New Diagnosis, Because I Needed More Labels

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.

You Are Not a Label… and Stop Using Mine to Describe Your Behavior

One of my strongest held beliefs when it comes to mental health and well-being is that labeling for non-medical purposes can be incredibly dangerous. In education, they teach us that we should never name a student by their disability, an autistic boy, but instead use “person first language” like a boy who has autism. While the difference may be subtle, it is an important subtle difference. By putting the person’s disability first we begin to view the individual in terms of the disability. When we acknowledge that people are always people first, and strengths and weaknesses are just factors that contribute to the entire individual we can begin to help others grow despite the factors that may set them back. Also, if you do not have a diagnosed mental disorder or disability you should not be using those terms to describe your behavior. The following are some examples: