I Miss You
11 Mar 2012 5 Comments
in Emergency, Life Events Tags: loss, pets, psychiatry, stress, the life of erin, writing
I must admit that things are pretty crappy right now. I can count my current woes on my fingers but I still feel some secret hope that I can’t quite identify. Perhaps it is spring. Today we’re back into daylight savings time, thank God. That is a sure sign of spring, isn’t it? It’s something we can trust.
I keep waiting to feel stronger before posting here so that I can bring more good to the world and feel sure of it. Deep down, however, I know that writing itself helps me feel stronger. So here I am, writing.
My psychiatrist keeps asking me about my plans for the future and I feel like yelling at him. I feel like he should know me better than to ask me that. I feel like my life is one big ball of unpredictability, and planning for the future is like planning to win the lottery.
One of my family’s cats died a week ago yesterday. He was fourteen and had a good life but his death caught my family by surprise. Oliver was such happy and healthy kitty that we expected to have for a few more years at least. It prompted the unofficial silence on my blog. Death humbles us all, makes us feel powerless.
Two nights ago I crashed into my dresser in my sleep. Yes, I was sleep walking, something I thought I’d stopped doing since being put on sleep medication years ago. I know I was sleep walking because I didn’t have a clue that I was even out of bed until I was on the floor, my kneecaps and my forehead throbbing with pain, blood gushing from my forehead. I stumbled around in the dark, all over the apartment, until finally grabbing a rag and making my way into the bathroom to see the damage done. I kind of screamed when I saw what I did to my head and then shortly after I started laughing.
The next morning I was pissed because I needed to get stitches instead of heading right to the Indie Media Fair as planned, to sell my buttons and zines. I didn’t have to wait long at the hospital, however, and so I did end up making it to the craft sale after I put stickers of a pug, scissors, and a cat on my forehead bandage.
I haven’t been to the hospital for something non-mental health related since I was five years old and sprained my arm. It’s a relief to be shame free when I talk about getting stitches. Imagine that! Well, I am a little ashamed because it was a really stupid accident but my ego isn’t too damaged. That said, I can’t help but feel like my sleep walking was somewhat related to my mental health and stress levels. Friday was a stressful day with therapy and last-minute craft show preparation. I am thankful, however, that I didn’t hurt myself any worse. A few inches lower and I could have lost my eye. I’m going to have an ugly scar but I can handle looking a little tougher.
I have a lot more to tell you about. Hopefully this post will break my silence and get my words flowing again. I miss you a lot.
We Aren’t Broken
06 Nov 2011 6 Comments
in The Big Picture Tags: coping, depression, fear, hospital, psychiatry, therapy, tips, writing
We can FEEL broken, flawed, or even crazy but it does not mean that we ARE those things.
For a while there I felt like the diagnosis of being mentally ill meant that there was something wrong with ME. I thought that I’d screwed up and failed at life. In reality, there was something wrong with the chemical balances in my brain. There was something wrong with my coping methods to deal with stress. There was nothing wrong with me as a person.
It’s super important to get help when you are depressed or are having trouble functioning in everyday life. You might see a counselor or a therapist or a psychiatrist, and they are trained to help you in the ways that they know how. Trust them, work with them. But guess what? You still have a hand in your recovery.
I’m going to let you in on a secret: YOU are the expert on yourself and your life. So even though people helping you with your illness are great, they can’t help you 100% because they don’t know you 100%. You are the only person who does.
This means two things. The first one is that everything your doctor or therapist or even your friend recommends for you to do to help yourself has to feel right for you. If it doesn’t, tell them. Ask for clarification about why they think it would help and if you still don’t agree, then say no. There will be times when your treatment team can still do things even when you say no, like if they think you are going to harm yourself or someone else, but most of the time they have to listen to you.
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A Plea to Doctors and Patients
05 Aug 2011 9 Comments
in The Mental Health System Tags: depression, doctors, ER, mental illness, psychiatry, tips, treatment
I just turned off a rerun of House on tv and it got me thinking about the dramas we watch on tv, especially the medical dramas. Why do we watch these shows?
The storylines are interesting, love between characters ups the ante, but every episode of medical dramas tend to include a stranger being helped. This stranger goes to the hospital after being in an accident or having alarming symptoms that something is wrong with their body and they turn to medical professionals for relief. That happens in the “real world” every day, right?
The difference between tv doctors and real doctors is pretty vast. Obviously, actors on tv aren’t real doctors, and the whole thing is about drama and not science so the medical side is also a crock. The biggest difference that I see, however, is exactly what draws us to the shows in the first place: the doctors on tv care. They care because they are human beings.
Wait, what was that? Real doctors are human beings, too?
One could argue that all real doctors care or else they wouldn’t have gone into the medical field. So why do we rarely see or feel that care? Especially in the ER, a place people visit only in an emergency, why do doctors “treat ‘em and street ‘em” as fast as possible?
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The Brave New World of Medication
21 Jul 2011 1 Comment
in Medication, The Mental Health System Tags: medication, mindyourmind.ca, psychiatry
I’m not going to lie: I’m swamped in getting ready for my craft show this weekend and have not written a new post. While I hope to be a Speedy Gonzales-esque writer one of these days and write ten posts ahead of schedule, it hasn’t happened yet. Don’t be disappointed, however! Tonight you get to step into the shoes of a MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL. WOOO!!! No university degree required.
mindyourmindpro.ca aims at helping health care professionals help youth. They have a kick-ass blog that I’m sampling from here, a post I wrote in February on educating youth on medication. It was amazing to be able to talk to professionals in an arena where they would be open to my opinions on health care. While the post is aimed at professionals, it has a lot of good advice for people new to antidepressants. I wish I could have read such an article when I first went on medication. Click the “more” arrow below to read the article.
Meds, Part One: An Overview
11 Jul 2011 1 Comment
in Medication, Symptoms and Side-Effects Tags: anxiety, depression, headache, medication, psychiatry
I am a walking cocktail of medication and have been since I was diagnosed with depression. One by one pills have been added and subtracted to balance out my brain, some making me physically sick, some making me sleepy, some making me suicidal. Why put myself though all that? I do it because the alternative is worse. After years and years of trying medications that did not help, I’ve finally found pills that help me enough to function. It would be safe to say that without my medication this blog would not exist. Neither would my apartment or my art or the fact that I can function in day-to-day life.
I take seven pills at breakfast, three pills at dinner, and four pills at bedtime. Cymbalta and Wellbutrin are antidepressants to treat depression, Seroquel is an anti-psychotic I take to help me sleep, and Xanax is a PRN (Pro Re Nata – Latin for as needed) I take once in a while for anxiety. Those are the straightforward medications and why I take them.
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