The Looney Bin: Analysis of Mental Health Issues

Kelly Thomas: Rest In Peace

2011-08-05T14:14:00.002-05:00

Our police departments pride themselves because they are put in the line of danger and persevere. So, would the six police officers of Fullerton be protecting society from a Schizophrenic man off his medicine by beating him cruelly and brutally to death in a six to one match up?

This is Kelly Thomas before the police "intervention"...

Now, this is Kelly Thomas in the ICU where later his life support would be taken away...

Reports say that Thomas was calling out for his father during the brutal beating. His father could not recognize him when he saw him in the ICU to be present for his death.

So, is this how the "nation's finest" treat the mentally ill and homeless who are already tormented by a bewildered mind?

This is disgusting and I had to add it to my blog.

Here are the names of the men who murdered Kelly Thomas:

Officer Jay Cicinelli
Officer Kenton Hamptom
Officer Manny Ramos
Officer Joe Wolfe
Officer James Blatney

Donate and Information:

Kelly Thomas Memorial Fund

PO Box 1147

Cypress, Ca 90630

The Long Road Home Part II

2011-04-04T19:35:00.001-05:00

"Panic tricks you, but it's just a trick"

--Dr. David Carbonell

This will be a short blog. I just wanted to update a few self-help methods I've been researching to bring to those of you who suffer from depersonalization, derealization and Panic Disorder.

Panic Attacks Workbook: A guided Program for Beating the Panic Trick by Dr. David Carbonell has been on my bed for the past few weeks. That’s my way of saying I’ve been reading it. So I sleep with books—big deal. :P In Dr. Carbonell’s book and website (www.anxietycoach.com) he uses the AWARE method to help people calm down from panic attacks.

It is a little similar to the therapy outlined in my previous self-help blog in that it uses acceptance as one of the major forces to help soothe the mind. He uses the an acronym AWARE to stand for steps in a process he had adapted from another piece of literature. He also stressing the importance of correct breathing and thinking.

I am unsure if I can repost the AWARE steps on my blog, however I am sure you can do some digging around on his site. I have already and there is a wealth of information on there. No helpful hints on how to deal with Depersonalization or Derealization unfortunately, but what can one do?

Check Dr. David Carbonell out at www.anxietycoach.com and see if he can help you if you suffer from panic attacks with or without Agoraphobia.

How to Deal With a Schizophrenic | eHow.com

2011-04-03T23:13:00.000-05:00

How to Deal With a Schizophrenic | eHow.com

Please check out my article!

Thank you!

How the Brain Works When It Is Manic or Depressive | eHow.com

2011-04-03T23:07:00.000-05:00

How the Brain Works When It Is Manic or Depressive | eHow.com

Please check out my work!

Thanks!

How to Wean Off of Aripiprazole | eHow.com

2011-04-03T23:04:00.000-05:00

How to Wean Off of Aripiprazole | eHow.com

Please check out my work!

Thanks!

The Long Road Home

2011-03-18T11:38:00.000-05:00

"Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves-- regret for the past and fear of the future"

--Fulton Oursler

This is going to be a long-winded blog, but I want to stress that it may help some of the people dealing with Panic Disorder, derealization and depersonalization. I thought about dividing it up into different posts, but I thought that this would be confusing and some of the posts may be hard to locate. So I’m going to do this under the style as one cohesive blog cut into sections to walk you through some therapy processes. Do not worry if this therapy does not apply to you; in the coming weeks I will be adding more self-help techniques and strategies. Keep heart!

For most of the information In this post, I am indebted to Fugen Neziroglu, Katharine Donnelly and Daphne Simeon for their brilliant collaboration upon the book Overcoming Depersonalization Disorder: A Mindfulness & Acceptance Guide to Conquering Feelings of Numbness & Unreality. The therapy techniques highlighted in this book will briefly be discussed, boiled down and simplified so you can use them in your own area of crisis.

Concept One: Rumination and Obsession Does No Good, Use Mindfulness Instead

Obsessing and ruminating over your condition does no good. Try to stop your intrusive thoughts and live in the moment. This concept of living in the moment and shifting your focus to be aware of only one thing instead of flooding your senses is called “Mindfulness” Mindfulness is focusing on the present and, if in the midst of a panic attack or derealization or depersonalization, it is the act of focusing on one thing such as your breathing for example.

Concept Two: Acceptance and Mindfulness

This is still a hard one for many people to struggle with and that’s ok. It asks us to accept misery and discomfort and pain as part of the human condition. You cannot alter your particular psychiatric affliction, but you can accept it. Acceptance of the feelings of fear, numbness, unreality and pain are better than fighting them. Use mindfulness to help you stay in the present moment. Don’t jump ahead and make unfounded conclusions. Never make absolute statements like, “I will never get better” or “I will feel this way forever.” Accept the feelings for what they are.

Concept Three: Observation

Instead of letting your emotions rule you and keep you in a pattern of avoidance and fear, it is best to only observe your emotions. It is important to realize that everything you think is NOT true. You may think, “I’m going to have a panic attack while driving tomorrow” but that doesn’t make it true. While it is a sad fact of life that many people with psychiatric conditions have negative and unrelenting thoughts, this DOES NOT make them true. Simply observe your thoughts passively and let them slip through your mind as a stream edges through the landscape. Don’t stop to ponder one bothersome thought—simply observe it and let it go.

Concept Four: Commitment

We should not let our negative emotions guide us. We should let our values guide us and accept that in order to attain our values, we must be willing to experience some pain and discomfort in life with our psychiatric illnesses. In fact, pain is simply a byproduct of a rich and eventful life. Everytime you go after something you want, you risk pain. It is no different with psychiatric illnesses. There is much pain involved in accepting and experiencing them and to engage in life again, but the alternative is to stagnate and end up alone. Struggle against your fears using acceptance, willingness to face discomfort and fear and use mindfulness to stay in the moment.

Hopefully this has given you some food for thought for today. I hope I have done a good job of presenting Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to you. If you still have confusion or want to do further resource, simply search for “Acceptance and Commitment Therapy”. There is an excellent Wikipedia article about it. That’s enough thought digestion for today!

Derealization and Depersonalization

2011-03-17T17:01:00.001-05:00

"One of the definitions of sanity is the ability to tell real from the unreal. Soon we'll need a new definition."

--Alvin Toffler

I have a mastermind plot for this blog in the next coming weeks and we will see how I manage to expound upon it due to my reading load and my other writing responsibilities online. To get to this master goal of offering more self-help articles for people who are suffering and may not have access to any other resource except the internet, I am going to have to do some back-tracking.

The catalyst for this site is Panic Disorder with Derealization and Depersonalization commonly abbreviated as DR and DP. Now, from what I’ve read derealization is not a stand-alone order, but there is a disorder called Depersonalization Disorder which does encompass derealization. Together they are holy horrors and eat up everything of value in your life and mind.

Let’s start with basics. I am sure I have stated this before on the site, but let me give you the brief definitions of these disorders before we move any further along. Derealization is the sensation that the environment or your world is not real while depersonalization is the sensation that you are not real. They are dissociative symptoms by themselves but can accompany other mental illness such as Panic Disorder, Affective Disorders, Borderline Personality Disorder or Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Not much is known about these two phenomena because the brain so eludes our science and they seem to be such mystical states of being. They have varied effects on people; some people go numb to the bone with them and some are terrified out of their skin with them. They frequently cohabitate and occur together because they are related disorders. I have heard them described as symptoms of psychosis and dissociation so I guess the jury is still out on that one.

In my mind dissociation makes the most sense for these unnerving altered states of consciousness because they literally remove the association from the self and from the world.

It is very important that you keep them separate in your mind, however, because they are two different sensations. It is important to be able to differentiate between the two when describing them if you have a problem with them. Depending on your description, psychiatric treatment may take varied courses of action.

We definitely need to do more to look into these disturbing conditions. It is hard to function under the stress of these sensations and it is even harder to relate them to other people despite the fact they are a common stress and illicit drug response— meaning that other people do have these sensations— they are simply afraid to admit to them. When they become chronic states of being and begin to interfere with the normal obligations of life is when you start to feel the crunch applied to the marrow.

I’m preparing a blog on self-help techniques if you suffer from derealization or depersonalization in addition to the ones I have already completed. Hopefully these blogs will delve deeper into self-help and really electrically jolt the heart of the matter so we can get to some soothing and healing for this frightening condition. Have heart and have hope if you chronically feel “not there”, “unreal” or “lost in a fog.”

The coming blogs are intended to help you weather the storm and give you much needed shelter.

The Long Term Mentally Ill and Suicide

2011-03-15T17:06:00.005-05:00

If you are considering suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

According to “Stop a Suicide”, 90% of people who commit suicide have suffered from a psychiatric illness in their lives. Accordingly, it is not hard to trace the snaking path of suicide back to the vein of mental illness and the agony present in the disorder. This takes us back to my earlier post where I expounded on my idea that mental illness is borne out of fear. Fear, desperation and agony are all very good bedfellows.

Waiting for the end of a psychiatric disorder is bleak. Round after round of medication can be tried and re-tried, new uses can be applied to old pills but still we come back to the same darn shame. We just have a low rehabilitation rate of our mentally ill. If one more person suggests that mental illness is wished into being or that the mentally ill should simply just “play the hand they were dealt” then that is one person too many. Often times playing the hand your dealt may involve a tooth split by the intrusion of a revolver.

The “long term mentally ill” is a term coined to refer to those who do not get well. Fancy papers are drawn up concerning as to what fancy doctors and their fancy facilities should do with them but little concept is actually given to their daily lives, their daily struggles and their adjusted outlooks. Psychiatrists are simply perplexed by the long term mentally ill and it is no wonder they turn to suicide as an effective means of ending the slow erosive torture of mental illness.

By no means however am I advocating suicide. I believe there is an afterlife and suicide will not win you your place of choice in it. That’s what has stayed many hands across the world from stumbling their way across the handle of a dagger. However, suicide is still a voluptuous temptation to those who are counted among the long term mentally ill. When treatment reaches the frayed end of its own ropes so too does humanity. The burden to toil under too great a toll begins to take effect and take flight into fanciful fantasies fit of only a madman.

We must take all threats of suicide seriously. If you or someone you love is contemplating suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 and you will be redirected to a regional help hotline.

Long term mental illness is not the best of terms, but it certainly is not the worst. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline will provide you with someone to talk to, someone to hear you and someone who will listen to you. That is perhaps its best commodity. No one will talk down to you any longer.

Remember, where there is life there is still a little hope.

For more resources and hotline numbers, please visit my "Resources" page to this blog.

Limu.com Courses

2011-03-13T16:12:00.003-05:00

"You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind."
--Dale Carnegie

I will be hosting a class on Limu.com on how to overcome Panic Disorder if anyone is interested. It is not ready yet because I have a lot of research to put into it and I don't want to skimp over any details. As a long time sufferer of Panic Disorder, derealization, and depersonalization, I think I have some wisdom to offer on this condition. I have tried many medications and self help methods and I would like to invite you to join in on my teaching experience. There is a fee and the course is set up in hour increments, but I am pouring all my efforts into teaching positive coping skills. I struggle with Agoraphobia and driving as well as simple tasks, but find that some things help me get through the fear.

I will also be hosting classes on German and other areas of interest if anyone is needing help in these areas. I have served as a tutor for many classes and find that teaching is something I am passionate about and enjoy.

If you also love teaching, please stop by Limu.com and begin to set up a course. The sky is the limit!

And, as always, stop by my blog to find more musings over mental health disorders and treatments. It will always be free and open to show support and understanding to those who suffer with ANY mental health afflictions. I encourage regular posting, private e-mails to me, and talking between other users as a means of information and healing. I want this to be an informative and positive place where sufferers can come to congregate.

Panic on the Motorway

2011-03-13T15:48:00.008-05:00

"I start sweating and shaking and having panic attacks if I am not at home."

--Daniel Johns

Having panic attacks while driving along with depersonalization and derealization (that is feeling detached from one ’s self and feeling detached from one’s reality) is not uncommon. It is disturbing and causes many drivers to slow in their lanes, pull over for breathing room and face unrelenting attacks while feeling closed in and panicked on the roadway. There are a few things drivers can do to help minimize the panic. It may be overwhelming and cause you to pull over and out of your lane. That is okay. Despite your feelings of unreality, try to minimize the risk of having an accident. If you need to pull over, go ahead and do so and catch your breath. There are a few things you can do to help yourself:

1. Take benzodiazipines (if prescribed to you) half an hour to an hour before driving. I have noticed taking them an hour before driving gives them sufficient time to settle your nerves and to get into the bloodstream.

2. Pull over and get some breathing room. Take the trip in small increments.

3. Focus your eyes on small spaces if you are able to do so. Focus on the speedometer instead of the wide open road which may make you more anxious. Carry some inspirational quotes with you and post them in your car and look at them. Be careful to avoid an accident while doing this.

4. Listen to a song that really grabs your attention and sing loudly. Engage yourself while driving. Feel the experience.

5. Recite religious texts to give you a sense of inner calm and control.

6. Notice road signs, colors, patterns and attractions on the road. Immerse yourself in the billboards and distractions. Notice license plates and car models. Be careful to regulate your driving while doing so.

7 . Listen to talk radio. The inflammatory issues can get your mind working and thinking and distract you away from your panic attack. Just hearing another person’s voice may be soothing for you.

8.
Make a CD of breathing exercises and practice them while driving. Do not try meditation as this can be dangerous, but sometimes taking deeper breaths and focusing in on your breathing can help minimalize the feelings of a full-blown attack.

9. Travel with someone if you can. Conversation and just the feeling of having someone else in the car with you may help you stay grounded.

10. Stick to familiar roads and routes in which you feel comfortable.

11. Remind yourself that you are “here” and you are on your way to “here”. Remind yourself of where you are going, who you are, what the date is, what the time is and where you are. Keep yourself in the present and keep yourself thinking logically.

12. Decrease your speed and pull into the slow lane if you need to. Remind yourself you have all the time you need to get where you’re going and there is no need to rush. Safety should come first.

13.
Sing out loud or pray loudly and immerse yourself in a spiritual connection while driving. Be sure to keep your eyes open as you do so and let your faith help you float through the panic and unreal feelings.

14. Take a small memento with you from home that can fit in your hand. Look at it from time to time and remind yourself where it came from, what it is, and what it means to you. This can help ground you.

15. Take a small scented item with you and take whiffs of it as you drive. Be sure not to make yourself dizzy or sick while doing this. The smell may help ground you. It may even be an unpleasant smell if you want it to be.

16. Wear a rubber band around your wrist and snap it every time you have a negative or fearful thought. Hopefully the pain will bring you back to reality.

17. Run the air conditioner or the heater. Be sure not to make yourself sleepy while doing this. The idea is to get the blood flowing in your body and to wake it up a little.

18. Stay away from caffeine or sugar before or during your trip. These substances could aggravate your symptoms.

19.
Roll down the window and let some fresh air in. Enjoy the breeze and let the air revitalize you.

20. Focus on small tracts of land instead of wide open spaces if you can do so safely. Look at the scenery around you and become immersed in it.

21. Make up little stories about the houses and cars you see around you if you can do so without further frightening yourself.

22. Try to think of funny situations or jokes you have seen or heard recently.

23. Imagine a safe or fun activity you would like to engage in that makes you feel calm if you can do so while concentrating on driving.

24. Bring an ice cube with you and rub it across your skin to get a response from your body to remind you that you are here and in the present.

25. Try to do math problems or logic problems in your head to distract yourself from the feelings of unreality.

26. Engage in simple car games such as “I Spy” or other games to take your mind off the panicky feelings.

If anyone can think of any other tips or have tips to share that have worked, I urge them to share them in the comments section. Derealization, Depersonalization and panic attacks are a prominent and dangerous problem while driving. It is terrifying and makes driving unpleasant and traumatizing. It is important that people with Panic Disorder find effective ways to continue driving, traveling, and participating in social activities so they do not become Agoraphobic and housebound. This must be avoided at all costs!

