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When I speak to kids about my experience with bipolar disorder, really, I have a series of failures to explain. I tell them how treatment after treatment failed. I talk about drug failures, the failure of the vagus nerve stimulator and the failure of electroconvulsive therapy. I lot of my sentences have the word, “unfortunately,” in them.
And after one of my presentations last week, one person asked what I would say to someone who was going through a similar experience. I thought that was a very important question.
So here’s what I would say to someone who’s experiencing treatment failure.
When first diagnosed with a mental illness our lives--and the lives of those closest to us--change drastically. For lack of a better cliche: like night and day; black and white. We know, instinctively, that our lives will never be the same. Sometimes, we fear they will become more difficult, or we will forget who we were prior to diagnosis. It often feels as if we are losing a part of ourselves--our "self." And that's scary. Let's explore why we may feel this way.
Sitting in class, I drift sometimes. There are days when attention is just not something that I can find in the recesses of my brain. I look and look, but it eludes me. I need to know the content being presented in lectures, though, so what do I do? I multi-task.
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I feed the hyperactivity monster list-weasels and friend-weasels when I get super hyper. I handle my inattention in a very similar way - I don't try to ignore it, I get myself down and dirty in it.
I recently finished an 8-week mindfulness meditation course. I went into it not knowing why I was there, other than the fact that my doctor had recommended it. I went in not knowing what the outcome was supposed to be. When we were asked to write goals for the course, mine were blank. I had none. I really just wanted to see if there was any benefit to all this mindfulness meditation stuff.
Turns out, I believe that there is benefit in mindfulness meditation. And here’s some of what you might find in a course.
Therapist and HealthyPlace Blogger Emily Roberts gives 5 effective tips to increase body confidence.
Driven yourself nuts lately?
What drives me the most nuts is when something happens that bugs me.
I feel sad, scared, or worse, angry.
Then, I judge myself:
That was stupid. It is not as good as I wanted. It's my fault. No it is theirs.
Last week, I wrote about how trauma affects children and what symptoms to look for in identifying a trauma reaction in a child. This week, I'm continuing the children and trauma/PTSD theme by examining treatment options.
As in my earlier post, this information comes from an expert in helping children with PTSD, my colleague Bill Krill, author of Gentling: A Practical Guide to Treating PTSD in Abused Children.
Life with Bob and His father has not been easy. I've been writing about parenting a child with mental illness (ADHD in Bob's case). I've not written much about my relationship with Bob's father. It is a difficult and challenging one. Almost, if not more challenging than my relationship with Bob.
I have two mental health warning signs that alert me to psychiatric danger. Each one serves to warn me what type of danger I'll be in. Knowing these "early warning signs" is crucial to surviving my Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis.
Much has been written about mental illness among human beings, but almost nothing about mind maladies among those of the canine persuasion, aka man’s best friend, or, more popularly, dogs.
Where do we go from here? Most of the family thinks just to let her hit bottom and then if she reaches out to help any we can. Some want to just keep paying her bills and just let her sit in the house with no responsibilities. Never been on medication and impossible to get to her when she refuses to talk to ANYONE.
Help.
On the day we agreed to videochat to make things less awkward IRL she woke up with a migraine so we rescheduled to the day after, I made sure to assure her that it was okay and to take her time. Later that day, in the late evening we had a nice chat but suddenly she stopped replying, even though nothing had happened. The day after I texted her good morning and said I hope she was feeling a little better. she wouldn't open my texts.
A couple days after I sent her a longer text saying that even though I had only known her for a short time I care a lot for her and would like to know how she are doing, telling her I'm there for her, assuring her I'm not going anywhere even though things might not be very easy. She wouldn't open it.
A week later I sent a text saying not to feel bad about not answering and that I will be there when she is able to answer again. It's been two weeks since this and she still hasn't opened my texts. She hasn't been active at all.
I don't know what else I can do. I assumed she might have fallen into a depression. I have tried to just not think about it anymore, and I haven't that much but when I do it sort of kills me inside...