came down with a very bad strep throat. I usually get one strep throat every winter, so it's not a big deal. This one was no different. I saw the doctor, got a dose of antibiotics, and just basically slept for a week straight, having the alarm clock wake me when it was time to take another dose. With every dose, I checked on the cat, fed, watered and changed her box. Then would go back to sleep.

 A week later, my antibiotics had expired and I was still the same. Back to the doctor. Some more tests, and more antibiotics. Same week as before. The antibiotics and the strep made me sleep. And when the antibiotics were finished, my throat was still the same. One more time to the doctor. One more dose of antibiotics, the doctor wondering why my body was so resistant to the medicine. One more week of extreme sleep. When the medicine had run it's course, I finally started to feel a bit better. A bit better.

By this time, it was April. Something happened. I physically started feeling better- then an issue with the family I cannot disclose at the moment, but will in future. I got slammed with a bout of depression that took me straight back to bed. I couldn't leave the bed, not even for the smallest things. I wasn't suicidal, just immobile. I had to make myself move. You can't stay in bed. That took about a week. Then a day or two to figure out what I was going to say on my blog. How is this. While you may love blogging/writing, it must be disciplined. If you don't do it one day, then the next day it's easier not to do it and next thing you know it's been almost two months since your last piece. Well, that is where I am. Brainstorming and jotting down ideas for tomorrow's entry, and the day after that.....