Where Mental Illness Comes From

2011-02-26T15:34:00.004-06:00

"(...)And if you hate me,
Then hate me so good that you can let me out
Let me out, let me out
'Cause it's Hell when you're around."
--Damien Rice, "Rootless Trees" (Click to listen)

Neurologists, psychiatrists, and doctors all fail us. Sometimes they may be able to tell us what is wrong when we tell them where it hurts, but when we point to the brain they are mystified.

I have a firm opinion on the origin of mental illness which I will share with you. I believe that all mental illness is borne of fear, helplessness, and hopelessness. I once recall explaining to someone that if a Schizophrenic runs out into the street screaming, he is not doing so out of a demented urge to hurt another human being—he is doing so out of fear and desperation.

The actions of the mentally ill are scrutinized and scrutinized over and over and constantly labeled incorrectly without any care for the sufferer or the stigma placed on him for his condition.

Nothing is scarier than watching, knowing, and waiting as your whole world shrinks around you, as relationships are ruined, as your mind is attacked day after day for and worried raw for hours on end. Nothing is worse than losing your faith in doctors, science, and medications when they are the only things that can supposedly help you. After a while of seeing all your options fail, you are only full of wailing and wasted dreams. The gleam in your eye slowly dulls and you become a prisoner, wrapped in chains of fear and tethered to walls of agony.

The origin of all mental illness is fear—not perversion, not deviance, and not the ravings of a warped mind. It is unbearable to be so crushingly gripped by terror all the time. Your heart pounds too fast, your mind races, all concentration is gone, and all semblance of a normal life leaves you. Mental illness is an all too intimate acquaintance with terror. The tangles roots of which slowly climb the length of you until you are completely engulfed by them. You are immobilized, agonized, torn apart, labeled by the psychiatric and medical society, and made to feel as if you are an exhibit in a modern day freak show.

The sensationalist media confuses us about mental illness, until we routinely believe that everyone with a mental illness is a violent threat, secretly wanting to kill us. This could be no further from the truth. Words like “psychosis” become misunderstood and overused buzz words. How many people actually know that psychotic people are not normally dangerous—and if they are it is usually first self-inflicted?

All people with mental illness want out. They want out of the confines of their brains which torture and terrifies them. It haunts them and hunts them down. Who wants a life like that? I dare anyone to openly admit they would like to be shut up inside the confines between the space of their ears for an eternity.

I’ve seen bumper stickers that proclaim, “I do not suffer from mental illness; I enjoy every second of it.” This statement was obviously written by someone without mental illness and carries the same stigma and degradation that the mentally ill are used to. They are made fun of and labeled because they are misunderstood.

Making fun of mental illness is right on par with making fun of cancer. Both are uncontrollable and eat you alive. Mentally ill people have to juggle a complex and scary relationship with their own psyches when all they really want is to be let out of their own version of a private Hell with room for only one.

Bipolar Disorder and Impulse Control

2011-02-22T19:25:00.007-06:00

“Bipolar disorder can be a great teacher. It's a challenge, but it can set you up to be able to do almost anything else in your life.”

--Carrie Fisher

This is my second edition of this blog as the first one mysteriously dissappeared on my laptop. Be gentle with it.

People are under the misconception that people with Bipolar Disorder move through life exhibiting “Happy Exhibit A” and “Sad Exhibit B” when in reality this could be no further from the truth. Bipolar Disorder is a complex illness and at its root, as that of any mental illness, is a complex host of twisting and turning emotions that are tangled into a web of pain and agony that stretches across the person’s whole persona. They do not roll out of bed one day cuckoo happy and go to bed the same night sobbing uncontrollably.

A lot of people also make the mistake that mania is a happy time for Bipolar people. However, mania is not synonymous with “happy”. Mania can be a very threatening and scary time in a Bipolar person’s life where they are unable to connect events in any meaningful order and instead the world seems to have been turned on its head. Interpersonal violence and assaults can occur during this time that would normally never happen. Bipolar people emerge from their manias shocked and deeply hurt by what they have suffered through.

Bipolar people are not beings with predetermined emotions that feel happy one day and sad the next. They are often highly sensitive, creative individuals with deep longings and yearnings to be fulfilled. During mania they cannot understand the world around them, they have a classical lack of insight that is seen with mental illness, and may internalize perceived gestures as slights and offenses when in some cases there was absolutely no catalyst for the action.

I use this analogy a lot when dealing with mental illness. Going through a cycle of mental illness is like losing your eyesight. I remember vividly getting my first pair of glasses and putting them on. Suddenly I could see! But, before that I had had no knowledge that I had been unable to see and had been pressing my nose up to the T.V. to see my favorite shows. One day I did not wake up with perfect vision and the next wake up with damaged eyesight. It is a gradual slipping process. You begin to lose your footing somewhere along the way and signs are harder to make out. After a while everything is fuzzy and all you know is that things are making much less sense.

Fear, desperation, hurt, agony and confusion all build up within the Bipolar psyche. Over time these feelings metastasize and choke out the good aspects of a Bipolar person’s life. Conversations may become one sided; empathies are divided down the middle. Bipolar people may only see the world as rallying against them and everything they stand for. Paranoia and fear grip them as hard as icy death. Well-behaved gentlemen and ladies become caricatures of their former selves and may become isolated and overwhelmed with emotional stimuli.

Risperdal (Risperidone) is a medication particularly effective for the anger-fueled manic. It is used to treat Schizophrenia, Bipolar mania and aggression issues in children of the ages of 12. It can help suppress the paranoia, deep hurting wounds and anger that arise out of full blown manias.

I encourage you if you know a Bipolar person or a mentally ill person to talk to him or her. Society has let them down, medication has let them down, and doctors set up to help them have let them down. They have few outlets, resources and methods of release. Sometimes talking, even though the conversation may be skewed, would be enough to help one mentally ill person shoulder his or her burden alone. Let them know you care. Bipolar Disorder, like every other mental illness, has no cure. There are attempts to control or suppress it but the effectiveness of these methods hinge solely on the individual, the therapy and the medications prescribed. Don’t mislabel or misunderstand mental illness. Sufferers already undergo enough stigmatization as it is.

Resources:

http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Overcoming_Bipolar_Disorder_Anger.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0000944

Mental Illness and Demonology

2011-02-17T12:25:00.007-06:00

"The tendency to turn human judgements into divine commands makes religion one of the most dangerous forces in the world."

--Georgia Harkness

To begin with, let me fully state that I do have religion and believe in my own personal God. However, I do disagree with the church's inability to recognize and ease mental illness. The Bible commands us to care for widows, tells us lepers were healed and the blind made to see, but little is broached on the subject of mental illness. We see demon possession in the Bible and many pastors and church goers wrongly turn a case of mental illness into a case of demonic possession.

Let me emphatically say that mental illness is both a serious physical and mental condition. It should be given the same consideration, care and empathy that cancer, moral wounds and traumatic injuries are given. It is just as grievous to live with a mental handicap as it is to live with a physical handicap.

There are a lot of people that say to me that if I have enough faith, I will be delivered. The problem then becomes my heart and not my brain. Would someone be as so cold as to suggest to a cancer patient that they are withering away and dying because they simply do not have enough faith? I believe in miracles and divine intervention, of course, but I also believe in science and methodical thought. If you were ill with a disease which there was a medication for would you go to the pharmacy and retrieve the medicine or would you pray away your fever? I think a combination of both would be sufficient.

I do not believe people with mental illnesses are inhabited by the devil no more than I believe someone with any other disease is inhabited by him. This is a tragic mistake to make that further stigmatizes the mentally ill and causes them to lose what frail hope they grasp on to in their lives.

I will say that it does certainly feel like your life has been taken over by some demonic force if you battle with mental illness. The blow of the diagnosis, the struggle of each day that goes by, the suffering, the loss of function, the loss of joy and stability and pride all work together to crush your spirit. It feels like you no longer may exert control over your life, but rather it is being sabotaged by some unseen agent and every time you try to remedy your dire situation you are sent reeling backwards, deeper into a pit that you could never hope to climb out of.

The light for those of us with mental illness is already sufficiently dim. Do not lower its level even more by suggesting that we are of demon seed or devil spawn. This is inaccurate, untrue, ignorant and simply cruel. Do not cast the blame for the disease on the one that is suffering. Do not make us search ourselves with any more anxiety and fear wondering if we perhaps have been not only cast of by the "normal" perimeters of the world and of those of heaven as well.

Keep your faith, if you have it and keep it even closer if you are mentally ill. Seek all the treatment you are able to. Supply yourself with enough courage to get through each day and do not be ashamed of your failures. Each victory, no matter how small, should be celebrated as a milestone. Even if one day you are well and the next day you are sick again, do not blame yourself. You are not evil. If you truly believe the human being was created in God's own image, then how can you be?

I Fought the Law and the Law Won

2010-05-22T16:13:00.007-05:00

"You know when you've found it, there's something I've learned, because you feel it when they take it away."
--"Amie", Damien Rice

Today I am blogging about something that actually happened to me. It is funny, absurd and a little electric now when I think back on it. The setting was yesterday. I had my first appointment with my psychiatrist in over six months. He wanted to put me back on a first generation antipsychotic and you must already know my feelings about that.

I resisted and while the doctor did not seem enraged, he seemed annoyed and would whirl his office chair around so his glance could meet mine would I would say something he deemed outrageous. I told him I would not take another first generation antipsychotic. He made the argument that you could look up Aspirin on the internet, see all the bad points, and become terrified of taking it. Of course, we weren't talking about Aspirin. I saw the logic in his debate, but one must remember that psychotrophic drugs run the spectrum from psychiatric medicines to LSD.

At one point he said, "I AM YOUR DOCTOR..." and I thought he was finished right there. I guess I could have yelled back, "I AM AN ENGLISH MAJOR..." and we would have been even. But, he didn't stop there. He said, "I AM YOUR DOCTOR and I would not prescribe anything to hurt you." Technically, it was too late for that argument, but I listened.

I tried to convince him to sign me onto a PAP for Seroquel, but he said I was already on a PAP for Cymbalta. And my response in my mind was, "So?"

He told he that when he worked in the E.R., they routinely saw cases of patients with Akathisia. Akathisia is what we're now calling my seizure-like episode that seemed to electrically charge and tear through my muscles quite some months ago. He said I just needed to take Artane with the antipsychotic and I would be safe. I asked him what my percentage of safety would be. He was a little flabbergasted and said I'd be totally fine. He also said that if he were to put me back on Haldol right now that I would be fine because of the Artane. I didn't point out that he was the one who had forgotten to prescribe me Artane with Haldol in the first place-- since I can't write out my own prescriptions. I wish I could.

Now comes the really strange part....

After my back and forth with the good doctor, I was instructed to wait in the lobby again for M****. M. is the one in charge of the medicine. M. took me back to his/her office and explained that s/he knew that I was scared of the medicines the doctor wanted to put me on. S/he assured me they were safe and I should not be scared by the side effects I had read about and encountered. S/he said the doctor did not want to hurt me. I felt a little like a child being sent to the principal for mouthing off at the teacher.

Now, I like M. S/he is a good person and always friendly. So, I listened, but was still on my guard. The good doctor had also accused me of not taking my medicines. I told M. that I had been receiving my meds from my general doctor and they made me sign a release form so they could call my doctor and confirm I had been, in fact, picking up and taking the medications. M. reassured me s/he believed me.

I left the clinic in a dark mood. After being accused, lectured and offended as a 25 year old patient, I felt quite hopeless about my situation and had a smoldering sense of anger along with a foiled sense of justice. I had expected Nurse Rachet to wheel out my meds in a cup at any time and sublimely remind me to swallow my capsules.

Life is just one big obligation in the looney bin.

Obesity and Psychoactive Drugs

2010-05-13T11:12:00.007-05:00

** First of all, I want to make an amendment to this article that I did not clarify to the best of my ability. I consider a child any human under the age of 10 to 12 years of age.**

Out of all the effects of psychiatric medications can have, I suppose obesity shouldn't be taken seriously. But, let's talk frankly for a moment. Obesity ruins bodies, self image and skewers our sense of beauty in relation to ourselves and in relation to the eyes of others.

I'm embarrassed to track my own record with psychiatric drugs and obesity. All I know is that I couldn't fathom how or why I was getting fat when I started anti-depressants. I remember staring into my mother's full-length mirror, cradling my stomach like a pregnant woman and being at a loss of words and feeling shame stacked upon more shame. I had never been fat in my life and I didn't know what to do. So, I bit the bullet and I began to work out. That helped. Until they introduced the antipsychotics.

In a study done to track the effects of antipsychotics on children (yes, children! What a horror!) two doctors studied the effects of six different medications on animals. Within a six week study, the animals virtually DOUBLED their body weight and developed Type II Diabetes.

There had also been reports that some children on antipsychotics had died of diabetic ketoacidosis, which is a rare complication to Type I Diabetes. In the research with the animals, rare complications in Type II Diabetes had been recorded as well.

My father has diabetes and every night I watch him give himself a shot through his stomach wall and wonder how he seems to manage that so easily. If that were me, I'd ask for a blindfold and cigarette before I even contemplated the shot.

I still struggle very much to this day to keep my weight under wraps. I try every diet I read about, even the ones which include virtual starvation. I think there's a sad loop that goes on in someone's brain who used to be beautiful and knows they have lost that quality. The loop is of former days and causes him or her to see him or herself in the minds' eye as that old beauty he or she once was. When confronted with a new image, one of a mishappen and twisted body, he or she is unable to recognize that reflection in the mirror for a few seconds. I am no longer blessed with the perfect metabolism or the perfect body. But, I am working very hard to get it back.

Now, when I think of these atrocities happening to children, it bothers me a great deal. Imagine how a child would see him or herself as he or she ballooned and swelled from medications. It's a very sad thought. More dangerous is the threat of juvenile diabetes and the strict regimen one must follow with that disease.

I was never formally treated for my illness until I turned 18. I have had Panic Disorder since a very young age and it did affect me in very scary ways. But, then again, it still does. I don't believe children should be treated in any manner until they are grow. If they are of a reasonable age and have the courage to say that they have a mental illness, then they should be treated. But I think this reasonable age should be around 17 to 19. And I think they should be prepared for the effects no one ever mentions, which is obesity which piles on you year after year if you are not vigilant and prepared to take your own bodily health into your own hands.

Sources Cited:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/39908.php

Extrapyramidal Disorders: A Brief Introduction

2010-05-07T10:58:00.013-05:00

I've been meaning to post this for a while now, but since there is such a huge burden of information pertaining to this subject, I've been putting it off. Shame on me. Okay, let's talk about extrapyramidal disorders. The culprit for extrapyramidal disorders in the psychiatric world is antipsychotics. You may experience extrapyramidal disorders as a side effect of a large dosage of medication or as an effect of taking antipsychotics for a large number of years. Extrapyramidal disorders you are likely to see with antipsychotics are:

Akathisia

Akinesia

Dystonia

Neuroleptic malignant syndrome

Pseudo-Parkinson's Disorder/ Pseudoparkinsonism

Tardive Dyskenisia

Tremors

The effects of these disorders run the range from inability to move to inability to stop moving.

The effects are also heartbreaking. Some may remain even after the antipsychotics are stopped. For anyone taking an antipsychotic or anyone connected to them, it is important to know the effects of these medications. I recently had to make a choice with taking Prolixin. I had to decide whether the risk of having a movement disorder outweighed the treatment Prolixin could afford. Since I've had a movement disorder before in response to Haldol and since Prolixin is stronger than Haldol, I stamped a big "NO" on that medication in my mind.

Every person will have to decide what is right for him or her. But at least the information is out there. I will say that these disorders, or at least the one I experienced are very painful and can last for hours if not treated.

Newer antipsychotics still carry this risk, but I still suggest taking an anti-convulsant or counteracting medicine with them. The older antipsychotics are dangerous and straight out of the "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" era. They are among the strongest and scariest medications ever created and prescribed. These are known as the first generation antipsychotics.

