Em 2006 T.M. participou de uma viagem com um grupo de alunos de uma universidade carioca. Os professores seguiram em uma Kombi, e mais atrás foi um ônibus com 52 alunos. Lá dentro, alguns estudantes começaram a beber e fumar, causando um verdadeiro rebuliço. "Não agüentei, falei um monte de desaforos, segurei no bagageiro e aumentei muito a voz", contou. "O pessoal se assustou, eles não esperavam uma reação minha daquelas. Foi fora do meu comum, eu jamais faria isso. Não teria uma reação explosiva do jeito que eu tive."

A reação "fora do comum" relatada pelo estudante provavelmente não teria ocorrido caso ele não sofresse do transtorno afetivo bipolar, um conjunto de sinais e sintomas que podem durar semanas ou meses e que causa o estado do humor a variar de maneira periódica ou cíclica apresentando-se de forma normal, elevada -- chamada de mania -- ou deprimida.

Ao longo da vida, as pessoas apresentam estados de humor variados, mas ainda se sentem no controle. No transtorno afetivo bipolar, no entanto, essa sensação de controle é perdida, gerando muito sofrimento para os que convivem com o problema.

Até os anos 80, o transtorno bipolar era conhecido como psicose maníaco-depressiva. A partir daí passou a ser chamada de transtorno afetivo bipolar, uma síndrome que acomete, segundo estimativas, 1% da população mundial e de 1,8 a 15 milhões de brasileiros, nas suas mais diversas formas de apresentação.

O médico e professor de Psiquiatria da Universidade de São Paulo, Valentim Gentil Filho, em entrevista ao Dr. Dráuzio Varella, afirma que a síndrome mudou de nome porque analisando separadamente, a denominação antiga carregava uma carga negativa, estigmatizada.

"Maníaco [de psicose maníaco-depressiva] é um termo técnico derivado do grego e significa loucura. De fato, na fase de hiperexcitabilidade, o indivíduo é o estereótipo do louco já que suas atitudes destoam, e muito, do padrão normal de seu comportamento. Depressivo era o termo mais brando dos três e que menos impacto causava. Por isso, considerou-se que a expressão psicose maníaco-depressiva era pesada demais para designar uma doença que, de certa forma, não era tão terrível quanto o nome fazia supor".

Para o psiquiatra e pesquisador Diogo Lara, em seu livro Temperamento Forte e Bipolaridade: dominando os altos e baixos do humor (ed. Revolução das Idéias), o humor bipolar poderia ser comparado a ter um par de patins: "em alguns lugares é difícil de caminhar, em outros anda-se muito mais rápido do que quem está sem eles. Quanto menor o controle maior a emoção!" Desta forma, para aqueles que conhecem bem os seus patins -- aprendendo a minimizar os riscos e andando em terrenos mais favoráveis -- tê-los pode até ter suas vantagens.

Altos e baixos

O termo bipolar expressa os dois pólos de humor: o da mania e o da depressão. Diferente de como muitas pessoas utilizam, equivocadamente, a palavra mania -- como mania de limpeza, de conferir as coisas, ou até maníaco no sentido de assassino, psicopata -- o termo médico é descrito de outra forma. Um episódio maníaco é descrito por Benjamin e Virginia Sadock, autores do livro Compêndio de Psiquiatria, como um determinado período de humor fora do normal e persistentemente elevado, expansivo ou irritável.

Aquele que passa por uma crise de mania costuma falar muito, falar rápido, ter idéias de grandeza, se sentir muito poderoso, capaz, inteligente, bonito, rico, gastar de maneira desmedida, se sentir com mais energia que o normal e a sua libido tende a aumentar. O doutorando T. M., de 27 anos, foi diagnosticado como bipolar em 2007. Ele se descontrolava com seus gastos durante as crises maníacas. "Gosto muito de ler, mas acabava comprando uma quantidade de livros que eu não conseguia dar conta. Depois que eu comecei a me tratar, os excessos diminuíram bastante."

O recém-formado administrador de empresas F. F., de 24 anos, já passou por crises de mania em que ficava tão cheio de energia que passava noites sem dormir. "Eu já fiquei sete dias sem dormir no período de mania. A coisa que eu mais queria era dormir, mas não conseguia. Posso querer ficar um, dois dias assim, mas sete não. Eu já não agüentava mais, estava ficando pirado."

Assim como F. F, durante essas crises de humor "para cima", muitos bipolares passam a dormir menos horas por noite e não ficam cansados. Além disso, emendam um assunto no outro -- mesmo sendo capazes de manter uma coerência lógica. Costumam ficar muito desinibidos, perdendo a noção crítica do que é aceitável para cada situação, fazendo besteiras e achando tudo normal. É como se o bipolar estivesse em pleno carnaval, se divertindo e brincando com todos, mas de maneira, muitas vezes, inadequada.

No outro pólo do humor, durante as crises de depressão, as pessoas costumam ter idéias negativas, de ruína, sentem-se tristes e com energia baixa. Atividades simples e cotidianas, como tomar banho e escovar os dentes, podem até ser deixadas de lado. A perda do apetite é comum, mas às vezes pode-se ganhar mais peso. O indivíduo fica mais lento, sem vontade de sair da cama, e costuma ter dificuldades de concentração. Em casos mais graves, pode pensar em cometer suicídio, chegando até as últimas conseqüências.

Segundo a psiquiatra Magda Vaissman, a depressão é uma das maiores causas de suicídio e afastamento do trabalho, trazendo enormes prejuízos pessoais. "No caso de álcool e drogas, a maior parte dos pacientes, eu diria que 60% ou 70% dos pacientes, têm um transtorno afetivo associado".

Estimativas publicadas no site da Associação Brasileira de Transtornos Bipolares apontam que até 50% dos portadores tentem o suicídio ao menos uma vez em suas vidas, enquanto cerca de 15% efetivamente o cometem. Trata-se, portanto, de um transtorno grave que não só pode incapacitar o indivíduo -- que não conseguirá levar uma vida normal de trabalho ou social --, mas que também põe em risco a própria vida.

Os principais tipos da doença

Para entender um pouco mais sobre o transtorno afetivo bipolar, é preciso saber como a doença é classificada. De acordo com a classificação do livro Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), um dos parâmetros utilizados pelos médicos, os transtornos bipolares são enquadrados em tipo I e tipo II.

O tipo I é aquele em que o paciente apresenta os quadros clássicos de mania e depressão, podendo um ser mais freqüente do que o outro. Em geral, as crises depressivas são mais freqüentes e ocorrem por períodos mais longos do que as crises maníacas. Estima-se que cerca de 1% da população mundial seja bipolar do tipo I. O tipo II -- manifestado por 6 a 8% das pessoas -- ocorre quando existem crises depressivas e crises de mania mais leves, chamadas de hipomania.

Essas alterações leves de humor eufórico são geralmente de difícil diagnóstico e podem não ser detectadas pelo médico. "Como é um quadro mais leve e não causa problema nenhum, o indivíduo fica mais ativo. Na verdade, ele fica melhor e todo mundo gosta", diz o Dr. Elie Cheniaux. O paciente costuma trabalhar melhor, por mais tempo, e pensa de maneira mais criativa. Na vida pessoal, costuma ser mais fácil conhecer novas pessoas, pois ele tende a se tornar mais sociável.

E é aí que mora o perigo. O bipolar, em crise de mania, pode nem chegar ao médico por considerar positivo aquele tipo de humor ou por achar que episódios como aqueles são perfeitamente normais. Por isso, as crises de mania leve podem não ser relatadas pelo paciente ou não ser detectadas pelo especialista. A depressão é mais facilmente diagnosticada, por outro lado. Esta dificuldade pode ser refletida no tratamento, já que antidepressivos podem desencadear a mania no paciente bipolar.

Conheça as áreas afetadas no cérebro de um bipolar e o que os cientistas estão começando a descobrir:

Principais causas

Como para a maioria dos transtornos mentais, o componente genético desempenha um dos papéis mais importantes no desenvolvimento do transtorno afetivo bipolar. Segundo dados do livro Temperamento Forte e Bipolaridade: dominando os altos e baixos do humor, há uma chance razoável de um pai e uma mãe bipolares terem filhos com as mesmas características. No caso de um par de gêmeos idênticos, se um deles tem o transtorno afetivo bipolar, há 80% de chances de que o outro também o tenha. Por isso, uma avaliação psiquiátrica completa não pode deixar de levar em conta a história familiar do paciente.

F.F. conta que seu avô tinha o mesmo transtorno que ele descobriu ter na infância. "Ele era Procurador Geral da República e ganhava bastante dinheiro, só que torrava tudo. Ele nunca teve uma vida estável, muito pelo contrário."

Além do componente genético, acontecimentos da vida podem ajudar a desencadear as crises. Em geral é muito comum ocorrer algum episódio ruim, alguma ocorrência de estresse. Depois da primeira crise, passa a ser menos freqüente que um evento seja o causador destas crises.

Apesar de ser uma doença cujos sintomas sejam bem definidos, ainda se sabe muito pouco sobre as suas causas. Os casos típicos são simples porque não se tratam de meras flutuações do humor, de sentimentos de alegria ou tristeza. "Existe todo um conjunto de alterações em que o individuo fica muito diferente do normal, o leigo percebe que ele não está normal, embora possa não saber o nome da doença", alerta o Dr. Elie Cheniaux.

Tratamento

Apesar de se tratar de um transtorno que pode causar graves alterações no humor do bipolar, afetando a sua vida diretamente, a boa notícia é que existe tratamento eficaz. O objetivo principal do especialista é tentar reduzir os fatores que desestabilizam o humor do paciente, embora a doença não tenha cura. O acompanhamento farmacológico deve ser feito por toda a vida.

O lítio é um dos primeiros medicamentos que surgiram e ainda é uma dos mais usados como estabilizador de humor -- embora funcione melhor na prevenção de crises maníacas do que para crises depressivas. Como qualquer medicamento, o lítio também pode causar efeitos colaterais. A.L., de 28 anos, teve sucesso com este medicamento, mas sentiu seus efeitos negativos: "No meu caso, o lítio foi o estabilizador de humor que mais funcionou, porém os efeitos colaterais foram bem ruins". Ela conta que a sua pele ficou mais ressecada, teve queda de cabelo -- e perda de brilho -- e aumento de peso. "Eu bebia muita água também, já que a sensação de sede é constante".

