Where Mental Illness Comes From © Megan Snider

"(...)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.

© Megan Snider

Bipolar Disorder and Impulse Control © Megan Snider

“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.

© Megan Snider

Resources:


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

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

Mental Illness and Demonology © Megan Snider

"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?

© Megan Snider

Obesity and Psychoactive Drugs © Megan Snider

** 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.

© Megan Snider

Sources Cited:

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

Extrapyramidal Disorders: A Brief Introduction © Megan Snider

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

© Megan Snider

Sources Cited:

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

Mental Health and Faith © Megan Snider

"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.

Please, nonetheless, believe.

© Megan Snider

Prolixin © Megan Snider

"(...)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.

© Megan Snider

Sources Cited:

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

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