First generation antipsychotics

Haloperidol (Haldol, Serenace)
Droperidol (Droleptan)
Chlorpromazine (Thorazine, Largactil)

Fluphenazine (Prolixin) - Available in decanoate (long-acting) form
Perphenazine (Trilafon)
Prochlorperazine (Compazine)
Thioridazine (Mellaril, Melleril)
Trifluoperazine (Stelazine)
Mesoridazine
Periciazine
Promazine
Triflupromazine (Vesprin)
Levomepromazine (Nozinan)
Promethazine (Phenergan)
Pimozide (Orap)
Chlorprothixene (Cloxan, Taractan, Truxal)

Clopenthixol (Sordinol)
Flupenthixol (Depixol, Fluanxol)
Thiothixene (Navane)
Zuclopenthixol (Cisordinol, Clopixol, Acuphase)

I included the video at the bottom so you can see the severe effects of Parkinson's. Remember that some of these antipsychotics create something known as

pseudoparkinsonism

. I have similar a similar warning, drug list and videos on my post about Tardive Dyskenisia, but I never fully listed all the movement disorders antipsychotics could create. I am sure my list is incomplete, which is scary. I borrowed it from Wikipedia.

Parkinson's Dyskenisia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1jJyk_poqE&NR=1

Sources Cited:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movement_disorder

Mental Health and Faith

2010-05-07T04:20:00.006-05:00

"Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest

burning"

--The Wasteland, T.S. Eliot (Click to Read)

Oh no. What a can of worms we have here. The blending and blurring of mental health and faith together. Is it a good idea? Should we do this? Should we tell people that only if you believed more that God would save you from the fires of mental illness?

I don't know.

I wish I knew.

I am struggling with this myself. I am a person of faith. On my good days it seems easier to be a person of faith. When I'm driving down Alabama highway 411 questioning my reality, faith seems slippery and hard to grasp.

I don't want to discourage anyone from faith. Please, by all means, believe, pray and worship. There is nothing better for the soul and the broken heart to know that God loves you. There is no better, sweeter tasting medicine than believing that the Almighty has your back. Simply don't rule out medicine.

I put mental illness at the same status as cancer. It could be called a cancer of the brain. It metastasizes in its own way, it destroys, diminishes and obliterates functions; it burns down family trees, ruins communication and refuses to go away, but instead hangs on with the teeth of a 2,000 pound bulldog. When I say cancer, I mean metaphorically, of course. It doesn't show up as a tumor or menacing white spot on an X-ray. But it does require horrible, painful medicine such as chemotherapy.

(If you don't believe me, check out my posts on Haldol, Prolixin and Tardive Dyskenisia. I plan to write more articles on the effects of antipsychotics.)

So, what are you saying, Megan?

I am saying believe. But believe in other things as well. Believe in God and the new, safer medications. Believe in God and yoga. Believe in God and meditation of the mind and spirit. Believe in God and medical choices. Have faith, but don't just limit it to God. Don't be afraid to branch out and see if a medication works for you. I made this statement and I will make it again: I am not anti-drug; I am anti-horrible-side-effects.

Pleases, nonetheless, believe.

Prolixin

2010-05-06T18:51:00.010-05:00

"(...)as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen"

--The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot (Click to Read)

***

Introducing the players: Modecate, Permitil and Prolixin A.K.A. Fluphenazine

This medication is one of the oldest, hardest hitting player against Schizophrenia and psychotic disorders.

But at what price?

I was offered Prolixin as a substitute for the $59.95 medication I had wanted earlier.

Prolixin?

It seems to be a great trade. Only $8.00 for a ride on this psychotrophic philly.

Prolixin carries an even greater risk of producing extrapyramidal side effects in the patient than Haldol does.

Let's talk about extrapyramidal disorders. Extrapyramidal disorders are movement disorders such as Tardive Dyskenisia, Akathisia and pseudoParkinsons. They range in effects from akinesia, the inability to move, to akathisia, the inability to remain motionless. They are extremely painful. The pain of movement is electrical and excruciating. Small rapid movements of the fingers, rapid blinking, uncontrollable mouth movements, the thrashing of your arms and legs are all terrible consequences of this drug. Unbelievably, Prolixin is STRONGER than the beast Haldol, which I personally find amazing.

Now these symptoms are not rare and segregated to a few unlucky lasses and lads, oh no-- these symptoms are COMMON. The likelyhood of having permanent Tardive Dyskenisia increases with each year you take an antipsychotic. Females are at a higher risk than males. No matter what your therapist tells you, there is no known cure for Tardive Dyskenisia. These symptoms just rip your body apart and ravage you until you are nothing but a bundle of painful nerves and muscles, contracting painfully and eternally.

Take your treatment into your own hands: Focus; learn, and question. Leave nothing to chance with psychotrophic drugs. Save yourself, save your children, your nephew, your parent from enduring the Hell of everlasting twitches and jerks, pacing until a track is worn into the carpet, nights full of flexing fingers and frightening pain. Be your own advocate. Always wear that big heart of yours on your sleeve. Always inform and help. There is no shame in knowledge-- only power and safety.

Sources Cited:

http://www.mentalhealth.com/drug/p30-m03.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrapyramidal_symptoms

Mental Health Care Costs Skyrocket

2010-04-30T15:15:00.003-05:00

“Mental health problems do not affect three or four out of every five persons but one out of one"

-- Dr. William Menninger

The rising cost of psychiatric medication is unbelievable. Patients desperately need their medicine, some of which they may be physically and psychologically dependent upon. Mentally ill people may have conditions that interfere with their income and access to cash. Some of us are shut ins, people with unstable moods, and unbalanced brain chemicals. It's hard to get out there and work for the mentally ill who have serious conditions.

So, what to do?

Today I was prescribed a new medication. I called the pharmacy for the price. This price is a monthly quote. The medication cost was $59.95. I could not afford it. This forced my mental health providers to scramble for a new generic medication I can afford. The shame is that the medication I was initially prescribed probably would have worked much better than my therapist's second choice. The second choice was influenced by cost effectiveness, not psychological effectiveness.

Many people in the U.S. struggle with the same problems I do. What medications can I afford this month? What medication do I have to stretch out until next month? How can I get by?

It is a sad situation that we have to face. Without resources and money to draw upon, many people are left stranded psychologically and emotionally with their backs up against the wall.

Dealing with Panic Disorder

2010-04-29T17:20:00.004-05:00

"Nothing is wrong with me except myself."

--Franz Kafka

Panic Disorder can literally destroy lives, especially when it is accompanied by Agoraphobia. It is crippling and destructive to people and their souls.

Derealization and Depersonalization with Panic Disorder destroys the core of a person. Conflicting experiences with reality and "unreality" are terrifying and traumatic. These experiences can lead to self-imposed confinement and extreme fear and anticipation of the next attack.

What can family members do to help people with Panic Disorder and these accompanying illnesses?

Don't be spontaneous. Follow a plan and don't "spring a new plan" on a family member with Panic Disorder.

Allow them access to their "safe places".

Remove them from a frightening location if they ask to leave because of overwhelming terror and sensations.

Listen to them and try to imagine their symptoms. Don't get hung up on the technical issues of the disorder.

Allow them to carry their medications with them if they so desire.

[Warning: DO NOT take pill bottles without the prescription labels on them with you. Xanax, a popular medication for Panic Disorder, is a controlled substance. If you are caught carrying Xanax with no prescription, you may be charged.]

Let them know that they can leave the situation if they need to. Feeling trapped is a horrible side effect of agoraphobia. So, allow them to be comfortable.

Be willing to listen to their description of symptoms without judging or becoming angry. Remember that your family member is suffering--no matter how they describe their symptoms,

try to have an open mind and heart and do not label them automatically as seriously mentally ill.

Do not become angry at the family member because of their limitations [which may be severe.]

Always remember that Panic Disorder is a monster, but it should not be hidden in the closet; it needs to be examined in the light and not quickly labeled and shoved aside. Try to pray, heal,

and destroy the negativity of this roaring monster that is Panic Disorder.

Never lose hope. Even on the dark days.

Peripheral hallucinations

2009-06-06T20:52:00.006-05:00

One need not be a chamber to be haunted,
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.

Far safer, of a midnight meeting
External ghost,
Than an interior confronting
That whiter host.

Far safer through an Abbey gallop,
The stones achase,
Than, moonless,
one's own self encounter
In lonesome place.

Ourself, behind ourself concealed,
Should startle most;
Assassin, hid in our apartment,
Be horror's least.

The prudent carries a revolver,
He bolts the door,
O'erlooking a superior spectre
More near.

--Dickinson, "XXIX. Ghosts" (click to read)

Peripheral hallucinations--what are they? I'll tell you. Peripheral hallucinations occur with psychosis and should be in the psychosis post, but they're not. There are so many symptoms and overlapping criteria, that I am bound to miss something. So, you will either have to grab my clammy hand and come along or be totally fed up with my jumping from subject to subject. I hope you will just take my hand, for what it's worth.

Peripheral hallucinations can occur with Bipolar Disorder, Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder, and, of course, any sort of psychosis. Peripheral hallucinations are misinterpretations in thought brought on by psychosis. The object of the hallucination fluctuates from person to person-- one person may hallucinate differently than another. Do you recall when I told you about "mis-seeing" things? Peripheral hallucinations fall under this category. It is basically anything from seeing an amorphous blog to a human figure out of the corner of your eye. You may also feel a menacing "presence"on all sides of you. Paranoia is a symptom of psychosis and these disturbances are usually accompanied by massive fear.

Now, there is an occurrence where Schizophrenics, Bipolars, and Schizoaffectives can "mis-see" texts as well as shapes. I am unsure if this has a separate name. Sometimes they will mistakenly see profanities or misread words or jumble patterns.

It is not always dramatic. A mentally ill person does not necessarily see a man wielding a knife or a face in the darkened window while they're in the house alone. Now, they CAN, but they don't always. They may just see a shape or a color and it is no big deal. The affect of the hallucination has to do with the progression of the psychosis.

They are quite terrifying depending on what one might see. The variety and sheer horror involved in the hallucination depends wholly upon the person and the disturbance in his or her brain. I'm not quite sure if anyone believes their hallucinations are real; I'm sure some might be inclined to believe so. Considering the strageness of mental illness and the tragedy of it, I would say that is not such a far-fetched idea.

I will say that such experiences can't be easily shrugged off one's shoulders.

Devil's Move

2009-06-06T20:14:00.009-05:00

"And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed."
--Shelley "Ozymandias" (click to read)

"In the history of oppression, using haloperidol is kind of like detaining people in Abu Ghraib,"
--Nigel Rodley, former United Nations special investigator on torture

Haldol gained notoriety in the Soviet Union, where it was often given to political dissidents imprisoned in psychiatric hospitals. (click to read.)

I am outraged. WHAT are we DOING to our mental health patients? Haldol is used to absolutely retard the whole body, leaving the drugged person half-alive, slurring, tongue lolling out and eyes rolled back, convulsing and twitching.

Haldol is used in TORTURE. No, no-- read it again: HALDOL IS USED IN TORTURE.
That leaves one to deduce that therefore Haldol IS torture.

I read this story and I was speechless. There are many more-- go ahead, read them. This one in the Washington Post, this one from a Soviet Union report; it's all there and it's undeniable.

Have you ever heard of Thorazine? Thorazine knocks you off your feet if you're Schizophrenic. Haldol is FIFTY times more powerful than Thorazine. Oh, there's no denying Haldol "works" but it's sort of like selling this for that-- bartering pieces of humanity for pieces of normality. I'll wager my sex drive for psychosis, my arousal for paranoia, my ability to feel and my intricate sensation system for a nice steady walk. I'll also wager a pretty face for tics that make men laugh at me and red-lipped smile for an involuntary sneer.

I'm a 24-year-old woman. How would you feel if I approached you, twisting my body, my lips wriggling and my eyes batting unsteadily? So ein Pech we Germans would say.

When I used to watch movies or documentaries about the mentally ill in psychiatric hospitals, I assumed that their movements were due to their state of mind. Now, sometimes, in some illness, this is correct. I did not have the life experience to realize that those movements-- those movements that "tell" other people they're crazy, right?-- are actually brought on by the brutal and invasive regimens of psychotropic drugs. Those who cannot be "rehabilitated" (I find this word inappropriate) are just doped up, numbed, bound and gagged with pharmaceuticals. Who cares if you twitch and twist as long as you're quiet and look appropriately sedated?

The anger I feel from treatment is due to my circumstances. When I was told to seek help for Panic Disorder, I was 17 years old. I had had Panic Disorder as far back as I could remember-- even before sixth grade. So, when my parents said no to the drugs, I felt like they were saying no to the cure.

We eventually tried drugs.

We've been trying drugs ever since. My diagnosis has broadened.

There is no cure.

The best hope is lowly "adequate" treatment.

And, after that, there's always the threat of drug tolerance.

Why must one bargain for one's health?

and

Why must one bargain for one's life?

I suppose it is not up to me to ponder these questions. But, I do. What does it take to get well and when will we find it? Can you see my hopelessness? Do you see the deals with the devil we must make to seem "normal"?

The mentally ill have no voice-- their tongues are twisted up in their mouths like fat snakes, their veins bulge from constant pressure in the muscles and rigor in their arms and legs. They can't speak because pills are crammed down their throats.

It would be different if the pills could actually "cure", but they can't. And therein lies the great shame. We're still treating patients with Haldol. Haldol was approved by the FDA in 1967. It is on the list of essential psychiatric care drugs. It has the ability to stop acute psychosis and land you in the E.R. if you have a low seizure thresh hold and if you don't take the counter-acting anti-spasm pills. But to be normal, for that hope to be normal, for that dream to enjoy moments and not fear them, the mentally ill allow doctors to subject them to their best "cure-alls."
With a bunch of this will do the tricks and I believe this will helps.

And since then it's been a game of chess with the devil;

he moves;

we move;

no one wins.

Wondering About Just

2009-06-06T14:55:00.008-05:00

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars, and in the middle, you see the blue center-light pop, and everybody goes ahh..."
--Kerouac On the Road (You have to buy this one, kids-- no click to read)

A couple things happened the other day which is bringing Schizophrenia to my attention. It seems to sort of keep looking back up at me from the sidewalk. I'm not going to do an in-depth blog about Schizophrenia without having a lot of ammunition, so you'll have to wait for that one.

I read a man's post on the Internet talking about how he was a teacher and during school he would wonder if he were real and if the students could see him. I'm not sure if the experience terrified him or not. I can't recall the text. Anyway, he mentioned that he was diagnosed as a high-functioning schizophrenic, which is basically what happened with me. But, I still carry confusion with me about the diagnosis. It was rejected by family, horrified my friends and startled me a little bit because I've always been terrified of becoming schizophrenic. Confusion compounds the fact that my counselor disagrees with this diagnosis yet the therapist keeps pushing Haldol at me. Haldol was primarily developed to treat schizophrenia and is still diagnosed for that purpose along with the treatment of psychosis and delirium. It is used for people who have frequent relapses in their mental health.

"You don't have it bad--otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here talking to me."

What, I have a touch of it? Well, sir, you're a touch of an #$@#^%.

Whatever I have doesn't feel great. I don't feel like being on a Metlife commercial or anything.

"For the ifs in life-- like what if you were diagnosed as schizophrenic..."

That's the first thing.

The second thing is something that came to my attention yesterday and today. Yesterday my mother was asking me to look at some writing to determine if someone was really schizophrenic or just pretending. Today I read some of Kerouac's writing and the preposition placement and usage surprised me as well as the fusion and inner combustion of some of the words. Apparently his writing is coined as "Spontaneous Prose". Ok, I can buy that, I suppose. He wrote thirty guidelines to apply to his prose. I'm not going to reproduce them here and frankly, I'm a little scared to reprint some of them here. Ha ha? I like numbers 19 and 29.

19. Accept loss forever
29. You're a Genius all the time

Hm. Sounds a little like my philosophy, too. You're either great or nothing. Anyway, back to the blog. I'm familiar with the "word salad" effect in schizophrenia and everyone knows all the telltale signs, of course. But the placement of words is interesting. Kerouac, might I point out, did not learn English until he was six and spoke French. I know, it must have been horrible for him...French...Oh no...(LOL.)