Alguns antipsicóticos -- usados para tratar esquizofrenia e outros quadros psicóticos -- e anticonvusivantes funcionam, embora não se saiba exatamente o motivo.

Tratar a depressão bipolar é mais complicado do que tratar a depressão unipolar -- que ocorre sem que existam episódios de mania --, já que ela é muito menos estudada. Existe um grande risco de o depressivo bipolar mudar para a mania. "Os antidepressivos favorecem isso, pois o paciente melhora, melhora, melhora tanto que vai para a outra crise", ressalta o Dr. Elie Cheniaux. Surge, então, uma polêmica: antidepressivos devem ou não ser usados no tratamento da depressão bipolar? Alguns médicos apóiam a sua indicação, com muita cautela, enquanto outros são totalmente contra.

Acima de tudo, o tratamento contra a depressão é extremamente importante porque o bipolar costuma permanecer mais tempo em depressão do que em mania. Em casos de episódios mistos -- em que o bipolar apresenta características tanto de mania quanto de depressão --, o risco de suicídio aumenta ainda mais. Isso porque a tristeza e a desesperança, que fazem o indivíduo ter vontade de morrer, são sinais típicos da depressão. No entanto, o indivíduo não se mata porque ele se sente tão desprovido de energia que não tem sequer forças para levar a cabo o seu desejo. No episódio misto, então, ele pode manter essa desesperança, mas tem forças suficientes para tentar se matar.

Como ajudar?
Ainda que para a maioria das pessoas que estejam vendo de fora seja difícil entender o que está acontecendo com um bipolar, a ajuda de amigos e familiares é fundamental. "Quem está de fora pode ajudar com mais sucesso oferecendo apoio, compreensão e disponibilidade para atenuar os prejuízos do momento", afirma o Dr. Diogo Lara. Ele ressalta em seu livro que muitas vezes é um familiar que toma a decisão de procurar ajuda especializada, já que o doente não tem energia, pode negar a necessidade de tratamento ou porque teme ir a um psiquiatra ou psicólogo.

Existem casos, no entanto, em que a própria família do paciente tem dificuldade de entender e encarar a doença, daí a importância de se informar da melhor maneira possível. Há aqueles que chegam a achar que a depressão não é nada mais que preguiça, e a mania, "falta de vergonha na cara". Isso porque, para grande parte das pessoas, as enfermidades mentais não são consideradas doenças e porque ainda há um estigma por trás do tratamento psiquiátrico.
Criatividade

Embora existam alguns estudos acerca deste tema, não há comprovação de que haja uma relação direta entre a criatividade e o transtorno bipolar. Mesmo assim, uma rápida busca pela internet nos revela uma lista enorme de personalidades famosas -- e extremamente criativas -- que foram diagnosticadas ou que se aponte como sendo bipolares: Kurt Cobain, Vincent Van Gogh, Janis Joplin, Elizabeth Taylor, Edgar Allen Poe, Ulysses Guimarães, Leon Tolstoy, Jackson Pollock, Mozart, Virginia Woolf, Winston Churchill...

Para a Dra. Magda Vaissman, uma teoria para responder a esta dúvida poderia ser o fato de que muitas pessoas que sofrem do transtorno afetivo bipolar são extremamente sensíveis. "Elas vêem a vida de uma maneira colorida demais, por extremos. Isso provoca reflexões nas pessoas e a produção artística está relacionada a isso."

O bipolar Thiago Marinho ressalta o lado negativo que existe por trás de um falso "glamour" conferido ao transtorno. Muitos adolescentes, que têm como ídolos roqueiros como Kurt Cobain (foto), Axl Rose, entre outros, acabam querendo incorporar aquela atitude do ídolo, associada às pretensas características de um bipolar. "Não gosto desse glamour que estão dando para o transtorno bipolar, não é brincadeira."

Apesar da gravidade da doença, é necessário repetir que um bipolar pode, sim, levar uma vida normal como qualquer outra pessoa, desde que seja bem assessorado por profissionais qualificados.

Clique aqui para conhecer sites de instituições nacionais e internacionais que esclarecem dúvidas sobre o transtorno bipolar.

Livros e filmes que abordam o assunto.
Onde achar tratamento?

Por Giovana Chichito ( fonte ; opiniaoenoticia.com.br )

My lithium's been increased, for all the good it seems to be doing. I'm cycling rapidly between mania and depression during the course of each day, which is not good for my OU course, or for my novel.

Ah yes, my novel. I posted in May that it was finished. It was. Now it isn't. Now, I've done my favourite manic trick, decided it wasn't good enough and started writing it again from scratch, in the third person instead of first person. In two weeks, I've worked up 34000 words. That's impressive, even for me. It took me four weeks to hit that word count last time. But I'm on a roll, and I don't want to stop for anything, and that's where the problems start to kick in. Not sleeping makes me more manic; when I'm in a mixed episode, not sleeping makes me cycle faster. But try telling that to my manic mind when it's two am and I'm still hard at it. I'm even toying with the idea of buying an eee or an Aspire One to make the whole process faster - I type on my ipaq in the dead of night, but it's slow progress on the touch screen keyboard.

I've got a ipod docking clock radio now - took my ipod out of its silicone sleeve for the first time in months so I could dock it with the clock radio. It's a tough little thing my ipod, when you look at the huge dent it acquired when I fell on it, pissed out of my mind, in June. I hadn't seen the dent before. That really hit it home. Shit, I really mustn't try to do anything so fucking stupid again. I don't mind fucking myself up. But £160 worth of ipod - that's really not something I want to damage.

This is because two things have always insured me against shyness:

1) Hypomania and mania.  Both come packed with undeserved, egocentric confidence and buoyancy, the unshakable belief that you're fascinating and witty, nervous, rambling, energy, up until the point where mania spikes into dysphoria and you are an aggressive, raging, paranoid bar-brawler.  I say "you". What I mean, of course, is "I".

2) Alcohol.  Lots and lots of alcohol.

Now that I'm daily dosed up with antipsychotics and mood stabilisers, mania and hypomania is rare.  It has been some time since I've experienced a "typical", social manic or hypomanic episode.  Now, when they come, they come with depression linking arms, and they double up to make the anti-social agitated depression, or dysphoric mania, depending on how bad it is.  Yeah, I'll be talkative, but it will paranoid, fractured rambling.  I'll have energy, but only to scratch and scratch my skin and pace around the room.

So, one of my Shyness Lifejackets has been well and truly punctured.

As for the other, I'm a titular tee-totaller.  As you may have guessed, I wasn't always a Righteous Non-Inbiber.  I was a Lasher, a Get-Smasheder, in short, I was a complete and utter pisshead. I did my native country proud.

I wouldn't say that I enjoyed a drink.  I needed a drink.  The cyclical pattern of the manic depressive who relies on alcohol to function socially is this: hypomania or mania makes you feel invincible, capable and above all, drink-under-the-table-able.  You think you can handle more than you really can, so, it's okay to have the fifth or sixth drink as you're just having fun and being utterly charming with it.  When you're manic or hypomanic (I keep saying "you're" and "you", but I do mean "I".  I find it easier to at least sound like I'm not just renting out my psyche to you), excess is natural.  So, if ordinarily you're a social drinker, you will drink. A recreational drug user, chances are, you'll wave cheerio to your nasal structure.

Then, of course, there is the flipside.  When you're depressed, you feel self conscious and unworthy.  You would stay indoors, but you've been dragged out, you reason, "This might cheer me up" or there's a birthday and you'd feel incredibly guilty if you didn't attend.  And more guilt is the last thing you need.  You get there, to a pub or club or whatever (being that I'm twenty two, it is more "pubs" and "clubs" than whatever) and feel absolutely wretched and almost transparently suicidal.  You accept a drink like it's a lifeline, and, momentarily, you find yourself easing up.  The tension unknots itself, you giggle a little, and drink more, and more, and more, until you stop laughing, start crying and shuffle home in the probably by now founded belief that everybody thinks you're a tiresome, maudlin, unstable bore.

Herein lies my problem; my moods are truly rapid cycling, so, to one degree or another, I have always occupied either category a or category b.  Therefore I was a flagrant abuser of alcohol and always came across as extremely loud and extroverted or extremely depressed, even though I am actually a rather shy and introverted.

I had to stop drinking, for many reasons.  The ones I cite most often, being the most socially acceptable of my rationale, is that I simply can't afford to drink.  This is true.  Alcohol, especially in London, is fantastically expensive.

The other back-up reasons are medical: my medication interacts with alcohol and massively lowers my tolerance to it.  One drink gets me as pissed as three, and obviously feeling more uninhibited means that I drink more...  And that! my friends, is dangerous.

Then there are my personal reasons, and Rob's reasons.  Rob's reasons are observable things: alcohol makes any psychosis I am experiencing much worse.  Vicious cycle again because when I am going through bouts of psychosis, one of the first things I usually do is drink to try and drown it out.  That's frightening for him to witness and finding me in the street pissed and psychotic shouting at the sky isn't pleasant for him. Alcohol ballses up my moods even more.  If I'm hypomanic, a bout of heavy boozing will kick me higher up, if I am depressed, then further down. It also makes me very impulsive, and that was never pleasant for Rob either, pulling me away from strangers I was propositioning or clearing up blood from self inflicted razor cuts to my face.

The main reason is that I have made an ass out of myself drunk.  And that's after four years of making an ass out of myself while manic, too.  So the niggling worry that I am a pain in the hole to be around has quite rightly been realised:  I am a pain in the hole to be around, often an utter embarrassment, waking up the next morning struggling through blackouts and then feeling paranoid the next time I see someone.

