Cards

I was going through some things, and I found a card from a friend. It was a nice home made card. I don’t remember when she gave it to me.

It got me thinking of my most memorable card. I can’t find it. Probably threw it out. I wanted to forget that time.

When I had babies people were able to visit at pretty reasonable hours. They brought balloons, cards, flowers.

When I was in the psychiatric ward, it was totally different. Restricted visiting hours and limited visitors. No flowers or cards.

They did have different groups and activities where I stayed. I was in an art class and they had us make cards. I made a get well card for myself.

Lori,

I hope you feel better soon

From,

Me

With a design on front

The Night of The Cut *Graphic Self Harm Trigger Warning*

******TRIGGER WARNING: Anorexia somewhat and EXTREMELY GRAPHIC SELF HARM******

DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU ARE EASILY TRIGGERED BY SELF HARM ESPECIALLY IN GRAPHIC DETAIL.

You have been warned.

This is probably the single most important story in my life. It led to a cascade of events: hospitalization, my correct diagnosis of bipolar, getting kicked out of school, and finally getting the real help I needed.

It was 6am when I finally asked my ex-boyfriend for my knife back. We aren’t on speaking terms and we are clear that we can never be. We’re either together or not. And together is awful, dangerous, addicting, full of love, full of hate.

Today I see him to get it back, so I stress out about it of course. I overthink what I will wear. I felt the need to show him how much my appearance has changed, how much have changed. Both of which are major improvements.

Should I go laid back in my cute dorm-room college girl get up all from Victoria’s Secret? Or should I go with my traditional assemble which people describe as “edgy” because its boots and leather jackets and what not?
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Tiered healthcare system U.S.

You get what you (can) pay for

I don’t know enough about the intricacies of our healthcare system to give a explanation on how they different insurances work and why some people fall between the cracks.  I just have been in or visited facilities that didn’t require private insurance and they are night and day from ones that my employer provided insurance covers.

My first hospital stay was after I had refused to get back in the car during a road trip. I ran to a mini-mart and asked the clerk to keep my parents from me. He let me stay there and called the police. I thought they would call my husband or sister to come get me. I guess it would take too long. The officer handled it well. He kept my parents seperate from me and listened to both of us. They he had me go into an ambulance to got to a hospital.

The hospital they took me to was a County hospital. I wouldn’t recommend it. I was confused. I wouldn’t speak and then blurt things out. They pushed a cart in the room with juices and yogurt. I wasn’t sure what to do, but I soon learned to take what I needed. There was a room full of cots. I would go and lay down on a cot. At night one of the other patients helped me find the linens and make a bed. I had been lying in the cold.
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Suicide? Nah… Ice Cream.

*Trigger warning- Suicide*

I woke up to my cell phone buzzing, upon answering it I find my test results for a certain physical problem were not determinable with the tests done at that lab, as a result, I will have to see a specialist.

This could either mean 1) my symptoms are psychosomatic (common problem with me) or 2) I have a serious problem.

In any case, I went along my day. I went to my second day back at college and it started horribly. At first I had the patience to be involved in the 3 hour long lab. But it dragged on, describing all the intricate details of animal reproductive anatomy. I’m not quite sure what there is even left to learn for the rest of the quarter.
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My Bipolar Face is Not MY Face.

It is Worldwide Bipolar Disorder day (okay so this post is a couple minutes past midnight, but close enough). From what I’ve gathered, we are supposed to show our faces.

But I will do no such thing. My anonymity is essential to my life.

I severely cut myself late November two years ago. I was rushed to the ER by my roommates where I was stitched back up. I was lucky I didn’t hit any major blood vessels. If you look close enough, you can see a large vessel right above the scar. But it was deep enough to see my tendon. At that time, I was in throes of some sort of mood chaos. I hadn’t been diagnosed with bipolar yet. I later found out that my therapist was desperately trying to contact my psychiatrist to get me off those medications immediately because they were making me worse.

Friends would come over for game night, which I didn’t participate in, but I did do my best to be as distracting as possible. I would get into these moods, where I’d laugh hysterically, ramble away. I’d lose myself. I thought I was just having a good time. On occasion I would clean my fish tank with such focus, I demanded perfection, not a drop of dirt (even if some remaining dirt is good), it had to be pristine.

