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I hate Christmas. There I said it.
I don't hate the holiday - I'm a Christian and I believe in Jesus, Mary, the whole shebang. What I hate is enforced happiness and gift giving that's associated with Christmas, especially when I'm depressed and I don't feel like I have anything to be happy about. And when I'm miserable, the last thing I want is a bunch of people - especially my family - telling me to cheer up.
For many people with borderline personality disorder (BPD), depression is often a frequent, unwelcome visitor. However, it is not always easy to tell when a depressive episode is beginning. Sometimes it comes out of the blue, other times it sneaks up on the person. All we know is that once things were okay, but now they're not.
Recently someone who I consider a friend had some rather unfortunate things to say about me, including that I'm narcissistic. This, I do not believe to be true. Not even a little. Nevertheless, this particular insult echoed inside my brain over and over until I was sure it was stabbing the inside of my head with heated spikes.
I couldn't let it go.
I tried, really I did. I told myself it's not about me. It's just one person's opinion at one moment. It isn't true. And so on, and so forth. But my brain had a death-grip on the insult and refused to let it slip.
So what do you do when you're obsessive, bipolar brain turns to thoughts of crazy?
R.E.L.A.P.S.E. Seven letters. Just seven. This seems impossible: the experience of mental illness relapse requires millions of words. As many words as the emotions it evokes, the pain it causes and the feeling that, you, that I, cannot escape. The fear of mental illness relapse isn't lessened by knowing recovery will follow.
I'm sharing this deeply moving, powerful short film not simply because abuse is a topic around which there cannot be too much awareness but because anxiety doesn't come from nowhere. Abuse isn't the only cause (there are many, even if you have been abused) but the effects of abuse are inseparable from mental health, whether or not you have a clinically diagnosable mental illness.
Depression caregivers need our support, too.
A lot of the holidays are not very ADD-friendly. It seems there are more deadlines to be met, expectations to reach, and a lot more chaos to filter out. Even still, there are many things I truly enjoy about the holidays and really fit with my spontaneous, live in the moment, out of the box thinking ADHD brain style.
A little while back I went through an amazing phase of remission. I started a new medication and it worked like magic in a very short period of time. In short, it was a miracle.
At the beginning, I kept the miracle to myself. Others noticed I had changed but no one said anything and neither did I.
But eventually, a few weeks passed and I just had to tell people how great I felt. I thought I was "safe." I thought the remission would be around for a while. I thought I would be able to announce the good news and then not disappoint people when the treatment stopped working.
I, of course, was wrong.
As fast as the remission came, it left. And I couldn't get it back. It felt like I was being punished about being happy about, well, being happy.
Unfortunately for all of us, crime does not take some much-needed time off during the holiday season. On the contrary, society’s creeps, crustaceans, and cellar-dwellers take advantage of our goodhearted generosity during this most expansive time of year to pick pockets, pilfer, and plunder.
What’s worse is how they do it. Cleverly employing the techniques used by legitimate charities, these wretches bilk the joyful multitudes of millions by soliciting donations to non-existent charities.
Remember – most charitable organizations are entirely legitimate, the work they do is admirable and much needed. That is what makes it so sad when well-meaning individuals are duped by deceivers! Before you give, make sure the recipient is an authorized representative of a legitimate organization.
As if dealing with a diagnosis of mental illness is not hard enough, many of us are confronted with a feeling that we do not belong in our family, within our peer group -- we feel different. I'm pretty sure there is no definition for 'the black sheep syndrome' but, just in case, let me refer to my trusted thesaurus.
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...