I became sick of waking up and thinking, "Oh fuck" and spending days and weeks afterwards in a shame spiral.  My "antics", once funny, became exhausting and laughable, to me, at least.  I was, for a while, that Crazy Irish Girl, but as time wore on, and it became painfully clear that "crazy" was literal, it became sad.  That's not why you go out with your mates.  You want to talk rubbish and about bands you like and opinions you have and smoke and giggle, not worry about someone, or listen to them sermonising on shit.  It's okay to support your mates through life stuff, but I feel that after lots of death and mentalism and such, that's a bit too much, in its relentlessness.  I feel that way about my life.  I remember all the texts and cards I got when I was in hospital and it was so lovely, it made me cry.  But I didn't snap back to sanity, although I am trying.  There can't be more crisis' because it's draining not only for me but for the people around me.  I want there to just be loveliness and fun and laughing.  It's been five years of going insane.  Enough already.  And being mental, I felt a bit like I was just taking from people, rather than giving.  I want to give more but until I'm un-anxious-a-fied, well.  I have the stupid habit of systemically pushing people away in defence.

I quit drinking in January after a particularly bad run, and necessarily curbed my sociability as not to tempt me.  Everyone has been so positive about my quitting the booze, but it's been fraught and killed my social life.  Not because I'm not wanted around (I do go out, sometimes) but because I am so bloody anxious.

I know that's taking it all rather seriously, and that I should just "relax"...

Which leads me back to shyness.

I am very shy, and suffered from terrible social anxiety in the few years before I became seriously ill.  It was partly related to my problems with body image- I believed, like I often do now, that people would outright laugh at me for looking so ridiculous.  It was also because I was bullied very badly for a long time (not just verbally, extremely, extremely physically, too), so my self-esteem was zero.  Coupled with a burgeoning career in Bad Mental Health, going out and making friends was not easy for me.  Consequently, I made some pretty poor choices of friends who hurt me, and further pissed-up my already rather fragile sense of self worth and trust in people. I was one of those quite mental teenagers (mental in the sense of mental as I am now- I started my career of mentalism at around twelve, and it accelerated rapidly into very full-blown manic depressive illness) who nobody really liked, and those nobodies made it clear that they didn't really like me.

I'm only twenty two now, so my teenage years are not far behind me.  The situation back then was so bad (as was my health) that it was the catalyst for my hasty exit from my hometown, no goodbyes, no real warning.  Rumours abound- I'm dead, or mad, or dead mad- but I don't care enough to ever go back and correct anybody.  I do have a sort of mythology there, which my sister often makes fun of me for.

Pains and worries that shyness and anxiety encapsulate are self-fulfilling prophecies.  A lack of alcohol, the awareness that I shouldn't mention any of my personal problems lest I start rambling and the slightly clipped manner than medication has instilled in me has made sociability a nightmare.  Because I am so nervous, I end up doing all the things I don't want to: haltingly blurting out a personal problem, then nervously trying to cover up for myself by rambling, then feeling so self conscious that I can't properly focus on a conversation, then my concentration slips and I lose the thread entirely, so I end up saying something rather odd, which lands like a lead balloon, and then I feel too stupid to contribute again.  I also have very little to talk about, being that my life is pretty much spend most of my day alone, have no money or no job and feeding the cats.  Just idiotic, simple things like a conversation with another human bean has become so stressful to me that I avoid it.    Everyone feels this way to a degree.  My degree is just more steep than some others'.

I do analyse things preposterously.  I should just suck it up and go out and try to gradually get back into the swing of things, because I do really like the people I know, and they make me laugh.  But as time has flown by, my doubts and worries have morphed into real, concrete anxiety, and I find socialising more and more difficult. I started a few months back to have panic attacks again about it.  When I do go out, I cling to a wall and leave early.  Now I am in danger of becoming properly reclusive.  I'm okay with Rob, but that's it.   I even find it hard to cope with my family, so I am both dreading and looking forward to my birthday, when my older sisters are visiting.  Of course, the pressure is then to organise something, as I'm turning twenty three.  I would truly love to, there is no greater pleasure and joy of spending your birthday with lots of people who you think are great, but the actual sociability of it now petrifies me.

When I have to, I can do it.  I get through it, but worry afterwards.  It's something I really need to work on before I become a hermit.  You'd think, since I write so openly, that I must be an incredibly forthcoming person in the flesh.  I am with certain people, and in certain states of mind, but writing to me is the ideal form of communication- revisable, patient, nonjudgmental.  And it's something I do when I'm alone, and I'm alone, a lot.  I mostly speak to my friends via blogs, and I talk about my life on Livejournal, which is friends only, as a way of keeping people up to speed, and as a way for me to spy on people's lives.  But I delete a lot of what I write there for fear of "exposing myself" or of it seeming that I am asking for help.  I don't use the phone or usually initiate contact with people- something I've been told off for in the past.  To me, though, it's just intrusive.  I don't like to bother people.

It's quite sad, to me.  I do occasionally miss the flushes of hypomania, and the early days in which people knew me, when they thought I was just unique and interesting.  I'm sure I still am.  I'm naturally an extrovert, but also shy with it.  If you get me comfortable, then I am forthcoming, and occasionally funny, and silly, and argumentative.  I am not shy enough to not take the piss, or disagree, or descend on a rambling, nonsensical stream of consciousness.  But the comfort is very elusive now because I am anxious all the time.

It's one of the things I miss most about Brendan.  He also had alcohol problems, in far, far greater excess to my own (which led me to not inviting him to my last birthday.  I bitterly regret that now, but it's because he was he was having problems with drinking again, and people would be getting pissed.  The last time I had bought him to a pub, he found it so stressful and upsetting that he left abruptly and cried at home.  It was part out of concern, and part, I guess, selfishness, since I watched my father carry on down Brendan's path, and it was excruciatingly painful.  I always told him I'd talk to him in any medium- phone, smoke signal, MSN (where we spent hours and hours and hours talking with each other) but not in person when he was drinking heavily, because I felt I'd be facilitating it, when I wanted him to stop.  When he was drinking, though, I did sometimes get him to come round to mine instead so I could keep an eye on him.  He was angry at me, though, and I missed him terribly on my birthday.  I wish I had just not said anything, and made another memory with him).

He suffered from depression.  Like me, he was prone to bouts of silence and sullenness, and also madness and making-a-dick-out-of-yourself-ness.  I was completely comfortable with him, and in many senses, he was my best friend in London, though not the one longest held, nor seen most often (due to the above mentioned depressive silence).  I don't know if he felt the same about me, though sometimes he said he did, and did refer to me, at least to me, as one of his best friends, though doubtless he was sometimes pissed at me for my attitude to his drinking.

He never judged me, even if he disagreed with me (which was often the most fun of all), and I could tell him anything.  Most people tend to be uncomfortable with Tales of Mentalism, but since he'd been there too, I could regale him with my tales, and it would make him laugh.  He'd be the same with me.  I know the most ridiculous and shocking things about him, some good, some bad.  I loved him dearly, and I think he loved me too, and he was only of the tiny minority of people that I could meet one on one, stone cold sober, and have fun with.  He also had the best sense of humour- he was riotously funny and extraordinarily talented- and liked most of the same things as me.  I looked up to him as a writer, he was incredible.  He was just a wonderful, frustrating, sad, brilliant person to know.   I am still shellshocked by his death, I still only cry when the muddle and jumble I deliberately fill my brain with to avoid things like grief slump for a moment.  I miss him, very much.  I wish I had talked to him more before he died- he went to America for a few weeks, and when he came back, I going through a bad patch, mostly unreachable by any means, and the last I heard from him was a voicemail he left on my phone on the Monday, saying he was around (he worked near to me and lived five stops away) if I wanted to come and meet him, but I was depressed, and asleep, and by the Friday he was gone.

I haven't really talked about it to anyone save for two of his friends (one who I have lost touch with) and his sisters, but when I do, I feel as though I'm intruding on their grief.  I like to listen but feel guilty if I interrupt with my own feelings.  People always have enough of their own stuff that they're going through.  But I do feel lonely, a lot, because I don't know who to talk to. It's ridiculous, isn't it.

I need to get over all this, and work on it, so that I can be a Normal Person and go out with my friends, and stop being so analytical and worried.  And maybe make some new friends, too, and go to the supermarket without feeling paranoid.  I need to Get Out There before this gets out of hand and I drop out altogether.

All of this must be very unattractive and intimidating to read. I would like for you to have an image in your head of me being capable and erudite, clinking glasses and reading aloud from Donleavy.   I hope you understand that I'm not attempting to be self-pitying, merely, as always, attempting to articulate another aspect of being mentally interesting.

I'm going to see my friend in Brighton on Saturday.  I haven't seen him in ages, so hopefully it will be nice.

This has been another post Wildly Varying In Tone®.

For some odd reason, my life has been filled with people afflicted with this horrendous mental condition.  It really is beyond comprehension to most of us how scary this actually is for the person suffering and everyone around them.  For most, it ends up destroying lives (not only their own) and their soul.  They become someone completely different all together, someone they don't even know.  

Bi-Polar suffers are not dumb.  Normally they have high IQ's.  They can be charismatic, successful, charming and fun.  In sales, and in say the stock broker professions, being Bi-Polar can even give you an edge when you are on a high.  That extra bit of energy.  Its one of the reasons that it is really difficult to "spot" someone with BiPolar unless you know what to look for.  

That being said, how does a regular person see the signs of a friend or a loved one having BiPolar disorder?  What makes them stand out from people who simply get depressed now and then?  What do you do if you think your friend, family member or loved one "could" have this horrible disease and chemical imbalance of the mind?

Does the person lie about things that aren't important to make themselves look better?  Do they feel the need to fill their ego with "things" and people and stimulation all of the time?  Are they down one minute, and up the next having a "Jekyl and Hyde" type of personality? Do they seem compulsive with needing attention from friends or the opposite sex?  Are they addicted to alcohol, or drugs, or partying, or behaviors that are inappropriate?  Do they have issues in every single relationship they have with them always being the "victim" in the situation when describing it to anyone else?  Are they jealous or possessive?  Do they control or manipulate their partner?  Do they hold their family (children) hostage against family if their demands are not met? Do they have bouts of extreme insomnia where they are up all night and sleep all day, never getting anything done?  Or oppositely do they all of a sudden become super motivated and tackle huge tasks with little sleep and a huge adrenaline rush?