Sometimes, especially as I've gotten older, I have to reread things quite a bit. I "mis-see" (I will have another blog about this, too. It has a name-- seriously...) things or I see another word. Sometimes the words knock together in my head and I have to get them to sit down in their seats and settle down so I can take roll call and make a sentence out of the present ones and nonsense out of the tardies. Kerouac made me do that several times. Look at some of the entries from the list:

Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for your own joy

Submissive to everything, open, listening

Be in love with your life

Something that you feel will find its own form

Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind

Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind

The unspeakable visions of the individual

No time for poetry but exactly what is

Visionary tics shivering in the chest

In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you

Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition

Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog

The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye

Write in recollection and amazement for yourself

Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea

Accept loss forever

Believe in the holy contour of life

Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind

Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better

Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning

No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge

Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it

Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form

In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness

Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better

You're a Genius all the time

Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

I don't have a problem with the wording. I actually like it. But, I am getting a headache again. The "Visionary tics shivering in the chest" remark makes me wonder if he was prescribed Haldol, too. Ha ha.

I'll come back to this post later.

The Infamous Mrs. Eliot

2009-06-05T21:05:00.011-05:00

"I came to persuade myself that I was in love with Vivienne simply because I wanted to burn my boats and commit myself to staying in England. And she persuaded herself (also under the influence of Pound) that she would save the poet by keeping him in England. To her, the marriage brought no happiness. To me, it brought the state of mind out of which came The Waste Land."
--Eliot, writing about Vivienne Haigh-Wood-Eliot

I've read a lot concerning Eliot's relationship with his wife Vivienne Haigh-Wood. For some reason, it is not until tonight I feel quite so sorry for her. I've read this story before in a seperate book, but I'll leave it here for your reference. (Click to read.)

Strangely enough, I can see myself as the next Vivienne Haigh-Wood. I don't run, but I have walked after a few ambitious male writers. LOL. I guess my high esteem of Eliot took away from the fact that he did not do a great deal to rehabilitate his wife. It is possible he did not know what to do or he did not care. It seems as if he rather abandoned her now that I see the story again. I always saw Vivienne as an interference because I believe he married her for the wrong reasons-- but that was not her failure; it was his. Assertions of his suppressed homosexuality also spring up which I will not really go into detail about. (I have had headaches for three weeks now; leave me be.)

I'm not sure why I have a renewed sympathy for Vivienne. I went over "The Wasteland" with my mother the other day-- yes, it's true; I did-- and she pointed out that Eliot's supposed answers to his wife in the poem did little to help soothe her condition.

Supposedly, so I was once taught once upon a class, the quoted sections are mimicking Vivienne, while the unquoted remarks are Eliot.

'My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.

'Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.

'What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?

'I never know what you are thinking. Think.'

I think we are in rats' alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.

'What is that noise?'

The wind under the door.

'What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?'

Nothing again nothing.

'Do

'You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember

'Nothing?'

I remember

Those are pearls that were his eyes.

'Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?'

But

O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—

It's so elegant

So intelligent

'What shall I do now? What shall I do?'

'I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street

'With my hair down, so. What shall we do to-morrow?

'What shall we ever do?'

The hot water at ten.

And if it rains, a closed car at four.

And we shall play a game of chess,

Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

I'm not sure where the passage ends; there is interference from a number of voices in the poem. But, you can see the general idea. Eliot is in blue; his wife is in red. The passages I am unsure about are left in the color of the regular text. I will not assume anything about Eliot. That's a good way to get kicked in the pearly whites.

Vivienne's condition was marked down to "hysteria" thanks to the wonderful attention doctors pay to women in particular. It seems to be a "nerve condition" or, more appropriately, an Anxiety Disorder and psychosis from the paranoia. Strangely enough, both Vivienne and Eliot display disordered thought. Eliot's passages clearly state apathy, lethargy, and depression. He's not hard to nail down in this respect.

The Shakespeare reference, I can explain thanks to an excellent doctor I once had. I wondered about that for a long time. But, my headache is pounding and I'm concerned over my writing status. So, not tonight; I have a headache. LOL.

I've had enough with critics and editors! Enough! Enough! Enough! (Especially ones with no degrees.) Everyone's a critic, eh?

If you have complaints, send them to: kissmyfoot@idon'tcare.com

Writers with Mental Illness

2009-06-05T11:27:00.023-05:00

Writers with Mental Illness

Charles Dickens--Clinical Depression
Sylvia Plath--Clinical Depression, possibly Bipolar Disorder
Ernest Hemingway-- Clinical Depression, possibly Bipolar Disorder
Tennessee Williams--Clinical Depression
Franz Kafka-- Clinical Depression, Anxiety Disorder
John Keats-- Clinical Depression, Bipolar Disorder
Leo Tolstoy-- Clinical Depression
Virginia Woolf-- Bipolar Disorder
Edgar Allan Poe-- Clinical Depression, possibly Bipolar Disorder
F. Scott Fitzgerald-- Clinical Depression, Bipolar Disorder
Lord Byron-- Bipolar Disorder
Samuel Taylor Coleridge-- Bipolar Disorder
Ralph Waldo Emerson-- Bipolar Disorder
Herman Melville-- Clinical Depression
Friedrich Nietzsche-- Clinical Depression
Kurt Vonnegut-- Clinical Depression, Bipolar Disorder
T.S. Eliot-- Clinical Depression (and the wifey, too-- Vivienne Haigh-Wood)
Anne Rice-- Clinical Depression
Anne Sexton-- Clinical Depression
JK Rowling-- Clinical Depression
Amy Tan-- Clinical Depression
Mark Twain-- Clinical Depression
Walt Whitman-- Clinical Depression
Jack Kerouac-- Schizophrenia

If you have anyone to add, please drop me a line with the author and his or her disorder. This list is in no way complete. It probably never will be. I dispute some of the folks and diagnoses on this list, but who am I to criticize?

It is not uncommon for Bipolar Disorder to couple up with severe Clinical Depression. When I began to study mental illness, I had trouble with this concept. Now that it possibly has happened to me, I have less of a problem rationalizing it and accepting it.

We must not forget that spectrum disorders like Schizoaffective Disorder have not been identified enough to be applied to this list. So consider the diagnoses you see here as broad labels, but frank confirmations of some mental illness present in the author.

Keep in mind also that severe emotional disturbance and depression can create psychosis-- just as severe fear can generate it. So, by no means marginalize these authors and say, "Oh, he or she ONLY had THIS."

Also, do not rule out drug use pertaining to these authors. Drug usage intensifies and antagonizes mental illnesses.

Mental illnesses link hands quite frequently and easily, sort of like a game of "Red Rover" gone out of control. Once they link hands and the more comrades that are added to the line, the harder it is for you to break free and the more painful the attempts become. Skinned knees, raw elbows, a bloody nose, a black eye, a chipped or missing tooth are the physical symptoms of the psychological scars we carry for trying to break through that damned line.

I had a professor who used to say in response to my confession of mental illness, "You are in good company."

I believe he meant that all writers and artists go through a similar journey through Hell.

So, don't despair for you are in good company.

Indeed. The thought of that is a lullaby that hums me quietly to sleep.

Great Speech

2009-06-04T19:31:00.001-05:00

YOU MUST READ THE FOLLOWING SPEECH ON THE FOLLOWING LINK:

http://www.frogmajikmusic.com/wondrous.html

Ha ha! Look, it includes T.S. Eliot. I guess I'm not the only one who thought he might have been mentally ill.

I must admit, I'm not quite sure who this fellow is. His speech is nice, though. That's all I will say about that.

Yes, I am familar with NAMI (the National Alliance for Mental Health). I will say nothing more than that.

Crisis of Faith

2009-06-04T18:47:00.003-05:00

"Burning burning burning burning

O Lord Thou pluckest me out

O Lord Thou pluckest

burning"

--Eliot "The Wasteland" (click to read)

I've been under a huge amount of stress lately-- mainly with men (who never stay), friends, jobs, and my general deterioration of mental health. My father tells me that my descriptions of my mental symptoms are vague. I used expressions such as "I don't feel real," "I feel like there is a thunderstorm in my brain," "I felt like an inanimate object when I took Haldol (but it helped.)"

This may be for a combination of reasons. Aside from snickers of Schizophrenia, my description of my mental states may simply be over-worded or abstract because of my ongoing heated affair with words. I don't want to use words like other people do.

Since my bout with Tardive Dyskenisia, which I basically consider a strong seizure or brain malfunction, I feel quite damaged. My body went through Hell for three hours and I still feel the electrical pain of that rigor and it stalks me in my memories and dreams. Since the T.D., my brain has not felt right. Now, I have gone through a depressive episode since then which I am still in. It is quite severe. Nonetheless, my brain feels like it has been scorched too long in God's furnace. That's why I stuck that quote in from Eliot. I am a burning woman for many reasons, but primarily tonight my brain burns.

I have made the statement on many occasions that my brain hurts. I feel quite a lot of pain in my head. I have been suffering headaches for three weeks. I don't want this blog to turn into the "poor me chronicles". I am interested to know if anyone else with mental illness experiences "brain pain" or, as I like to call it, "brain freeze". Though, I must admit, there is little freezing in the neuropathological pain.

Kafka came out with his pain. That is why I love him dearest. Dickinson’s life vaguely mimics mine—we both hide, though I am no wordsmith to that degree. Eliot, I believe to a great deal, lied about his circumstances. I’ve read a lot about him and generally he seemed to have it together. The word I’d like to underline in that prior sentence is “seemed”. His wife, as we all know, was ill. Yes, yes, Mrs. Eliot, ill, yes, yes, allusions to her in “The Wasteland.” Maybe it is the use of the voices in “The Wasteland” that points me to the conclusions of mental illness in the poem. That could very well be it. So much of what I read there points me towards psychosis and schizophrenia and delusions and a general disarray of scattered mental health problems.

Some of his other poems give off this impression and some do not. So, I will leave Mr. Eliot alone. You may very well point out that I am hiding again, picking apart poets. Yes, you are quite right. I find comfort in that. Poets, whether they want to be or not, are my friends. Ah, maybe I should say their words are my friends. That is better.

But I seem to exist in a haze and where my written word succeeds, my spoken word falters. I search for words, I forget words, if I try to speak too quickly sometimes I stutter or my tongue stumbles over words. My word order is also wrong most of the time. I know these are common cognitive impairments brought on by psychoactive drugs, yet the drugs aren’t helping much. My parents say I seem better when I’m off the drugs, yet that is when I feel the most vulnerable. Yet the drugs…The drugs do not make the psychosis shrink or the depression crumble or the panic shudder…Ah, it is all a paradox and I am trapped in the middle. What to do?

Pluckest thou me out, O Lord? <---(This sentence seems wrong to me somehow and I used German question structure on it since I was a little unsure of how to phrase it.)

Somehow my faith falters.

Author's note: "Pluckest thou me out, O Lord?" <---(This sentence seems wrong to me somehow. I used German question structure on it since I was a little unsure of how to phrase it.)
German question structure: Verb-nominative-direct object-mashed potatoes-corn on the cob LOL German students, are you laughing?

Depression and Motor Skill Retardation

2009-06-04T14:40:00.001-05:00

"Der Tod, das ist die kühle Nacht,
Das Leben ist der schwüle Tag.
Es dunkelt schon, mich schläfert,
Der Tag hat mich müd' gemacht.
Über mein Bett erhebt sich ein Baum,
Drin singt die junge Nachtigall;
Sie singt von lauter Liebe,
Ich hör es sogar im Traum."
--Heine (87.) (Click to read)

Literal translation (by Megan Snider)

This is LITERAL not POETIC
I have omitted confusing elements of German grammar for the reader's sake

The death is the cool night
The life is the hot day
It will be dark soon; I'll sleep
The day has made me tired
Over my bed rises a tree
In it sings the young Nightingale
She sings loudly about love
I hear it as if from a dream

I'm not sure why I'm writing this post. I guess to get it out in the open. I'm writing again from Hell. I will make no corny jokes about the floor show or the waiting list or the occupants. As far as I can see the occupancy is one. No, I am not boo-hooing into a glass of whiskey. I am downing Diet Pepsi and working on drafts and rewrites sluggishly as I type to you. This is called depression and it is real.

Heine wrote in his poem about how life was a hot day and death was the cool night. As he writes, the singing Nightingale on a branch semi-wakes him to the thought of love and life and he despairs. I love this poem. I related to my counselor that I pray before I go to sleep that I won't wake up. Not to disturb anyone, but wouldn't it be nice just to drift off in a Xanax dream and never wake up again?

Ah, maybe I scare you. I apologize, reader(s). I'm not sure if you've come here because you know what this place is about or you want to know what this place is about. Sometimes I am afraid to be honest, because I am unsure how my words reverberate in your mind.

I wanted to write to you today about a symptom related to severe depression, which I have. I cannot say I battle it; to this day it has me pinned. When it gets bad-- when men reject me or lead me on, then off, when friends hurt me, when love sours, when I am made a fool-- I crumble.

The French word for orgasm is "petit mort" which means, "little death." As a German speaker and of German ancestry, naturally, I spit at the French and I'm not quite sure why they would call an orgasm that. Petit mort would be a better term for depression. Severe depression could then be the "big death" or, as we Deutsche say, "Der große Tod."

What's wrong with the French, anyway?

Now, now, that's enough of that. Break it up, you two.

So, let's talk about the big death. Severe (Clinical) Depression will kill you. You can forget your petit morts with depression altogether. Now, what I wanted to talk about specifically is the retardation of motor skills seen with severe depression. People assume naturally that it is cliche to shut down with depression. Oh, oh, no, it is not.

Let me share something with you for the sake of making a point. The night after I graduated from college, I knew everything was over for me. I have Panic Disorder. That means I have panic attacks every day-- even if I don't leave the house. For those of you who have never experienced a panic attack and believe a little panic is nothing to worry about, I envy you in your ignorance.

I have overwhelming depression. There was a character in the film "Gormenghast" who went around prophetically yelling, "DARKNESS! DARKNESS!" It was hilarious to watch, but I may as well be that man.

So, back to the story for illustration. The night after I graduated, I knew I was doomed. Job worthy by credentials, yes, job un-worthy by the mentals, yes, of course. So, I thought that it might be a nice night to drink. Usually when I say drink I mean pop or coffee or juice, but this time I meant liquor.

I had never drank before.

I drove to the county line liquor store and bought the cheapest Vodka I could find. It's all the same poison-- right? Down the hatch. I took it home and when my parents went to bed, I began to drink. I had panic attacks while drinking, but I kept going. It could be due to the German genes in me or the alcoholism in my family, but I could not stop drinking. I wanted to drink until I forgot my life and forgot that I was mentally ill. That point never came. That point will never come-- no matter if you drink pop, juice, or vodka. I drank for three hours straight non stop. Sip, sip, sip from a kitchen cup, waiting for the pleasant numb of oblivion. Do I need to tell you again that it never came?

I recall a point where it hurt to move and I laid in one position. Here's where the point comes in-- that feeling, that pain upon movement and life-- is depression at its deepest, darkest core. When you hit the bottom, it hurts to live. Like Heine said, the sunlight sears, the darkness cools-- the singing of the bird from the branch brings moans and pangs of torture-- of knowing that you have survived the night and must continue on alone, again, pretending that the thought of another day isn't a bloody nose or a fat lip or a crushed eye socket.

When severe depression hit again yesterday, for reasons I must not disclose, I was unable to move or work. I laid in bed all day. No T.V. blaring, no fans to cool me, no books, no noise-- only text messages from "friends" telling me how I'd "failed" and "blew it." I can't tell you what I am writing about, I can only tell you the circumstances.

I rose oh so slowly to go downstairs to take a dose of God-knows-what for God-knows-why, thinking that my parents would be in bed. My mother was still up. As she spoke to me she pointed out that I moved and spoke slowly and inquired if I had overdosed on benzodiazepines. I had not. What she was seeing, as my counselor and I agreed, was motor retardation applied to severe depression. It's not laziness. It's not overdose. It's literally walking death.

