While I was getting my graduate degree in gifted educational psychology, there was a topic that I found enthralling. The misdiagnosis of giftedness as mental illness. Of course, this topic has the potential to cause some harm, if individuals with true mental illnesses refuse treatment based on the theories, but others could actually be saved.
Two posts back to back, so you know its been a rough week.
I was reading someone’s post about their negative experiences with group therapy, which I hated going to support groups so I can empathize, but it took me back to one of the fundamental thoughts that I had while I was attending- that I don’t feel that crazy.
I looked around me at the other people that had been hospitalized multiple times, don’t have jobs, and are so medicated that you can tell that they can’t function in normal everyday life, and I thought to myself, “You aren’t this bad, this isn’t you.” But I was also scared to death that I was going to end up like them.
I am definitely what you would call “high functioning” bipolar. I hold down a very difficult job, and no one can tell that I have bipolar disorder nor that I am medicated. So seeing people with the same disorder that were not functioning scared the crap out of me.
Most of the time, I don’t truly accept that I have a disorder if I am completely honest. I don’t feel like I function at a disadvantage. But every once in a while I am faced with a challenge that is created by my disorder and I have to be honest with myself. Its never fun to admit you have a problem, especially when its one this big and that you have no control over.
I struggle with going to the grocery store. It seems like such a simple task, but I get completely overwhelmed, agitated, and eventually manic over the stress associated with being in a crowded store. A couple of days ago I ended up crying (not the first time) over getting so upset at the grocery store, and it makes me feel absolutely insane. Usually Adam goes for me, which we don’t openly talk about why I can’t go, and we pretend like its no big deal. But I know that he doesn’t understand why I can’t just go to the store and buy food for us. Its frustrating.
My breakdown over the store brought up a lot of feelings that I was having of being completely overwhelmed. I am struggling with my sleep schedule because it is Spring Break (that’s over as of tomorrow) and my job is entirely too stressful for someone who is functioning at a disadvantage. My “normal” coworkers are all either on Xanax or drink to deal with the stress, and they don’t even have a serious psychological problem! How on earth am I supposed to survive?
Luckily, we only have 2 months left of school, so I definitely survived most of the year already. Everything from here on out will go quickly. But as the year moves forward, I can’t help but think that this isn’t the job for me. That maybe I need to acknowledge that I have a serious psychological condition that prevents me from being able to work in high stress environments. Even so, why would I want to work in that kind of environment anyway?
It’s been a while since I’ve written on here, and there’s one solid reason for that… I’ve been working.
For a person without bipolar disorder, that’s just a normal part of their daily life. Wake up, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, etc. But for me, working is the hardest part of my bipolar disorder. I work with children, 7th graders to be exact, and for most people 120 of them would be exhausting on a good day. I love them to death, but it feels like they are killing me every single day. I also teach a large number of low income students, which comes with its own set of challenges. Cultural differences are definitely a real obstacle in the teacher/student relationship no matter how hard you try to understand and encorporate different cultures into your classroom.
I leave work beyond exhausted, I go home feeling depressed from my lack of energy, then I start to feel anxious about going back the next day causing me to stay up all night. It’s a vicious cycle.
Before you say something, I am very aware that teaching is probably not for me so I am looking for another job, but teaching is a contract so you can’t just quit when you feel overwhelmed. Plus, it would be foolish to quit one job before getting another one, so I’m stuck for now.
My fear is that any new job is going to be just as difficult. I was diagnosed last year, so I haven’t had long to cope with the lifestyle changes that I need to be as healthy as I can be. I’ve changed my diet, started exercising, then stopped, then started again, worked on my sleep schedule, cut down on soda, as many things as I can handle. But the one thing I can’t seem to figure out is how to work effectively. I don’t know, maybe the job change would be the change I need.
This summer has been filled with rainstorms in my area. On the surface this really doesn’t effect me that much, since I am practically a vampire with translucent skin, but I have realized that maybe the rain is adding to some of my “lower” moments.
I still feel weird using some of the depressed terminology. When I am super low on energy and struggle to move around it doesn’t seem accurate to just say that I am feeling “low”. That being said, when I feel that way I am usually very close to the ground or laying down so maybe it is a little bit more accurate than I am giving it credit for.
When it rains everyday you stop going outside for the little things like getting the mail. Plus I walk the dogs less frequently. Those little things add up when you are fighting depression. I can tell that getting up (even if its hard) is a huge part of feeling better. It just gets even harder to get up when its raining. You start to feel the “why bother” get a lot stronger when its raining. Why worry about your hair if its just going to rain? Those types of things.
