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Have you ever had a day that just killed your self-confidence? No matter how hard you try, you can’t pull yourself out of the funk? And then, negative thinking takes over?
Let’s say you have a presentation at work that you are not ready for or you finally get the courage to call that romantic interest, alas no response. Both instances can feel like huge failures. Afterwards, you mind is filled with doubt; maybe you were nervous while giving the presentation and made a few blunders or the voicemail you left was filled with “ums” and awkward pauses. Then, your mind spins into a downward spiral; in pops another negative thought about yourself, and another, and before you know it negative thinking has brought your self-confidence to an all time low. So how do you bounce back?
This is not to say that anger is not real or normal. It is. And often justified. But anger comes second after a primary emotion comes first. Sometimes that primary emotion isn’t even recognized or realized because it is below the surface.
Imagine a tree, with its trunk and branches tall and large above the ground, and the roots under the Earth. What do those roots do for the tree? They feed it, right? So imagine the trunk and branches are the anger on your outside, the part that people see. But below the surface is the root of the anger, fueling it. If a student was walking down the hall at school and someone tripped him, he might jump up in anger ready to fight, angry. But right before that, he might have felt embarrassment. If a teenager is late for curfew and her parents have been pacing the house, when she walks in late they might argue and be mad and punish her. But right before that, they were worried. There can be any number of emotions below that surface that trigger anger, and depression is one of them.
Dear Addiction,
What can I say about you? I love you or I wouldn't be an addict--if I didn't love you I wouldn't turn to you to cope. Yet I hate you, because you're trying and sometimes succeeding at taking over my life. You take my money, you cost me opportunities to do something else instead of spend time with you, you take my mental and physical health, and you cause me to do some crazy things--even for a person with borderline personality disorder (BPD).
Remember the time we made a drunken pass at a drag queen in a New York City transvestite bar? Or the time we stripped down and said we were going to paint our bodies and run around the neighborhood whooping like a Native American warrior? Yeah, funny, but embarrassing. You gave me what I thought was a good time, when all the time I was running from the infamous crash. In many ways I'm still running while you call to me like a lover.
The addiction culture, the addiction lifestyle, can make it very difficult for an addict to get clean or stay drug-free. As they say on the street: “it’s not the drug that will kill you – it’s the addiction lifestyle.” One of the main causes of relapse has to do with the old way of living.
The truth. What is the truth when you live in an abuser's fantasy world? How do you tell the truth to an abusive spouse who does everything they can to deny it?
The nature of control is to deny the possibility of options. When you're trying to control a person, the name of the game is to deny them the idea that there is an alternate plan of action.
I remember, before trying medication, I was terrified of it. I had the same misconceptions that many people do:
Medication is for weak people
Antidepressants are just “happy drugs” designed for people who can’t handle life
Medication will ruin your brain
Doctors give out antidepressants like candy whether you need them or not
As it turns out, none of these things are true, but they sure seemed true at the time.
So I get fear of antidepressants and other medication. Psych medication is scary stuff.
But sometimes you have to face that fear in order to get better.
For forty hours a week, I get the opportunity to work with one of the most stigmatized populations that exist in North America: men who have recently been granted parole who also are fighting life-threatening addictions. These gentlemen have a double-whammy when it comes to stigma. Not only are they stigmatized due to their criminal records, they are stigmatized due to their addiction. And many on top of that, are also stigmatized for their mental health issues.
I have touched on the topic of taking psychiatric medication forever in a previous post but it deserves more attention. It's a complex topic and something we all think about when diagnosed with a mental illness.
I can't complain. Really, our family usually lives in a place of gratitude these days. Ben is doing well. He actually has a job, after eight hospitalizations and ten years unemployed, and has celebrated his one-year anniversary there. He cares about school now, and made Dean's List once again at college. (Got a grade of 98 on his Final Essay on how his stasis was changed by reading Macbeth. Wow.)
Yes, we can't complain. This is miraculous, compared to where Ben could have been. Compared to where he would be, without treatment.
When asked how Ben is doing, I usually respond, "Today is a good day." I look to the sky to see if the other shoe is falling, but these days we are okay most of the time, certain that Ben is taking his meds and therefore inching forward with his life. We are grateful and relieved.
But - every so often - grief sets in, for what we have lost. For what Ben has lost. For what could have been, if schizophrenia had not become our reality.
Victims of abuse sometimes say and do things to cause abuse. The abuse isn't our fault -- abuse is always the abuser's fault. But since that's the world we victims live in, sometimes we say and do things to cause the abuse, to purposefully cause our abuser to abuse. And yes, victims of abuse often feel they have this sort of control over the abuser. We come by that feeling honestly. After all, we've spent much time studying our abuser's every move and manner of speech, and we can practically predict when abuse will happen. Victims say and do things to cause abuse because we're going to be abused sooner or later, but timing the honeymoon period to specific events just makes life easier.
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...