Motor skill retardation is the screeching halt of the muscles. The gait slows, the mouth slows, the eyes slow, the arms and legs, the twisting and pulling-- everything shuts down and switches off. Why? Because the mind has slowed and has given up hope. The body follows the mind. Evidence shows that during major depressive episodes fine motor skills slow as well as gross motor skills.

Fine motor skills are movements of small muscles such as in the fingers, thumbs, and eyes. This also applies to hand eye coordination.

Gross motor skills usually follow patterns and involve large muscles, which develop before small, intricate muscles. Babies usually learn gross motor skills first in addition to learning how to control their eye movements.

Retardation of these skills hints to a deep problem. I suppose that no longer wanting to live could be considered a deep problem. This is not written for offense or shock value-- rather for "truth" value.

Think about that and watch for it in your loved ones. Sometimes things are not so easy to define in life. Watch, look, and listen. Someone might need you.

Sources Cited:

CAT.INIST
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=3237627
Fine Motor Skills
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine_motor_skill
Gross Motor Skills
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_skills

Author's note: Ah, yes, I realize the era of citing from Wikipedia is over and it is frowned upon. It is still good for the general once-over glance in my humble opinion. Sometimes I need information quickly and simply, like one might need a hamburger quickly and simply-- hence, Wikidonald's.

Psychosis

2009-05-31T11:14:00.003-05:00

"And this is not my face
And this is not my life
And there is not a single thing here
I can recognize
This is all a dream
And none of you are real
I'll give anything I'll give anything..."
--Reznor, "Head Down" (click to read)

Let's talk about psychosis today. A psychotic person is not a psychopath. You must realize this. Write it on the back of your hand for reference. Tattoo it on your back. Remember what I tell you.

Remember!

A psychotic person is not a psychopath.

With this blog, I struggle between the use of first and third person pronouns. Should I say "I" or "she"? Sylvia Plath used "she" for "I" in The Bell Jar. She used "she" for "I" often. I hesitate between "she" and "I" simply because I don't want to be Exhibit A in the Looney Tunes section of Ward B.

That's how we treat mental illness, right? It's funny. Straight jackets are funny. Padded rooms are funny. People that drool from Thorazine (Chlorpromazine) are funny, right? Paranoid Schizophrenics are funny, too, aren't they?

It's funny until it happens to you.

So, psychosis, let's deal with it. Let's look at it. If you're scared, that's ok; you should be. Psychosis is terrifying and can be the result of a mental disorder or can be a torture all by its lonesome self.

In the 1950s they used to stick needles behind the orbital sockets and skewer the brain like hamburger to get rid of it. The effect was permanent brain damage. Once again, thank you, mental health centers. They called it a Frontal Lobotomy. If it were the 1950s now, I would be walking around in white with half my brain shaved off. I actually read an article that suggested a new treatment for psychosis was to disrupt or destroy a portion of the frontal lobe to subdue psychosis. This is the rebirth of the Frontal Lobotomy. We put it in a new pair of boots and a new jacket, but it's still the same sadism. Still the same, loving, biting, painful psychiatric care that all of us should be used to by now.

This will make you better-- by the way, do you have insurance?

If you don't have insurance, we can only destroy one section of your brain and not the whole lobe.

So what is psychosis? Simply put, it's a break from reality. You have experienced psychosis and you probably don't know it.

Did you ever get so scared that you didn't feel real?
That happens to me everyday-- that's why I'm psychotic.

Did you ever believe something that wasn't true?
That's a delusion. Talk to folks with Bipolar Disorder or Schizophrenia about that.

Did you ever hear a noise when no one was there? A foot on the stairway or a knock at the door? Did you get up to answer the doorbell and there was all of nothing standing on the other side of that cherry or oak door?

Did-your-thoughts-ever-go-like-this-and-you-couldn't-stop-them?

Di d y our thou ghts eve r go like thi s an d you coul dn't s top the m?

Did you ever have trouble or think you didn't fit in?

Did you ever think someone might be able to see through you and tell what you were thinking?
Were you ever scared you were paper-thin and see through and translucent?

Hey, let's give you a pat on the back and a push through the door.

You just experienced psychosis.

Virginia Slims would say: "You've come a long way, baby!"

It's not really funny, is it?

Did you laugh when that happened to you? Then why do you laugh if it happens to me or her or him?

Psychosis may be present with Bipolar Disorder, Schizophrenia, Panic Disorder, Clinical Depression, unspecified mental disorders, sleep deprivation, epilepsy, extreme trauma, brain tumors, drug abuse, severe stress, brain damage, and drug withdrawal.

Oh, man-- Oh, no-- That means...It could happen to anyone...Jeez...Man....Oh my God....

Yeah, that's right, you just got a bingo on your score-card.

Psychosis is a scary term and it's a scary problem to have. I recall reading that 50% of people with severe Panic Disorder have "derealization" or "depersonalization". I'm not sure if that statistic is correct, but it sure makes me feel a lot better. That's basically Psychosis.

My biggest problem and my biggest fear is psychosis. I'm not afraid when I'm so depressed I can't move. I'm not upset when I want to write, but I'm too depressed to pick up a pen. I'm not upset when I can't decide whether to laugh or cry. I'm not upset when I feel the familiar moan of depression radiate through my body when I no longer want to wake up in the morning. I'm afraid when I have a panic attack and I "don't feel real."

Growing up, psychosis was always a problem for me. It has been with me all of my life. It's a side-effect of extreme, sensational fear brought on by uncontrollable Panic Disorder. It ruins things for me, mostly. Experiences that happen which I should enjoy are taken over by fear.

Just pinch yourself to tell it's not a dream.

If I had a lobotomy for every time someone told me that...

The Antipsychotic Trinity Gospel

2009-05-30T18:29:00.001-05:00

I have some things I should probably mention about antipsychotics before I let my experience with Tardive Dyskensia slide. So, I'm going to cover them today.

The first thing you should know is that as far as antipsychotics are concerned, there are three "generations."

The First Generation-- Typical Antipsychotics, 1950
The first generation came with Haldol. Haldol was the first antipsychotic developed, is the oldest, and provides the kind of psychiatric care you might read about in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Haldol is also dirt cheap. Thanks to the Wal-Mart $5.00, prescription plan, you can buy a nice pill jar of Haldol, look in the mirror, and watch the muscles in your mouth spasm. Haldol is a strong drug and often administered in strong doses. Haldol is what they give Schizophrenics to shut them up when they can no longer provide care. They just shoot them full of Haldol injections monthly and let them jitter and spasm. Thank you, mental health centers.

DO NOT TAKE HALDOL WITHOUT AN ANTI-MUSCLE SPASM DRUG.

Even with the drug, you will still twitch.

Antipsychotics are used both to treat Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorders. Generally speaking, these two illnesses are eerily alike. Aside from that you have Schizoaffective Disorder, Psychosis, and it continues on down the spectrum of disorders mixed with conception of reality and conception of mood and personality.

The Second Generation--Atypical Antipsychotics, 1950-1970
The second generation also began in the 1950s, but continued into the 1970s. These drugs are generally safer. I, myself, had taken Zyprexa for three years without an anti-spasm drug and had no effects. Zyprexa, at first, stopped my mind from racing and helped me get to sleep. After a while, it did nothing but make me gain weight.

The Third Generation-- Abilify and Bifeprunox, Currently being tested
The third generation of antipsychotics is still in testing, basically. Abilify has been trumpeted as the Messiah of antipsychotics, but its true effects remain to be seen. I assume the third generation is safer than the second and requires no anti-spasm medication.

Never forget, ANY antipsychotic can cause: Aranulocytosis, Tardive dyskinesia, Tardive akathisia, Tardive psychoses and Tardive dysphrenia.

That's really all I would like to mention in effect to that situation for now.

Depression Speaks

2009-05-29T22:07:00.000-05:00

"Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well."
--Plath "Lady Lazarus" (click to read)

I think that Plath had her finger right on the waning pulse of depression. Depression is a cycle, mostly. It may not feel like one, but it is.

I'm going to do an experiment, since I have just been roused out of my ignorant days of happiness and hope by the punch in the jaw of the fist of reality. I've just had another handful of teeth knocked out by depression again.

Here's a quite tame expression of clinical depression for your observation.

On the surface, we have the steady throbbing emptiness of total despair that wastes away at the soul.

The threadbare linen, the white shroud that haphazardly clings to the being.

Then we have the being, the hard shell and the center that is in all actuality a whirlwind.

It does not take much to start depression back up again because it never really goes away.

A tooth pulled, a finger sliced, a black eye-- always affirmed with those everlasting aches.

The heart, bruised and tarnished with years of stains and regret and sweat-- false hope and false dreams-- finally learns to beat for no reason other than to write.

I write because I can. Everything can and will be taken away from me with time. Bluntly put, time destroys everything and somehow my touch causes empires to crumble-- not because of my power, but because of the shrug in my shoulder and the void in my eyes-- because I fail and am a failure.

I guess maybe the last thing I have is the alphabet. That is funny to say, but it is true. A word, some words, a lie, some lies-- it's all the same-- it all comes out the same way and reaches the same end-- with a gigantic accumulation of absolute nothing.

The hopes of youth, the hopes of passion, the hopes of victory-- the hope of something-- all disappear

--From my hands.

--Just give it time.

This is a tame example. It's been edited and watered down so no one gets too scared or disturbed.

Most people with Bipolar Disorder commit suicide during their manias because they know what is coming next-- the fall...and the crushed spirit and broken bones: Incapacitation.

If you understand metaphors, then you can see what I'm driving at here.

The desire to be pulled to the grave, as I related before when I quoted from "Tithonus".

Nothing is lower than this moment.

But it lasts forever.

I know why Plath put that tape on the door frame and put her head in the oven.

Do you?

Family Therapy

2009-05-29T09:30:00.000-05:00

"There is nothing wrong with me but myself."
--Franz Kafka

I think, in my opinion, Franz Kafka is the poster child for the relationship between the child with mental illness and the parent. Kafka had, it seems to me, anxiety disorders and I know for a fact that he had Clinical Depression.

When I read Kafka's diaries, sometimes it is like looking into a mirror. I mean that with no disrespect because on many occasions I have referred to Franz Kafka as my "dead boyfriend".

That's why he never calls.

Seriously, I suppose this should be done, because I've gone through similar struggles with my own parents. In one respect, I understand what Kafka says to his father and in his famous "Brief Der Vater" ("Letter to Father"), on certain days of the week, I feel ashamed that sometimes my parents may blame themselves for my condition.

Let me say this once-- aside from chemical imbalances, passed on traits, and shared attitudes-- my condition and my parents have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

Mental illness starts up in little ways-- maybe you don't notice at first or maybe you do-- when you hit 23-25, you're usually exhibiting full-blown symptoms. This is what I read and, from my point of view, it is certainly true. In my senior year of college (I had two senior years LOL) I began to really break down. Of course, various events and attitudes have helped to set me off, but that can't be helped. I have always had Panic Disorder, but when it set it again something else came with it.

As far as "dealing" with mental illness goes, NO ONE has the capacity to cure it. Parents, doctors, and even the mentally ill themselves can do similar things and gestures, but the best result is a suppression of illness-- not a remission. My own doctor gave me pills that gave me involuntary muscle spasms/rigidity/tardive dyskensia for three hours. What does that say?

I do resent, honestly, being told to be positive because I feel like the same treasures that other people find in their lives were not created for me to enjoy. I feel like I live in this fringe of society for various reasons and that my life is not entitled to joy and companionship or anything along those lines. I don't just "feel" that; I believe it.

Cycles in my life have convinced me that I am simply not going to have the things I want; that all I can hope for at best is to bury myself in pages and ink pens and web pages and pretend like being alone and being mentally ill doesn't effect me.

I think symptoms are beginning to pile up in my life. Within the last week and a half ago I completed 32 published articles. Yesterday I sat in front of the computer screen and cried. Today I felt the familiar feeling of not wanting wake up.

But that had nothing to do with my parents.

I do not blame them for my illness and I am proud of the legacy I come from. I resent the "positive attitude" talks and the "self-fulfilling prophecy" talks. I resent the fact that when I am upset, I must be having some sort of specific woman's problem or be having hormonal issues. I resent the fact that people with AIDs or cancer get to live "brave" and "noble" lives, while people with mental illnesses are just insane.

Franz Kafka said something to the effect that he felt like the point in the crack of a cup where the pressure is applied the hardest. I agree. Emily Dickinson never came out of her room. When she began to fall in love with a man whom she had been exchanging letters with, she quit writing. I have fallen in love with men and then said to myself, "It's time to stop now." And I've snapped the necks of plenty of my dreams. T.S. Eliot wrote in "The Wasteland" that he could connect nothing to nothing with his hands. I agree.

When I make comparisons between authors and my condition, sometimes people think I am claiming to be as great as they are. No, I'm not. What I'm saying is that it helps me to know that geniuses had mental illnesses, too. When they wrote, they brought their conditions-- purposely or not-- out into light and into the arena of speculation. If you can't see how I feel, then you could go read one of these authors and figure it out to a small, small degree.

Not only that, but these writers are revered. They didn't go around drooling, with red eyes, and monster claws. But, they did suffer in some way or another.

My doctor is not sharing my diagnosis with me. I specifically asked and he specifically said nothing. So, aside from Panic Disorder, Agoraphobia, and Clinical Depression with Psychotic Features, I am left to choose between two disorders to account for the rest of my diagnosis.

At the mention of those prior disorders, I have no doubt that some people reading now fear me. It's alright, I've been down that road before. I just hope that if you are one of those people, that in your hour or HOURS of need, society will also snicker and laugh softly at you, too.

But, my parents did not create these diagnostic criteria and they did not push me into them. It's like I'm in a locked closet door and they're banging on the other side. It's like we're looking at the same picture, but I am looking at the portrait upside down.

To all parents of children or "adult children" with mental illness: IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT.
To all the people who have mental illnesses: Find comfort in what you can.

Understand that you cannot understand your child and also understand that your child cannot understand you all the time. Understand? (Ha ha. Get it?-- "Understand..." Well, I'd like to see you do better...)

Anger comes from fear, sadness and regret from realization. Over time these usual feelings of doubt, pain, torture, and anger become real somehow. You begin to feel like your life will never change. You will go on loving the same people without them loving you, you will have the same conflicting desires to be seen and disappear, to yell and shut up, to cry and scream, to fantasize and to realize.

The reason your children don't believe you when you try to help is them is because they don't believe themselves. They no longer believe nor belong in their own dreams, aspirations, and fantasies. The realism of county mental hospitals, rounds of horrifying drugs PROMISED TO HELP, days of isolation of staying in bed, inabilities to find a mate, a purpose or comfort have all been bent down and formed with the weight of realization.

My mom said to me the other day in response to something, "I know what I am."

Well, I know what I am, too.

And I hate it.

That does not mean I hate you. I hate that as parents and children, we no longer understand each other.

It was once common for mental illness theories to center around mothers. That was the fifties. Those theories are now debunked and not accepted by the mainstream of psychiatry treatment practictioners.

For reference, they were called "Refrigerator Mother" theories. They were called that because they centered on a mother who was cold and did not nurture enough in the early stages of a child's development.

In reality, I have more trouble with my father than I do with my mother.

Actually, the term "Refrigerator Mother" simply makes me hungry. Refrigerators are a good thing for me-- think of all the food they have in them. That is a delicious theory.

Now I kind of wish I had a refrigerator for a mother.

But I don't.

No one does anymore , because no one did to begin with.

Tardive Dyskinesia IV: Antipsychotic Interactions

2009-05-28T07:51:00.000-05:00

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.What falls away is always. And is near.I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.I learn by going where I have to go.
--Roethke "The Wakening"

ALL antipsychotics can cause Tardive Dyskinesia

--Even the new, "safer" ones.

The only antipsychotic shown that has a low risk of Dyskinesia is Clozapine.

Here is a list of common antipsychotics:

Amisulpiride (Solian)

Aripiprazole (Abilify) "New" and "safer"?

