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Amanda_HP
The general public used to associate PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder with soldiers in war zones. Now we know that anyone who has been in or witnessed a consistently highly stressful, traumatic or life-threatening situation can develop PTSD. And in so saying, life for Melissa has been anything but kind. Exposed to all types of abuse since the age of five, Melissa finds living with PTSD a living hell. But she's taking positive steps and getting treatment for PTSD.
Bob was home this past weekend--for the first time in a month, one of only three he's spent at home since May.
It was far from relaxing. His childhood anxiety is in full throttle, and dealing with his constant irrational fear had me looking forward to Monday.
Kate White, our anxiety blogger here at HealthyPlace asked the question: what does a mental illness feel like? Well, that's a big question. I've been writing for years to answer it. In today's bipolar video though, I expose one facet of crazy that really ruins my day.
So maybe you want to know: What is anxiety like? The $64,000 question. Shrinks, doctors, therapists, they all ask it:
How do you feel?
Recipe for Anxiety
Take a build-up of tension
Pile high with worry, and plenty of stress
Add a dash of low self-esteem and/or depression
A handful of racing, fearful thoughts - niggling, diving, driving the mind to a peak
One night in 2007, I started a new antipsychotic. It was to be taken at dinner time. I did as told and took it at the universal dinner time of 6 pm.
By 7 pm, I had mostly lost touch with reality. I was suddenly so tired that my eyes wouldn’t open but I was far too anxious, scared and twitchy to go to sleep. I felt incredibly ill. I was frantic, terrified and panicked. I was thrashing in a sharp, steel cage between sleep and wake with no way out. I cannot express to you the horror of that night.
Bipolar medication side effects suck.
What's it like to live with depersonalization in dissociative identity disorder ? Articulating the answer is challenging for me. Partly because I don't know what it's like to live without DID; partly because describing it requires a base-line level of awareness that dissociation by nature impedes. And partly because the question is so large, sort of like asking what it's like to be female. Breaking dissociation down into the five primary ways it manifests makes illuminating the experience of living with dissociative identity disorder easier. Depersonalization - the feeling that you're separate from your body - is the first.
Fall is upon us. The shorter days and less light affects my son's mood. Have you noticed any changes in your child's mood? Or yourself?
We're all different. There is something fundamentally true about this statement. Red hair, black hair, blue eyes, brown eyes, cat lover, dog lover - see, all different and most of us are mature enough to think that's OK.
But with bipolar, our symptoms vary wildly and for reason, people don't think that's OK.
My head is a marvelous place, I just wish I wasn't in it all the time. I'm practicing patient impatience; kicking rocks off a cliff whilst I wait for the spinning to stop.
Waiting, waiting, waiting - wanting something different. Different how? That's key. Wondering, am I really that stressed?
Bob’s biological father and I are not together, so my husband and I occasionally find ourselves “Bob-less” when he is spending time with dear ol’ Dad. No thanks to a legal loophole, Bob is away from our home nearly every weekend during the summer break.
These Bob-free times are bittersweet for me. I miss him terribly when he’s gone. Because he has bipolar disorder and ADHD, I worry about whether he’s getting enough sleep, or drinking enough water, or being given his medications properly. I worry about what sort of ridiculously dangerous activities he might be taking part in, and how he’s getting along with his father. I wonder if he’s missing us, and while I hope he is, I hope not too much.
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...