Blogs
People trapped in an abusive relationship hear, "You're so much better than this! Why are you staying?" I knew I was better than my experience. I knew I didn't deserve to be treated that way. Yet, when someone pointed that out to me, I wanted to dig in my heels and fight to stay.
I knew I was better than how he treated me, but I thought my abuser was also a better man than how he behaved. I saw us as equally hurting. I thought we both were trapped in an abusive relationship.
Those of us who rely on the healthcare system for our peace of mind and ability to lead productive, useful lives, have plenty to say about the state of medicine today. We complain, a lot!
As a group we are complainers by nature, but when it comes to the gyrations we must endure to achieve mental health we can, and do, go on for hours about what is wrong and what is worse and what really cheeses me off and those darn pharma companies and crazy shrinks and chintzy insurance companies and the polecats nesting in my basement, etc.
I would never suggest that finding appropriate, affordable treatment for mental health issues is easy, certainly not. But, I would suggest that healthcare for the mentally ill has never been better, as a quick look in the rear-view mirror will show.
People self-harm for many different reasons and self-harm in and of itself is not a symptom of bipolar disorder. But like many people with extreme pain in their lives, many people with bipolar disorder do self-harm. I have been one of them. And as sure as I’m sitting here I can tell you, stress precipitated most of the self-harm.
I could write a million posts (granted my hands might hurt, my head even more) on how frightening life, before being diagnosed with a mental illness, is.
Ever since my son's diagnosis of schizophrenia, we have had to work around his strong desire to live without his mental health medications. In the past, he has refused them, cheeked them, thrown them up after swallowing them. They've been hidden in his pockets, his closet, in the bottom of the garbage. Things are better now, but mostly because we are on to his tricks. I'd like to think he is cooperating because of some insight--but the most probable reason is that he simply can't get away with not taking his psych meds anymore.
Graduated exposure therapy, also known as systematic desensitization, is a process of slowly exposing someone to what they are afraid of so it become familiar and un-intimidating. First, a person is taught skills in calming themselves that they can use while they expose themselves to the feared stimuli. With the dawn of the Internet (especially YouTube) people can use graduated exposure therapy in the comfort of their own homes (or in the therapy office).
Television and movies are the extent of my knowledge about autism and Asperger's Syndrome. I've been led to believe that people with autism are either like Rain Man (an autistic savant) or less gifted, empathy-denied individuals loved by their parents who understand their child cannot love them back.
Boy, have I been misled.
Codependency, like addiction, is a serious problem that can affect many people with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Codependency is a behavioral and psychological condition in which a person sacrifices his/her own wants and needs in order to maintain an unhealthy relationship. It is also called "relationship addiction." Codependency is probably due to the intense fear and frantic efforts to avoid abandonment common in BPD.
I wrote the poem “The Great Deceiver” yesterday in honor of my fifth year of good mental health. It is about the false world that I had lived in as a result of my Schizoaffective disorder. I am writing it in response to all the lies it told me over the years.
The Great Deceiver
Lies Lies
Terrible Lies
Don’t you think
I know better
You tell me this
You tell me that
I listen not
I don’t believe you at all
Things have been stressful for me lately, so I decided to take a mini-vacation and stay at my sister's — about two hours away from my home — for the weekend. I visited with her and her husband before they left for vacation, met with my eating disorders psychiatrist who lives nearby, and basically had a relaxing time sitting around drinking Starbucks mocha frappuccinos, reading my Nook and playing with her two large Rottweilers that act like overgrown babies.
Then I decided to stop at this quaint, 50s-style drive-up diner . . . and proceeded to get into a heated shouting match, complete with expletives, with another customer.
Why does food always have to complicate my life?
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...