Clozapine(Clozaril)

Olanzapine (Zyprexa)

Quetiapine(Seroquel)

Risperidone (Risperdal)

Zotepine (Zoleptil)

Chrlorpromazine (Largactil)

Flupenthixol (Depixol, Flupenthixol,Fluanxol)

Fluphenazine (Moditen)

Haloperidol (Serenace, Haldol) -- This is what got me.

Loxapine (Loxapac)

Pericyazine (Neulactil)

Perphenazine (Fentazine)

Pimozide (Orap)

Prochlorperazine(Stemetil)

Promazine

Sulpiride (Sulpitil, Sulpor)

Thoridazine (Melleril)

Trifluoperazine (Stelazine)

Zuclopenthixol (Clopixol)

Tardive dyskinesia III: Symptoms

2009-05-28T07:33:00.000-05:00

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.What falls away is always. And is near.I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.I learn by going where I have to go.
--Roethke "The Wakening"

Every case of Tardive dyskinesia looks different.

The common symptoms of Tardive dyskinesia are as follows, but please note that there may be other unique symptoms not listed here. Also note that ALL of these symptoms are painful and uncontrollable.

When the E.R. doctor asked me to rate my pain on a scale of one to ten, I said, "Eight."
I will highlight in yellow, for the sake of my memory (in case I forget), what I experienced.

Common Symptoms:
Involuntary, repetitive movements
Grimacing or "smiling" (fake facial "expressions")
Tongue protrusion
Lip smacking
Lip puckering
Pursing of the lips
Rapid eye blinking
Rapid movements of the extremities/ convulsing or jerking
Impaired movements of the fingers
Rapid movements of the fingers

Unique, Unlisted Symptoms not listed that I experienced:
Sneering (fake facial "expressions")
Grinding of the teeth
Thumb paralysis or twitching/flexing/ holding thumbs "outward"
Claw-like posture of hands
Uncontrollable blinking (see rapid blinking above)
Neck stiffness and pain
Arching and spasms of back
Extension of arms
Eyes in a locked, upward position
Impairment in speech (see tongue protrusion above)
Locked position of muscles for long periods of seconds
Contractions of muscles
Movement of brow, eyes, and eyebrows (fake facial "expressions")
Pinching, claw posture of fingers

Tardive Dyskinesia III: Causes

2009-05-28T07:15:00.000-05:00

"This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.What falls away is always. And is near.I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I learn by going where I have to go."
--Roethke "The Waking" (click to read)

This is the most important part of the blog for those on antipsychotics. Please, read this very carefully.

Tardive Dyskinesia is caused in two ways:

1.) AN INGESTION OF A LARGE DOSE OF ANTIPSYCHOTICS.

2.) INGESTION OF DOSAGES OF ANTIPSYCHOTICS OVER A LONG PERIOD OF TIME.

Tardive Dyskinesia can manifest itself at any time it chooses to do so.

One dose may trigger it or 2,000 may trigger it.

Even after you stop the antipsychotic it may remain permanently.

Even after you stop the antipsychotic it may recur periodically.

Tardive Dyskinesia II: What it Looks Like

2009-05-28T06:47:00.000-05:00

"This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.What falls away is always. And is near.I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I learn by going where I have to go."
--Roethke "The Waking" (click to read)

First off, let's start with what it looks like.

Here are some videos exposing the effects of dystonia and dykinesia. Dystonia and dykinesia are related movement disorders. Dykinesia is usually in the face and is caused by either prolonged ingestion of antipsychotics over the years or in response to a high does of antipsychotics in one ingestion, but it can also affect the body in a way similar to Dystonia. (It happened to me.)

If these videos disturb you, then I have done my job well.

Tardive Dystonia-- In Body and Face (click to watch.) PERMANENT. ***Disturbing***
Dystonia-- In Body and Face (click to watch.) PERMANENT. ***Disturbing***
Dystonia--In Body and Face (click to watch.) PERMANENT. ***Disturbing***
Tardive Dyskinesia-- In Hands, Face, and Mouth (click to watch.) PERMANENT. ***Disturbing***

The muscle rigor, extensions, movements, and convulsions you see here are INVOLUNTARY.

With Dyskinesia, when you see someone bearing their teeth, grinding their teeth or moving their mouth it is involuntary and it is painful.

When I had Tardive Dyskinesia, I remember my mother once asking me if I was smiling in the E.R.

No, I wasn't.

IT HURTS BEYOND EXPLANATION.

Tardive Dyskinesia I: An Overveiw

2009-05-28T06:33:00.000-05:00

"This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.What falls away is always. And is near.I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I learn by going where I have to go."
--Roethke "The Waking" (click to read)

I'm sorry to write this blog because I've mentioned this before at least three times and I don't want to bore anyone. But, I have to write this before I start working on anything else today.

Since the blog has a maximum number of characters I am allowed to type in one post, I will write this in installments.

I will cover symptoms, causes, video links, drug reactions, and treatment issues for the condition of Tardive dyskinesia (click to read.)

You do not have to read this blog. If you or someone you loves takes ANY antipsychotic, you had better read this because it is extremely important. This CAN happen to you. It happened to me.

This is not for sympathy. This is a warning. Tardive dyskinesia CAN be PERMANENT.

Watch the videos I post and see if you want to watch yourself or someone you love go through this.

Please, take your treatment into your own hands. Research, read, understand and learn.

I don't want this to happen to anyone.

The videos made me cry-- not for myself-- but because I know what Tardive dyskinesia feels like and the only way I could deal with having it permanently would only be by brain death or morphine or suicide.

That's not an embellishment.

I will give you the facts you need to stay safe and help yourself.

I will tell you as much as I know.

What Psychiatrists Need to Know: A Patient's Perspective

2009-05-27T14:37:00.000-05:00

"Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those, who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear, which is inherent in a human condition”
--Graham Greene

Initially this blog stemmed from an experience I had with my last session of "treatment".

I had a strong desire to document the absolute frustration I feel with the mental facilities--especially in Alabama.

I know if I were back home (Iowa), I would be receiving better care.

I know that Georgia also has much better school systems and mental health organizations and programs than compared to Alabama. When I began to post, I wanted to mention some things my therapist had said to me that I found rather upsetting.

Keeping in mind that this therapist and facility is the only place I have and can afford, I think I will keep remarks to myself. Instead, I am going to compose a small, easy-to-read list of rules that every therapist should somehow be made to submit to.

1.) Patients are not case studies-- They are people.

2.) Most patients can't afford the prescription plans you decree. Patients should not be treated with money and marketing in mind. Stop under-rating and over-rating drugs. If the generic version is just as good then offer it-- don't pick another medicine out of your hat when they can't pay for one.

3.) Warn your patient of side-effects of all drugs.

4.) Talk to your patient, not to yourself for the sake of hearing your own voice.

5.) Don't assume your patient is an idiot about his or her disorder. He or she LIVES with the disorder; you can only read about it. That must be nice.

6.) Stop neglecting patients by making them guineia pigs. Prescribe the proper counter-acting drugs with drugs that may cause side effects. I had tardive dyskinesia (click for link) for three hours on Saturday. It hurts like Hell. It spreads, too. In my case it was in this progression: lips, mouth, thumbs, hands (claw posture), eyes, tongue/mouth, jaw, back, and upper torso. Take note of the fixated grimacing and grinding of teeth section in this link provided. Now imagine that for three hours.

7.) Don't make promises-- especially huge promises or downright lies

8.) Realize that you don't know what your patient experiences and you never will.

9.) Mental illness does not equate to loss of I.Q.

10.) Stop buying into the drug hypes and pushing the new, mostly scantly-documented new drugs like they will be a cure. Prescribe just what works-- not what's popular.

11.) You may or may not be smarter than your patient. Deal with it.

12.) Give patients regular appointment times and see them often-- even the poor ones.

13.) Realize your patients came to you for help, not a life-time membership in the "new scary/great drug participation plan". Give them help and follow up on them.

14.) Let your patient talk-- not you-- AND LISTEN.

15.) Make sure you don't have trouble with overlapping diagnostic criteria.

16.) Mental illness is not a small problem; it is pain every day you live with it.

17.) Don't say to your patients, "I hope you get better." Try to actually make them better.

Sign here: _______________________ Date:________

Disorder and Outlook

2009-05-26T14:26:00.000-05:00

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

--Eliot's "The Hollow Men"

NOTE: I simply can't get this poem to format right in the editing. I encourage you to read the poem by clicking on the link at the end of this passage. You can't conceptualize what Eliot is communicating correctly with this current format and I apologize.

I think sometimes we see and accept surfaces too easily. Let me ask you something; what do you think the above excerpt from Eliot's "The Hollow Men" is about?

I have known this poem all my life.
When I was little, my mother quoted Eliot to me.
When I learned to read poetry, I read Eliot.
Like all poets, sometimes you think you know what they're saying and sometime later you doubt that assertion.

I was sitting in a class and we were going over this poem and suddenly I realized I knew what this part was about.

I knew what it meant for me.
I don't know what it means for you.
I don't know what it meant for T.S. Eliot.
But, I know what it means for me.

If someone read this who had no knowledge of poetry, it would seem like gibberish.

To a mentally ill person it would probably be an echo of an earlier thought-- disorganized and disturbed--bothered by something.

I believe in this passage the speaker is trying to affirm something, but he can't.

Do you see the stuttering in the lines and the break in thought?

"For thine is the...For thine is the...For thine is the kingdom...Life is very long..."

This may be modern poetry, but it also reads a lot like classical disordered thinking in psychiatric care. I'm not making assertions against Eliot, but I know he did suffer at least one breakdown in his lifetime.
A line in "The Wasteland" confirms this.
Eliot writes so ingeniously:

"'On Margate Sands.
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.'"

We can't be sure who the speaker is because if you examine this section, you will see it is in quotes. I cannot tell you who said this, but I can tell you about "Margate Sands". David Seabrook, wrote a book about Eliot called All the Devils are Here. In his book, Mr Seabrook, asserts that Eliot, who was then working at a branch of Lloyd’s in London, went to Margate to recover from a nervous breakdown. (Click on the text for a link to the article.)

A breakdown is just a generic euphemism for mental illness.
(Score one point for my team.)
Eliot's wife was also mentally ill, by the way.

I want to assert three things about this poem:
Disordered thought effects religion
Disordered thought may fuel genius
Disordered thought effects outlook

The thing that really takes the hammer to my heart is the stuttering we looked at earlier. The repetitive "For thine is the..."

This speaker wants to pray...But he can't.

Mental illness skewers and dissects man's relationship with god and humanity.

How do you go about fixing things that are so broken?

...A religion that is swallowed and brought back up and swallowed again...

The church and those eyes of the congregation that can't seem to connect the idea that I no longer believe the god I believe in can really help me.

It reminds me of Eliot again:

"And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?"
--Eliot "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

You may want to argue that I stretch that out of context and you would be right. I won't defend my use and misuse of poetry. But, it's the same thing as arguing over the lyrics of a song. Who is to tell me what that word or that sound or that phrase means to me?

I have been unable to pray for a long time now.

I want to, but I can't.

I'm to the point where I really don't think anything can help.

I'm at the "For thine is the...For thine is the.."

And I don't think I'm the only one saying this.

What is the last line of the poem?

Look at it:

"This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."
--Eliot "The Hollow Men"

The acceptance of mental illness and the consequent loss of aspirations does not come with a huge forceful explosion. It was rather a moment where the shoulders slope and the mouth slackens and the words break apart into useless syllables. It's like slowly losing your vision over the years and coming to finally realize you can't define shapes any longer.

The first thing I was told in response to my mental illness was, I quote:

"With the onset of mental illness, many people begin to realize that their dreams are no longer possible."

And I whimpered.

Read Eliot's "The Hollow Men" here: http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/784/
Read Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" here: http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html

Sketches of Clinical Depression

2009-05-25T21:00:00.000-05:00

But thy strong
Hours indignant work'd their wills,
And beat me down and marr'd and wasted me,
And tho' they could not end me,
left me maim'd
(...)
And all I was in ashes.
(...)
Upon thy glimmering thresholds,
when the steam
Floats up from those dim fields about the homes
Of happy men that have the power to die,
And grassy barrows of the happier dead.
Release me, and restore me to the ground;
Thou seest all things, thou wilt see my grave:
Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn;
I earth in earth forget these empty courts,
And thee returning on thy silver wheels.
--Tennyson, "Tithonus"

This poem, about an immortal, is immortal. One of Tennyson's absolute masterpieces. It also happens to be a glance behind the black curtain of Depression. It is not intended this way, I am sure. It is an epic recounting of an older tale.

For the sake of documentation, I will release yet another one of my man-created labels for mental illness. I have recurrent Major (Clinical) Depression with Psychotic features. Now, remember what Psychosis is-- it's not a psychopath-- it's a break from reality. This break is caused by panic attacks. But that will be a later entry.

Depression is hard to describe without being too cliche. On the surface it looks like a numbness, a loss of ability and function. This is partly true. Depression seeps so easily into the cracks in your psyche. Depression does have a voice, but it is flat and listless, tired of the eternal life that is too long just as Tithonus decrees.

I recently changed the personal message on my cell phone. It used to be in German because I love the German language. I switched it back to English. When I replayed it, I was shocked by my own voice-- no affect, no rising tone. It was beyond tired; it didn't even sound defeated; it didn't really sound like anything. It sounded like nothing. People with Depression are surrounded by nothing. In one of my poems I wrote the line, "Forever never finding(...)" I think that might be an apt comparison to Depression.

I wanted to put off the Depression blog because I knew it would be difficult to write.

Scientifically speaking, researches have discovered that during depressive episodes, the hippocampus actually shrinks in size from neuron damage. The claim is that with treatment, the normal size will return and everyone will live in a fairytale forever after and so on. Amen. Unfortunately, my Depression is drug-resistant. My brain has been fried by almost every anti-depressant made in the U.S.A.

So, where do you go from there? There exists these thoughts, these issues of wanting to be pulled to the grave or to be put down like a sick animal or to go to sleep and never wake up.

I actually hate the sound of birds chirping in the morning.

Depression is not a facade; it is not put on. If Depression were a mask I had been putting on for all these years, then I would have pulled it off decades ago.

Melancholy is appropriate for a writer, I suppose, to some degree.

Once you scrape past that surface of numbness, you expose the twisted nerves pulsating and on fire with memory, regret, guilt, and even anger.

Perhaps numbness is not quite potent enough of a word-- hopelessness would be much better.
The mentally ill believe the depressed thoughts they have-- all the black scenarios, the threats of harm, and the prospect of a future that stretches out before you as a vast, vast...wasteland.

You learn little tricks to shove your desires away, little techniques to suppress wishes and hopes that you believe can never come to fruition.

On of the most interesting line of a song lyric I heard was in the Goo Goo Doll's song "Name" where he sings, "Don't (sic) it make you sad to know that life is more than who you are?"

If good intentions and will were enough to tame the world wild world in my brain and fulfill my dreams, then I would certainly meet those obligations. Unfortunately, life is made up of strife, struggle, pettiness and put downs. After a while, you no longer want to participate in this stage of actors playing out their roles in life. So you hide in you bed, you stay at home, you neglect your personal appearance, and you basically rot.

Depression is not a matter of "having a stiff upper lip" or "marching on" or "pulling up the bootstraps" or (as the Germans would say), "Kopf Hoch".

There's no way you can fool yourself into being happy when your brain is turned inside out by chemical imbalances. Would you tell a man on his deathbed that hope would restore him to life again? Would you tell him that if he only tried harder, he would be able to survive for many more years? These kind of comments and thoughts trivialize Depression and mental illness. Tithonus, in the poem, begs that the gods take back their gift. Is life a gift? Can you wish it back? Depression certainly makes you want to do so.

Rumination is also a part of depression-- never letting go of those old scars, those old souveniers you always carry with you. Yet again, I must quote a Goo Goo Dolls song that says, "And even though the moment's passed me by, I still can't look away."

I think that is how a lot of depressed people feel. The constant things that hurt us keep on being regurgitated but never truly purged. In this respect, maybe the gift that Tithonus wanted to rid himself of was not immortality, but the memory of mortality.