I would prepare myself for studying by taking a knife to my skin. It soothed the thoughts, it soothed the chaos. And when I lost focus, when my friend tutoring me got too frustrating, I would cut myself again to regain focus. Cutting myself worked better than any stimulant I’ve ever taken for focus.

One night we had friends over and I was lost in this person who wasn’t me- but a “better version” of me. She would jump around and entertain everyone. She had the idea to play shirtless Twister. So all the guys did. And then she decided to test her roommate, to see if she had the guts to do it too. She did, with some encouragement. The whole idea was stupid, pointless. But this version of me was so desperate to do something wild, and nothing ever seemed to be enough. My friends were too tame, and that was best for me, even if I hated it.

Another night we were returning from a store and pulling into the campus parking lot when a police officer holding a shotgun stopped us. We were informed there was a gunman on campus and we needed to go elsewhere until he was found.

I found this hilarious.

We went to our friend’s place and I was energized. I was excited about the gunman. My friend’s roommate was rather cute and in the military (which was a big bonus to me), so I tried to flirt with him, I wanted to drink with him. But some part of me was too scared. Some part of me knew I was acting way out of line, and unattractively so. So instead I tried to calm down by laying on the couch and fiddling with my knife, particularly pleased with myself because it made my roommate nervous.

When we were finally cleared to return to campus, I plopped down on my roommate’s bed. I started laughing hysterically. And tears began to stream down my eyes. Between fits of laughter I asked them if they wanted to know something hilarious. They said sure. I laughed as I cried, and hiccuped the words, “My therapist tried to force me to go to the hospital today… Isn’t that hilarious!?!” I stopped laughing, I wiped the tears off my face, and left the room. My friends exchanged concerned glances.

My bipolar has never been the most extreme. Perhaps because I am so young still. The trip to the ER was a changing point though. My parents received the bill, I asked to go into outpatient treatment, and the treatment center decided I needed to be inpatient. Sometime in that process I was diagnosed bipolar, I don’t even remember it.

The paperwork says I was crying and laughing during my initial evaluation. That I said, “I don’t care if I die. And I have 17 knives at home.”

I later lied and said they misheard me, I only had 7- not 17.

I actually had 21.

In any case, the whole experience was a wake up call. I still can’t believe the way I acted. The way I told everyone cutting wasn’t a problem, that it was fine, and I was safe. When the reality is that less than an inch made the difference between life and death for me.

The school suspended me for cutting myself on campus. I was told I’d be arrested if I came on campus. I was evicted, with a police escort.

But that’s another story.

I think that perhaps I was in a mixed episode for most the beginning of the second year of college. I was so up but I was also so down. I would cut as punishment. I would cut to focus. I would cut if I was happy. I would cut if I simply felt like it. I did it constantly. And the therapist saw what was coming when he tried to force me into the hospital. He saw that ER trip coming.

I know I talk a lot about self harm. For me, it goes hand in hand with bipolar.

I was doing well with abstaining until my last episode, which was this last winter. I had nothing to lose, so I was cutting myself again. My legs still show sleek red lines going in every direction. The mania wanted me to.

With me, there are no neat, clean cut, straight lines. I go to town, slicing and dicing with anger. There is nothing calculated or calm or in control about it. Look at the scars, you’ll see.

The mania also wanted me to vandalize things. I felt as if no one understood what I was feeling. I would wake up fine, but I’d quickly degrade. For some reason, I was possessed by the need to make it worse. So I would take too much Ritalin and I’d drink coffee. I left the house to go to therapy when I came up with a brilliant plan. I was going to go to a popular mall and cut words into the bathroom stall, then cut myself, smear my hand with blood, and leave a bloody hand print right there on the stall wall.

I needed people to know. And not just know- but feel. I was terrified of myself, I couldn’t slow down and I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted someone to walk into that bathroom stall and feel the terror the hand print was sure to elicit.

People had to know.

So I went to a sporting good store and bought a cheap utility knife (since all mine had been entrusted to someone for safe keeping). But the traffic on the freeway caused me to miss my opportunity. I had to go to the psychiatrist and I didn’t have time to stop by the mall.

