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Sometimes, those with bipolar disorder can wake up in the middle of the night, their heart is racing, sweating profusely, maybe feeling very dizzy and they're sure they are going to die. They might be shaking all over and don't understand why.
Yesterday, I came across a picture of a sign I’d taken several months ago while out shopping. The sign was under a display of eye shadow applicators that each contained two different colors and it read, “Split Personality – brings out the best in both of you.” Two shades of make-up, one for each personality. I’m sure someone fancied themselves terribly clever when they came up with that. But as much as I loathe the idea of suiting up with the PC police, I have to say that glamorizing Dissociative Identity Disorder to sell beauty products isn’t at all clever. In fact, I think that the pervasive use of mental illnesses as punch lines undermines efforts to promote understanding and support for people living with them.
Many years ago, I took a prescription drug that had an intolerable side-effect: severe anxiety. I couldn't sit still. I couldn't concentrate. I felt like I was coming out of my skin. After about six weeks I couldn't stand it anymore and my doctor prescribed a different drug. Though I live with chronic, problematic anxiety, it rarely rises to the level of what I experienced while on that drug. I wonder about people who struggle all the time with such severe anxiety and panic attacks. I wouldn't have been able to function if I'd had to keep taking that drug. How do other people cope with debilitating anxiety disorders?
The use of restraints--whether metal ones used by police and/or private security or the leather ones used in an inpatient setting--is one of the dirty secrets of mental health. Due to the destructive nature of some symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD), it is something of an open secret for us.
Schema therapy shows considerable potential in treating borderline personality disorder (BPD). In this video, More Than Borderline's, Becky Oberg, explains how schema modes affect the conduct of a person with BPD.
Last November, Jen Selk wrote a blog post titled The Weight. “I wanted to tell the truth about how I'd secretly harbored more than a decade of negative, damaging, unhealthy and untrue thoughts about my body,” says Jen. She voiced the body image and weight struggles so many women live with. Jen says The Weight was the most popular thing she’s ever written.
In my last article on the biological evidence for depression I discussed evidence in genes, hormones, monoamines (like serotonin) and neuroimaging. Today I’ll finish off the research areas for the biological evidence of depression and suggest what I think all this biological evidence means.
Anxiety fills a room, even if it's empty. Uncanny but it manages, almost every time. The claws in my head grow wings, sprout tentacles, take over: my room, the house, the neighbourhood, and soon entire nations... What?! Oh, wait.
Gradually, then all at once. That's how this stuff works because of course at first I am only dimly aware of it. It's not really an issue. The panic isn't big enough I'm tripping over it. Yet.
Beyond black and white thinking
It's almost a year to the day the judge awarded primary physical custody to my abusive ex-husband. My attorney was as surprised as I was. My attorney said that the best she could figure (without being allowed to see the interview documents, if there were any), was that my older son elected to be with his father because of his anger toward me, and the judge decided for keeping the kids together.
I am very grateful to hear that many people have been asking about me and wondering about the return of "Surviving ED." I have taken this time off to take care of myself during my ongoing recovery from anorexia. I didn't have a relapse and I am still at my healthy weight. However, I needed to take some time to care for myself because of some ongoing issues in my personal life. I have been struggling with a great deal of anxiety and depression because of these issues and felt it was best to take some time off from writing.
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...