First of all, ignoring it will not make it go away, no matter how much you want it to.  Letting the little things slide only hurts you, and that person, and everyone around you.  BiPolar doesn't get better on its own.  It gets worse.  Way worse.  The person spirals down into the lowest of the low without explanation, turning to all of their addictions, fetishes, habits, and stimulations to get themselves through the day.  For some its alcohol and drugs, others its gambling, or sex/porn, mostly though its a combination of all of them.  When one stops working, they move to the other.  Its a vicious cycle.

Here is the thing, do you remember my post a few days ago about Girl you cannot fix that man?  Well it applies to women too.  And with BiPolar, you are on a uphill battle all of the way.  

One of the biggest problems with BiPolar is that when the person is at a stable point, they are loving, rational, great people.  They promise they will never ever get out of control again.  But, unless they get the help they need, and rigorously stick to the program you are in for one hell of a roller-coaster ride.  Their inner voice is your enemy in keeping them on track.  Everything starts to stabilize, that inner voice starts telling them that they no longer need the medications, that they are cured.  They start testing their boundaries over and over again, until they are right back where they started.  That is the disease.  The disease lies to them.  The person doesn't want to do bad things.  They don't set out to break their word or be bad.  When they look you in they eye and say never again, they truly mean it from their hearts.  The problem is, that their disease says otherwise.

Unfortunately these people need to be regarded and treated as snakes.  You may choose to keep the snake in your life.  But they are still snakes and need to be treated as such.  Limiting their ability to do damage to your life and theirs is the best you can do.  Making sure that they keep consistent on their medication and food plan and keeping in constant touch with their therapists.  They are only snakes because they can't help themselves.  They aren't looking to be bad, or to do bad things.  Their disease is the culprit here.  But you still need to protect yourself as much as you can from its damage.

I have known many brave souls try this route and fail.  Why did they fail?  Was it because they didn't love the person with BiPolar enough?  Did they run at the first sign of trouble? The people I know gave it every effort and them some.  They risked their own lives and the lives of their children to save the person they loved.   The answer is that the person with BiPolar didn't love themselves enough to reach out and get the help they needed.  They refused it, allowing themselves to go into the black hole and trying to drag their families in with them.  At that point it becomes self preservation for themselves and their children and escape was needed before more damage was done to the next generation.  

Very few BiPolar people manage to get the help they need and stick with it.  Its so sad.  It is a constant thing that they deal with their entire lives.  One morning they wake up after years of being dormant and go on a huge spending binge or become a sexaholic or do other self-destructive things.  Each person is different how the disease manifests itself.  It could manifest itself in workaholism, or extreme sports, dare devil stunts (thrill seeking), needing constant change of scenery, or even something as simple as extreme weight loss and gains.  There is a spectrum of the disease to consider.

I hope that people learn to understand that BiPolar is a disease.  A true chemical imbalance of the brain and how it functions.  Its a cousin to OCD and shares many of the same characteristics.  The person themselves aren't bad to start out with, but if they go without help the end result will be bad.  

Maybe this will help someone out there in Cyberspace ... I hope so.

For more information on this terrible disease, do click on the following link:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_disorder

disclaimer:  I am not a doctor, nor do I have any FORMAL medical training.  The information that I provide is from my years of study due to my own disease.  It is not intended to replace medical advice nor should you not seek medical advice.  Use this information in addition to the stuff the doctor tells you.

Fiz um acordo de coexistência pacífica com o tempo: Nem ele me persegue, nem eu fujo dele. Um dia agente se encontra.

Mário Lago

Não acredito em frases prontas ou citações, conheço pessoas que passam horas na internet lendo e tentando reviver momentos de outras pessoas, mas por um motivo completamente desconhecido, hoje, eu fiquei com essa citação do Mário Lago o dia todo na cabeça. Ouvi uns tempos atrás quando a morte do Mário Lago foi anunciada á sete cantos do mundo, no dia nem prestei muita atenção, mas, parece que ela ficou guardada por algum motivo desconhecido.

Tenho uma mania, nem sempre boa, de mudar de assunto completamente durante uma conversa, sem aviso prévio para quem está em minha companhia, resultando assim em desentendimentos e risadas por tamanha falta de pés-no-chão, de sair desse mundo no meio de um assunto, por ver em pessoas o que não está estampado em sua face, sem sinal de PARE para que tu não se enganes, ou ainda, de sentir sensações inexplicáveis quando na presença de outras.

Uma coisa é tu veres uma pessoa e ficares feliz, triste, nervosa, ou até com raiva. Mas o problema - que tem sido cada vez mais comum comigo - é quando não sei o que sentir ao ver algumas pessoas. Olho para mim e vejo uma centena de pontos de interrogação orbitando meus pensamentos. Não que essas pessoas não imprimam reação nenhuma em mim, longe disso. É que são espíritos tão intensos, belos e cheios de detalhes fascinantes que a única sensação que tenho é a de estar sendo bombardeada a todo instante, sendo atingida por todo tipo de projétil, em cada centimetro do meu corpo, em cada vez que essa pessoa dirige a palavra a mim. E nessa confusão surge uma enorme vontade de sentir aqulo de novo, de tentar ver quanto tempo eu consigo ficar ali, e de ser bombardeado de novo, até que todos esses destroços formem uma figura que eu possa compreender, e dar a ela um nome. E eu sou péssima para nomear as coisas. A previsibilidade torna-se um fator desencadeador de tédio e nenhuma das pessoas legais, chatas, ou mais-ou-menos te despertam interesse. Tudo que queres é rever aquela que te diz muita coisa só com um movimento de olhos e tu não consegues assimilar nem dez por centro de tanta informação. Queres andar todos os quarteirões do mundo com os olhos fitando o chão, descobrindo desenhos no cimento e nas pedras, com as mãos tateando o fundo da bolsa e sorrir a cada passo que essa pessoa possa vir a dar ao seu lado, sempre desviando inconscientemente da parte preta ou branca da calçada.

Ando pensando assim, em círculos, com respostas dentro de perguntas. Mas nenhuma pergunta é grande o suficiente para comportar a resposta que procuro.

Sofro de falência multipla de minhas funcões vitais. Boa noite. E boa sorte para nós.

Cultura modernă, cel puţin, redefineşte cele şapte păcate capitale drept şapte virtuţi fermecătoare.

Trufia: în muzică, în sport, afacer, îi ridicăm în slăvi pe învingători, iar cei care ştiu să-şi scoată cât mai zgomotos meritele în evidenţă se bucură de o publicitate cu atât mai intensă. Ne fălim cu medaliile noastre, îi răsplătim regeşte pe campioni şi citim cărţi manageriale concepute după modelele lui Machiavelli şi al lui Attila Hunul.

Invidia: Întreaga industrie publicitară este clădită pe principiul stimulării invidiei faţă de colegi, sau vecini, în ideea că tot ceea ce au ei mi se cuvine şi mie.

Mânia: Mânia trebuie asumată şi exprimată, ne sfătuiesc psihanaliştii. Grupurile de dezbatere, talk-show-urile fără perdea, întrunirile consiliilor locale, confruntările politice ne oferă multiple ocazii de a o face.

Avariţia: Motorul economic al naţiunii şi, de altfel, al lumii întregi funcţionează alimentat cu sentimentul constant de nemulţumire care îl motivează pe consumator să-şi dorească din ce în ce mai mult şi mai multe.

Lenea: Găseşte plaja ideală undeva pe o insulă, pensionează-te cât mai devreme, relaxează-te, ia-o mai încet, simte-te bine - aceasta este, printre altele, visul american. (şi român acum)

Lăcomia: Pe an ce trece, porţile supradimensionate de băuturi răcoritoare, cartofi pai, laolaltă cu taliile pe care se  depun, devin tot mai mari.

Necurăţia: De la majoretele profesioniste pâna la dansatoarele lascive din videoclipurile difuzate pe MTV, pofta trupească este ubicuă în America modernă, şi nu numai, fiind totodată, cea mai profitabilă industrie de pe internet.

Un fior de groază străbate pământul în urma tentativelor noastre de a-l înlocui pe Dumnezeu, plasându-ne, în schimb, pe noi înşine în centrul atenţiei.

The other day I made a disturbing discovery. Sitting on a train, my book title was kept well hidden from public view, as it was held face down in my lap. I certainly did not want to attract attention or raised eyebrows. The subject matter being of such a sensitive nature. Neither did I, nor do I want to be labelled as some perverted person reading such material. I am no such thing. This is too serious for that and I would find that label offensive. It's simple: I am one female in a quest to know, educate, prevent, and wish to help eradicate, in my own small way, a terrible, terrible thing. It is Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), also known as female circumcision.

My train journey was to take me to a London hospital to visit a Well Women African Clinic, which treats women who have been subject to such a procedure. If you want to know more about the subject, then visit my blog, Zero Tolerance for Women. To date, this is the most active site visited, whether for morbid  curiousity, perversion or genuine interest and concern. My next blog will concentrate on that visit but for now something I need to get off my chest that is more pressing.

In my reading that day I learnt a new thing. It concerns C19th  England. It is well known by Christians and non-Christians that the bible has very exact and rigid views regarding sex. I believed in my ignorance that FGM was a ritual carried out mainly by African tribes and some other eastern nations dating back to pre-Islam, and possibly originating in Egypt.

 WRONG! FGM was practiced in England on woman, up until the last century, as a means of curbing the sexual excesses and appetites of women, with specific concern over the practice of masturbation; perceived by religious authorities as a sexually deviant practice. In effect, clitoridectomy (removal of the clitoris) and other FGM  procedures were carried out as acceptable curative methods of female masturbation. Bennet, an English gynaecologist, also advocated the use of leeches applied to the vulva, or uterus, or administering silver nitrate or hydrate potassium to the uterus with a hot iron instrument for women's mania or hysteria. The English obstetrician Samuel Ashwall recommended the removal of an enlarged clitoris when causing sexual passion. This procedure soon swept Europe and in England the practice reached its height in the1860's, becoming widely accepted by surgeons. Issac Baker Brown who was highly regarded at the time as a talented doctor, saw it as a means of curing every kind of women's ailments.