Also in the middle of the night a few nights ago there was a massive thunderstorm. During that storm I started to wonder if the weather was going to keep being crazy thanks to global warming. If thats the case, then how am I supposed to buy a house? What if it gets flooded or torn apart? Yup, in the middle of the night I can still out worry a normal person by a long shot.
Its a gift.
Whether or not, its still a great feeling sitting outside waiting for the rain.
Two weeks ago I couldn’t wait for summer break to get here. I was crying and losing sleep over how hard my job was at that point. Teaching in the inner city is never easy, but the last couple of weeks of school are brutal.
I felt like an overworked babysitter, or somehow even less than that. I was coming home and sleeping from 4pm until it was time to get up the next day. I didn’t have enough energy to even walk my dogs.
Then one day it all changed. I woke up that Tuesday feeling slightly less exhausted but hopeful that everything was going to change now that I didn’t have to go into work. I was also struggling with the severe depression caused by the idea of having to return to work in 2 months. I wanted a new job. I wanted a new career. I never wanted to step foot inside of a classroom ever again.
Since then, I have had a new job offer at a different school and my attitude has changed a bit. That being said I am still struggling with all of the unstructured time given to me by the summer break. I have no reason to wake up at a decent time in the morning. I have no reason to stay awake, so I just fall back asleep.
I have a list of things that I could be doing, but its a struggle to get anything done with the house empty.
I’ll get it figured out, I am sure I will. Probably right before schools starts again.
I was filling out a job application the other day, and I got excited that Bipolar Disorder was specifically identified as a disability on the form. Check. Sweet! New job here I go.
At first, I thought that I was lucky to have a slight leg up in the job hunting experience. But this week has shown me that no, I get a little bit of help because in reality I need a lot of help. I have thought of my disability as being minor, you know, I have to take medicine and have an adult bedtime.
What I was ignoring was the fact that I struggle every single day to wake up for work. I don’t just mean waking up and getting out of bed. I mean that I am at work, taking care of children, and trying my hardest just to walk down the hallway. I cannot wake up fully until at least 9 in the morning, and the kids get there at 7:25.
I think that I could continue my job as a teacher if I was able to wake up at 8am. My entire day would be different, but I know that won’t happen. I don’t know if I would be able to tell an employer at a different job that I am unable to work before 9am though. I would think that they wouldn’t want to hire me, realistically.
It turns out THAT is what that disability form is for, to protect me. Or is it really to check before I interview so they know what they are getting into? I am sure its meant for the former and ends up being the latter.
Either way, I don’t know how I am going to handle the morning teaching situation… So any suggestions (other than drinking copious amounts of Dr. Pepper in the morning) would be greatly appreciated.
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I intentionally keep my Facebook friends away from my blog, in order to give me a decent amount of anonymity. While I have no issue discussing my mental health journey, it is something I prefer to discuss in person instead of over the internet.
So when it comes to my Facebook page, my life is a lie.
Throughout my life, I have visited many doctors that wanted to label my struggles with medical terms, and depending on where I was in life I sometimes accepted and sometimes rejected the labels.
In my early teens, I fought the idea that I had anything going on with me psychologically and I just wanted to me left alone.
When I started having panic attacks at 16, I believed that everyone had them because people told me that they were common.
At 20, I was given Zoloft (that I refused to take) because my anxiety was so out of control that my blood pressure was too high.
That entire time, I was convinced that I was completely normal. That my obsessive fear of needing to go to the bathroom was something most people lived with. That my irrational fears and borderline seizures when exposed to medical equipment was common.
While I was walking to my car one night, I witnessed a fellow college student get hit my a campus bus and die. I watched the EMT give him CPR while I was on the phone with my mom and I told her, “Yup, he’s definitely dead. That’s sad.” And I went home and had the best sleep I had in months.
When I woke up the next day, I realized that everyone on campus was shocked and upset. People were mourning openly, and all I could think of is how much I hated the news stations for showing up and exploiting this poor person’s death. That was when I was finally willing to admit that something wasn’t right. I was 22 years old.
The university mental health professionals said that they could not help me, because I was graduating soon and they couldn’t monitor me the appropriate amount of time for full-blown therapy. I went to a few sessions, but it wasn’t until I returned home that I started going to the psychiatrist and psychologist combo at my local hospital. At that point, I hadn’t left my parents’ house voluntarily for about a month.
I was diagnosed with all sorts of things. OCD, PTSD, mixed anxiety and depression… Social anxiety disorder. I didn’t really care about the labels, and I refused most of the medicines. They made me feel fuzzy and slow. Multiple doctors had tried to give me antidepressants, and they didn’t want to listen to me when I said they didn’t feel right.