Read Tennyson's epic Tithonus here:
http://charon.sfsu.edu/TENNYSON/TITHONUS.HTML

General Discussion and the Haldol Dilemma

2009-05-25T11:44:00.000-05:00

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
and the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
--Eliot, "The Hollow Men"

I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives
-- Eliot, "The Wasteland"

I feel like I should issue some sort of retraction for my blog the other day. It is not uncharacteristic of me to share my feelings, it is just uncharacteristic of me to put them on display. Certainly having muscle spasms and tremors wasn't my proudest moment. I still remember lying on the E.R. with my back arched and my hands fixed into little claws, my neck bent back, and my eyes glued in an upward direction; I would not claim that as my most wonderful moment. Then the doctor walks in-- a male-- and says, "Well, Megan?"

I was evaluated by two male doctors, face and body twitching and spasming, with my hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. I'm not sure which hurt worse, imagining what I must have looked like or remembering how those sensations felt.

Muscle pain is quite unique. What I had was muscle rigor, contracting, and stiff muscles. And the pain was quite indescribable. When your muscles clench, it isn't like how they bunch together when your reach for something or move; it was full exertion and rigor of the muscle for countless seconds punctuated by small pauses. My teeth were literally grinding against each other and making noise. I'm still in pain today, but it's alright.

I wanted to share with you that my reaction actually began over the course of hours. When the symptoms became unbearable, I went to my room to hide and wait for it to be over. Things like that don't blow over by themselves, though. I am sure I could have driven myself to the hospital somehow, but I was lucky to have my family take me.

I am writing this as a warning. You see, I had been on Haldol prior to this incident. I was on Haldol previously without Artane for a few days. I always have facial twitches with Haldol, but I couldn't feel them, so I felt it was not too much of a bother. Nothing happened then. But something happened this time. My point is not to write for sympathy. Sympathy is wasteful sometimes and a plea for sympathy is rather pathetic. I am writing because I want someone, maybe just one person, to learn from what's going on in the world of psychiatric "care".

I hesitate to call it "care" because it would be deemed cruelty to administer a drug that causes convulsions and muscle rigidity upon a lab animal, but I suppose it is okay to do this to the mentally ill. We hesitate to carry out cosmetic testing on bunny rabbits, but we'll let kids lick anti-psychotics out of our hands.

Believe me, I'm not anti-drug. I am anti-horrible-side-effect. It's difficult because, as a person with diagnosed illnesses, all I want is to get better. That's all anyone wants. But it seems like no one is sure what to do yet. We know so frighteningly little about the brain. We give things names that we can't even explain.

What I want out of this tiny little room of words is just education and a place where people can communicate without being judged.

My second bout of Haldol was fine. I was actually going to write a blog about how much it seemed to be helping the day I went into convulsions. And, to some degree, Haldol is a good drug. But no one should have to go through that sort of physical pain because some doctors are ill-equipped to treat their patients or too quick to diagnose.

Here's what you should do: the minute you feel ticking to start or little spasms and they have a spark of a tingle to them or hurt a little, start on your way to the hospital. As minutes go by, it gets worse. The doctors will probably shoot you up with Benadryl and then give you a prescription for 25 to 50 milligrams of Benadryl and 5 millagrams of Artane (trihexyphenidyl) to take 3 times a day as needed. I'm asking you that if you take Haldol, keep BOTH Benadryl (regular over-the-counter) AND Artane in your medicine cabinet.

Tardive dyskinesia is defined as repetitive involuntary movement or spasms in response to high dosages of anti-psychotics. Artance states in its drug fact sheet that it only treats tremors and not Tardive dyskinesia. I am unsure where we draw the line between Tardive dyskinesia and muscle rigidity or spasming. I'm not a doctor, but by the time I die I might be.

Does anyone remember the push for Abilify as the new miracle antipsychotic? The new third generation push behind it entailed ad campaigns and colorful Internet banners. You can get Tardive dyskinesia from Abilify. So, I'm wondering where all this "new and safe" hype is coming from.

Oh, I must point out two things before I forget-- the reference from "The Hollow Men" is not about Tardive dyskinesia. (Ha ha.) Also, the quote from "The Wasteland" referring to Tiresias, throbbing between two lives, is an allusion to the fact that he is both male and female. At least, that's how I was taught the poem. The interesting metaphor there is that a lot of people live two lives. If you're mentally ill, you basically have to.

I remember sitting in an office at college with one of the doctors. This doctor had been a good friend of mine and I mentioned that the therapist had mentioned Schizophrenia in my diagnosis and I remember the college professor simply gasping, "Oh, my God!/ Jeez!" or something to that effect. And I remember being disappointed by that reaction. I suppose it was warranted, but the remark burns the existence of stigma in response to mental illness right into the middle of your forehead.

Now, I'm not sure if that is an official diagnosis. No one wants it to be. But, then again, no one wants to have cancer, either. But cancer is treated with kindness. If someone acts silly no one yells, "Hey! What's wrong with you? Do you have cancer?" at him. They yell, "Hey! What's wrong with you? Are you crazy?"

It's unlikely for me to approach writing in a casual way. I think writing is art and should be applied quite carefully. That is why I want to reject my last two blogs. But, on the other hand, they preserve raw emotion and that is just every bit as important as finding the right words.

Modern writing has changed so much with men like Eliot and Cummings that it really is hard to classify anymore. Maybe communication has gone that way, too. Maybe all of our voices are just tiny imitations of what we read and like and think about. And what of Mr. Beckett's contribution to the arts? That's a tough absurdist cookie, right there. A lot of mental illness has to do with trying to communicate what is unspeakable. In a way, the great writers communicated what hurt, sometimes why it hurt, and how to fix it without even making much literal sense at all.

Talk about a co-morbidity: That's genius and that's illness.

Read Eliot's "The Hollow Men" here:http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/784/

(Mr. Kurtz-- he dead...LOLFTWBBQ)

Read Eliot's "The Wasteland" here: http://www.brainhospice.com/EndStageLandmarks.html

Vitamin H

2009-05-23T22:25:00.000-05:00

My nerves feel like twisted molten metal wreckages melted in furnaces engulfed in the hottest degree burning fire...All because of Haldol. Halopreidol, Vitamin H, Haldol is an antypsychotic used for the control of schizophrenia, bipolar and basically anything else your doctor sees fit. Haldol is usually prescribed with Artane, a medicine that blocks tics, tremors and muscle spasms, since Haldol produces all three just fine on its own. I assume you know where this is going. I get up, pop some Haldol, and get to work on a few articles to rake in a little cash.

Now, as things usually go, I don't make it a habit to divulge too much personal information. It just somehow doesn't sit right with me. I tell my friends-- well, when I can get a hold of them-- everything. But I don't blog everything.

By 5:00 P.M. today I was sitting in an E.R. having facial and body tremors. It started in my neck hours earlier and I thought it was just strain from looking up at a computer screen all day. It had been hiding in my mouth, at the corners, and now was making me sneer, and I knew at that moment something wasn't right because I couldn't stop doing it. It was a compulsion-- a painful compulsion that I had to carry through over and over.

Before long I lost the fine motor control over my tongue and starting calling out for my mom to come help me. Which sounded a lot like someone saying, "Mamb, mamb..." and I thought of the mentally handicapped with their various tremors and twitches and wondered if the Hell I was in now felt anything akin to their lives. My voice sounded like a little kid trying to spit out consonants; it wasn't funny, though. I felt scared-- literally scared stiff-- and totally helpless.

On the car ride to the E.R. my tongue was flopping out and I again remembered all the Christmases spent with my mother's mentally disabled and handicapped brothers. Maybe that was an inappropriate thought, but it was there nonetheless.

I'll save you the trouble of scanning the text for my treatment. The thousand dollar cure-- what was it? IT WAS A SHOT FULL OF BENADRYL.

I'll write more in the morning. Maybe I'll feel better.

Update on Blog Posts

2009-05-21T14:19:00.000-05:00

On a personal note, I must say that I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. I signed up as a freelancer again and got another job that is keeping me pretty busy. I'm still thinking about the blog, but I have less and less time to work on it.
Hopefully, I'll figure out a way to get this up to speed again.
But, if I don't, understand that I haven't had any sort of income since September. I'm not making what people may say is "a lot", but it is "green" and quite "spendable".

Stigmas Applied to Mental Illness

2009-05-15T18:13:00.001-05:00

Nothing defines the quality of life in a community more clearly than people who regard themselves, or whom the consensus chooses to regard, as mentally unwell.
--Renata Adler

The stigma society places on mental illness sometimes really leaves me speechless. I have a lot of personal stories I could tell, but I'd rather leave readers with some concrete scenarios when considering this issue.

First of all, consider this entry on Helium I just ran into today. Aparently, this is in the debate section and it is entitled "Should Mentally Ill People Be Allowed to Vote? " The title threw me for quite a loop so I clicked the link. I saw that they were conducting a vote, so I cast my vote for "yes". Out of a total of 437 votes 237 people (including me) voted "yes", while 200 voted "no".

It amazed me that there was only a difference of 37 people in determining whether the mentally ill should vote or not. Certainly we would not have this same amount of intolerance if someone posted the debate question "Should Minorities Be Allowed to Vote?" or "Should Women Be Allowed to Vote?" I find the basic premise of all of these questions to be highly insulting, unacceptable, and insensitive. I will allow you to read the "yes" and "no" debates for yourself if you so desire. I am not going to attack writers, but rather ideas, prejudices, and stigmas.

Let's look at some common myths associated with mental illnesses:

1.) People with a severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia, are usually dangerous and violent.

2.) Someone is to blame for the development of mental illness such as parents, relatives, or the person with the illness.

3.) Mentally ill people lack the willpower and courage to make themselves better.

4.) Mental illness does not strike children.

5.) Mental illness can have religious roots such as demonic possession or over-indulgence in sin.

6.) The mentally ill should be locked up.

7.) The mentally ill will never lead normal lives, hold down important jobs, marry or have children.

8.) The mentally ill will never be "normal".

I will be debunking these myths one by one in later posts-- rest assured.

*Author's Note: For the record, Helium is a great site and I have nothing against it; I am merely using an illustration of my point.

Sources:

"Should Mnetally Ill People be Allowed to Vote?" (Helium)
http://www.helium.com/debates/73066-should-mentally-ill-people-be-allowed-to-vote/side_by_side

"Fight Stigma!" (NAMI)
http://www.nami.org/template.cfm?section=fight_stigma

"Facts and Myths About Mental Illness" (Mental Health America of Eastern Missouri)
http://www.mhagstl.org/myths.htm

"Myths About Mental Illness" (LDS Resources on Mental Illness)
http://www.mentalhealthlibrary.info/library/mi/milds/mildsauthor/links/emeritus/morrison/morrison.htm

"Common Misconceptions About Mental Illness" (Euclid Hospital)
http://www.euclidhospital.org/SpecialtiesServices/BehavioralHealth/CommonMisconceptions/tabid/145/Default.aspx

Early Onset Signs of Mental Illness

2009-05-14T21:53:00.001-05:00

It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen
(...)
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
--Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock")

In the literary practice of giving credit where credit is due, I present you with a list of signs of the early onset of mental illness (in what I presume to be children) pulled from the Dr. Phil site. Some of the symptoms I deleted for redundancy issues.

The list seems fairly descriptive and pretty fair-handed. Mental illness is manifest in children-- beyond a doubt. My early experiences with Panic Disorder as a child led me to believe that my mind was somehow irrevocably damaged. I spent years trying to understand why I had the sensations I had. So, without a doubt, mental illness is present in children; yes! The particular problem I have with this list is that just because it is proactive, does not mean it is preventative.

Early onset signs of mental illness have their roots in childhood. But mental illness does not explode until someone reaches his or her mid-twenties. By the mid-twenties we see things such as dramatic breakdown in thought, concentration, lack of hygiene, inability to leave the house, disordered thought and speech, inability to concentrate and a host of other severe problems.

You may be able to read this list as a person with mental facilities that seem "normal". You can skim the list and say, "uh huh", "yes", and "of course" to many of these symptoms. You may even postulate as to why they occur. Let me take you through this list, one by one, and help you identify possibly why or how you or someone you love might feel this way.

Please keep in mind as I share some of my own personal experiences and beliefs, that mental illness is not set and defined as a uniform condition; it is experienced by a variety of different people in a variety of different ways. In fact, if anyone cares to share his or her own experiences, I would be more than pleased to hear them.

The key to this list is not to take these emotions, reactions, and responses and judge them-- but rather to try to understand them and make some sort of half-step towards acceptance, empathy and acknowledgement.

Remember that one of the key insights applied to mental illness on the sufferer's part is a "lack of insight". This means that the person truly is genuinly unaware and unable to control the thoughts and compulsions running wild in their head. They are increasingly introspective, but lack the ability to understand what they are observing in their own minds.

It becomes more and more difficult to seperate the self from the problem as mental illness stretches its hold over the brain. Just like losing eyesight, the person is totally unaware of how distorted their veiw of the world has become until their are given a new perspective. Try to keep the blame off the victim and instead pin it to the disease.

Withdrawing from friends and family/ Preferring to be alone
The onset of mental illness is much like a clock lodged in your head stuck on the count-down until your death. You begin to see life not as what its potential is, but what its reality is. What is the reality for someone who is afraid to leave his or her house? What is the reality for someone who hears voices or sees unusual things? What is the reality for someone who is beginning to see all of their hopes and dreams slowly coming to anything but fruition?

In a way, mental illness could be considered mental death because functions deemed “normal” cease. With this cessation, all that is left is torment. Physically speaking, the body dies when the brain stops regulating functions. In mental illness, this death is not literal, but symbolic. Perhaps it is better to deem that the spirit dies; the upright house of the soul withers and is twisted up and carried off by the wind.

Once you lose your hope, your ability to cope, your function, structure and access to a happy life, you lose life itself and begin to barricade yourself from friends and family. Besides, what are their chances of understanding anyhow?

Appearing depressed/ Lack of Motivation or Concentration
If someone appears to be depressed, it is generally a pretty good indication that they are. Retardation of speech, motor skills, reactions and expenditure of great effort in relation to little tasks are all simple indicators of the beginning of a black depression—not laziness as some suggest.

Increased anxiety or agitation/Moodiness Mistrustfulness or suspiciousness
Imagine that you do have a mental illness and you know it. Apparently, talking about Paranoid Schizophrenia in application to this headline is another matter entirely. So, let’s nix that for now. Just imagine you are mentally ill and you know it.

You’re the person that is stereotypically running around hacking off heads in CSI episodes; you’re the one shown on television babbling and blinking and ticking uncontrollably. You think knowing might help a little, but instead it makes everything else so much more difficult. What will people you respect think of you? What will people you love think about you? How will employers react?

Changes in personal hygiene
Your life is doomed and you know it. All the things that happen to you are not coincidence; this is your life and you’re damned to live it. Next comes the options: Shall I still do my hair up the way others like it or shall I let it go? Shall I change my shirt or maybe my pants? Let’s face it, you don’t want to get out of bed anymore—you don’t even want to wake up again. But you do. You wake up. You wake up to no point and no purpose except mind-numbing fear and accusations of failure—no matter if they are real or imagined—they sting just as much. You are unattractive, unproductive, and unimportant. You are a throw-away citizen.

Emotions that do not fit the situation
There are a variety of things going on here. In manias people generally feel a heightened mood that exceeds regular euphoria and feel that they can do most anything. In clinical depression people generally have a flat affect, not necessarily remorseful—though it could be— but rather numb. I also recall that a flat affect is a sign of schizophrenia. A variety of mood disorders could be lurking behind the scene of this diagnosis.

Vague speech / Speech sometimes doesn't make sense
I cannot explain to you how hard it is to organize thoughts. These thoughts may lend themselves to creativity, of course, but to get a handle on them is quite another matter. Imagine constant thought—constant thought to the point of helplessness. Looping memories, ideas, expressions in a never-ending circle are constantly scraping through the ceiling and basement of your mind. Now, imagine trying to pick out a few of these and say them aloud.

