(Did you miss part one?  You can read it here.)

May 29, 2016

Here’s a question.  Why would someone with admitted mental health issues spend her entire adult life actively avoiding seeking out a mental health professional?  It seems foolish and well, frankly, really stupid doesn’t it?  But there were reasons that, at the time, seemed to be very sensible.

Here are just a few of them, in no particular order:

•  The stigma.  People have tried to tell me that there’s no longer a stigma, but they’re wrong.  There IS a stigma.  It is everywhere.  And while people do tend to be more open about their mental health than they used to be, there is still the overarching belief by many that it is a weakness.  That it is a choice.  That they could feel better if they just WANTED TO BADLY ENOUGH, Dammit!  It’s not very conducive to seeking help when a large segment of society wants to treat you like a failure just for walking in the door.

• The woo woo stuff.  The few people that I know who’ve talked about therapy or counselors have been very into sort of new age, touchy-feely, get in touch with the Goddess within sort of thing, and I had no interest in that.  I wanted straightforward, practical advice, not to be told I needed to hug my inner child. (Disclaimer:  I have no issues with other people wanting/needing/connecting to that approach.  It’s just not for me.)

• I had a bad experience with therapy as a teen.  In hindsight, I guess it wasn’t a bad experience per se, but it was unpleasant.  To begin with, I was there against my will… a mandatory family thing when my parents took in a foster child.  I HATED IT.  Hated the questions, hated the pressure, hating being expected to talk about my feelings when I just Wanted. To. Be. Home.  In my room.  Reading a book.  Not in a weird uncomfortable room with this total stranger who kept asking me questions…. questions that I learned to begrudgingly answer, because if I didn’t my mom answered for me (with how she thought I’d respond) which ticked me off and made the whole thing worse.

• I didn’t know what to expect.  With the exception of the people in #2, hardly anyone ever talks about this aspect of their lives.  I mean, it’s private, and I get that, but more openness would be so very helpful to those who are new to the idea.  I had absolutely no idea what to expect, and the unknown – particularly when it comes to something as sensitive and personal as  your mental health – is scary and daunting, which brings me to:

• It was overwhelming and scary.  Even – or especially – when you know you’re at a point where you need professional help (and by all means, I was in that place for a long time), taking the step of actually researching different places/providers (when just getting out of bed is a lot of freaking work), calling someone (when you’d rather suffer a slow agonizing death in the talons of a velociraptor), actually driving to a place and having to see someone (when you’re not even up to seeing your best friends), AND having to face and talk about the messiest, scariest, most personal parts of your psyche with a total stranger is really, really, breathtakingly HARD.

Alas, despite all of the above…. I knew it was time.   So I sucked it up, I made some phone calls, and I found a place that could get me in right away.  I knew that 1) I needed to start with a proper diagnosis, so I went straight to a psychiatrist, and 2) a multi-faceted approach was important, so I chose a facility that offered psychiatric care, therapy, general medical care, and an overall holistic view on treatment.

And to make a long story short(er), May 10th ended up being one of the most important days of my life.  It was weird and uncomfortable and scary… but important.   Both people I saw (a psychiatrist and a licensed counselor)  were professional and kind and reassuring and thorough – without veering into the overly caring/condescending behavior that drives me so absolutely batshit crazy.  The bipolar diagnosis was a fairly straightforward one, and I do not mean in any way that it was rushed, or one that they came to quickly.  They asked a lot (a LOT) of questions, they sought clarity, they asked me to word things in different ways when they needed more information.  But what it ultimately comes down to is symptoms, and I read like a text book.

As for my own personal views on the experience?  It was HUGELY powerful.   The simple act of being able to answer questions like “Have you ever tried to hurt yourself?” with honesty… in a non-judgemental environment where no one is shocked, or horrified or phased in any way…. a place where they’ve heard it all before, and are trained to simply listen, and ultimately to help you… It was freeing, and it was healing, all by itself.  And to have a diagnosis?  There were other emotions, that I’m sure will continue to come and go, but in the moment it was pure relief.

And I mean, I knew.  I’ve known it was bipolar for a long time.  But to HEAR it;  to be able to begin treating it;  to be able to create a specific plan to get well;  to finally move FORWARD…  It gave me more hope than I’ve had in a long, long time.  I cried the whole way home that day, which is far from an unusual practice for me, but this time they were largely tears of relief.

The immediate plan was – and is – just to get me stable.  I was prescribed some appropriate medications for my specific situation (a brief word about medications, if I may:  They were, for me, absolutely the right answer for this phase of my treatment.  Will they always be a part of my treatment?  Possibly.  Maybe even likely.  Bipolar is tricky.  I feel no shame in taking them, and no shame in evaluating – and continuing to evaluate –  the role they may or may not play in keeping me well.)  I was also given a lengthy – but somehow not overwhelming – list of homework:  practical things I can do to supplement my medication, and help me work towards getting better.  Which is exactly what I was wanting, and needing.  I’ll see my psychiatrist monthly for now, and my therapist (who is wonderful) weekly.

Eventually I’ll be living my life, learning to control it instead of letting it control ME.  But for right now, this IS my life.  Getting well, getting stronger, learning to live NOT as a “bipolar person”, but as the same complicated, multifaceted, creative, perfectly imperfect person I’ve always been, who also happens to have bipolar.