After the Boston bombing, I called my doctor’s office begging for help. It was 4 days after the attack and I had no idea where I was and how I got there. I had been to work and taught school… and I had been driving! They told me the quickest appointment would be 2 weeks from then and if it was an emergency I should go to the ER. When I asked what would happen at the ER, they told me I would see a social worker.
So despite the fact that I was being treated for PTSD, I was pretty much on my own.
This was when I reached out and found a counselor that wasn’t a proponent of medication first. I started Rational Behavior Therapy (RBT) and I loved it. I loved the accountability. I loved that he didn’t assign labels to me as a person. I loved that I could see real change over time.
But it wasn’t enough. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t change the anxiety and depression when it reached its peaks and valleys and I became frustrated. I was doing everything that I could to think rationally, what was I doing wrong?
In my last blog post, I expressed the fact that I had reached a point of no return. You can’t pretend that delusions are normal. They aren’t.
So I scheduled the appointment (weeks afterwards of course) and I lucked out that it just so happened to be in a holistic mental health center. After conferencing with the doctor, the truth was unavoidable.
I have bipolar disorder.
It didn’t surprise me at all. My father definitely had it, and abused drugs and people like the stereotype suggests. And I am pretty positive that my mother has it as well, but either doesn’t admit to having it or only tells the doctor about her depression.
I have avoided drugs out of the fear of following in my father’s footsteps, but somehow I knew that I was fighting a losing battle.
I don’t believe that I am any different now that I have the label, as I have been struggling with the energy and mood issues for years. But that doesn’t mean that I am above the initial terror that comes with having a negatively stigmatized life-long disorder. Depression seemed like something that I could conquer. Anxiety was just a state of mind. PTSD was something that happened because I was a victim of circumstance. But with Bipolar Disorder, I felt like it was something wrong with me.
I started on an antipsychotic yesterday (because antipsychotic is a great word when you are feeling vulnerable) and I am nervous about the next couple of weeks. Anyone that has been handed an antidepressant knows that it takes a few weeks for everything to stabilize, but I know that Bipolar Disorder can be tricky to treat.
I will keep everyone updated on how everything goes, but I think an important part of accepting mental illness as a physical phenomenon is not hiding it from others. I have nothing to be ashamed of, and I am excited to see if the treatment is finally going to help make things easier.
One thing that is important to note about psychological health is that it directly influences your physical health. For some people its in the form of stress headaches, for others high blood pressure, and for me its a lowered immune system that allows cancer to grow in my body.
Luckily for me, it is a monitored form of cancer and I am not likely to die from it.
Unluckily for me, every time I start to get stressed out and anxious I then become stressed out and anxious about the fact that if I don’t calm down I am going to give myself cancer. Because nothing calms you down quite like the thought of hospitals and doctors… when you have a phobia of hospitals and doctors.
Needless to say, I can be a hot mess.
I wrote a post recently about the fact that I was struggling with some difficulties with moving and starting a new job, but what I didn’t realize was that I was also struggling with something that I wasn’t even aware of. For almost two weeks I was convinced that my hair had gotten shorter.
That might not seem like a big deal, but towards the end of the two weeks I was starting to believe that somehow my hair was going into my head or breaking off. Yup. I had lost touch with reality, and the scariest part was that I had no idea. I would walk into my bathroom and brush my hair, and when I looked in the mirror think through this very broken thought process. I would then continue on with my day completely unaware that I was having a delusion.
For some context, I have had delusions before but they tend to be paranoid delusions about the people around me all wishing I didn’t exist. (Pretty specific) And as far as I know I have never had a delusion about my body before.
This scared the ever-living bejesus out of me. For two weeks I believed in something that could not be physically possible.
Of course, once I realized what was going on I tried immediately to find a new doctor in the area (I had just visited my psychiatrist who completely ignored my requests for a different medication) only to run into the 1 month waiting period for an intake appointment.
If you are not familiar with our mental health care system, frequently if you call a psychiatrist/psychologist asking for help they will tell you that it is 2-4 weeks before they have an intake appointment available. During that first appointment all they do is background work with your family and medical history. You then have to return at least a week later before you actually see the doctor in an official appointment capacity. On top of that it takes two weeks for any psych meds to start to stabilize in your system.
I tell you that to tell you this. If you know someone who is struggling, they need to start the process sooner rather than later. Most people don’t need to be admitted to a hospital, but when you know that you are going to have to wait a month to get any real relief you are a lot more likely to take action more quickly.
Trying My Best to See 