Unusual ideas or beliefs/Unusual experiences
Again, I cannot stress enough the “lack of insight” idea. The way a mentally ill person perceives the world when held in light beside that of how a “normal” person does makes for a quite startling comparison. The world is much more unknown, misunderstood, and frightening. People begin to fit in this category as well. As the acceptance of mental illness slowly meanders into one’s brain, one becomes naturally horrified that everyone can see one’s mental illness made manifest. Every action taken, every word spoken, every movement began opens the sufferer up to a new world of self doubt and loathing. How will people respond?

There is this tugging notion that perhaps people can see through the ill person and experiences can become strange. What is more difficult to explain than psychosis or depersonalization or derealization? Try writing in your diary about dissociation. It can’t be done effectively enough. The experiences someone with mental illness describes will sound unusual and hard to fathom. If delusions creep in and distort the thinking, then the belief system the ill person begins to develop will also begin to bend and fold at the edges.

Sources cited:

http://www.drphil.com/shows/page/earlysignsmentalillness/
Read Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html)

The Sylvia Plath Effect

2009-05-14T21:38:00.000-05:00

“The blood jet is poetry and there is no stopping it.”
--Sylvia Plath

"Schizophrenia may be a necessary consequence of literacy."
--Marshall Mcluhan

I wondered if I was just the sum of my brain scan, little dots clustered in my frontal lobe. Is that where the poems came from? The desire to destroy myself?
--Betsy Lerner

The Sylvia Plath effect is dear to my heart. That sounds like an odd thing to say. Nonetheless, it is true. The Sylvia Plath effect is basically the statement that female poets have a higher incident of mental disorders than their male counterparts. It is no known secret that writers and artists have been pushed over any ledges or edges in sight for centuries now by mental and mood disorders. I have also heard the notion that just the love of "clanging words" or rhyming words and a disposition to use them is a marker for Bipolar Disorder or at least a sign of Autism.

The territory encircling the arts is fraught with financial, marital, public, personal, and mental ruin. I've had arguments with people in college about what is at stake when you are gifted and step into this world. Being inside this little world itself is enough to unleash the demons of mental illness on you. It is a likelihood that if you did not get into the profession with a mental illness, then you will leave it with one. Also, in Plath's case, being married to Ted Hughes probably wasn't a huge help.

I have a great love for Plath. I am able to read her lines and pick up her diary and go through it (the parts that weren't omitted by Mr. Hughes) and completely sympathize with what she was writing. It's true that I'm not sure it what sense she means what she writes-- is it ironic? Is this literal?-- but the point that it's there in the first place makes her work all the more human. I can't say enough about Plath, so I won't. Instead, I'm going to do my best to break down this very interesting insight into the female poet and the world of the breakdown.

The Sylvia Plath effect was coined in 2001 by James C. Kaufman and suggests that creative writers are more vulnerable to mental illness. It goes on to top this claim by the asserting that, out of all classes of writers, female poets are afflicted the most. It may very well be typical to think of the male poet as being dragged down into the depths of a mental illness. I think that this stems from the fact that men are more likely to physically react to illness with successful suicides. Women are diagnosed with depression twice as often as men, but women do not top the suicide statistics.

Another thing is that writers are painfully introspective-- poets even more so. It may be taken as arrogance, perhaps not, but the poet is always looking inward and delving deeper. The creative writer, too, has a responsibility to examine the internal markers of emotional situations and capture and explore them on a blank page.

I hear that women tend to be more introspective than men. Who am I to say that this is true? There is certainly no shortage of male poets and creative writers, so I'm not going to make any hasty accusations. I will simply bring this point carefully to your attention. Women seem to spend a lot of time agonizing over internal affairs and matters tangled up in heart-strings and such; I am in no way trying to sound sexist, though. Both sexes are quite capable of thought and emotion.

I stumbled on this connection when I was in a poetry class myself and doing a great job of scaring other writers. The theory itself is pretty self-explanatory. There are arguments as to whether mental illness causes creativity or if mental illness is mistaken as genius and so on. I think that for this particular topic, I will keep my opinions concerning that to myself. They're not of importance.

What is important is that there are links popping up all over the place like scattered puzzle pieces saying, "Mental illness is this" or "Mental illness is that." The problem is that everyone reacts to a mental illness differently. One can be mentally ill and capable of the works of Plath; another may be mentally ill and incapable of tying two shoe laces together.

I feel personally that people can analyze and re-analyze and brand Plath all they want, but that they will never really get to the root of the matter. I don't think anyone will have an official diagnosis on her. As a diagnosis goes, it is not uncommon for one to metamorphosize into another over the course of a life span or for the original ruling to be false. It's nice to have names for things, of course, but it's not nice to have any name that fits plastered across your forehead every time a symptom shifts or a mood changes.

This is a topic I have been interested in for some time now, but the resources are a little sketchy. For one thing, Plath is hard to pin down-- for another, women poets of note are scare, under-rated and under-studied. It took me several years in college before I even began to touch the surface of female poetry and I loved poetry.

Below you will find a general citation of my sources employed. If you're a poet and you don't know it, maybe you should check out some of these links. (I'm sorry; I couldn't help it.)

Links of interest:

http://www.apa.org/monitor/nov03/plath.html
http://bipolar.about.com/cs/celebs/a/sylviaplath.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath_effect

Or, if you are so inclined, a basic Google search might satiate your curiosity for the moment.

Complicating Issues

2009-05-14T19:44:00.000-05:00

"O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim"
---Keats ("Ode to a Nightingale")

There are many issues that can complicate "recovery" from mental illness. More than likely, a mental illness will be a life-long prognosis, unfortunately. On the other hand, there are things one can do for oneself to assure that one is taking appropriate care of oneself and may not have to suffer a devastating relapse. One of the most important issues, and one I'd like to touch on somewhat briefly, concerns the use of central nervous system depressants.

Central nervous system depressants are important for people with mental illnesses to avoid for a variety of serious reasons. The central nervous system is responsible for controlling higher brain functions such as breathing, heart rate, and thought while the lower brain controls things such as motor function, balance, and, interestingly enough, sleep. These seem to be mostly involuntary things, but unfortunately, I am no neurologist.

Specific dangers depend on what your diagnosis is and how your body reacts to the chemicals you put inside it. Some agents are already central nervous system depressants to begin with-- some of the most famous being benzodiazepines, certain tricyclic antidepressants, barbiturates used in seizure prevention, anti psychotics, and anticonvulsants like Neurontin which may also double as treatment for Panic Disorder as many other anticonvulsants do. Nonbenzodiazepines (among them Ambien), which are a string of new drugs that behave as benzodiazepines without being structurally related to them, are also included on this list. Please note that this is in no way a complete list.

The problem comes in with the fact that often the patient being treated for a mental disorder does not believe he or she is receiving adequate help. This assertion may very well be true for unless a patient can afford to be admitted into private care, the centers available to the public can be under staffed and met with a superfluous quota of patients, all of whom require serious help, whom can simply not all be treated effectively nor given enough individualized care.

Met with the options of hopelessness, genuine terror, and the feeling of an isolated, wasted, and doomed future, the patient may turn to self-medication in the hope of remedying his or her quality of life. And here is where the great danger dogs at the feet of a great temptation. The temporary, psychopharmaceutical Band-aids that have been hastily applied start to fray at the seams and slip off when a new rush of problems meets the patient head-first and he or she begins to turn to self-medication, administered oftentimes ruthlessly and frequently to dull the constant, roaring ache of a mental disorder.

Substance abuse, both in its legal and illegal form, may entail ingestion of central nervous system depressants depending on your drug of choice. Substances with the potential of being abused and acting as central nervous system depressants include alcohol, barbiturates, opioids, and, once again, benzodiazepines. As before, please note that this is in no way a complete list.

It is a general rule that when any psychopharmaceutical is administered, alcohol consumption is not generally advised simply because that alcohol is one of the most famous central nervous system depressants. The dark relationship between alcohol and mental illness stretches back centuries and has been explored countless times. From dealing with Major (Clinical) Depression to Panic Disorder, alcohol seems to be the drug of choice. My intent for this blog, however, is not to explore alcohol specifically, but to warn about the adverse effects of mixing too many central nervous system depressants. I assure you, I have much to say on that issue and many others, but the need to verify my information and explore my sources supersedes my desire to swan dive into a dangerous tirade against mixing alcohol with medicine.

Basically what happens when a person combines too many central nervous system depressants is, at first, the symptoms of being under the influence. This can be observed in Xanax overdoes as well as over-indulgence in alcohol. Drowsiness, a general numbness, perhaps an initial sense of well-being and a loosening of inhibitions all overtake the body and mind. As the amount of depressants are increased, the user begins to entrap him or herself in a dangerous state between life and death. What can begin as a rather pleasant experience, rapidly deteriorates into something dangerous. Respiration slows, heart rate plummets, and the user could fall into a coma which may be followed by death.

When one is cautioned not to mix depressants, it is for a good reason. The physical reasons alone should be scary enough, but there are more reasons to follow the advise of not piling depressant upon depressant such as rebound-anxiety, increased inducing of psychosis and an increase in disordered and confused thinking, to name a few. I will explore each of these in upcoming posts.

It is not my goal as a writer nor as a human being suffering which some of the aforementioned afflictions to be lazy or take a simplistic approach to my posts. Nothing about mental illness is simple and can be wished, waved or prayed away. Anyone suffering from a mental illness has probably tried one or all of these methods at some point in his or her life and can assure you that easy solutions and simple fixes are most certainly not the case.

If you would like to verify my sources or simply read more about these conditions, below I've provided some links with more information. Google searches are always helpful as well and I encourage anyone in treatment or dealing with someone in treatment to do firsthand, in-depth research into their particular diagnoses as well as mental illness itself.

The links:

http://www.spineuniverse.com/displayarticle.php/article777.html

http://health.howstuffworks.com/brain5.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressant

Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale" (Read it all at: http://www.bartleby.com/101/624.html)

Personal Disclaimer

While I am documenting these posts as a writer, it is important to understand that I am also documenting them with personal experience and emotion tied to the issues I present. I will be frank about conditions from the point of the diagnosis (or, at least, by explaining what I can understand myself if I am unaffected by the particular ailment) and from the point of view of the diagnosed, as I have struggled through various situations myself for at least a decade now.

It has never been my intent to treat any of this lightly because I have seen my own problem treated lightly and I find it insulting, if not extremely insensitive. (I once had someone kindly suggest that I "pinch myself" when faced with depersonalization or derealization brought on by Panic Disorder. I'm not sure that "pinching oneself" would be an adequate course of treatment found in the DSM for treating psychotic features.)

Disordered Thinking's Role in Society

2009-05-12T16:38:00.000-05:00

"We are all born mad/Some remain so."--Sammuel Beckett (Act II, "Waiting for Godott")

It is more than a probable estimation that a lot of people are bothered by the close proximity between abstract thinking patterns and mental illness. I would certainly be hesitant to label one as "normal" and another as "abnormal" because I don't think these predefined positions exist; I think people just desperately want them to exist.

I graduated college with a BA in English, so I spent a lot of time hammering the meaning out of literature. Sometimes it wasn't that hard to do; sometimes it could be pretty difficult. No matter what you were looking at, it wasn't hard to see that all of the famous, acclaimed authors were coming from somewhere-- and while their backgrounds and circumstances were pretty varied-- the thought that it took to generate a lot of what they wrote would probably be deemed as "disorganized" by mainstream society.

A lot of authors were also pretty brutally honest. Maybe that's why I liked modern poetry and writing the best. I grew up liking dated things and to some degree that will always be the case, but as you look closer at the progression of modern literature, it seems to disintegrate. It doesn't lose meaning or become any less potent, but rather the words and the arrangements and the ties between them seem to become less important and emotion becomes more raw.

I think as society has progressed, it has come to put greater pressure upon individuals and greater stigmas on individuals who fail to meet these expectations. People who could not find function in their lives to the normal degree would be forced to express themselves in other ways.
If you're dealing with thoughts that you can't express on any other terms, let alone audibly, then it sort of makes sense that you would scribble them down, throw some paint at a canvas, or pluck some strings on a guitar. Don't put me in the position of saying that everyone who ever made great achievements were mentally ill; that's not what I'm saying at all. But, certainly, it shouldn't be undeniable that a pretty large degree of highly intelligent people can suffer from some pretty debilitating mental disorders.

When things don't fit our purposes we throw them out for the most part. Ideas we don't like, people we can't stand, sensations that bother us all litter this huge trash heap in the back of society. Basically, this is what a lot of people do when confronted with mental illness. I don't think people understand, and I cannot stress this enough, that there are no clearly defined rules pertaining to what is normal behavior and what is not. I think if every person in the world was forced into one-on-one sessions with therapists and counselors they would quickly see how irrelevant notions like "looney", "insane", and "crazy" are. Frankly, we are all possibly a stone's throw away from having a mental illness touch us either personally or through the onset of a disorder in a loved one.

It's rather inappropriate that the man who sells ten best-sellers and suffers from a psychiatric disorder is invited on television and the man who works at the kiosk that sells those best-sellers and has a psychiatric disorder could be shuffled in and out of residential treatment facilities just to spare you the inconvenience of having to look at him for one day longer.

The problem with this lies in the fact that there truly are so many misconceptions about mental illness. People who claim to be normal don't understand that a lot of the reactions, sensations and serious hindrances caused by mental illness stems, in many cases, from extreme and uncontrollable emotion like fear, sorrow and, yes, even anger. Society only catches buzzwords that apply to mental illness and then repetitively misuse them. A psychotic is confused with a sociopath or psychopath. Bipolar is confused with Schizophrenia. (The two are related, but not the same.)

In fact, misconceptions about mental illness abound in modern society. For example, a psychotic person is not dangerous. In fact, more people who suffer from mental illnesses are destined to be victims than to be aggressors in violent crimes. Furthermore, if pushed to violence, a psychotic person is more likely to hurt him or herself before he or she would hurt another human being. “Psychosis” does not mean by definition “harmful”. It means someone exhibits a “break from reality”. Does this sound scary? I assure you, it is terrifying, but it does not drive you to senseless murder—only senseless horror.

I believe that there is some fine line between what manly pigeon-hole as “insanity” and what others applaud as “genius”. I remember vividly asking several of my professors what accounted for greatness in literature. What did it take? What drove these men and these women to this point? None of them could answer me; it was always with those same wordless smiles they met me. I did not want to know for my own benefit; I just wanted to see their opinions. I know what I believe that extra glow in a passage of words to be or that carefully-placed, extremely fragile adjective just before the right noun is. It is your right to disagree with me. But I wish it would also not be your right to habitually misunderstand, misrepresent and alienate a whole section of the population that is mostly already internally terrorized, afraid to live another day and unable to help themselves.

I think one of the most frightening aspects of mental illness is that at some point in time you realize in little snatches of lucidity that what is happening to you is not normal and that, no matter how you try, you cannot control it—that yours is a life out of control, spinning off the rails and into absolute oblivion. And while you spend your days and weeks banging down doors to admit this problem to anyone who can pump you full of enough pills to help and enough cognitive therapy to turn the negative thoughts inside out to positives, the whole rest of general society is denying that they have ever felt this way themselves.

Mental Illness Support Ribbons

2009-05-09T15:37:00.000-05:00

I would like to begin this blog by stating a fact that I was both happy to discover and promote. I recently discovered that just as issues like cancer, autism, and various other illnesses have ribbons one can wear in support of the issue, so too does mental health. Mental health awareness ribbons come in two shades: green and grey. Green, I must point out, is also associated with other problems like kidney disease and things of this nature as well. Grey, to my knowledge, is associated solely with the campaign to enlighten people about mental illness and worn in the hope of a cure to help ease the suffering and unpleasant aspects of failing mental health.
So, my advice to you is: help fight the stigma! Show support, not intolerance! Maybe, for the first time in decades, we can stop demonizing people that are simply tormented, afraid, and helpless and start treating them with the care any other person afflicted with a disease deserves.

"Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest

burning" --The Wasteland, T.S. Eliot (Click to Read)