The idea lingered in my head but I never did it. My therapist said she almost involuntarily hospitalized me for my urges to vandalize.

Another idea I had was to go to the local park and carve words into the trees. It was daytime, so I went for a walk. I casually strolled around the park, stopping to examine trees, trying not to be too suspicious as other people were there. I did hide behind a tree and barely scrawled the words, “Help me” into a tree, but you’d never be able to tell. But I had plans… plans to come back later that night when it would be empty and leave large, blatant messages in prominent trees. I specifically wanted to write, “I’ve gone mad.” Or something like it. And then, in a hidden spot, where only the adventurous would see, I’d leave a secret message, “Help me.”

But when I made an excuse to leave that night, I decided to go to the bookstore before the vandalism. I wandered around the bookstore, I tried to focus on the titles of the books but my vision blurred far too much. I wandered around, paranoid that everyone knew I was not okay. The bookstore overwhelmed me. There were too many books, too many people, too much of everything. So I drove home, back to that park. But I detoured. I saw the Christmas lights. And I drove down a street that was heavily decorated. The euphoria washed over me. I drove around for however long, just admiring the lights. (I’ve never been impressed by Christmas lights, by the way). In the end I decided trees were just too beautiful to ruin with my knife.

Another day it was raining but I was desperate to go soak it in. I told my mom I was going for a walk and grabbed an umbrella. But the rain stopped and I found myself at the park alone. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t want to carve the trees because it was my good knife (that I paid a lot of money for). So instead I found the swing set. And I popped in some earbuds. The euphoria was intense. But I also had paranoia, so I tucked my knife into my hand, positioning it so I could pop it open in a second and … well, you know.

Of course this was ridiculous, as the closest entrance I had full view of, and an attacker would have to walk across a large open field to get anywhere near me from behind (and I checked constantly).

I could go on about the mania I felt this last winter. It was the first time I knew I was manic. I’m only 21, my episodes aren’t very severe. But I still have many years ahead of me. I know now that my bipolar can take charge at any moment. I had to miss my last quarter of school because I simply went to class high on pills, then I’d cut between classes, and I couldn’t focus. I was just too manic.

I just started my first day of the new quarter. It was terrifying.

I wrote this and it is very disorganized. But that in itself is what mania is for me. It is chaos in my mind.

Mania is a 5’4, 97lb female with dirty blonde hair, brown eyes, an asymmetrical pixie cut, a small assortment of bold ear piercings, and a tattoo on her side rib cage. It is that girl being the life of the party, laughing while crying, cutting herself, plotting to vandalize to make a statement. A girl sitting on her bed, head in hands, her thoughts screaming, “SHUT UP SHUT UP” over and over again, trying to make the whirlwind stop so she could do something as simple as brushing her teeth.

So you want to see the face of a bipolar person? Well I can’t show you that. My career goals don’t allow me to make my disorder public, just yet.

But I’ll compromise. You can see how I intended to look during my vandalism urges (minus the sunglasses).

While some may brave a bare face… my true bipolar face, is not my bare face.

This is what bipolar looks like on me.

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“It gets better”

*Trigger Warning- Suicide* The realization I describe in this post made me feel very suicidal when I had it several months ago (I am fine now), read at your own risk, and please be safe.

“It gets better.”

The most depressing realization I ever had about being bipolar was when I read a 17 year old girl’s account about her bipolar. She says she sat on the edge of her bed with pills in hand, ready to swallow them all. But instead of taking her life, she went to her mother’s room and sought comfort.

She ended it by saying, “It gets better.”

(I wasn’t very inspired.)

We’ve heard that a million times- “It gets better.”

And it does get better.

Before I read her post, I would say that too, “It gets better.”

But dear sweet little 17 year old girl, if the doctors say you’re bipolar. Then you’re sick for the rest of your life.

I was your age when I found myself holding a noose, what stopped me was that I couldn’t find a place to tie it up at. A month later, I was put on medication, and for what seemed like the first time in my life- I was happy. I was just like you, trying to tell everyone how things “can get better.”

And then two years later at the beginning of winter, I slit my wrist open and the consequences led to a hospitalization which led to me getting suspended and much more. Suddenly I realized how deep I’d fallen again. And then about a year later, I had a job and I was doing well in college and I was so very successful. And I was saying, “Things do get better.”