(Continue to Part Three)

I don’t know how much longer I can fake it
That it’s all alright, that I can do this alone
And I know that life is what you make it
But it’s hard to see stars when you’re always caught in the folds

Every night in my mind it’s a fight
But I won’t stop dreaming
‘Cause this isn’t over
It’s never over

Facing forward
Lights out
I won’t stop running
Falling backwards
Hands tied
I won’t stop running
I’ll take another sunrise
Another hand to hold tight
This isn’t over
I am way too young and I won’t stop running

~ “Won’t Stop Running”, Great Big World

It is a Saturday as I write this;  May 28th, 2016.  It seems important that I note that, because when or if this story is ever shared, I know it’s one that will need to come in bits and pieces over time, not as a one-off post.  In a way, what I’m about to write about is the culmination of what’s actually been going on for years (decades, if I’m being honest) but in many many others it is just the very beginning baby steps of what will become a lifelong journey.

I have bipolar disorder.

I’ve been practicing saying that, even if mostly inside my own head.  I say it very well, don’t I?  Hello, my name is Jennifer and I have bipolar disorder.  Did anyone else just hear Richard Gere in Pretty Woman when I said that?  “Hello, my name is Mr. Lewis and I am very angry with my father.  It cost me ten thousand dollars in therapy to be able to say that sentence.” 

I haven’t (yet) spent ten thousand dollars in therapy, but I am actively going to therapy, which in and of itself is… unexpected.

But I’m getting way ahead of myself, and should really start at the beginning.

It was a cold and snowy day in 1974 when I was born …  KIDDING!  Well, only partly kidding, because it was a cold and snowy day when I was born.  I was born during a snow storm in fact.  That’s completely irrelevant to the story though.  Except that now that I’m thinking about it, it’s actually pretty poetically perfect that I was born during a storm.  I wouldn’t be ME if I’d been born on a calm, quiet, balmy day in June.

I’m just not the calm, quiet, balmy type.

I’ve always been open about my issues with depression and anxiety … and when I say “open”, I mean I’ve written about it a grand total of a whopping 4 or 5 times (out of 1,000 posts) over the course of the 10+ years that I’ve maintained this blog.  But while I was always as raw and honest as I could manage at the time, those posts only told a part of the story.  They were tentative.  Testing.  Dipping my toes in the water as it were.  I feel like I shared a great deal, but I subconsciously held back at least as much as I revealed.

I’m tired of holding things back.  My only personal goal right now is to get myself well, and I believe that part of that process is going to be total, uncensored honesty.

This spring I had a breakdown.  “Breakdown” is a weird word (one that’s a way too often and flippant word of hyperbole) that doesn’t convey the severity of what happened to me, but it’s the only word I’ve got.   As was my usual pattern, I’d just come down from feeling AMAZING. Life was so painfully beautiful it made me cry.  I’d been full of energy.  Full of grand ideas.  Full of huge plans.  I was going to write another book.  I was going to expand my blog.  I was going to start more blogs.  I spent hundreds of dollars on online courses to teach me how to do exactly that.  I was going to CHANGE THE FREAKING WORLD.    I felt like I could do absolutely anything.  And then….. I didn’t.  And then I got depressed.  And then I got really depressed.  And then I wanted to die.  And then, in the middle of taking the 8 year old to play rehearsals, and the 12 year old to football practice, and taking care of the kids and the house and the pets and everything else that comes with adulting, I had a breakdown.  To put it into perspective, the only reason I didn’t end up in the ER was that I found a psychiatric facility that could get me in for an evaluation right away.

Only a couple – less than five – trusted people knew how much I was truly struggling.  Even then, I spared them the gory details.  The little bits I did share here and there though were more than enough encouragement for well-meaning advice.  I just needed to exercise.  I needed more sleep.  I needed to change the way I ate.  I needed to use essential oils.  I needed more supplements.  I tried really hard not to be offended – and deeply, deeply frustrated – because I was exercising.  I was eating well.  I was getting sleep.  I was taking appropriate supplements.  And essential oils?  I tried pretty much all of them that were supposed to be helpful.  Daily.  But the thing is, motivation is great.  Exercise, sleep, and vitamins are great.  But there are some things they Just.  Don’t.  Cure.  I couldn’t fix it.  Sheer willpower was not doing it.  And it was insulting and minimizing every single time someone suggested otherwise.

It was reminiscent to the end of my journey with my gall bladder.  It was full of stones and sludge, it was starting to get inflamed, and there were stones lodged in the common bile duct.  I was due to have it removed, but then it started to get infected.  I ultimately had an attack that lasted about 72 hours, and in desperation called the surgeon’s office for advice.  The overly cheerful woman on the phone told me, “Oh you’ll see a big difference if you avoid things like fried foods.”  Fried foods?  Was she kidding me?  I hadn’t been able to eat ANY fat for several months, and hadn’t been able to keep down anything – at all – for days.  And she was talking to me about fried foods?  I ended up in the ER, where I checked in for a five day stay, one emergency operation, one endoscopic procedure, and a truckload of necessary medications.

She was being helpful to the best of her ability, but I didn’t need to be told to avoid fried foods.  It was so beyond that point.  What I  needed was intervention.  And in this case, I didn’t need to use essential oils.  It was so beyond that point.  What I needed was intervention.  It wasn’t that I was hanging on by a thread.  My thread WAS GONE.  I had no more thread, and I was hanging over a precipice.  The only recourse I had left was to seek the help of a professional.

So I did.

And it was the hardest, and scariest, thing I’ve ever done in my life.

(Continue to Part Two)