 The Church Times condoned the practice and described Baker Brown as an "eminent surgeon". Female masturbation was seen as sign of insanity, harshly condemned and seen as a threat to all men. This sexual behaviour did not sit well in society, including the Christian church, as women were supposed to be seen and perceived as delicate, week and feeble creatures. This included a belief that women were not to have any kind of say, as to the expression of their sexuality, by an act called masturbation. Eventually, much heated debate did occur over the procedure of clitoridectomy and the practice, (which had extended further into the USA and Canada) continued until as recently as the 1940's as a cure for female "deviance's" including masturbation.

I was very shocked by these findings, not only was this subject more closer to "home" than I expected but that the practice was encouraged by a Christian church that I had believed in for over 23 yrs. Was this an excuse I had been looking for to leave the church, after my recent discussions concerning my own faith? I was mindful that this would be wrong to use this subject as an excuse, an exit clause, for abandoning my own faith and giving possible good reasons for doing so. BUT I do have a genuine dilemma. How can I go on aligning myself to a faith, that has supported the very practice that I wish to give my life too fighting for its eradication. I can not sit comfortably at all with this  and I need to investigate further.

This leaves me religious question and vitals ones for me, who as part of her profession, studies the human body and is key for me. Why would a God give a women a unique and beautiful piece of anatomy called a clitoris, designed for sexual pleasure and other important functions, then in his mandate called the bible give the women such controlling restrictions on her use of it? Or is this so called bible not the divine word of God after all, but a controlling manual of life written by and written for the privileges, power and control of men. This has left me posing a new mad theory, most theologians would scoff and regard as madness and heresy. Has God been misread? Would he really be happy to see a women's clitoris chopped out just because she was exercising being a sexual human being? The one according to the Adam and Eve story he created.

If there is a god, I don't think he would be happy with that. And if he did intend for this to happen then I am no longer happy with him.

Conclusion number one:  My medication dosage is too high.  I was walking around a fair on Thursday.  It was a balmy evening in Spain.  I had time, money, good friends, flashy lights, candyfloss and roller coasters.  I should have loved it.  But as it was, I didn't care.  I was completely indifferent to whether I was there or wherever.  I'm only going to reduce it my 25mg initially, just to see what happens.  I don't want to make myself any more unstable, but I want to feel a little more.

Conclusion number two: Something is seriously wrong with me.  Well.  That's obvious, or I wouldn't be taking these damn pills.  But that's not really what I mean.  I can't really explain it really.  I lack the ability.  But as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

I was sitting on a gorgeous sandy beach looking out at the Mediterranean.  Once again, with good friends, hot sand and sunny skies.  Give me one good reason why I should have spent four hours thinking in excessive detail about hanging myself.  I wasn't about to do it.  I've got to the point that I can't deny that people would care if I killed myself and so I can't kill myself.  But something has to be wrong when I should be happy.

Conclusion number three:  I have no idea how much of my personality is actually my personality.  How much is because of the manic depression.  I was thinking about what I used to be like.  There where times when I was happy and bouncy, but now I question whether it was happiness or hypomania.  The manic episodes were and are obvious.  This is a concept I really need to address if I'm going to recover properly.  I'm still not entirely convinced you can ever recover properly.  I'm not convinced I want to.  The manic depression has been a part of me for so long that it forms a large part of my personality.  I don't want to erase part of my Self.

But enough about the mentalism.  Gibraltar.  There are quite a lot of tourist-y things to do.  You can get a cable car up the Rock, which is about £8. We very nearly got ripped off by a bunch of tour taxi people.  They were standing outside the cable car building saying that they only charged £25 to take you up, whereas the cable car allegedly cost £26.50.  Luckily we went inside to look.  Here's a tip if you ever go to Gibraltar: check the price first.  Anyway, we got up there eventually.  Nice views, but it was quite hazy, so you could only just see Morocco and Spain.  There were some Barbary apes up there.  I hate monkeys, but people like pictures of them so:

Coming up in the life of Allie:

-  It's my birthday on Wednesday.  It's the first anniversary of my 21st heh heh.
-  I'm going to Canterbury on Friday for the weekend.  I can't wait, I miss it so much.  Eastbourne sucks.
-  Got another holiday booked, although this time it's Derbyshire with my family.  I'll have walks, reading and babysitting to look forward to.

Today in "Seaneen's being Nosey", I want to know about your experiences of psychosis.

I sometimes frown when I read descriptions of this site, or my good self, and the word "severe" is chucked in.  As experience is subjective, I have always thought that my experiences were quite typical and moderate.  Those who've been in charge of my care do believe I have severe manic depression, and those around me certainly believe that I have severe manic depression.  But as it has yet to kill me, and since I have less extreme episodes than I used to (thanks mostly to antipsychotics and mood stabilisers), the "severe" status I occupied means less and less to me.

Because the online world of mental health is competitive (and this is true, although it pains me to say it.  In certain circles some people do compete to be "worst"), "severe" to me has always seemed like an unnecessary almost-boast that is designed to exclude the less severe.  To say, almost, "I have it so bad that your puny experience is null".  This isn't how I feel.  Because I am me, with my eternal inferiority complex, my line is more so, "My experience is null and yours matters".  Which isn't right either.

Manic depression to me is severe by definition- it is a disorder characterised by severe mood swings.  So when I say, "Living with severe mental illness", that is what I refer to, rather than "I am severely manic depressive".  You see?

The subjective "severe" tag has been clinically, yet colloquially, applied to me for a few reasons:

1) I landed myself in hospital because of it.

2) I became ill very quickly, very badly and very young.

3) I have "Bipolar I" disorder which, clinically, encompasses hypomania's bigger, badder sister, mania. (Personally, I think that having more depressive episodes, like in bipolar II, is worse. But all the tags confuse me, so I take it on a person to person basis...)

4) I have rapid-cycling and am almost constantly in one episode or another, of varying "severity", meaning that I've had far more episodes than someone with "classic" manic depression would have, and that I am harder to treat

5) I have experienced psychosis at both ends of the rainbow, and I've experienced it a lot

6) I have tried to top myself.

My CPN thinks I am doing well because I have insight into my condition and a willingness to be treated for it, which is a change from a lot of her patients who aren't even aware that they're ill.  So, by that token- comparably speaking- I am not severe at all.  I know that I am lucky and much better than a large amount of people.  What I don't know is...well, anything about the future.  March and April and May were pretty bad for me.  I know I am somewhat dependant on medication.  But I digress.

The bit of that useless list I am interested in right now is psychosis.

So, I was wrong in thinking that every person with manic depression must have experienced psychosis.  Bipolar II is more common, so it must be more than 50% of people with bipolar disorder who haven't experienced psychosis.  Although this confuses me as I thought people with Bipolar II would experience psychotic depression.

I may also be wrong in thinking that auditory hallucinations were the enclave of schizophrenia rather than manic depression.  I've been doing some reading (morbid as I am.  It's certainly useful to be fascinated by your own mental illness) and apparently auditory hallucinations are common in manic depressive psychosis.  I think the difference is that schizophrenia has "command" hallucinations and commentary on the person's behaviour.

I've had psychotic episodes quite a lot in the past decade.  The most difficult and frightening parts are delusions and visual hallucinations.

I've talked about psychosis a lot here but for the purposes of this post, here's a summary:

My delusions mostly revolved around two things- paranoia and grandiosity. These are the bare bone things that happened- it would take too long to actually go into how I presented myself at how I actually came across times (rambling, confused, loud, panicked, rather...odd, in short).

The paranoid side of things has nearly always been that I've been convinced I am being followed, stalked, spied on, poisoned, plotted against, primed for murder, hated, ruined or unsafe.  So this has led me to doing things like barricading my doors, locking myself in the room, lashing out at strangers who I perceived to be trying to hurt me, jumping into gardens when someone is behind me, abruptly leaving my flat because I felt unsafe, thinking that there were things placed in where I live to hurt me, spitting out food that has been given to me, refusing it in the first place,  blocking up and sealing cupboards and windows, withdrawing from people who are close to me, believing that there are conspiracies against me, taking the phone out of the wall, refusing to answer doors or open post, thinking that people on the TV, radio, tube, street, wherever were talking about me and using things (letters, papers, eye movements) to signal about me or believing that I am irrevocably evil and deserved to die. I've also become confused between stuff I wrote/read/watched on TV and reality and thought people/places existed and they didn't.

In short- my delusions have been one large delusion of importance.  Of course in my right mind as I am now without psychosis I know that I'm a speck on the world's surface.

In similarly egomaniac terms were grandiose delusions.  That usually comes with mania for me.  And that lists runs thus, in short: thinking I was a genius, thinking I was chosen by God, thinking I was the bestest, smartest most beautifullest person in the world, believing that I was famous, believing that everybody loved me, believing that I was related or known to powerful people, believing that I had endless wealth and so on.

Delusions to me are worst because it means that I sometimes don't realise in my life what was real and what was imagined, which leads to rather awkward conversation occasionally.  Likewise, people often mention to me wild or outlandish claims I have made that I have absolutely no recollection of, which is embarrassing, to say the least.

In terms of hallucinations, I have experienced auditory (hearing things) hallucinations, as well as tactile (feeling things) hallucinations but they have always troubled me less than seeing things.  I've scratched myself raw when I've thought that they were insects under my skin, and I've shouted at nobody to turn the music down.  I've lived with voices telling me to kill myself and I've heard people calling my name and remarking upon how either awful or brilliant I am.  And I've heard many, many voices all at the same time talking nonsense, on and on, which was very irritating and it makes it harder to concentrate than it already is.

But seeing things has always been the worst for me.  They come, suddenly, shockingly, and it's terrifying.  Some things have remained- Satan in my bedroom, for example, was not one night, but many- and some were brief, but horrifying.  I've watched everyone around me collapse into maggots and saw my own face and body dissolve into green rot. I have sat in rooms and talked to people who were not there, had riotous, noisy arguments with nothing.  I've seen trees snap and fall onto me, when they were as noble and sturdy as before, seen people begin to fight in the street, when they were just talking, watched insects and rats run across my floors and legs and bed, seen brown, furry creatures crawl upon my arms, blood unfurl from my hands and eyes, people talk back to me in the mirror, seen words jumble and change into insults then change back and ridiculously believed that a lion was following me.  And that I was in the Toejam and Earl computer game.