And then another year passed and I fell and broke my wrist. And with my wrist, my mind followed suit and I found myself more manic than I ever knew I could be. I made many plans to vandalize, let a man film me doing a sexual act, popped pills like candy, and more. That winter I spent my days half cracked open. Then school started again, and I was too far gone. I dropped all my classes, and took the time off to heal bone and brain.

When I broke my wrist I was told, even with the surgery, that it would “never be the same again.” But what’s scary is that that same phrase can be applied to my mental health. That manic episode changed me, I will “never be the same.” So when I read that 17 year old girl’s account of how everything gets better, I looked at my own life. At the cyclic nature of my disorder.

And I realized something terrifying.

It may get better.

But it can, and probably will, get worse again.

It’s a pattern, don’t you see?

Good to bad, bad to good, good to bad… and so on.

They say bipolar is a chronic, life-long illness.

And they say that for a reason.

-Quinn

A Fragile Mind

I want to take Xanax the way I used to. The irresponsible and reckless way. The dangerous way. The way I don’t advise anyone to ever take it.

I want to drown out how awful I feel. I may have taken a quarter off, not to heal my broken wrist but to mend my manic mind, but I am still fragile.

I took an incomplete in a class, but I have to finish it sometime. And that deadline is right around the corner. I am not prepared and I do not have the strength to care.

Part of me is giving up, ready to fail a college course for the first time. Ready to ruin my future as a psychiatrist or psychologist. But part of me is still squirming to hold onto my dreams, to finish this class, to stay in the game.

Just listen to the online lectures, take notes, and memorize everything. Yet I can’t even tell you the names of the diseases I’ve learned, let alone their symptoms or treatments.

This should be an easy class, even an enjoyable one, but some professors know how to make even the most interesting of subjects into a nightmare.

Maybe the mania is gone, a vague memory where I was someone possessed by the need to vandalize, pop pills, and stare at Christmas lights. But I’m not stable. I’m always a little up or a little down.

I don’t think it is possible for me to be perfectly stable. It’d be like trying to balance a coin on its thin side in a windstorm.

My bipolar is and never will be the productive type. Some people go manic, and get everything done. Me? I destroy everything I can, myself included, and I want the world to see that. And the depression? It just doesn’t care enough.

I go to two types of therapy right now. One for my wrist and one for my mind. It has taken months to repair my wrist, but the evidence is visible, I’m always going forward, I’m always improving.

But the mind isn’t like a broken wrist. I’ve been going to therapy for years and yet I can go backwards. Some days I even fall and break all over again, as if I never healed to begin with.

When I was hospitalized at 19, another bipolar patient took me by the shoulders, looked at me very carefully and warned me- “You’re already so young to be in here. It’s only going to get worse. Be careful.”

And maybe you’d think he is wrong for saying it’ll only get worse. But he wasn’t. It has gotten worse, just in a different way. Yes, my youth is an advantage. Getting help early on may have saved my life more times than I know. But he was right- It’s gotten worse and I do need to be careful.

But what is being careful when it comes to your mind?

-Quinn

Psychiatric Hospitalization- The feeling, not the story.

I’ve only been hospitalized once, although there’s been multiple times when I needed it.

I always had a curiosity about what it’d be like in a ward.

The background story is: I had/have issues with self harm. And when it was at its worst, I cut myself deeply. Deep enough to see the tendon and to be rushed to the ER. Long story short- my parents found out and asked what they could do to help me. I told them I needed outpatient care and they said okay. I called the local psychiatric hospital and they said I could come in any time for a psych evaluation so I could start outpatient care.

I went in for my evaluation and left 5 days later.

The hospital had decided that I was too unstable/unsafe after my self harm incident, so they required me to stay. I remember sitting in the evaluation room, staring at the window. It was dark and all I could see was my reflection. I don’t know what I felt. It was a mix of wanting to cry, wanting to run out of the place, wanting to scream that they couldn’t do this to me. But mostly, I just felt defeat. Eventually a lady retrieved me, asking if I was okay. She informed me I could go back to the lobby. I ran back in there and hugged my friend, sobbing as I told him they weren’t letting me leave. I could feel everyone in the room staring at me. But at this point, I was certifiably “crazy” so who cares, right?