Writing all this down makes me feel as though I am underestimating myself.  I think if I read this blog I wouldn't want to know me.  The joy of being Googlable means that some of my more distant acquaintances now look at me in a bizarre way.

Of course I had no idea under recently that these things were in fact psychosis.  I went through through my life from my late childhood until my very late teens just believing it was who I was. It has only been very recently- within the past eighteen months after ten years of being quite crazy-that I even knew what psychosis was.

(That's the bad things about becoming mad when you are young.  Your sense of self is so spiderwebby, it is easy to become dust.  And those around you don't know what madness is, and those who love you don't love you because they're so young they'll love someone else quickly enough.  People aren't "mad" in their childhood or teens, even if they are.  Doctors don't even think of it.  Becoming mad in your adult years means you lose a lot more.  I guess all I lost were all my friends and my education, which is better than my home or job or money.  But in terms of equal opportunities, I went mad when I was an adult too and lost all of those things).

A lot of people cite psychosis as a valuable experience, a creative boon.  Sometimes, I agree with that.  The grandiose self belief with psychosis led to me writing some of my best (and now lost) pieces, but the frightening side of it outweighed the wonderful side of it. Of course, there is the argument that now, because I have manic depression, I have something to fill a blog with. At least you're never alone with your imaginary friends, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

I hate to hear of anyone becoming acutely ill.

I'm just hoping for the best. That he gets the care he needs and comes out of this as Quinton; and not some damn medicated zombie or someone forever lost.

He seems like such a good guy.

Dana White, on "a little" about Rampage's mental state.  Here "He was up for four days....."

I dunno, no one knows what really is going on.  It is all speculation, ya know? I hear no sleep...(ya know what that can do sometimes) and "religion" and tend to get concerned.

Better coverage about this and all your mma needs can be found here.

**personal note**

I fuckin hate this. When will people get that sometimes you lose someone; but they are still here, lost either to the illness itself or the so called fuckin cure with their personality medicated right outta them? It is not always a commercial...take a pill-there...all better...sometimes it's take a pill-now you are worse. (I wonder if he was taking ssri's?)

I pray he will be okay.

Hey docs....hey scientists....how about making the treatments for all things better than what people are being treated for?  Is that too much to ask...too difficult of a concept to grasp?

Now....back to UFC on Spike, (maybe Rogan can get me to laugh...whether he means to or not; I could use one right now); and the Affliction stream on-line.(That's how I came across this story) ...yeah, I know.....should have gotten the PPV and recorded the UFC. I've already been informed of that. *sigh*

Marriage Mania

The country has an excessive excitement; a mania for marriages. Did you observe how much people stress on it since the birth of an innocent child, more specifically girls *sniff*? Parents begin to lose sleep at the birth of their baby girl as they think about the expenses they would have to face till the time of her marriage. I am not being cynical; they seriously do not have any other choice. They have a lot of saving to do to have a centrally air conditioned wedding okay? They do not want to sweat after spending a great deal on their hair and make up. It’s not their fault Ather offers no discounts, which actually makes some of the idiots quite happy because they have to tell people about it: D Ok but, by that I certainly do not wish to discuss women only. I, personally find men and women equally berserk in most matters. I refused to go to a wedding in my neighborhood because I saw something very …very disturbing at the Mehndi. Yes, the groom had worn light foundation powder on his face. Now you see, I realize every guy has his sole right to look nice…but not PRETTY!!
Did you notice how everything and I mean everything is so closely linked to marriage? Girls are taught cooking like it’s a matter of life and death (did I mention it always starts from making tea? ok. I just did. ) Guys are sent to good schools, then colleges and then what not, just so they could become somebody before their age. (Sad)
What are you talking about? I know parents who in reality bear their daughters to wear skimpy clothes to (effortlessly) magnetize boys of high birth or social position so their daughters’ future is in good hands. Do you realize how concerned parents are these days? It’s not easy. It’s a “branded zamana” as they say.
Oh talking of boys, I must admire that they appear to be very clear about the kind of girl they prefer to marry. I am saying this so you do not confuse yourself, as they pick entirely a different girl for their love affair(s).

Sigh. I plainly fail to understand why people get married though?, for the reason that even if they do for the love of one another, the “I” trouble still manages to plague it no matter how educated you are and what social backgrounds you belong to. The desire of standing for yourself still remains. You don’t consider yourself and your spouse as one. Marriages are often troubled when a husband feels cheated because his wife fails to live up to all his expectation and she is pretty much as frustrated for the same reason (believe it). Instead of recognizing and correcting their own flaws, they grumble about the things the other spouse does or does not do.
Don’t get mad at me. Admit it. It is the same absurd, whimsical cycle or is it not? You tell me.

Dear Dr. S,

Today my mom admitted to me for the first time that:

a. She knows that she's Bipolar, and has been since about age 8 and gave me many examples of high and low situations from her childhood;
b. She's struggled w/this for many years, why didn't anyone in her family help her;
c. She's done things she is ashamed off;
d. She's ready for help;
e. She thinks my brother is Bipolar too, and that he needs help and that something is really really wrong with him and is scared for him and feels bad she never recognized he had these problems since childhood.

My head is spinning, and I've tried to get her to admit/talk about this for years. I knew my mom was Manic Depressive by about age 8 and told her so, and that I had been acting as the adult in our family since I was 6. I'd love for her to get diagnosed and for her to find help, and if it was possible, get her on Disability/SSI.

Do you know of any affordable/free places for diagnosis and treatment for her and any suggestions for us to bring up to Michael that he needs help ... you know, I've always considered him dangerous ....

I'm going to begin my internet search on this, but thought since your "In the business" of Psychology you may be able to point me down the correct path faster.

Of course, my eternal thanks to you in advance on this matter. Oh, and by the way, she quickly apologized for the way she treated me as a child. Wow, her first ever sorry. I so needed to hear that!

So, a quick recap for those of you who haven't known me/read my blog:

My mom got pregnant @ age 18 after having sex two or three times with my dad, who had broken up w/her by the time she found out; She got sent to a home to give me up for adoption; Gave birth to me at 19; and kept me with the help from her uncle and then eventually my great-gramma. She was going to college, trying to be a nurse, and we were living with her gramma, and she was struggling with a bitch selfish mother who didn't care to help her or acknowledge that her daughter, my mother was bipolar. Boom, my mom meets my evil step-dad and gets knocked up w/kid #2. She married him, he abuses her and me, she fights back, and she abuses me, and my brother fights her and me, but I'm not allowed to hit back. Vicious, crazy cycle in the house, cops are always there, my mom had a social worker for as long as I can remember, and, oh yeah, my step-dad was an alcoholic pot-head with some major hate for me. He divorces her, bankrupts her, and she goes catonic with plenty of manic moments thrown in for comedy relief, then lays on the couch until my brother turned 18 and welfare kicks her off the $6,000 a year gravy train. I was poor, desperate, and lived in a house crawling with mice, semi starving, weighing in at my most hungriest time @ 116 at 5'10", lacked medical and dental attention, and was deprived of my basic rights as a child. Oh, and yeah, the first year I went to MSU, I had to count that $6,000 towards my own income and it took away from my grant money, even though it was barely enough to keep the three of us alive in 1989.

Even though I had to learn how to do everything by myself, I'm not bitter, just happy to hear my mom FINALLY say that she IS BIPOLAR. This is the damn most important thing she could ever do for me, the only thing I ever wanted and needed her to do. ALL I CAN SAY IS WHEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And, if you live in the Detroit area, and can help me find her and my brother free/cheap diagnosis and treatment, you would be forever in my debt....

The Girl from the Ghetto

- Mania
- Hypomania
- Depression
- Mixed episode

Mania symptoms: In the manic phase of bipolar disorder, feelings of heightened energy, creativity, and euphoria are common. People experiencing a manic episode often talk a mile a minute, sleep very little, and are hyperactive. They may also feel like they’re all-powerful, invincible, or destined for greatness.

But while mania feels good at first, it has a tendency to spiral out of control. People often behave recklessly during a manic episode­—gambling away savings, engaging in inappropriate sexual activity, or making foolish business investments, for example. They may also become angry, irritable, and aggressive, picking fights, lashing out when others don’t go along with their plans, and blaming anyone who criticizes their behavior.

Hypomania syptoms- Hypomania is a less severe form of mania. People in a hypomanic state feel euphoric, energetic, and productive, but their symptoms are milder than those of mania and much less disruptive. Unlike manics, people with hypomania never suffer from delusions and hallucinations. They are able to carry on with their day-to-day lives. To others, it may seem as if the hypomanic individual is merely in an unusually good mood. But unfortunately, hypomania often escalates to full-blown mania or is followed by a major depressive episode.

Bipolar depression symtpoms-
- Feeling hopeless, sad, or empty.
- Loss of interest in things you used to enjoy
- Fatigue or loss of energy
- Physical and mental sluggishness
- Appetite or weight changes
- Sleeping too much or too little
- Concentration and memory problems
- Feelings of self-loathing, shame, or guilt
- Thoughts of death or suicide

Mixed episode symptoms- A mixed episode of bipolar disorder features symptoms of both mania and depression. Common signs of a mixed episode include agitation, irritability, insomnia, appetite changes, loss of contact with reality, and suicidal thoughts. This combination of high energy and low mood makes for a particularly high risk of suicide.

- Ryan Dixon

I'm super nervous because this is a friend of mine that I haven't really talked to in 2-3 years. She getting married and she is pretty organized, like me. And she knows exactly what she wants. So, I asked Sarah for some forms and she walked me through some stuff, which was really helpful. I met with Rikki on the Monday before the wedding to hash everything out. Then Friday morning was the rehearsal. Alex and I drove together and we were both trying NOT to think about the event we had in the evening. We got on the wrong freeway and ended up being 15 minutes late. yuck. 