I won’t go into the details of my psych ward stay. Instead, I will tell how it felt for me.

At first, it was terrifying. It was nighttime when I was admitted, and I told them I wouldn’t be able to sleep since I had a nocturnal sleeping cycle to begin with. I sat, alone, in the one room where you could just hang out. I sat with a puzzle, and tiredly tried to put the pieces together. My mind felt both overwhelmed and slow. Like the puzzle, none of the pieces were coming together.

When everyone woke up for breakfast, I had to face the other patients. I had no idea what to expect of them. A million different versions of “crazy” went through my head. And yet, I didn’t expect them to be … so much like me. They seemed normal, for the most part. But what stood out was how friendly they were. I was invited to sit and share my story.

I grew comfortable in the hospital. I knew my parents must be upset, I knew that my dad was probably having anxiety over it. Anxiety that would make him angry, that would make him yell at my mother. And what about my mom? How would she feel? Scared? Or would she feel like it was completely unnecessary? Would she be mad too?

But honestly, those questions barely crossed my mind. Because I knew I was safe from them. I knew that while I was in here, they couldn’t really hurt me. My dad wouldn’t yell at me. They’d awkwardly visit at visiting hours. Just to clarify, my parents have never been physically abusive. But I do fear their tempers. Mostly, I fear the control they have over my life since they’re completely supporting me through college.

It didn’t matter though. I was hospitalized, they couldn’t do anything about that. Plus, I could control all communication with them. I felt safe. Everything was so routine, we’d wake up and take our pills. Then we’d eat breakfast and go on a smoke break and go to group therapy and then a smoke break and then group therapy and so and so forth, all day.

I was able to talk about my problems and I was able to bond with other people who were going through exactly what I was- not necessary a “mental crisis” but more like we were all stuck here, and that brought us together.

I put the pieces of that puzzle together with the help of the other patients. We’d sit and talk and figure out the puzzle together.

On maybe my 2nd or 3rd day in the ward, I was given terrible news. News too long to explain right now. But news that shook me and turned my life upside down. I felt as if the walls of safety had been broken down. All it took was two police officers and suddenly I didn’t feel so safe anymore.

You see, the world had stood still for me. During my stay, nothing could hurt me. I was impermeable. The outside world could do nothing to me. But those police officers proved me wrong. The outside world could come in, it was just me who couldn’t leave.

I stopped socializing with the other patients, I curled up in bed. Sobbing until there were no tears left. At once, I felt like the hospital was both a prison and a sanctuary. I couldn’t leave, I couldn’t take care of the responsibilities the police officers had informed me of. But still, I was safe from myself. I was safe from my family, friends, everything.

I felt the desperate need to leave, I had things to do- immediately. But I was so sick from the news that I wanted to stay. And the staff agreed- I needed to stay. My 5150, or a 72 hour forced hospitalization, was changed to a 5250, where they could keep me for longer. I stayed an additional two days.

We weren’t allowed on phones during group therapy, that was our punishment for not going. But I was given special permission to use the phone to sort out my personal life because it simply could not wait. I was given a room with a phone. And I sat down and made all these phone calls, with the occasional call to my mom or to my friends to tell them what was going on.

It was a mess. I felt very stressed out and my memory of those hours I spent on the phone are best compared to the way you feel after crying- broken, defeated, but mostly tired.

Very, very tired.

My time in the hospital was ruined by those two police officers. Had I been able to stay non-interrupted, I imagine the stay would have been rather pleasant. For the most part, I actually enjoyed my stay. My fellow patients were all friendly and their company was desirable. The food was decent enough. I got to smoke cigarettes every now and again. Group therapy was fun to me. Doing the puzzle in our spare time gave me something to obsess.

The puzzle let me forget about all my troubles. About the predicament I’d gotten myself into. I loved that puzzle.

I still remember walking out of my family therapy meeting, eyes puffy and red, sniffling from the tears. And when I arrived to my fellow patients, my support group, they handed me a puzzle piece. I looked at the puzzle and realized they’d left me the last piece. I probably cried, I don’t remember. All I knew was that these people understood me, they understood how important this puzzle was to me. And they had saved the last piece for me.

Ultimately, I loved the hospital. It was a safe place for me. Many of the patients reported they’d been transferred from other facilities, and they said those places were nightmares. I guess I was lucky.

I’ve wanted to go back. To remember the safe feeling, to know everything I needed was taken care of, and that all I needed to do was work on making myself better. But you can’t forget the locked doors. Even though I enjoyed the hospital, the patients and I would scheme on how to act to get out sooner. Once you’re in there, you want out.

On the smoking patio, there was a giant fence that had a green canvas blocking our view out. It rose far above our heads, but I would gaze through the little holes at the corners. A glimpse of the real world, I could even see plants if I looked hard enough. But I also saw another gate.

It is bittersweet. There is no good way to summarize my stay there because it was such a conflicting period. On one hand, I was safe from the world. But on the other, I wasn’t. The world was still moving even though mine had made an abrupt stop.

I needed to be in the hospital. I needed that experience- all of it. I needed the feeling of security. And then feeling that security ripped away from me. I needed to learn that I could withstand all of this.

I needed the hospital to give me a place to experience all my emotions… while keeping me safe from them.

-Quinn

Lori- An Intro

I have schizoaffective disorder which technically is like bipolar I with psychotic features except I have had psychotic symptoms with and without mood episodes. Simplified it is the moods of bipolar and the thoughts of schizophrenia, or the best of both worlds.

Michael Crawford has a great series of articles on schizoaffective disorder at PsychCentral

http://psychcentral.com/lib/living-with-schizoaffective-disorder/0001564

I had a psychotic break in 2003 when I was 39 where I was having auditory and visual hallucinations. I thought my parents were going to harm me. I ran away from them on a road trip (they wanted to take me away from my children who were 2 and 4 at the time) and  I ended up in a county hospital on a 72 hour hold, or 5150.

I don’t know if I got better and then relapsed or if I had one very long episode with periods of lucidity. It took me about 9 months until I wasn’t psychotic or heavily sedated. I had times when I was doing very well mentally. But, there were a lot of times where I wasn’t.

I started thinking my therapist was sending me messages through the media and that I had a special skill to decipher these messages. I thought I had been split into multiple personalities and later had tests to rule out DID. I do not have that disorder.

I do have depersonalization disorder. It has more to do with anxiety. I tune out when I get too anxious. I will lose part of a conversation and be startled when it is over, but I don’t go anywhere. I also have trouble reading a wall of text so I make a lot of paragraph breaks.

I was very distracted and overprotective of my children because I was worried someone would harm them. I cut off contact with people, relatives, I didn’t trust. I was convinced people were using mind control and everyone was either in on it or clueless. At one point I was hospitalized. I am not sure what I was saying or doing. I thought i was there for research and de-programming. They changed my medication but I downplayed my symptoms. I thought they already knew everything. So, I left as symptomatic as when I came in. That was in 2005.

I don’t remember the year well, but I was pretty delusional. I thought people were sending me messages. I realize now I was hearing their voices, too, but I didn’t realize that at the time. My psychiatrist put me on a different anti-psychotic, abilify. I decided to see someone else. I was afraid I would get hurt in his office. I saw a different psychiatrist who was a lot less compassionate but who raised my anti-psychotic and over time the delusions lessened.

I did a day program, where I didn’t fit in. Partly because of the language I used. I really don’t know the proper way to say I have a mental illness or diagnosis or brain disorder or I’m batshit crazy without upsetting someone. The psychiatrist there changed my diagnosis from bipolar I to schizoaffective, bipolar type, because I was having psychotic symptoms with no mood component. At that point, the psychotic symptoms were my biggest issue.

After the messages stopped, I felt lost. I had no one to guide me, to entertain me, to keep me company. I tried to explain that to a therapist and she suggested I made the whole thing up because I was lonely. I wish socialization cured mental illness. I thought maybe they were mad at me or bored. Why would they leave. Logically, they left because the medication was working, but it was hard to challenge the belief they were real. I still have doubts. I have to put them aside so I can go about my day, but I wonder.

 

Mental illness wasn’t new to me. I had a brother, he passed away at 26, who had an undiagnosed mental illness. I will write more about that next time.