The venue was beautiful and Rikki had clearly stated to the event coordinator on staff that I was in charge. She ended up being quite helpful at the rehearsal because there were so many things that they have in particular to do. I pretty much let her run the first go around so I could see how it is traditionally done. Dispite a few mishaps with the order of the grandparents, everything went really well. 

Saturday morning, Creswell and I went to Breakfast at the OAMazing Olive Ave Market. Twas quite delightful, but I realized my phone was dying... not so awesome. I had to call the DJ to make sure he had all the equipment he needed and then be on my way. 

Long story, but Creswell and I drove separate cars, which ended up being AWESOME because this happened next:

We were on the freeway and I was blasting my air conditioner, I decided to pass up Creswell when she calls me frantic and says, "your car is smoking." cool. My car overheated and when we tried to exit the freeway, it stalled on the off ramp. This guy pull up behind me and helped me push the car. Then Creswell called Keleigh that second and awesome photographer to go on ahead because we were going to be late. cool. Then AAA came and the guy gave me a horrible time about how I moved the car and how I made his job really hard because he'd have to tow it from the back. Meaning, I'd have to sign a waver stating that I wasn't going to hold him accountable if anything happened to my car. cool. So now were on our way in Creswell's car, which doesn't have air conditioning by the way. We arrive at Temecula Creek Inn 30 minutes late and then can't find the room. cool. We rush into the room and then I'm put straight to work. 

As soon as Paula and I got down to the Stone House where the wedding was to take place, we noticed at least three huge things that were completely wrong. cool. So, obviously being the awesome planner that I am, I tell her to go be with her daughter and I'll take care of everything. So I call the florist. She is a completely horrible and uncooperative person. DO NOT EVER USE THIS VENDOR; Enchanted Florist in Temecula. The work that she did was awesome. However, it was not what the bride wanted and she lied to both the venue, the MOB, and myself multiple times. So I'm on the phone being as professional as I can with this... person, who interrupts me and calls me honey in the most condescending way. I'm just about to get her to come down to the venue and fix her mess when my phone dies. cool. So, I miss my big chance to be awesome. The florist ends up coming down and has already spoken to the MOB who amazingly got a $300 refund out of her. Way to go Paula! But you have to imagine, I'm totally bummed that I didn't get to save the day. 

Anyway, the rest of the day was pretty awesome. I ran around CRAZY and did everything they had listed me to do. Then I frantically changed into my "planner outfit" and handed out all the order of ceremony to the DJ, Sound guy, and the Reception Staff to ensure we all stay on schedule. Let me tell you, everything was perfect. On schedule? you better believe it. I mean even down to the receiving line. Awesome. The wedding was gorgeous and I can't wait to have some of Creswell's pictures up to show you. I'm so glad Rikki and Bryce's day turned out so perfect. 

The MOB and the MOG were both completely pleased and I of course told them the biggest compliment would be a referral! I love this! 

To top it off, the staff and myself have everything out of there by 10:30 and my hubby picked me up with In-N-Out. So, for my first wedding, I'd say it was a success.

fonte: http://www.lastampa.it/_web/cmstp/tmplrubriche/giornalisti/grubrica.asp?ID_blog=69&ID_articolo=2084&ID_sezione=138&sezione=Anteprime%20dagli%20Usa

La giovane cantante molto probabilmente verrà sostituita dalla Disney per la prossima serie del telefilm e nonostante ciò la giovane attrice non la smette di scattarsi foto a luci rosse ed inviarle via mail o pubblicarle su my space.

Queste due foto sono spuntate in rete in questi giorni. Secondo molti questi scatti sono stati inviati via mail a Nick Jonas cantante del gruppo “The Jonas Brothers”.

MangoMania!

Originally uploaded by CleverGirlBek

Ahhhh MangoMania 2008...
What can I say? There were mangoes.
Mangoes for sale...Treats incorporating mangoes...Mango preserves... T-shirts aimed at mango humor... Ahhhh yes.

We went. We wandered. We purchased some mangoes and a dwarf Meyer Lemon tree for the lanai (I have always longed for my own fruit tree... more on the new leafy addition to our home later)....

We did a ton of wandering around looking for the Mr. MangoHead competition which promised a mango decorating opportunity for the pee-wee set. Alas, nobody(not even the supposed Mr. MangoHead sponsors) had any clue where or what it was. But that is life in SW Florida...If information about a local event can be gleaned from the internet it is always a year out of date (minimum) or just completely inaccurate...

The only folks who were able to help were the kind librarians from the Pine Island branch...

And boyo got his first library card and is so excited to swipe it through the machine on his next visit...

Turns out we missed the competition entirely by wasting all the time looking for it. They had 3 prizes (great ones, according to one of the librarians) and nobody entered. Probably because nobody knew they were supposed to decorate their mango at home and bring it to enter it in the competition... Oh well. Maybe next year our strategy will be much improved.

Anyway- it was a nice morning out for us... We returned home after 2 hours dodging some of the pushier vendors (of various services and "event only exclusive offers" blech) with 6 mangoes, a meyer lemon tree, and we bought 3 jars of preserves but the gentleman packing them for us goofed and instead of a variety we have 2 jars of mango raspberry and 1 of mango strawberry (and none of the tropical ginger which sounded so freaking tasty)....

Next year, I hope they don't have such a vendor free for all and they make better use of the German American Social Club's sprawling grounds...It was a little suffocating and not as tropical fruit festival feeling as it was even last year...

Also, there was a rash of brutish boys terrorizing the little guys. These were kids that should have been taught manners at some point and probably denied entrance to the bounce houses, where they terrorized the younger kids and annoyed their parents.

Also, note to mangomania 2009 vendors: yes, water pistols are fun. It is however unwise to spray strangers with water pistols from your booth if they are not interacting with you at the time. It will not gain you business and you might just shoot the wrong person. People carry all sorts of electronic devices- from medical related things to shmancy iphones. I would not want to short out someone's gadget or spook the wrong person in this firearm toting, quick tempered region of the world.... It is not refreshing. It is rude. Even the rudest of the brutish wild boys wouldn't stoop to zapping strangers with water. Even they know better.

Sorry to come off as cranky, dear reader...But for the love of pete those two elements were *that* irritating...

Six months before my birthday I was as high as a kite and didn't bother going to CAMHS much, so instead of fucked up or severe and enduring I got "non-compliant". I am sorry, I was writing a book better that the bible and medication and meetings didn't go well with my masterpiece. When I crashed back down to earth I assumed that I would be discharged, well actually I assumed that I wouldn't be here. I ended up in hospital and people started talking about bipolar this, manic depression that and introduced the idea of the adults team. I was not impressed after two years of slagging off the adults system they were then telling me that despite its flaws they thought I should be referred up to it. I threw a strop (well they thought I was pissed off about CMHT I was just angry about being in hospital but I didn't correct them). I was sent to the outreach team when discharged and met my CPN who would do short term work to get me out of the "crisis" (I still see her so I suppose it means that I am still in "crisis") and to do longer term work with the CAMHS clinic team.

After much discussion they decided not to start the referral process until after results day so they knew which part of the country I would be in and I would get "continuity of care". The problem is that on Friday I turn eighteen, it means that I am not supposed to be under the outreach team but crisis assessment and treatment team CATT. But me being the special person that I am, it's not happening because I am staying under CAMHS for another month. The outreach team will receive less funding for me so my sessions are being cut, simple the answer to that is to have more CAMHS clinic sessions. And here we meet problem number two; my main CAMHS worker goes on holiday on Friday until September. I don't want to see someone new for a month so again we are stuck. Somehow I have gone from too much support, to no support.

Last line...

It's stopped raining at last where I live and its actually sunny. Yay, I no longer have to carry an umbrella wherever I go (not that I have actually been out much)

So I was delighted when on Thursday a friend casually presented me with a 1958 edition of Bonjour Tristesse.   It felt like bumping into an old companion in a street both of you have never before been.

It's good to read a book in which you dislike both the protagonists yet care about them anyway.  And naturally I am morbid and enjoy books which lead a character to suicide.  And it's beautifully written.

Being self obsessed, I'll naturally link the post title to my mental state right now.

I am very sad at the moment.  I hesitate to say depressed.  It is melancholy.  I have had a nostalgic few days which has raked up some old memories.  I miss my dad, Vicky, Brendan, I am dreading Christmas without my grandad, I am lamenting the years I lost to insanity (not depression, not mania, but actual madness, which lasted many years and to which I also lost my GCSES, A-Levels, friends, relationships and etc) and I am angry and frustrated at myself for my inability to show those close to me how I really feel.

I love the people in my life but I am a guarded sort.  This nostalgia, if anything, has at once made me sad and grateful- sad at the past, but grateful for what I have now.  I am useless at showing it, I flail about, and sadness is a snow, to me, at least, an icy landscape that flattens my emotions and seems to splinter those of the people with me.  Both Rob and I have been tired and withdrawn of late.  I want so badly to be vivid and bright and throw my arms around him, but I barely have the energy or inclination to lift my arms at all.  Because of it I feel like things are falling apart.   I just feel that I am not making anybody happy anymore, and without that I don't know what my reason is for existing.  It has always been my raison d'etre to be helpful, or comforting, or amusing, and when I am not, I don't know what I am for.

CBT was a bit traumatic, too.   I'm not looking forward to the next session.  Sometimes I am just exhausted by this introspection and analysis.  Sometimes I just want to stay out all night without taking medication, to have a drink, to be mad and be done with it.  I never really was a teenager because I went mad in my very early teens and my big problems were not things like which boy at school liked me but finding the privacy to swaddle my slashed arms up, and trying to work out the puzzle of why Satan was so interested in my room, and disintangling reality from psychosis- a process that I never finished so I don't even understand how many of my memories are real or not.  Explaining the process of how exactly I apply my make up and my emotions when standing in front of a mirror is at once difficult and ridiculous for me.  Talking about panic attacks and self harm as if they are actual problems is disconcerting because they are so constant that I long since ceased to see them as problems. I am not hysterical about such things, I tend to shrug, and that pisses people off.  But I prefer being that way, I don't want anything to be seriously wrong.  I'm still getting my head around severely manic depressive and probably taking medication for the rest of my days.

I have been trying to be good as far as food is concerned.  I am eating normally and keeping it down.  But the body rebels.  Food, drink, even the smell of such, is making me so nauseous.  I got a pregnancy test yesterday to check if there was another reason, but there isn't.  I feel so incredibly sick when I eat that I am becoming afraid of eating, and I am being forced to throw up just to relieve the sickness.  It is maddening.

I don't like feeling this way because it just translates as self pity to me.  I don't like self pity, and I am a fairly pro-active mental and I have been good at continuing with treatment but I am tired, and I am twenty two, and I am sick of my life, and ashamed of my brain, and annoyed at constantly pushing against the tide.  I really try to find the loveliness in things but sometimes it is a losing battle.  I'm naturally predisposed towards depression anyway.  The pills kill the mania but not the depression.  And CBT is so focused on body image that I don't know how to help myself in terms of depression.  And sadness compounds it, for they are not the same, and the bills mounting up are scaring me, grief squeaking through upsets me (I direct much energy into avoiding grief) and I feel lost and eager to shed adulthood and medication and sleep and silence.   I just want to be twenty two, with enough money to properly survive, with a brain that works, a body that doesn't mind food, able to drink and be merry, grooving in a club with Rob and the ability to just talk to people without being analytical and nervous, not having to worry about moods or breakdowns.  And to have memories of my teenagehood that don't include suicide attempts, both mine and others', psychosis, my dad's drinking or straddling statues in front of the City Hall bellowing at the top of my voice.   I was so bloody clever. I wish I had not gone mad.  In ways I am proud of myself for making peace with my messy past.  It took balls.  But the future, well.  Good old Viv for summing it up; "If I had the confidence, the courage or the common sense, the chutspa or some happiness, then I could face the future".

It's just melancholy, and it will pass, but I wanted to record it anyway, because sitting here sighing to myself is doing no-one any good.  I realise that I actually have very little to complain about, so humour me.

This whole entry can be summed up like this:

:(

I get a bit overwhelmed sometimes.

I'm truly sick of this nonsense! Chicks, it's giving all of us a bad, bad rap. What am I talking about? The bipolar (which I from now on will call "buypolar" defense.

How many of us with bipolar disorder live day after day without managing to get our names in the news? Yes, there are times when we have done things that if found out would make great headlines in our local papers. Maybe, cable news, too. Come on, y'all know exactly what I'm talking about.

Like the times we've been manic and got into our cars and driven really fast just to feed our need for excitement. Or, the times we've crossed the line over into a hot, smoldering rage and just itched for a confrontation with another person. Didn't really matter who the person was....a loved one, a stranger....didn't really matter. Just wanted to do some ass kickin'. Get the anger out!

How about the hyper-sexed periods? Taking chances and doing things that will make us blush and do penance for days or months afterwards?

Or, the times that we've neglected our duty of one type of another (spouse, kids, job, church, etc.) because we were just having too much dadgone fun to fool with them.

Only later do we stop and consider the fact that at least one of these times (and probably more), we could have done something to put our name in the headlines. That's when we thank God that we got through one more time without legal ramifications. Because in real life, the bipolar defense wouldn't be worth diddly squat. Well, that is unless you're loaded with mega bucks. Then you can have a buypolar defense team.

Britney Spears...not bipolar! No damn way! Have any of you known bipolar to cause you to speak with a foreign accent on an irregular basis?

I'm not discounting the fact that BP can cause us to do some strange things. But, honestly, I have never spoken with a British accent while wearing a wig.

Britney Spears...Buypolar! Brit Brit can afford the best legal minds in the country.

Amy Winehouse...not bipolar!......Uh uh.....AW is a drug addict with a horrendous appetitie for destruction. But, of course, she can afford the best press publicist in the world and can be portrayed as "buypolar".

Debra Lafave....I'm kinda on the fence about this one. She does show some symptoms of bipolar disorder. But, it does make me wonder if her stunning looks didn't get her a buypolar defense. Not sure.

That's just 3 examples of a very long list of famous and infamous people who have managed a buypolar defense.

But, hey....this IS America where money goes a long, long way.

I can remember (not too long ago) when we (as in people with real bipolar disorder) were ashamed to tell anyone that we were being treated for BP. We were terrified that neighbors, friends, co-workers, etc. would find out. Now, it's the chic, "in", trendy thing to be.  Who would have thought that we'd be defending ourselves so as not to be lumped in with drug addicted, spoiled brats?

Friggin' unbelievable! Just when I felt like it was safe to come out of the bipolar closet, I'm again, afraid to admit it. I think that I'm going to beg my psych doc for a new "label" (from my cellphone in my closet).

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="145" caption="I'm Outta Here"][/caption]

One more crumb of food for thought.......if these people are buypolar and go for treatement, why do we never see the ravages of  anti-depressants, mood stablizers, etc. Where's the weight gain? Where's the sluggishness?  Just asking.....

The author of the site posts their personal view of the definition (one that I don't entirely agree with but that's neither here nor there.)

They have a page dedicated to stories of recovery that buck the biopsychiatric prognosis for those suffering severe psychosis. Towards the bottom VoR leaves a series of interview style questions for the reader to ponder when sharing their own recovery story. I snagged the questions and responded to them here.

Some of the questions are not focused or explicit and more open to interpretation so I choose my own spin on the meaning.

Who knows if I will ever have to do spur of the moment interviews but it could not hurt to practice as an exercise.

An Interview with Jane Alexander about her mental health recovery.

# What sort of "symptoms" were you experiencing on a physical, emotional, mental, spiritual level?

All of them. I am not exaggerating. Self hate, self injury, suicide, depression, psychosis, recurring anxiety, ocd like behaviors, narcissism, triggers, flashbacks, delusions, you name it I had it. I was a lost soul.

# What else was going on in your life at that time?

At the time I began recovery, there was nothing going on in my life at all. I had shut my life down and said my goodbyes. There was nothing left to do. Prior to reaching that point I had had a great deal of unprocessed stress in my life. I came from an overbearingly Catholic family. We had a pair of insane child abusers as parents to grow up with. Later both sides of my family abandoned me to the State.

I spent time in psychiatric hospitals, juvenile mental health lockdown, residential group homes, foster care, transitional homes and spent the first two years of my adult life at the poverty level struggling to stay alive pay check to paycheck.

I needed a major vacation from growing up but instead I was thrust without support or family at age 18 on my own. Ridden by my neuroses and plagued by past demons and an unresolved backlog of traumatic and horrible events in my life, at age 20 I was quite troubled.

# Was there any link between the events in your life and the symptoms you were having/experience you were having?

No none whatsoever. /sarcasm

# What was it like to go through that experience?

It was like knowing, fundamentally, deep down that you are seriously broken and yet powerless to do anything about it.

# Were you scared? sad? elated?

Yes always.

# Were there any spiritual or numinous aspects to your experience?

Some believe that we are spirits inhabiting a shell. From that paradigm everything about it was spiritual.

In terms of a healing, releasing spiritual emergency that some get out of their more extreme states there was none of that. Most of my major psychotic experiences had dark, powerfully violent overtones.

There were peak meditation experiences during my recovery that were the very definition of spiritual.

# What was the response of those around you to your experience?

Those the knew me saw me as a kind of slow motion train wreck. In my late teens and early adult life my family on both sides was of the opinion that it was only a matter of time until I crashed. Where that wreckage ended up, inpatient, in jail, in rehab, on the street was anyone's guess. Know one ever knew or guessed the extant of how far gone I really was back then. They had no idea.

# Were you hospitalized? Medicated?

Six months of involuntary medication between 14 and 15. Two hospitalizations in my teens at 14 and at 16, a brief hospitalization at age 20.

# Did you find this helpful/unhelpful? Why?

I found life under polypharmacy to be as useful as a crowbar to the skull and worse then being dead.

I experienced being chemically violated and forced to take drugs that not only endangered my physical health but also my mental health short term and long term. The combination of drugs was a kind of slow death of personality. I was supposed to take them for the rest of my life.

Psychiatric drugs are toxic, addictive, damaging substances that do not resolve the reasons for becoming mentally ill in the first place.

It's like taking an aspirin for a headache ad infinitum while being given bleeding ulcers from the aspirin. If you stop taking the aspirin, the reason for the headache remains there, unresolved and now you have other health problems to go with it.

From my experience, meds are a lose-lose proposition that effect no cure. I really can not in good conscious recommend them for anyone except in jest.

The only people that truly *need* meds are those that unintentionally became severely addicted to them to the point were withdrawal presents such a major threat to mental instability that going off meds would guarantee a trip to emergency psychiatric services or a relapse.

# What labels were applied to your experience, either by yourself or those around you?

I was labeled with Bipolar Disorder during the changeover from Manic Depression. There was no Bipolar 1, 2 or cyclothymia back then. Just Bipolar and Bipolar with psychotic features which is what I presented. This was comorbid with schizophrenia, often designated as schizo affective disorder when in the presence of a mood disorder like Bipolar.

I also had severe PTSD. I self diagnosed it right out of the DSM when I was 14 and before I went inpatient. I was in outpatient therapy and my therapist was a family psychologist who specialized in working with troubled teens. He decided I had depression and concluded something else was going on.

I was reading the DSM in his office and I pointed out the PTSD entry. I said those symptoms are what I experience every day without let up. I have PTSD. My doctor negated me entirely despite knowing about my abusive childhood. He told me straight there was no way I had PTSD because only war veterans had PTSD.

Three maybe four years later as I was transitioning out of mental health services into the real world as an adult it was well known and recognized that children from abusive homes suffered major behavioral problems because of ongoing stress reactions that continue to manifest after trauma. So I never had access to the interesting PTSD treatments they use on kids or vets these days. Aside from meds that is.

# How did you feel about those words?

I laugh at all those labels. They have no power over me. I certainly owned the PTSD for awhile but I never believed in or identified myself as bipolar or schizophrenic. I refused to internalize it. But if you are a good psych patient then the term for my thinking was and still is denial of my *true* condition.

# What happened next? Were you able to quickly return to a state of productivity, e.g., returning to school or work?

After a fashion. I had no support and money does not grow on trees so I needed to find some kind of menial form of s